Manir
The private soldiers raised their shields. Derik had stopped by Gapoi's house earlier and gathered them in advance — wooden boards faced with boar hide, sturdy enough to look the part.
"Don't put too much faith in those shields."
Joseph cautioned his men all the same. This was someone who had cleaved through a metal keyhole, rusted though it may have been. Charge in overconfident and they could be cut down, shield and all, in a single stroke.
"We still don't know what he's capable of. If he comes at you, just focus on deflecting."
Joseph didn't actually believe the man could accomplish much on his own. But people died to stray blades all the time. If this bastard made a last desperate lunge and killed even one of his private soldiers, that was Joseph's loss.
At his words, the soldiers shifted one foot even farther back, ready to twist their bodies and let the blow glance off the instant their opponent's sword made contact.
While Joseph and his men formed up, Manir stood where he was, staring him down.
"...You're smarter than I expected."
Joseph didn't bother answering. He swept his staff, and three Mana Orbs rose into the air around him at once.
"Try anything stupid and I'll burn you."
He was half-bluffing. The blast that had just leveled the house was the maximum firepower he could currently produce. The fact that this man had survived those flames meant he was no ordinary opponent.
Then another group came rushing toward the wreckage of Joseph's house, torches in hand.
"What the hell!"
"What's going on?"
The conscript soldiers had seen the house explode and come running. The training had paid off — most of them had assembled.
"Huh?! Timur!"
Someone among them cried out in alarm. They'd found the unconscious guards lying on the ground. Seeing their own people down, the conscripts' mood turned grim.
"Form ranks and hold the line!"
Refn, who had been with Auger, shouted the order. The soldiers crowded together and raised a wall. Unlike during training, few of them had proper shields, so the formation looked a bit ragged — but it was reasonably coordinated all the same.
Dozens of men surrounding a single opponent. On the surface, it hardly seemed like a dangerous situation. But the roaring flames and the corpses scattered about had ratcheted the tension to a breaking point. Everyone stared at Manir, wound tight.
"Well? What's your next move?"
Joseph asked, taking a step forward. His private soldiers, as if being shoved from behind, slowly advanced a step as well.
Manir watched them, grinding his teeth.
He'd walked straight into a trap. He had no idea when the mage had caught on, or how long he'd been waiting. One thing was certain: this mage was far more dangerous than he'd imagined.
Manir's gaze swept the surroundings. No matter where he looked, there was no gap to slip through. The moment he charged either the mage or the conscripts, the other side would rain attacks down on him. And it wasn't just the mage. The scarred knight standing beside him had his sword drawn, looking ready to leap in at any second.
I'm finished...
He took a moment to catch his breath, then dropped his weapon to the ground as if throwing it away. It landed with a clang. Then he raised both hands above his head and slowly walked out of the wreckage.
"...I surrender."
He declared it in a voice like gravel and phlegm. Honestly, he wanted nothing more than to kill that mage somehow. But he wasn't about to throw his life away. For all his faults, Manir was a realistic man. Above all, he was not the kind of talent who died in a place like this.
Whew.
Joseph was privately relieved. For a hotheaded assassin, the man made decisions quickly. Honestly, keeping him alive was far better than killing him.
I need to find out what he's after.
If he'd already burned to death in the flames, there would have been nothing to be done. But he'd survived. That meant Joseph needed to keep him alive and find out why he'd done all this.
That said...
The moment Manir emerged from the wreckage, Joseph issued an order to the conscripts.
"Strip him of all his armor."
"Sir?"
Joseph swept his staff and conjured a Mana Orb. It spun with a sharp whir, looking ready to launch at any moment. The conscripts swallowed hard at the sight.
"Go ahead and take his sword, then strip every piece of armor off him."
The conscripts approached Manir cautiously, watching for cues, while the Mana Orb hovered tightly above him, tracking his every move.
"Try anything and I'll take your head off."
Manir's face twisted in alarm. Stripping his armor — here, of all places! It was utterly humiliating. He rolled his eyes this way and that for a moment, then spoke.
"W-wait a moment!"
"What?"
"Aren't you even going to ask who I am?"
"I'll ask after we've stripped you."
Manir's lips twitched of their own accord. They're going to strip a noble of his clothes! But volunteering his identity without being asked was a blow to his pride.
"Let's talk first!"
"Strip the armor."
"Wait!"
Manir hurriedly added,
"I-I am of House Sevener! I am Baron Manir de Sevener, a knight in service to Count Poner!"
The conscripts who'd been approaching froze. Auger, in particular, looked like his eyes might pop out of his skull.
"A knight of Poner?!"
The soldiers erupted into murmurs. Even commoners knew that Count Valois and Count Poner were currently at war. The conflict's ripples had reached even this backwater — there was no way they wouldn't know.
Joseph, who had been watching the scene unfold, spoke.
"Doesn't that make him even more dangerous?"
"Go on. Strip his armor, quickly."
The conscripts who'd frozen started moving again. It was Auger, standing beside them, who threw up a panicked hand to stop them.
"W-wait! If that man truly is a noble, this could become a problem — hold on a moment!"
If Manir were a mere assassin or bandit, they could take his head on the spot without much consequence. But a noble was a different matter entirely. Killing a noble meant making an enemy of his entire house for life — even after the territorial war was over.
At his words, the conscripts glanced back at Joseph. Joseph turned to Auger.
"So what do you normally do with a noble, then?"
Auger searched his memory for a moment. He was a rural baron himself. He'd never had occasion to capture an enemy noble.
"...When a noble is defeated in war, I believe the custom is to treat him as a prisoner of war and preserve his honor."
Manir let out a breath of relief despite himself.
Of course, even Auger didn't truly believe it was about honor. In practice, it was a tradition for extracting ransom from a captured noble's family without stirring up further conflict. But it was a tradition that most nobles, by and large, actually observed.
...That's insane.
Joseph, for his part, found the whole thing absurd. This man had nearly killed them, and now they weren't supposed to treat him roughly because he was a noble? And what if they treated him like a noble and he suddenly turned on them? Joseph wasn't a noble to begin with, and he had not the slightest interest in understanding aristocratic honor.
And more than anything...
"That man doesn't look like a noble to me. Or a knight, for that matter."
At Joseph's words, Auger's gaze shifted to Manir. It was true that he wore expensive armor an ordinary mercenary would have a hard time affording. But that alone wasn't proof of nobility. What noble in the world disguised himself as a mercenary and walked into enemy territory?
"That's... a fair point."
Auger trailed off, seeming to take it.
Joseph looked at Manir.
"Do you have any way of proving you're a noble?"
Manir couldn't answer. He'd slipped away from the battlefield and infiltrated Valois Territory. There was no way he'd been stupid enough to bring something that would prove his identity.
"Then we can't treat you as one."
Joseph answered coldly and issued another order to his private soldiers. Manir's armor was stripped away in short order, and he hung his head in shame. Soon, only a man in a single layer of cloth remained.
"Hmm..."
Joseph examined the stripped Manir closely. As he'd glimpsed earlier, there were a few scrapes and burns, but nothing serious. To have escaped those raging flames — this was clearly no ordinary man.
He's not a mage, at least.
Mages had a certain resistance to magic, but Manir seemed different. It wasn't so much resistance to mana as it was... just being stupidly, brutally durable.
Joseph considered for a moment, then issued another order.
"Strip the rest of his clothes too."
"Wh-what?!"
Manir looked thoroughly alarmed, but with three Mana Orbs surrounding him, all he could do was grind his teeth. In the end he was stripped down to his underclothes, and he began to tremble. Whether from the cold or from humiliation, it was hard to say.
"No real injuries, either."
Soon Manir was bound from head to toe. If they'd had shackles or manacles, they would have used those, but all they had on hand was rope. Joseph ordered them to bind his arms, his legs, and even his fingers so he couldn't move them.
"Huh? Why the fingers?"
Jiren questioned the order, then got smacked by Derik. The truth was, Joseph had only ordered it because he'd picked the idea up somewhere — he couldn't really explain it. Regardless, Manir clearly wasn't an ordinary man, so Joseph intended to restrict his movement as much as possible.
Auger and Refn watched Manir being wound up in rope, wearing expressions of sheer disbelief. They'd thought it before, but this mage showed not a shred of consideration for his enemies. No — it went beyond a lack of consideration. He simply didn't see people as people.
Of course, they didn't believe Manir's claim of nobility either. His methods were far too filthy for a noble knight. Still, the longsword, the armor, and his bearing all carried faint traces of aristocracy. The odd sense of unease Refn had felt when he first saw Manir's group was circumstantial evidence of that as well. Normally, in a situation like this, you'd treat him as a prisoner of war just in case...
"Face down on the ground. Don't lift your head."
Joseph was acting as if the possibility of "just in case" hadn't even crossed his mind.
What do I care.
He'd nearly died.
Of course, Joseph wanted to avoid trouble with nobles as much as possible. But Manir was a different case. To Joseph, this man was nothing more than someone who'd tried to jump him. And a highly suspicious someone at that, claiming nobility only after he'd been caught.
Joseph pressed a Mana Orb against the nape of Manir's neck as he lay flat on the ground.
"W-what are you—"
"From now on, don't speak unless I tell you to."
Joseph dropped his voice low, and Manir clamped his mouth shut. Joseph had conducted interrogations more than a few times. He continued as evenly as he could.
"Fine. Let's say you're telling the truth. Why is a knight of Count Poner here?"
Manir's mouth worked for a moment. He clearly didn't want to talk.
"If you don't want to talk, just say so. I'll kill you and be done with it. I have nothing to lose."
He did have something to lose, of course. He was extremely, intensely curious about why someone would come after him like this. But Joseph had learned how to bluff by now.
"Urgh—!"
The Mana Orb gradually pressed down on Manir's nape. He groaned, looking up at Joseph.
The mage looked down at him with an utterly unmoved expression. Manir was a knight who'd staked his life on the battlefield more than once. He knew what those eyes meant.
He's actually going to kill me!
Seeing the look in Joseph's eyes, Manir slowly opened his mouth.
"I-I'll talk!"
"Talk."
"I... I am searching for the Artifact in your possession!"