Dark Elf Mercenary Red Hood #2
"Alright. Is there anything I can do to help?"
"First, I need travel funds. And I'd like to disguise myself as a war merchant."
The Bluenail Kingdom was in the middle of a civil war.
It was a three-way struggle: a faction uniting the First and Third Princes, the Second Prince's faction, and the Fourth Prince's faction. Assassinations aimed at the leaders of each camp were frequent, and large and small battles flared up constantly.
In a land so often at war, ordinary life inevitably withered. Shops could no longer open and close as they once had; farming in peace was a luxury no one could afford. Power and national strength bled away with every passing day.
But where some lost, others thrived. Even in relative safety, pockets of uneasy economic life still clung on—and among those who rode the current of wartime fortune were the war merchants.
I intended to pass myself off as one of them.
Trying to enter a war zone as if it were peacetime would only draw suspicious eyes from every direction. A merchant seeking to profit from the war, on the other hand, had a perfectly respectable reason to be there—and that cover would spare me far too many questions.
"A war merchant… Not a bad idea. In that case, we'll arrange for you to use our guild's credentials."
The Altram Merchant Guild had been founded long ago, half under pressure from the Krauzer side with the argument that no noble house should be without a private purse. Thanks to it, the Altram viscountcy had managed to accumulate a respectable fortune despite holding neither land nor serfs.
On paper, the head of Altram—whoever currently held the viscountcy—was the owner. In practice, the vice-chairman beneath him ran everything.
Chess needed only to hear the words "war merchant" before summoning people and setting a dozen measures in motion. Papers were prepared to make it look as though I had been with the guild for years; I was assigned a post with real authority; and a basic stock of goods for sale was made ready. On top of all that, Chess insisted I use an alias—out of concern for the rumors that had spread after Helena's little rampage, even if I myself thought it unnecessary.
"The rough preparations should be finished by tomorrow. When do you mean to leave? As soon as everything is ready?"
"Yes. That's the plan."
I answered Chess without hesitation. The schedule was not desperately tight, but this was no time for leisure—and I meant to follow the old saying: strike while the iron is hot. Work only grew more troublesome the longer you put it off.
"Lord Black, we'll be crossing the border shortly."
"Understood. Thank you."
I nodded at the coachman's voice from the seat beside me as he guided the horses. We had passed through the margrave's territory and were about to set foot in the entrance to the Bluenail Kingdom—the Fourth Prince's domain.
The line of carriages was neither particularly long nor especially short. A string of wagons laden with military grain—chosen as merchandise that would look as harmless as possible—stretched one after another, followed by carts carrying tents and other camping supplies.
Black was my alias. My hair was a deep navy close enough to black that the name had come easily, and I had stuck it on simply to avoid fretting over a false identity. Surprisingly, I rather liked it.
"Haaah—"
I gazed absently at the distant forest and the reasonably well-kept road, drinking in the clean air. The rumble of wheels and the steady strike of hooves against earth put my mind at ease. If not for the civil war, it almost felt like we were heading out on a picnic.
We were not, of course. So I ordered the men following us to arm themselves.
They were soldiers borrowed from Duchess Helena of Krauzer. Mercenaries would have been the usual choice, but using existing troops lowered the chance of betrayal—a thoughtful precaution. In the mercenary world, breaking trust marked you as garbage, yet such things still happened all the time. Sometimes escorts did their best and then simply shrugged when the client died first, claiming it couldn't be helped. That earned them a reputation for incompetence, but it was still better than being branded untrustworthy.
Thanks to all of this, what had started as a mere pretext and disguise had turned into a fairly convincing merchant caravan.
"Hm…?"
Then, from the woods lining both sides of the road, came a rustling sound—leaves underfoot, or branches brushing against one another.
Better safe than sorry.
I drew one of the pitch-black daggers hidden in my clothes and raised my hand high. The men behind me nodded, tension clear on their faces, and drew the swords at their hips. The signal meant: arm yourselves and stand ready.
It could have been nothing more than a wild animal, or some traveler who had briefly stepped into the trees. But we stood at the threshold of a civil-war zone, a place swirling with every kind of chaos. Armed readiness seemed the wiser choice.
"Lord Black, can you see anything?"
The coachman asked, several times more nervous than the soldiers. His hands and feet were even trembling. Unlike the armed men waiting with blades drawn, he was one of the few ordinary people in the caravan—someone who truly belonged to the guild. The fact that he managed not to blurt out my real name was help enough.
"Yes… I can see them."
I reinforced my eyesight with mana and carefully scanned the direction of the sound. Enhanced vision was not quite clairvoyance—I could not pick out a speck of dust at a great distance—but it was still far sharper than normal. And so I could make out the shapes of men who, despite the rustling that had given them away, were holding their breath and waiting for the moment to strike. Some were exchanging hurried whispers.
Every one of them carried a sword or hand axe; a few even wore light leather armor. It was not the monster-hide work Helena favored, but it was still decent quality. The bandits had split their force to either side of the road, waiting. I only noticed because I had been sweeping my gaze in every direction.
"Tch."
The more chaotic a country became, the poorer its people grew—and the more likely bandits were to multiply. Even I, no great student of history, knew that much. I had assumed running into thieves somewhere along the way would hardly be surprising.
I was wrong. Meeting a bandit pack this soon after crossing the border was surprising indeed.
Still—surprising or not—I needed to minimize the damage. I drew a second dagger, stacked both in one hand, and gave a light shake. At a glance it looked like a throwing preparation; in truth it was a signal: form up in pairs. The soldiers nodded with grim faces and drifted naturally closer to the men beside them, as if huddling together out of fear.
"For heaven's sake."
The words slipped out under my breath. High in a tree, a man had drawn a bowstring taut, an arrow already nocked.
An archer, too? Wonderful.
I decided that arrow had to go first. I hurled both daggers hard—not at the ground, but aimed at the bandit's head and the tip of the arrowhead. Even if I failed to shear the point clean off, I was fairly sure I could take his neck. Piercing a skull several times larger than an arrowhead was a given.
"Guh—?!"
The man in the tree groaned and toppled. His dying hand released the string, and the arrow flew—but the tip had been sheared away, so the damage was light. One soldier took the shaft in the forearm and only grimaced.
"Everyone, brace for an ambush!"
Their comrade was dead; they would not stay quiet now. There was no longer any point in silence, so I shouted loud enough for all to hear. Killing the archer had already announced that we knew they were there.
"Fuck! Hit them! Hit them now!!"
As expected, the bandits roared a beat too late and charged from every side. There looked to be about thirty of them. They swung their swords without hesitation—veterans of plunder and murder, to judge by the steady points of their blades.
Technique, however, was another matter. Their swordplay was crude enough that anyone could tell they were ordinary men with weapons, not trained fighters. The soldiers seemed to know it too; they met the rush with considerable calm.
I hesitated a moment—protect the coachman, or join the fight myself?—then decided to take the field. The longer this dragged on, the more people would get hurt. I wanted that number as close to zero as possible.
"Get under the carriage and stay hidden. In a mess like this, they won't prioritize someone who's already out of sight."
"Y-Yes, sir…!"
The coachman scrambled down from the driver's seat and crawled beneath the cargo bed. No one would waste openings hunting a hidden man in the middle of a brawl; he should be safe until the fighting ended. They might drag him out as a hostage, of course—but that would only open them to a killing blow. Exposing themselves to haul out a coachman would be the same as begging me to end them.
Either way, wiping out the entire pack was a given. Unlike the pirates I had buried with my own hands, I had no need to dig out every last root.
"You little—ghk?!"
This was only my second real fight, and the fact that I felt so unnervingly calm about it sent a chill through me. Mentally, I might as well have been a man long since calloused to killing.
I looked down at the bandit whose throat I had just torn open the same way as before, then pried the weapon from his dead hand. I had no deep training in swordsmanship; bare-handed combat was what I knew. A blade would only get in the way.
"Hold on to this for now."
I ran back to the carriage and passed the weapon to the coachman still huddled under the cargo bed. The space was too cramped for a proper swing, but it was better than nothing for defense.
"You bastard!!"
While I was handing over the weapon, another bandit closed the distance and swung. I twisted my head around to find his blade already halfway through its arc—a genuine crisis.
"That's a bit dangerous…"
The only thing I could do was snatch the wrist of the hand holding the sword. Thankfully, I managed it cleanly and avoided being cut. My strength and agility must have been the higher of the two.
"Let go! Let the hell go!"
"Let go? Fine. I'll let go."
I nodded at the bandit trembling with shock—and poured every ounce of strength into the hand clamped on his wrist. Mana layered on top of it, amplifying the force even further.
"A-Aaaagh!!"
The bandit's sword-hand tore free like a rag and rolled across the ground. Bone snapped and flesh shredded while he was still alive; the agony was clearly enough to make a man foam at the mouth. The blood jetting from the stump promised death by bleeding if nothing else was done. Left alone, he would thrash and scream until he died.
At that point, further effort was unnecessary—but I was not a man who took pleasure in watching others suffer.
So—
Crunch!
I clamped both hands around his throat and squeezed until the neck bones collapsed, cutting off his breath for good.