Garbage Dump
There was a question the Crimson Flame Knights practically treated as tradition whenever a new recruit joined.
“Why did you come to the Knights?”
Ask that, and you’d get all kinds of answers—some bizarre, some identical to someone else’s, and some from people who couldn’t answer at all and simply stumbled through the question with vague nonsense.
Those last ones rarely ended well.
Most of them lost their will and left on their own. In the worst cases, they were carried out as corpses.
And the type that grew strongest the fastest, the ones who held on with the most stubborn teeth-and-nails tenacity, were the ones who answered, “For revenge.”
Parents, siblings, lovers… sometimes close friends they’d lost.
People with a powerful trigger could endure almost anything that came their way and force themselves through it.
Having seen such people, I couldn’t deny that human beings needed a goal and a reason.
I doubted I was the only one who thought that way.
There were plenty of stories in this world about heroes who awakened after some fateful incident, and the fact that there were so many of them was proof that plenty of other people thought the same way as I did… or so I thought.
Well, maybe people just liked stories where someone overcame hardship and succeeded.
Anyway, the one-armed swordsman had been through exactly such a turning point too.
A man who lost both a comrade and his left arm, then decided he would grow stronger.
And the one who gave him that turning point was me.
…Then why doesn’t he hate me?
If I’d been in his shoes, I wouldn’t have been able to look at me kindly.
I didn’t know why, but as long as he didn’t act hostile, I had no reason to kill him either.
Even after that first sparring match ended, I crossed swords with the man a few more times.
“You were right. I still couldn’t quite reach it. Still, thank you.”
By the time our final exchange ended, the man was smiling with clear satisfaction, as if the sparring had genuinely helped him.
He thanked us in his clumsy Granic, and as I watched him slowly recede into the distance, Daeun spoke up.
“What on earth was that…?”
“Who knows.”
It was a question I couldn’t answer.
It was the first time I’d ever met an enemy who looked at me with something other than revenge or fear.
He’d left with such an oddly unburdened expression that it stuck in my memory.
I still didn’t understand what was in his heart.
* * *
“I got attached….”
Rrrrreeegh—
Daeun spoke without bothering to hide her reluctance as she stroked the horse’s nose.
Apparently she wasn’t the only one who found parting difficult, because the horse under her hand snorted and shook its head.
“It can’t be helped.”
From Ordo to the Holy Kingdom, and then from the Holy Kingdom to a city in the far west of the continent, right up against demon territory.
After traveling together for weeks, it would’ve been strange not to grow attached.
I understood how she felt, but that was exactly why we had to leave the horse here in this city.
Unless she wanted to see a horse she’d grown fond of get swallowed by Magi and turn into a monster.
“Besides, Celine can’t stay glued to it all day.”
“I guess not….”
Daeun answered with a sulky droop of her shoulders, gave the horse one last pat on the bridge of its nose, and then let go.
With that tearful farewell behind us, we stepped back out onto the street.
Being this close to demon territory meant living under the constant threat of monsters.
That was probably why most of the people walking the streets had weapons on them.
There were quite a few Apostles too.
I ignored the looks being aimed our way.
“Let’s buy only what we need and leave quickly.”
“Huh? We’re not going to rest here first?”
“No.”
The atmosphere in this city could not, in good conscience, be described as pleasant.
That was only natural, really, for people who lived at the border between life and death, always fighting to survive against threats that could come at any moment.
Someone hearing me might say, “Then why not just move to another city?”
But even in a place like this, abandoning the life you’d painstakingly built and starting over somewhere else was no easy thing.
Not everyone, of course, but most of the people living here weren’t exactly well off.
The mercenaries who used the city as a base were also the sort of people who needed money badly enough to ignore half the value of their own lives.
Ah, of course, Apostles were the exception.
Still….
I could understand why the city felt this way, but understanding it and wanting to stay here were two very different things.
Just walking the short stretch from the city gate to the main market, I’d already seen little and large clashes breaking out around us more times than I could count, so I had no desire to linger.
It felt like rest would be the opposite of restful here.
Crash!
“~~~~~!!”
“~~! ~~~~!”
No sooner had that thought crossed my mind than a stall splintered apart and fruit flew through the air.
Thwap.
I snatched an apple out of the air at speed.
Condition… yeah, not bad.
I took a bite out of the appetizingly ripe apple, and crisp flesh gave way beneath my teeth as tart juice spilled across my tongue.
Maybe I’d bitten too hard, because some of the juice hadn’t made it into my mouth and was running down the corner of my lips, so I wiped it away with the back of my hand.
Ugh, sticky.
Looking around for something to wipe it on, I ended up casually rubbing my hand against the hem of Daeun’s clothes, since she was distracted by the commotion nearby.
From the looks of it, there was trouble between a merchant selling fruit and a mercenary.
If they fought with brute force, the mercenary would obviously win, but any sane person wouldn’t draw a blade in a place like this.
Which meant the mercenary arguing with the merchant had to be missing a few screws.
Shing!
The mercenary grabbed a gleaming axe.
His eyes, too, had gone shiny with rage, just like the weapon in his hand.
“H-hey, has he lost his mind?!”
“Hey! Stop him, stop him! Grab that bastard now!”
Sensing that the situation was going bad, the mercenaries watching nearby rushed over, seized him, and dragged him off somewhere.
Thanks to that, his little outburst ended in failure, but judging from the looks the surrounding merchants were giving him, it didn’t seem like the dragged-off mercenary would be enjoying smooth business in this city anytime soon.
To buy something as simple as an apple here, maybe you had to pay more than the usual price just to get one.
“What a peaceful place.”
“…Peaceful?”
Obviously I meant that sarcastically.
Ignoring Daeun’s incredulous stare, I took another bite of the apple.
It was still delicious.
“Kana, that apple.”
“Hm?”
What about it?
I held out the half-eaten apple I’d been nibbling on.
“Do you want some too?”
“No, that’s not what I mean… isn’t that the one that flew over here just now? Then you didn’t even pay for it, did you?”
“…”
“You have to pay for things before you eat them. What were you thinking, just taking it?”
I quietly hid the apple I’d been holding up with obvious pride behind my back.
Shaking her head like I was hopeless, Daeun stomped over to the merchant.
“I’m sorry. My little sister picked up and ate the apple that rolled over here. Here, the money for the apple….”
“Oh my, if you’d just kept walking, I wouldn’t have known. Thank you for telling me honestly.”
“I’m truly sorry….”
“I’m fine, so please tell your sister not to just pick up and eat anything she finds. Eating something off the street could make her sick, you know. Especially in a place like this….”
“In a place like this…?”
“Young lady, it seems like this is your first time in this city, isn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s right. How did you know?”
“In all this chaos, it’s rare to find someone who’d come forward to pay for one apple when nobody even saw it happen. Most people just think they’ve struck gold and keep their mouths shut.”
“Hee… I see.”
Zap.
While Daeun was talking with the merchant, she shot me a sharp look.
I slowly hid behind Celine.
Celine let out an “Oh dear,” with a troubled smile and shielded me with the hem of her nun’s habit anyway.
…I only ate it because the atmosphere carried me away. I wasn’t trying to sneak it.
“If you go a little farther outside the city, you enter demon influence. That’s why people here don’t really go outside the city. If they do, it’s usually inland. Oh, except for mercenaries.”
“I see… so it’s because of Magi, then. Is this city okay?”
“Yes. There are priests and nuns here from the Holy Kingdom. Thanks to their efforts, the city itself is fairly safe, but….”
The merchant suddenly lowered his voice.
“…you have to watch out for people who pretend to sell things cheaply but actually peddle items corrupted by Magi. Especially food.”
“Ah… then what you said about not just picking up things off the street was…?”
“Yes. If you eat something contaminated with Magi and get poisoned, it can get very serious. And even if it isn’t something like that, you could still get into trouble eating something a mercenary dropped. The mercenaries here are rougher than the ones in other places.”
“I see….”
Daeun nodded, then looked around.
She seemed to be searching for something, her eyes moving back and forth before she finally spotted me hiding behind Celine and came striding over.
Then she relayed the conversation she’d just had with the merchant.
“Got it? Kana. Just because something looks delicious doesn’t mean you can shove it in your mouth.”
When she’d finished, she gave me a stern warning.
But my honest reaction was—
…Isn’t it fine?
What’s the problem?
Eating something that was only a little contaminated with Magi didn’t seem to cause any issues.
And if I got into a scrap with a mercenary, I was confident I’d win.
“…Kana!”
At my answer, Daeun’s eyes practically caught fire.
And then the lecture burst out of her mouth like a machine gun.
Even if there’s no Magi on it, picking things up off the street isn’t hygienic, and I could get sick, and so on and so forth—
“Ugh… fine, I won’t eat it. I won’t, okay?”
For the crime of one badly chosen line, I got my ears blistered with a relentless scolding and eventually raised the white flag.
I hadn’t even eaten anything off the street, and I hadn’t planned to.
Besides, I wasn’t a kid. Why would I pick up random junk and eat it?
I only did that in the past because I had no choice if I wanted to survive.
“Promise.”
“So childish… fine, I got it.”
I muttered in protest at the sight of her sticking out her pinky, but when I saw Daeun’s brow twitch, I hurriedly hooked my finger with hers.
In this situation, I was the one in the wrong, so I obediently let her drag me back to the merchant and bow my head in apology. He waved it off, saying it was fine.
“It happens. Here, want a cherry?”
“Tha… nks…?”
Before I knew it, I’d acquired another piece of fruit.
I looked up at Daeun, wondering if I should eat it, but she was too busy talking to the merchant to pay me any attention.
When I held it out to Celine, she smiled lightly and declined as well.
No helping it. I’d have to eat it myself.
Munch.
“By the way, what brought you to this city? It’s not the kind of place refined young ladies usually come to.”
“Haha, well, I’m a mercenary too, after all.”
“A mercenary? Ah, I didn’t notice the sword at your waist. Well, this is a decent place for mercenaries to make money. Back when Grasis still stood, there wasn’t any aid money or anything, but after it fell, the support funds for clearing monsters started coming in regularly….”
“Were you from Grasis?”
“Ah, no. I’m from another kingdom. I drifted my way over here while looking for a way to make a living. As you can see, I’m not exactly doing great.”
The merchant shrugged, gesturing toward the broken stall.
“Anyway, making money’s fine and all, but if your body starts feeling off, you should go back right away. I’ve seen plenty of people get greedy and end up dead.”
“Hmm… thanks for the advice. But I’m not here to make money.”
“Huh? Then why would you come to a place like this…?”
“I’m going to the village of the demons.”
“…The village of the demons?”
The merchant, who had been speaking to Daeun in a perfectly ordinary tone, frowned.
With open disgust written all over his face, he said, “You’re going to that garbage dump?”