No Way Out
Thus the protagonist, thoroughly scolded with no hole left to slip through, still sat tied up on the floor and began stubbornly insisting he would not leave Selindale. “I don’t want to. I’ve already lived here for ten years—why should I have to go to some academy? According to the rules, if you’ve lived in another city for more than five years, you don’t have to go.”
Citing a regulation he had apparently looked up himself, he laid out his logic for skipping the academy, then turned his head away with a sulky expression and fixed his gaze on empty space. Even while frowning, his striking features still looked dignified, yet his personality was far from mature. When I had been controlling him directly, there had been almost no dialogue outside the choices, so I had assumed he was a fairly mature middle-schooler for his age… but seeing the protagonist from a third-person perspective gave me an entirely different impression.
“Honestly, what am I supposed to do with you…?”
The maid crossed her arms and let out a short sigh at the stubborn protagonist. From what I heard, preparations to leave had been finished a year ago, but because of this kid’s obstinacy the entire household staff had been forced to stay. Now that a notice had come down from the Karsion estate ordering them to bring him back by any means necessary, the servants had finally begun making their own preparations. In that situation, he had apparently been planning an escape under the assumption that “if I run away, there’s nothing they can do.”
When I had been searching the bedroom, he had been hiding in the space under the bed. So that’s why the window felt like it had never been opened…
“Anyway, I’m never going back to the capital.”
But there was one thing he was mistaken about. Our opinions didn’t matter in the slightest. Four gold coins were riding on this request, and the client had specifically said to bring him back “no matter what.” If it had been a request from a complete stranger, maybe we would have felt some guilt—but this was a parent asking us to retrieve their child. There was no reason to feel even a shred of remorse. Besides, the complaints of a kid running away because he didn’t want to go to school weren’t our problem.
“If he runs away again it’ll be a headache, so let’s just take him like this?”
“What?!”
When I pointed at the protagonist, who was now thrashing against the ropes, he let out a startled yelp, clearly not having expected things to go this far. The maid, who had been scolding him for quite a while, bowed her head slightly and continued.
“Yes. I’ll have the others start preparing to move right away. Young Master Kair, you’ll behave yourself, won’t you?”
“Hey, hey! Shelly!”
Whether her master was tied up or not, the maid called Shelly led the other servants out of the bedroom. The name of the protagonist I had caught during their short exchange was Kair. His cry calling after her echoed emptily in the air along with the sound of the attendants filing out.
The calm, adult-like impression he had given earlier had long since shattered. The person now sitting bound on the floor was, aside from his face, nothing more than a middle-schooler whining about not wanting to go to school.
“H-Hey… I don’t know how much you were promised from my father, but if you untie me here, I’ll give you double. How about it?”
Only now seeming to grasp the situation, Kair began thrashing and offering a negotiation. The decision wasn’t mine to make anyway—it was Reina’s. I glanced sideways at the helmet, and the heavy metal piece clanked as it shook left and right. A silent signal that it was not allowed. As mercenaries, there was also the matter of trust, so there was nothing to be done. A cold reply for Kair, who was still clinging to a sliver of hope.
“Give it up.”
“Ugh…”
Amid his frustrated groan, the household staff finished their preparations. Each carrying a heavy rectangular bag in both hands, they climbed into the carriages one after another. I had no particular hobby of tying people up, but I grabbed the end of the rope like I was escorting a criminal and boarded the rearmost carriage.
We had only been in Selindale for a few hours, yet we were already leaving again. The item’s location was inside a dirt pile in a corner of some slaughterhouse, and I remembered it could also be obtained by helping a certain NPC with a side quest. Given the circumstances, however, there was no way to get it. Since it was an early-game city near the capital anyway, there probably wasn’t any particularly attractive reward hidden there. The only thing I regretted was the experience points from the monsters near Selindale…
Too bad.
Since we were already riding back in a carriage, experience points were the least of our concerns. Growth was naturally postponed until later as we prioritized the request and set off on the road back to the capital.
The line of carriages began filing out through the estate gates. Unlike the servants’ carriages, which could hold five or six people at once, the rearmost carriage carried only Kair and the two of us. Even if we were attacked, the structure made it so that disaster would strike from the front first. No matter how friendly we acted, the clear difference in status was obvious. People who didn’t matter whether they lived or died, and a human who had to be protected. Because escorts or skilled mercenaries accompanied carriages like these, bandits and robbers rarely attacked… but starving beasts in winter were another story.
Once we had traveled far enough that walking back would be difficult, we finally untied the protagonist. The gesture carried the meaning of “run if you think you can.”
“Haa, what’s the point of going to some academy…”
“Three years isn’t too much to offer up, is it?”
After being freed, Kair rubbed his aching wrists and grumbled. The kid who had been speaking loud enough for everyone to hear looked up at me, then leaned forward with a slouched posture, resting his chin on his hand as he continued in a bored tone.
“You who live freely wouldn’t understand the feeling of invisible shackles tightening around you.”
Kair gazed out the carriage window with a wistful expression, as if looking down on everything from above. That alone would have made him look like a painting that women would swoon over, but even that came across as nothing more than the whining of someone who had everything. A guy born into a good family, blessed with magical talent, never having to worry about food, clothing, or money, living a life without a single callus on his hands in this era, and even surrounded by women—what did he have to complain about? And after three years at the academy, he would hold both power and freedom in his hands. What was there to whine about?
“Must be nice having a full stomach.”
“What?”
Whoops.
The thought I had been holding back burst out along with a surge of irritation, shattering the picturesque scene. Kair, who had been sitting across from me, glared at me with undisguised displeasure. No matter how many hardships each person had, seeing someone who should be grateful for his life acting like he carried all the world’s misfortune was bound to grate on the nerves. I wondered if I had said something wrong, but for now I pretended not to notice and looked away.
“What exactly are you trying to say?”
It was a story that would have been better left glossed over, yet the kid couldn’t hold back and pressed further. If you had lived fifteen years without a care in the world, that was already a blessed life, so what…
With my back pressed against the wall, I shot him a sideways glance and opened my mouth as if asking why he didn’t understand.
“No matter how unhappy you are, it’s still a life with money instead of freedom, so I was just wondering what you have to be so dissatisfied about.”
“Someone with narrow eyes would only see it that way.”
What a load of crap.
At Kair’s subtly mocking words, I snorted and turned my gaze out the window. This time I managed to swallow the words instead of spitting them out. Can we really entrust the future of the world to someone like this? Swallowing that doubt, I stared blankly at the darkening sky. Even as the sky grew dim, the carriage showed no sign of stopping. Since the distance between cities wasn’t that great, it seemed they intended to keep traveling even at night.
Perhaps because there were three of us, Reina had remained completely silent the entire time. In the carriage where three people sat yet no conversation flowed, it was Kair who finally broke the silence.
“How old are you?”
“Fifteen.”
Maybe because our ages seemed similar, Kair suddenly asked how old I was. When I answered straightforwardly, his eyes widened.
“What, we’re the same age… Wait, then you’re not even a full-fledged mercenary?”
For some reason, Kair knew that one could officially register as a mercenary starting at sixteen. He frowned, looking puzzled.
“Not officially registered yet.”
I added the explanation in a nonchalant tone, as if making an excuse. Being a mercenary wasn’t anything special—you just took requests from people and hunted monsters. Still, it wasn’t wrong to say I wasn’t officially registered. The difference between being registered or not was bigger than I had expected. The mercenary registration card itself was a symbol that the guild vouched for your identity to a certain extent. In reality, even if you had the skills, if your conduct was poor, your registration card could be confiscated. In short, it was also a matter of trust.
“Then you’re just an aspiring mercenary? Hah, I thought…”
Suddenly looking triumphant, Kair began sneering and belittling me. Just as I was about to resolve to punch him for acting so smug over catching one little detail…
“Aaaagh!”
“Kyaaagh!”
That brief thought was drowned out by the clear sound of screams. The carriage came to a halt, accompanied by the noise of trees snapping and breaking. My body was already moving.