The Highwaymen
A black hawk wheeled through the open sky, and the hooded man below shouted up at it. From his bag hung an ornament of two small wooden cubes linked together.
"Hey~! Hugin, you see anything?"
"Screeeech!!!"
Hmm. Nothing, he says....
I had left the village behind and been walking for ten days now. From what the peddler Gen had told me last time, the place should have been coming into view by now—yet there was nothing around for miles.
Huh? What am I looking for, you ask?
An Armed Inn, of course.
They say the Pandeus Empire is vast beyond measure. But people live scattered so thinly that travel becomes a real ordeal. And so this world's answer to a rest stop was born: the Armed Inn.
As the name suggests, you can walk in fully armed without anyone batting an eye. The defenses are fortress-grade, and regular imperial troops are stationed there. When demons or monsters appear on the roads, the inns double as shelters.
Being midway points, they also sell all sorts of supplies for travelers who have run short—and the food is supposed to be incredible!!
I've been living on nothing but jerky and grilled meat this whole time, and I'm thoroughly sick of it.... Time for some of this world's fine dining!
But walking in with my face fully exposed seemed like a recipe for endless hassle, so I made myself a new hooded robe. The tanned leather hood comes down far enough that my jawline is still visible, but everything from my eyes downward is cast in deep shadow. The kind of hood you'd expect out of some assassin game. People might still sense that I'm handsome—but unless they look me dead-on, they'll never see my full face.
I considered putting the mask back on, but that chapter of my life is already closed.
Still.... ten days of walking and not a single landmark in sight. Did Gen give me bad directions? He definitely said it was "close."
While I was turning all that over in my mind—
"Screeeech!!! Screeeech!!!"
"Hugin!!! You find something!!?"
"Screeeech!! Scree!!! Caw!!!"
Wait... what?!
A group of people attacking others on the road?!
So the death of that entire patrol company last time really had started a snowball effect. Multiple people assaulting others out on the main highway.... Then those would be highwaymen, right?
"....."
I glanced down at the wooden sword in my hand. Run over there and deal with the highwaymen.... I'd seen plenty of corpses by now, but not a single one of them had been "dealt with" by me personally.
I closed my eyes and made my decision.
If I'm going to live in this world, this is a gate I have to pass through.
"Hati, Hugin, Blanc—stay back for a bit. And... do not help me under any circumstances."
My companions looked at me in confusion, but they pulled away as if they understood.
"Thanks. Just one hour. Let's stay apart for one hour."
I poured every ounce of my superhuman physique into a full-speed sprint. Wind roared in my ears, the scenery whipped past, and the metallic scent of blood began to thicken on the air.
"!!!"
What I saw was.... more than fifty people attacking a group of about ten.
"There's that many of them?!"
Highwaymen are supposed to be five or seven guys pulling an ambush—this was basically a bandit army! The defenders had formed ranks and were holding out, buying time because the attackers couldn't get a clean approach, but with numbers like that, the line would break eventually.
I closed in on the highwaymen with my wooden sword raised. One of them spotted me.
"What the hell?! Shit!! Grab that one too!!"
Five of them wheeled around and charged me. For this fight, I would use no Sword Qi, no magic, no skills, and none of my transcendent physical power.
"Die!!! You free-citizen bastard!!"
One highwayman closed the gap and swung a club. Did he realize his own eagerness had gotten ahead of him? The five attackers' paths tangled strangely together. I stepped back to let the club whistle past, then whipped my wooden sword sideways at the lead man's skull.
Crrrack!!!
The sound of a skull shattering. His eye burst and his cheekbone caved in. The others kept charging, ignoring their fallen comrade as they swung their clubs at me. One of them was cutting a horizontal arc, so I deliberately stepped in and switched the wooden sword from my right hand to my left.
"Huh?!"
The club-hand never connected. Instead I drove a right fist into his temple.
"Gaaah!!!"
The impact must have been catastrophic. Blood tears erupted from his eyes as he crumpled to the ground. Two more came at me at once. I slipped one club and knocked the other upward.
"Kh!!!"
As one highwayman staggered back, I closed on the other and drove the pommel of the wooden sword into his head. His skull collapsed inward and the club dropped from his fingers. I snatched the falling club with my free hand and hurled it.
"Urgh!!!"
Crack!!!
Wood slammed into wood. The highwayman barely managed to block the thrown club, but his stance was already ruined. I spun and brought the wooden sword down in a brutal vertical strike. His head burst open, brains spraying out. The last of the five, frozen in shock at the sight, took the tip of my wooden sword through the throat. A neck is weaker than a skull, after all—even a wooden blade with an edge could punch through.
"Grrkh…."
Blood fountained from the corpse. The fight wasn't over. I tried to wrench the wooden sword free, but it had caught on the cervical vertebrae and wouldn't come loose. Stones came flying from the side. I used the impaled body as a shield, then yanked the sword free. Looking toward the forest where the stones had come from, I saw highwaymen whirling sling-pouches and flinging rocks.
"Shit!!!! Throw already!!!"
"Aaaaaargh!!!"
I charged the seven stone-throwers, still using the corpse as cover, then hurled the body itself. It streaked through the air and smashed into a cluster of three in the middle, opening a path.
"Urgh!" "Krek!" "Ghk!!"
I cut down three of the remaining four in a blur. The last one came screaming at me.
"Die!!!"
A sling-stone dropped toward my head. Instead of retreating I lunged forward.
"?!"
The loaded sling whistled past. I drove the wooden sword into the startled highwayman's solar plexus. His eyes rolled back as he died. Behind him, another man was shoving the thrown corpse aside and trying to rise—I put the wooden sword through his temple. The one still on the ground took a kick to the head. The last, nearly upright and throwing himself at me, I sidestepped and smashed across the spine with the wooden sword.
Crrrack!
The sound of a spine shattering. I flicked the blood from the wooden sword without thinking and looked around.
Hostile eyes, thick with murderous intent, locked onto me from every direction. Then they screamed and charged.
"Aaaaaargh!!! Die, you son of a bitch!!!"
Why? Why didn't they run? Why keep coming? And those eyes—full of pure malice and hatred, closing in with the absolute will to kill me.
I swung the wooden sword.
.................
How many had I killed? Corpses littered the ground around me.
"Haa....."
I closed my eyes. Even after cutting down this many sentient beings, I felt no guilt and no regret. Still, I offered a silent prayer for the ones I had killed. It might have been a hypocritical gesture—but I wanted to wish them peace all the same.
That was when a man's voice spoke from behind me.
"Are you... a knight?"
"....No."
"I see... So that's how it is... Understood."
What? He just decided he understood and walked off. Well... fine by me. My mind was already a mess; if someone started chatting me up right now, I'd only get irritated.
I drove the wooden sword into the earth and closed my eyes again for a moment of silence.
May you find happiness in the next life.
After a while, Hugin dropped from the sky and settled on my shoulder. He tilted his head and asked if I was all right.
"Scree?"
"It hasn't even been an hour yet... I'm fine, Hugin. Tell Hati to come a little later, and Blanc can approach in invisible mode."
Hugin flew off with an affirmative cry. Another male voice rose behind me again.
"Is that sky-borne being with feathers of purest black your companion?"
"It is."
"I see... So that's how it is... Understood."
Once more he decided he understood everything and wandered back. Is this guy picking a fight? No.... I'm just on edge right now. That's why it feels that way.
I steadied myself and turned toward the people who had been under attack. As I drew near, a middle-aged man who seemed to be their leader stepped forward to greet me.
"Ah! Kn— ahem... Swordsman, we owe you our lives. Thank you!"
Kn—? A word starting with kn... Ah! He almost called me a knight, didn't he? After watching me cut through that many highwaymen, the mistake was understandable. Still—with that many attackers, was no one seriously hurt?
"Think nothing of it. Is anyone injured?"
"Fortunately, th— thanks to you, Swordsman, we only have a few with minor wounds."
"I'm glad to hear it."
Then the same man who had spoken to me during my silent prayer chimed in from the side.
"Those who crawl upon the earth, having lost their own path, merely sought to seize those who still walk."
What the hell is this nonsense.
"Fortunately, one who carries conviction of his own descended, and for the sake of those who walk, he severed the hands of those who crawl, and delivered them...."
I looked toward the voice. A young man came into view—long brown hair, a wide-brimmed hat, sturdy leather armor, a chiseled yet handsome face. He was leaning against a tree with his arms crossed, striking an absurdly dramatic pose.
"I offer you my gratitude, man of conviction...."
"......"
The leader.... the people resting behind him.... and me.... every single one of us, with a single exception, was thinking the exact same thing.
What the hell is wrong with this idiot?
......................
"Alas... man of conviction... you have become a butterfly hidden among the petals...."
"Ah... yes...."
What is he even saying? I can't parse this at all. Did I learn the language wrong?
The man abandoned his pose and stepped in front of me.
"I am.... the one who holds the entire world within his eyes."
The self-introducing idiot—man. The leader scrambled to salvage the rapidly freezing atmosphere.
"Ha.... haha. This is Sir Alberic Bemil. An explorer, you see."
How does someone who says things like that become an explorer?
"Fufufu... In short, I am the Man Who Contains the World. Fufufu."
Alberic ran a hand over his own body and struck a lethally dramatic expression—a truly bizarre pose. Was he... proud of how cool he thought that sounded? This is pure chuuni.... Wait, is this actual, genuine eighth-grader syndrome? Maybe I should test it.
"I see... So that's how it is... The Man Who Contains the World... Your grand dream has astonished me."
"!!!"
Chuu— Alberic's eyes went round as saucers.
"Just as you have spoken... I too walk the earth bearing conviction of my own..."
I dragged the words out, twisting them into the same roundabout, overwrought style. Eyes squeezed shut, I pressed a clenched fist to my chest.
"O Man Who Contains the World... From the heavens I beheld you and your comrades crossing an unsteady bridge..."
I struck a pose every bit as strange as Alberic's.
"I am one who observes his own conviction... I wished only to hold back the winds that blew against you, that you might cross the bridge in safety."
Alberic shifted into yet another elaborate stance and listened intently.
"Therefore... offer your thanks not to me, but to the radiant sky that allowed me to witness you..."
Alberic, still locked in that spectacularly ridiculous pose, gazed at me with a face full of rapture and began to praise me to the skies.
"You!!! You!!! You were the man who carries the Golden Wind!!!"
Watching the two idiots, the rest of the group whispered among themselves.
Murmur murmur
"A-are nobles always like that? He's ridiculously handsome, and then he does that..."
"Hell if I know, dumbass..."
It was a complete circus.