Chapter 58
Chapter 58
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 58
Chapter Title: Birds of a Feather (3)
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Think about it.
A guy you've never seen before in your life.
A hulking brute who looks like he could snap a bear in half without breaking a sweat!
If someone like that suddenly walks up and says, "I'm hungry!" who wouldn't be thrown for a loop?
'At first, I thought he was just some lunatic.'
But it turned out...
'...he was even crazier than I thought.'
And he was a special kind of crazy that even Yuri had never encountered before.
He let out a sigh and asked,
"...Aren't you tired?"
This guy had been standing behind him with his arms crossed for hours now.
Thanks to him, Yuri could rest comfortably in the shade the big man provided, but by now, he was dying to know just what the hell he was doing there.
So he'd asked, and the answer that came back was simple.
"I'm hungry."
"I asked if you weren't tired?"
"I'm hungry."
"...Can't you say anything else?"
"I'm hungry."
"You little..."
That was it.
That was exactly why Yuri classified him as a new breed of lunatic.
This massive lunatic only ever responded to questions with the exact same phrase.
Of course, it wasn't like the only thing he knew how to say was "I'm hungry."
Just to test it, Yuri threw another question his way.
"What's your name?"
"I'm Bobikurtankapurtavi."
"Bobiku... what?"
"Bobikurtankapurtavi!"
"Yeah, Poppi..."
Yuri let out another sigh.
From the experiments he'd run over the past few hours, the only phrases this lunatic knew were "I," "hungry," and that ridiculously long name starting with "Bobi" something.
Just those three.
Well, he only even said the full name when directly asked for it.
So normally, he just used "I" and "hungry" to answer every single question.
It was enough to drive the person talking to him insane.
'He doesn't seem like he's got any shortage of brains, though?'
The guy varied the tone of his "I'm hungry" responses.
He even threw in little gestures to match the question.
Which meant Poppi fully understood what people were saying and was trying to communicate.
No one with low intelligence could pull that off.
So Yuri couldn't help but ponder.
'Is this some new trend... a novel way to murder people by making them explode from frustration?'
Otherwise, why would he understand everything perfectly but just keep repeating "I" and "hungry"?
"Hoo..."
Yuri let out another long sigh and got to his feet.
He pointed at Poppi and bellowed,
"Hey, you bastard! Fine... whatever! But why the hell do you keep hanging around me!"
That was the reason Yuri kept sighing nonstop.
It was because this Poppi guy kept following him everywhere.
"Agh!"
Yuri shouted as he stormed off in a huff.
But Poppi scurried after him in that direction.
Left.
Right.
Front.
Back.
Everywhere.
No matter where Yuri went, Poppi tailed him like a shadow.
The two of them, stuck together like thread and needle, made for quite the spectacle.
But the 50th Cohort, who'd been watching this for hours, just rolled their eyes with a collective "Here we go again" and looked away.
Meanwhile, Yuri darted this way and that.
But no matter how much he tried to shake him off, that heavy presence at his back started grating on his nerves more and more.
"...I'm losing my mind."
It was like he'd finally swatted away a housefly only for a massive, stubborn dung beetle to latch on instead.
One that was pretty damn big and persistent.
'At least if I knew why he was following me, I could do something to ditch him!'
But the guy wouldn't give a reason, just kept repeating "hungry" to every question, which only pissed off the asker even more.
'Argh, seriously!'
Shuffle shuffle.
After wandering around with Poppi glued to him for so long, Yuri finally snapped.
"Get lost!"
"Hungry."
"Hey, you punk! If you're hungry, go scavenge some food! Leave me alone!"
"Hungry."
"...You wanna fight? That's it, right? You really wanna go? Raaargh!"
"Hungry!"
Thud thud thud.
Poppi suddenly bellowed and bolted off somewhere.
He came back soon after.
In his hand was a massive shield.
A truly enormous round shield that had to be at least 1.6 meters across.
Thud—crunch.
He'd just set it down lightly, but it smashed right through the blackwood decking.
The metal round shield.
Poppi picked it up like it was a pillow with one hand...
"Hungry!"
He shouted as he assumed a battle stance.
Like he was ready for a full-on brawl anytime.
The moment Yuri saw that, his irritation melted away.
"...Nah, I was just talking. Who said anything about actually fighting?"
Even crazy stunts need to be gauged to your opponent.
'Crazy shit only works on people who know it's crazy.'
Try pulling that on another crazy bastard, and he'll just treat it like a joke.
'And in that sense, this guy's... yeah.'
It wasn't just because Poppi was the biggest guy Yuri had ever seen.
Nor was it because of the numerous scratches and mysterious dark red stains on the shield that made him flinch.
'Of course, I'd win if we fought... but if we brawl here, we'd just be doing someone else a favor, right?'
Rationalizing it like that, Yuri waved his hand gently.
"Come on, come on, our Poppi's a good boy, right? You don't go shoving something that scary at people."
"Hungry?"
"Ah, I was kidding. Why would we fight? Put that scary thing down, quick!"
"Hungry..."
Poppi looked a bit dejected as he set the shield down.
No...
Crunch.
He slammed it straight into the blackwood deck.
A huge bead of sweat formed on the back of Yuri's neck at the sight.
"There we go, good boy, our Poppi's such a good boy."
Drained from calming Poppi down, Yuri squatted on the deck and gazed up at the sky.
In that moment, a deep shadow fell over his head.
He glanced back to see Poppi standing behind him again, arms crossed just like before.
"Haa... my luck."
It looked like he'd be stuck with this giant dung beetle for a while.
Resigned to half-acceptance in the shade Poppi provided.
Meanwhile, someone watching Yuri and Poppi muttered,
"Crazies hanging out together."
Birds of a feather do flock together, after all.
The crazies had banded together.
And after that mutter, time passed.
Night fell, and the sun rose again beyond the horizon.
January 2nd.
The half-broken 300 members of the 50th Cohort finally set foot on Yoram's mainland.
* * *
The 300 members of the 50th Cohort finally planted their feet on Yoram's mainland.
Waiting for them were 100 two-horse wagons.
A one-eyed man standing beside them bellowed,
"This is the first and last luxury you'll enjoy in Yoram. We've got plenty of wagons, so pair up and hop on however you like."
The recruits stared at him in disbelief.
'This? Seriously?'
'Back home, they wouldn't even pay to ride these...'
The one-eyed man called them wagons, but they were really just carts with roofs.
Freight wagons, as they were known.
To the kids from well-off families, those weren't for people.
But no one was dumb enough to voice their complaints.
A few glanced at the dark-skinned lunatic, wondering if he might do something, but the man in question looked more touched than annoyed.
In fact, Yuri was genuinely moved.
"My god... it's been forever since I've ridden in a cart without pulling it myself."
He muttered as he gazed pityingly at the horses harnessed to the wagon.
His eyes brimmed with shared suffering.
Yuri patted the flank of one snorting horse and hopped aboard.
It was just a hard wooden floor, but Yuri settled in comfortably.
And as he did, Poppi naturally followed.
Yuri had given up caring by now.
But as Poppi tried to climb in after him—
Thud.
The wagon rocked violently, and Yuri yelled,
"Hey, you maniac! Take that stupid hunk of metal somewhere else!"
The wagon seated four.
But with Poppi's massive bulk and that unguessably heavy shield, it was already over capacity.
"...Hungry."
Scratching the back of his head at Yuri's scolding, Poppi loaded the shield onto the wagon behind them.
Even that made the horses there whinny in protest, so no one dared climb aboard that one.
Poppi sat beside Yuri after stowing the shield.
"Tight."
Yuri shot him a glare, and Poppi hugged his knees, shrinking up.
Even so, Poppi was so huge that the four-seater felt cramped.
They could squeeze in one more if they tried, but Yuri wasn't worried.
'Who'd wanna sit with us anyway?'
No sane person would pick their wagon over the others.
Even if it was the last one left, they'd avoid it.
Look, everyone was steering clear of their wagon...
"Mind if I sit here too?"
...or not.
And it wasn't even a guy—it was a girl.
Yuri's face rarely showed genuine fluster at this unexpected intruder.
He scanned the girl waving lightly from beside the wagon.
Blue hair and blue eyes.
A bow and quiver on her back.
No other weapons, so her main one was clearly the bow.
'A bow, huh.'
Even in Yoram, where weapons were unrestricted, most picked swords or spears.
There were some with poles or axes, but ranged weapons like bows as mains were extremely rare.
A truly unique trait.
But more striking than any trait was her looks.
'She's pretty.'
If asked to name the prettiest woman he'd ever seen, Yuri wouldn't hesitate: Theresia Winchester.
But the girl before him boasted beauty that was no slouch either.
And now this beauty was asking to ride with them.
Yuri's response was swift.
"Nope, no room."
Without even the tiniest hesitation, he shut her down, and she blinked in confusion.
"...Why?"
"Too crowded."
"I'm slim—I won't take up much space."
"Nope, still no. Go somewhere else."
"But I wanna ride here."
"Why?"
"My choice?"
"Hey, scram. Plenty of peppery punks over there dying to ride with you! Why pick this one?!"
Just as Yuri said, the guys staring at the blue-haired girl were all wishing she'd join them instead.
She wasn't oblivious to it.
She shrugged.
"The ones I like never like me back, and the ones I'm not into are always into me."
"...What kinda nonsense is that?"
"Simple: I like it here."
"No, no seats."
"There's space right there."
The blue-haired girl pointed to the sliver of space at the wagon's end.
The gap from Poppi hugging his legs.
Yuri nudged Poppi's leg with his toe.
Poppi instantly got it, uncurled his legs, and switched to a cross-legged position.
The space she'd pointed to vanished.
Yuri grinned.
"Seats? Where? There's none."
Any normal person would've taken the hint and backed off, offended.
But the blue-haired girl was no ordinary person.