I Can't Be the Only One Getting Screwed by the NeckX (1)
Thirin and Klaus stood a good distance away from the wooden palisade surrounding the military camp, talking in low voices. Thirin peered through the gaps in the broken fence as she spoke.
“Stick Man. I don’t know jack about the Imperial Army. Got anything useful to share?”
“......”
Stick Man. Klaus took a moment to reflect on how the hell he’d ended up here. Stalker. Human-stick. And then there were the insults about women that were too vile to even repeat. Klaus had never experienced his dignity plummeting this far. The more this woman cursed him out, the worse it got—there was no sign of improvement.
And then there’s…
The latest disgrace he’d earned was “ass bandit.” And the worst part was, this woman wasn’t even mocking him. She genuinely seemed to believe he was homosexual. Klaus suddenly felt a chill run down his spine.
Then… what comes after that?
“Stick Man?”
“......”
Klaus snapped out of his thoughts at Thirin’s voice. This was no time to get lost in personal feelings. He shook off the self-loathing and drew a line in the damp dirt with a twig.
“...This is a barracks built according to standard Imperial design. At this scale, it would have housed a company-sized force of roughly a hundred men.”
“The buildings are all rotting away and you can still tell that?”
“Even if the barracks themselves have changed, the layout remains the same. It has to be the same. That’s what efficient standardization means.”
“Hmm……”
“The layout would look like this.”
With the tip of the twig in Klaus’s hand, the structure of the camp took shape—main gate, barracks, watchtower, and even the mess hall’s position. Klaus glanced toward the barracks and continued.
“Since the barracks have been abandoned, the buildings probably aren’t usable. Seeing the bonfire inside, it looks like they’ve pitched tents instead.”
Thirin nodded.
“Makes sense. Even I’d rather pitch a tent than crawl into a place crawling with spiders and bugs.”
Klaus drew diagonal lines across the layout with the twig.
“I confirmed one man up in the watchtower. The real problem is how the rest of them are positioned. Their numbers are an issue too.”
At Klaus’s words, Thirin silently stood up.
“...Bounty hunter?”
Before Klaus could say anything, Thirin climbed up a tree. To Klaus, it looked eerily similar to a cat scaling a trunk. Once she reached the very top, Thirin peered into the camp for a moment before quickly climbing back down.
“Two on patrol, moving along the palisade. One in the watchtower. Five in front of the largest building. They’re roasting meat around the bonfire. Two big tents. No idea how many are inside those.”
“......”
Klaus was momentarily speechless. To accurately count the exact number of people inside from that distance, in that darkness… It was a level of perception that completely surpassed anything taught in the Imperial reconnaissance manuals. Well, of course. There was no way such an abnormal ability could be standardized in tactical doctrine.
Klaus shook his head. This wasn’t the time for idle thoughts. He fixed his gaze back on the dirt floor, marking each enemy position Thirin had reported as he spoke.
“Eight men. The Imperial Security Force’s extermination order activates for groups of ten or more. So even at most, we’re looking at no more than fifteen.”
Thirin nodded. The Empire reacted far more hysterically to parasites within its own borders than to external threats. The Empire’s expansion had already halted long ago. Maintaining its vast territory consumed enormous resources, and beyond its sprawling borders, demonic beasts and barbarians were always watching for an opportunity to strike.
But to the Empire’s leadership, the real threat was something else entirely: internal corruption and rebellion. The memory of the massive uprising that had once shaken the Empire remained an indelible scar in the minds of its rulers. Because of that, the Empire was several times more sensitive to internal vermin than to outside dangers.
A single small band of thieves could one day become the spark of a massive rebellion. That was why the Empire’s extermination orders were carried out far faster and more brutally than one might expect. The baseline for that was ten men.
Criminals who survived the purges dug holes like rats. Small-scale, decentralized cells that never crossed the line of ten. In the shadow of the colossal Empire, their own little ecosystem was maintained that way.
Thirin grumbled.
“This is the first time I’ve seen more than ten. I’ve taken down up to eight before.”
Klaus felt a pure surge of curiosity at her words.
“Eight? You really handled criminals of that scale all by yourself?”
“Yep.”
“...How?”
“When I pulled down my mask, they opened the door themselves. Even invited me inside.”
“......That has to be a lie.”
Klaus muttered. Only a fool would believe this woman’s words. But Thirin continued with a perfectly straight face.
“Anyway, that trick won’t work this time. That’s the kind of thing you only use on trash that doesn’t matter if you kill them or let them live. This time we have to capture them alive and interrogate them. We’ll need to deal with the sentries first.”
“This time?”
Klaus asked reflexively. Thirin, as if she’d been waiting for it, pulled out the exact repertoire Klaus hated hearing the most.
“Yeah. While some rookie decurion was busy stealing women’s socks, I gained a lot of experience……”
Thirin suddenly shut her mouth mid-sentence. Klaus’s earlier bombshell declaration flashed through her mind.
That’s right. This guy likes men.
Using a masculine tone was dangerous. Should she revise her statement right now? Thirin cleared her throat.
“T-this young lady has simply had m-many experiences, that is all. H-huhu. Ohohohot.”
Klaus closed his eyes. It was starting again. He had more or less figured out Thirin’s pattern by now. This woman firmly believed he liked men and clearly derived some twisted pleasure from tormenting him with that fact. Klaus was steadily stacking up his rage meter.
“...Can you please stop that ridiculous way of speaking? This is hardly the time for jokes.”
“Fine.”
Thirin obediently dropped the noble-lady act and set down the bag she’d been carrying. She began rummaging through it, pulling out its contents one by one and laying them on the ground.
What the hell is all this…
Klaus’s eyes filled with shock. The bag contained items he couldn’t have imagined in his wildest dreams. The first things that caught his eye were a heavy iron club wrapped in multiple layers of soft leather and a bundle of thread so thin it was nearly transparent. Tools for silently knocking someone out or strangling them. Next to them lay glass bottles of unknown purpose. Some contained a sticky-looking green liquid, others a clear one. Beside those was a leather pouch holding dozens of needles along with a blowpipe.
And that wasn’t all. A small wooden box filled with sharply honed metal shards and glass fragments. A bizarre three-pronged dagger. Countless sticks, hooks, and ropes whose purposes he couldn’t even begin to guess…
Were these really things a woman—no, a civilian—should be carrying? These weren’t tools for a bounty hunter. These were the kind of things assassins would carry. Klaus seriously pondered whether these grotesque and vicious items violated Imperial law. Perhaps, as an Imperial officer, the correct decision would be to arrest this woman first.
But Thirin paid no attention to Klaus’s inner turmoil. She gazed at her creations with satisfaction and muttered to herself.
“Good. Multiple enemies. Unlike your run-of-the-mill bandit group, they’ve even set up perimeter surveillance. We can’t kill them immediately since we need to interrogate them. And since we have to follow the carriage, time is limited.”
Thirin’s eyes sparkled like a child’s.
“Perfect. If we’re talking difficulty, this should be at least Souls-like original level, right?”
Of course, Thirin had never played the original Souls-like game, let alone any of its imitators. She turned to Klaus.
“Let’s get started.”
It was a moonlit night. Zakar loved moonlit nights. He didn’t know why. Whenever the moon rose—especially a full moon—strength surged through his entire body and his blood boiled. Some people whispered that he must have werewolf blood in his veins, but Zakar just scoffed. Werewolf? That was nothing but an outdated old legend.
Zakar vaguely thought that this power of his must be one of those “mysteries” the late mercenary captain had once mentioned. Former assault captain of the mercenary band and current leader of the bandit group—Moonlight Zakar.
Zakar raised his cup high and shouted.
“Kahaha! Another round!”
“Boss, stop drinking already. Don’t come crying tomorrow morning with a splitting headache.”
“I told you to call me Captain.”
“Yeah, yeah, Captain.”
Hector, sitting beside him, clicked his tongue. Hector was the only one in this ruined mercenary band whose head still worked properly. Of course, that sly brain of his mostly turned toward stabbing his comrades in the back or swindling the weak.
Zakar ignored Hector’s nagging.
“Don’t worry. I plan to sleep in until midday tomorrow anyway. Gotta drink when the carriage comes in, right, boys?”
““Yes, Captain!””
The five men sitting around him had once fought under the same mercenary banner. Not anymore, of course. How had Zakar, the assault captain of the Valiant Bear mercenary band, become the leader of a bandit group? It was simple.
First, the Valiant Bear mercenary band had failed their demonic beast subjugation, and their competent captain had died in the process. Second, the subjugation payment had naturally vanished. The only thing they’d managed to receive was a measly advance fee.
The problem came after that. Running a mercenary band required various talents: overwhelming martial prowess to dominate the battlefield, sharp strategy to read the board, worldly wisdom to please clients, and business sense to feed the organization. You needed at least three out of those four to lead a group.
But the man named Zakar who had taken the dead captain’s place had dumped all his stats into raw strength. Naturally, the mercenary band withered. When the head was empty, the body was bound to shrink. In the end, they crossed the line.
After failing another subjugation and not receiving payment, their rage led to the slaughter of a nearby detachment and the pillaging of a village. That was how the “mercenary band” became a “bandit group.”
The Empire, which reacted hysterically to internal vermin far more than external threats, predictably issued an extermination order. The result was disastrous. The Valiant Bear mercenary band now existed only in memory. All that remained were about ten broken survivors and their pathetic pride in still calling themselves a “mercenary band.”
Strangely enough, pillaging and robbery suited them far better than subjugating demonic beasts. So they wandered, carrying their torn banner. There was nowhere for those who had crossed the line to return to.
Naturally, ten or so men couldn’t just walk into a city to sell their loot. It would be the same as sticking their necks out while knocking on the city gates with bounty posters on their faces. But they had their own methods.