The Serpent's Head, Hergabudel Subjugation (3)
I chuckled at her question. “The stakes at the bottom of the lake don’t matter.”
“Then why are you just sitting there? Hurry up and wipe them all out already.”
Instead of answering, I rose from my seat. “Unia. Escort Miss Sani back to the village.”
“What? Why me~ I just sat down to eat~” Unia grumbled, rubbing her starving belly.
“Oh dear, wait a minute. I don’t want to go home. Besides, if there’s any trouble, just tell me. I’ll help with anything.” For some reason, Sani stubbornly refused to leave. Then she dropped a bombshell. “I can come and go from the bandits’ stronghold whenever I please. So if you need help, speak up quick. I can do anything. Want me to take you to the island?”
It turned out Sani had been selling her body to the Hergabudel bandits just to get by. She had been on her way to the island to do exactly that when she happened to spot the soldiers camped in the forest and stopped by.
“I have my own personal ferry boat. I can hide one person in it and get them across.”
“Why are you helping us? If the bandits disappear, won’t that hurt your livelihood?”
“That doesn’t matter. If the bandits are gone, I’ll actually live better than before. What’s there to worry about? Those bastards raid the village’s property all the time, so we’re the ones suffering. Once they’re gone, I won’t have to sell my body just to eat. Food will come naturally.”
I couldn’t help but suspect the true intentions of this woman who had suddenly appeared offering help. But I gradually came to trust her words because Sohee remained silent. If Sani had been lying, Sohee would have warned me of the danger. Yet lately Sohee had been so quiet I was starting to wonder if it was broken.
In the end, I decided to believe her and brought Sani to Adelia. At first, Adelia looked utterly incredulous.
“You’re going to sneak in alone on a ferry boat with this woman?”
“I’ll go ahead and rescue the hostages first.”
“You think you can do it by yourself?”
“We’ve worked together more than once or twice. Don’t you trust me?”
Adelia looked doubtful, but after a long persuasion she finally approved the plan.
The next day, she pretended to withdraw her troops and pulled back from the lakeshore. On the second day, the bandits’ vigilance loosened as they relaxed. Early that morning, Sani took the ferry toward the island. I lay flat on the bottom of the boat, covered with straw.
Sani entered the bandits’ camp in the morning and returned to the ferry around noon. I had been hiding there, bored out of my mind the entire time.
“Aren’t you tired?”
“I’m fine. Is it okay for me to be here?”
“I told them I was coming to load some cargo, so it’s fine.”
She loaded the small amount of fruit and flour she had received as payment from the bandits onto the boat. One apple, one bunch of grapes, and a fistful of flour. It was so little that a grown man could finish it in a single meal.
“Aren’t you hungry? Want something to eat?”
I was hungry, but I couldn’t shamelessly take the precious food she had earned through such hardship.
“I work better on an empty stomach. Fasting feels easier. I’m fine even if my stomach is empty for a day.”
“Wow, you really are a man—full of energy. I wish I could be like that. I’m always so weak and keep collapsing.”
To avoid being spotted by the bandits watching from afar, Sani kept pretending to rummage through the ferry while bent over, talking to me as I lay on the floor. Every time she moved, her breasts swayed right in front of my eyes. With nowhere safe to look, I turned my gaze elsewhere and suddenly noticed the small vial hanging from her necklace.
“What’s that vial on your necklace?”
“Oh, this?” She held the vial and smiled brightly. “It’s a precious item that will save me from this hellish life. It’s going to guide me to the land of happiness later.”
Was it some kind of miraculous elixir? Sani returned to the bandits’ stronghold to continue her afternoon work.
Eight hours passed after that. Having lain down from morning until evening for over ten hours, my body felt so stiff and sore I thought I might die. When the sky had grown completely dark, I grinned like a fish back in water, brushed off the straw, and stood up.
But something was wrong. The plan had been for Sani to row back once it was dark, leaving me alone on the island. Yet for some reason, she still hadn’t returned.
Just in case, I took Sohee out of my pants pocket, but it remained silent. I stealthily infiltrated the camp to check on the situation inside. I found Sani in the place where the bandits were noisily drinking and carousing. Instead of going home, she was still letting them satisfy their lust.
Watching the scene, I felt a pang of pity. But why wasn’t she leaving even though she knew a huge commotion was about to break out? Had she been taken hostage? There was no time to think further.
I secretly sabotaged two catapults and assassinated several sentries. Then I set fire to the bandits’ stronghold. The flames spread quickly, throwing the bandits into chaos.
“Now!”
Soon the Lion Heart Unit, which had only pretended to withdraw, revealed themselves at the signal of the burning stronghold. They crossed the lake in an instant using rafts and ferry boats, clashing with the charging bandits and slicing through their necks as easily as reaping wheat with a scythe.
I used the commotion to move all the hostages to safety, then immediately headed for the leader’s tent. Unexpectedly, someone had arrived before me. It was Sani.
An empty vial rolled across the floor—apparently she had splashed the liquid from the necklace vial onto the leader Hergabudel’s face. She herself lay collapsed on the ground with a knife in her chest.
“Aaaaargh!”
Hergabudel’s face began melting from the forehead, smoke rising as it dissolved. The liquid in that small vial must have been something like sulfuric acid. Soon even his eyes and nose flowed down like mud, and he thrashed around, screaming in agony until he finally died.
“Hahaha…!”
Sani was laughing joyfully even as she died. Her unfocused eyes staring at the ceiling looked peaceful and relieved, as if she had let go of everything, whatever memory she was recalling. Her blood spread rapidly across the floor.
I rushed outside to find a priest and returned, but she had already drawn her last breath.
The next day, after the bandits had been wiped out, I handed Sani’s body over to the villagers and learned her tragic story.
“Her father was the village chief. One day the bandits appeared, plundered our village, and killed Sani’s parents and younger brother who resisted to the end. The only survivor was Sani. Since she was a young woman, maybe they thought it was a waste to kill her. She suffered terribly at their hands but somehow survived. After that, the poor girl lost her mind. She kept saying she would kill the leader with her own hands and go to the heaven where her parents and brother were waiting to live happily ever after.”
The end of the story was this: Sani had visited the bandits’ stronghold every day, selling her body while waiting for the chance to approach their leader Hergabudel. Then our mercenary group and the Lion Heart Unit appeared at just the right time, and her revenge was carried out swiftly.
“So she intended to die from the very beginning when she helped us.”
As I left the village with my companions, a wave of sorrow and complicated emotions washed over me. Unia, riding her horse, wiped her tears with her sleeve and said,
“If I had known it would turn out like this, I would have been nicer when we met the other day. I only scolded her for secretly eating the soup like an idiot… Sob sob.”
Listening to her sniffles, I silently looked up at the sky. The clear blue sky seemed especially bright and radiant today. It was exactly like Sani’s innocent, carefree smile.
“Thank you, Miss Sani. Be happy with your family.”
I stretched and got out of bed. When I pulled back the curtains that had been blocking the sunlight, the brightness stung my eyes. The clock showed nine in the morning. I had woken up about two hours later than usual. The day after a battle or a long expedition was always like this.
“About twenty days left until the king arrives…”
I gazed out the clear window and pondered. What kind of person was this country’s king? Generous? Greedy? Cruel?
Suddenly, the words I had once said to Olivia came to mind.
“I don’t want to live cheaply. I want to live in style!”
I had ambitions too. Nothing on the scale of conquering the entire nation, but I did have the desire to succeed in my own small way. I didn’t know if I would even get to see the king’s face this time, but if a good opportunity arose, I wanted to seize it. I wanted to rise higher than I was now. I was secretly hoping to become a noble through some stroke of luck.
That might be why I was inwardly looking forward to the king’s procession. Of course, I knew full well that the chance of a commoner becoming a noble was extremely slim and that my hopes would probably end as nothing more than wishful thinking. Who would pay attention to the leader of a nameless mercenary band?
“Still, you never know.”
The mere fact that I could see the king up close made me unable to stop hoping that some crumbs of fortune might fall my way. That was why I welcomed the king’s visit. I was excited.
By the way, I heard that Marquis Espera—Olivia’s father—would also be accompanying the king this time. Whether Olivia would appear with her father or not was another matter of great interest to me. If she showed up, she would definitely interfere with me, so I had to prepare in advance.
“Last time I lost helplessly, but this time will be different.”
I intended to settle the score with her. She thought I was her property? No chance. I planned to win for sure and break free from her shackles. After all, I had the mana Dana gave me. It wasn’t the mana of an ordinary noble—it was royal mana.