Back East (2)
The caravan master had just finished his errands and reached his wagon when he sensed a strange, tense atmosphere hanging over it.
“What in the world….”
The middle-aged merchant, Phil, glanced at the driver’s seat. An adventurer sat there, frozen stiff, gripping the horses’ reins so tightly that his knuckles had turned white. Seeing an adventurer who normally wouldn’t listen to a word he said now petrified like that filled Phil with a mixture of fascination and fear.
“What happened?”
At Phil’s question, the trembling adventurer jerked his chin toward the back seat. The inside of the caravan was packed with crates, making it hard to see clearly.
“Did something happen to our cargo wagon?”
Muttering to himself, the merchant Phil poked his head into the caravan. A massive, bald adventurer who took up nearly half the dim space turned his head toward him.
“Eek!”
Phil let out a startled yelp and fell backward onto the driver’s seat. As he flailed his arms while falling, the stacked crates in the caravan came crashing down in a heap.
“Are you all right?”
Phil scrambled backward on his hands, staring at Pierre, who was leaning his upper body forward. Then, as the light revealed Pierre’s face, he let out a sigh of relief.
“Goodness, you scared me half to death. Felt like I lost ten years of my life. You must be the one in charge of all the adventurers participating in this transport….”
“Yes. I am Pierre Fabien.”
Phil took the hand Pierre offered and stood up. After awkwardly brushing the dust off his backside, he noticed the hooded adventurer sitting across from Pierre.
“And who is this person?”
“Another adventurer, same as me.”
“So… Pierre, you’re riding in this wagon with us?”
Pierre nodded. Phil frowned, looking at him with a puzzled expression.
“Three adventurers in one wagon… there’s really no need for….”
“Did you say something?”
“No, no. Nothing at all.”
What was he thinking so hard about? He should just be happy that the renowned adventurer Pierre was escorting his wagon. Phil shook the worry from his mind and began restacking the crates he had knocked over.
Pierre returned to his seat and faced off against the hooded adventurer once more. Phil decided to ignore the increasingly hostile atmosphere the two were emitting.
“Hya!”
“Move out!”
The drivers shouted energetically, and the wagons began to roll. Like a watermill creaking into motion, the caravan slowly, sluggishly started forward.
“Hey, watch those goods carefully so nothing falls off.”
“Don’t worry. We’ve got them tied down nice and tight.”
The light bickering between merchants and adventurers could be heard. Amid the everyday chatter laced with faint tension, the caravan carrying Maxim in the middle finally lurched forward.
Maxim had been leaning comfortably against a moderately stacked pile of crates, but sharing the space with that hulking bald man made it feel suffocating.
“….”
“….”
Neither of them spoke. For a full hour after departure, Pierre stared holes through Maxim while Maxim pretended not to notice, looking elsewhere.
“You….”
Pierre finally broke the silence.
“Who the hell are you?”
Maxim didn’t answer. He could only hope the bald adventurer would eventually grow tired and give up. Since Pierre had once been his instructor, Maxim knew that showing even the slightest opening would make him suspicious.
“What are you doing here, following along like this?”
But the former instructor was far more persistent than Maxim had anticipated. It seemed he had no intention of giving up and planned to keep talking until Maxim responded. He didn’t even approach the campfire lit for camping.
Maxim had volunteered for the middle watch and gone to sleep much earlier than the other adventurers.
“Um, excuse me?”
Maxim woke to the rustling sound near the caravan and pulled his hood down low as he stood. It seemed his turn for watch had come.
“It’s… your watch shift.”
Maxim nodded that he understood and rose to his feet. By the time he sensed the presence approaching the caravan, his groggy mind had already sharpened completely.
The adventurer who had woken him let out a sigh of relief and quickly moved away from the caravan.
It’s been a while since I’ve stood watch.
Maxim slowly roused his body. He moved his limbs, checking the motion of his muscles. From shoulders to fingertips. From waist to toes.
“Good enough.”
Now in a combat-ready state, Maxim walked slowly toward the point glowing bright red, using it as his guide. The forest was noisy with the chirping of late-autumn insects and the hooting of owls.
A noisy forest at midnight was actually a very good sign. Maxim thought of the forests near No Man’s Land, where silence wrapped around people like predators stalking prey.
“You’re up.”
Maxim had been standing watch in a decent mood when he spotted a familiar face sitting by the campfire, as if waiting for him. He couldn’t help but mutter a low curse.
“Not the first or last shift, but the middle one. You really must hate talking to other people.”
If he knew that, why couldn’t he just leave him alone? Since Maxim couldn’t show his face, he couldn’t openly display his displeasure. Perhaps that was why Pierre felt free to speak to him without restraint.
He really shouldn’t have underestimated that bald instructor’s meddlesome personality.
Maxim decided not to react at all and sat down.
“Sorry for bothering you the whole time.”
Even saying that right now counted as bothering him. Since being forceful hadn’t worked, maybe Pierre was trying a gentler approach. Maxim found that effort almost admirable.
“As the one leading the adventurers gathered here, I have quite a few things I need to pay attention to.”
Pierre grumbled as he rolled his head around, loosening his stiff neck. Suddenly, Maxim wondered how someone like him had quit his instructor position to become an adventurer.
The image of the instructor who had guided cadets with unmatched passion. The terrifying figure who had overwhelmed them with overwhelming strength now contrasted with those deeper eyes and aged face.
Maxim plopped down at a distance where the firelight wouldn’t reveal his face. The longsword at his waist clattered as it hit the ground.
“At the very least, I need to send back the adventurers who came along to earn money with their limbs intact.”
That sense of responsibility hidden behind his meddlesome nature seemed unchanged.
“Sounds like you don’t trust me.”
Maxim finally spoke. Pierre’s face, hearing that voice for the first time, shifted to one of shock as if he’d been slapped on the back of the head.
“Uh… you can talk?”
Realizing how stupid his own response sounded, Pierre quickly cleared his throat and corrected himself.
“No, I mean… I don’t even know your name or face. How could I build basic human trust?”
“If you can’t trust me, then don’t.”
Pierre frowned even more deeply at the unexpected answer.
“What a shitty way to answer. You’ve got no manners at all.”
Strangely enough, the grumbling directed right at his face didn’t feel like a challenge.
“Fine. Anyway, even if you have some purpose, I at least know you didn’t come here to ruin this mission. The branch manager put you on this job, didn’t he?”
Maxim neither confirmed nor denied it. He simply couldn’t understand why Pierre kept following him around despite clearly knowing that.
“I was going to pester you a bit and figure out what your goal was, but you haven’t made any strange moves at all. I don’t know if it’s because I’ve been sticking to you. You could’ve tried to slip past my eyes in the middle, but you didn’t.”
What on earth was the guild branch manager thinking?
Pierre spat on the ground.
“Probably has some important business at the destination. From there on, it’s none of my concern.”
Maxim remained silent.
“…You were a knight, weren’t you?”
At Maxim’s words, Pierre snorted.
“Old story. The branch manager just can’t keep his mouth shut.”
Pierre didn’t explain in detail why he had become an adventurer and ended up in this situation.
“Everyone has things they can’t avoid. In my case, I was simply cut.”
That was as far as the story went. When Maxim tried to listen further, Pierre had threatened that he’d only continue if Maxim took off his hood.
Cut.
That meant the reason this bald instructor had resigned wasn’t by his own will. Had the Benning family interfered?
Maxim’s thoughts were cut off by Pierre’s next words.
“Yeah. I know that right now, you’re not the one I need to worry about. Completing this mission safely and….”
Pierre’s voice dropped lower.
“Catching the rats that have sneaked in here.”
Rats?
Maxim involuntarily lowered his head.
“…This mission. The branch manager doesn’t seem to have noticed, but some strange bastards have mixed in. Since you’re someone the branch manager personally assigned, I thought you’d help if I told you.”
If you knew that, you should’ve stopped pestering me during the trip.
Maxim suppressed the urge to snap back.
“What do you mean by strange bastards?”
“A few guys who’ve been rolling their eyes around suspiciously. They became adventurers less than three months ago, yet they took on this mission.”
Realizing Maxim was now willing to listen, Pierre’s eyes gleamed as he continued.
“There are about five of them.”
“What exactly are you suspecting?”
“I don’t know if you’re pretending not to know or if you’re genuinely asking for my opinion.”
Pierre frowned.
“Other than Benning sending surveillance, what else could it be?”
— The Nameless Adventurer’s movements are confirmed? —
“The ‘nameless adventurer’s movements’—are they certain?”
Leon Benning was speaking with his servant. The servant was reading a letter delivered from the adventurers.
“Yes. He has joined the supply caravan heading to No Man’s Land.”
“And the ones we planted in advance?”
“Five have been included. The remaining five failed to join. As per your prior instructions, they have begun monitoring the mission’s scale and the adventurers participating in it.”
“Good. There need to be some who get weeded out. Is the nameless adventurer under surveillance?”
The servant’s expression darkened. Leon Benning continued to feel discomfort at how things weren’t going entirely according to plan. Everything had been fine. Yet that one man’s inadequacy kept irritating him.
“My apologies. The person in charge of the adventurers has been constantly sticking to that adventurer’s side, making proper surveillance impossible. It would be fine if that bastard noticed our surveillance alone, but if the other adventurers catch on to any strange movements, it would cause a major disruption to the plan….”
Leon Benning drew in a long breath, then exhaled slowly. Rare irritation flickered in his eyes.
“…So that’s how it is.”
Sitting across from Leon Benning was Emil Bourdin, perched as if on a bed of thorns.
“Tsk. He openly joined the ranks so we can’t touch him carelessly.”
They hadn’t even confirmed whether the nameless adventurer was Maxim Apparte. They couldn’t even see his face, let alone identify him.
“So, Emil. What do you think of this situation?”
Leon Benning was pointedly bringing up the matter of having sent away Marion Bourdin. Under the subtle pressure tightening around him, Emil Bourdin’s face had turned deathly pale and was trembling.
“…It should be fine either way. We can simply bring her back from that side again.”
Leon Benning’s eyes deepened.
“Additionally, we must keep an eye on those beyond the border who are out of reach.”
Before his eyes, the faces of Count Agon and the Margrave seemed to appear.