Victory's Aftertaste
"Ulp—! Blaaargh!"
Save for a handful of goblins that had managed to flee, the Wolf Mercenary Band had wiped the greenskins out completely and set about collecting the spoils.
Kaisent, who had already emptied his stomach from the shock of killing a person, took one look at the wreckage the greenskins had left behind and heaved up bile as well.
He had steeled himself to see human corpses.
He had steeled himself for bodies so butchered they would be grotesque beyond mere horror.
But the greenskins had shown a cruelty that far outstripped anything Kaisent had prepared himself for.
Human corpses hung from hooks, sorted into upper and lower halves like livestock at a slaughterhouse. Chunks of flesh had been roasted or stewed. For a boy as young as Kaisent, the sight was pure, unendurable revulsion.
The mercenaries, who had clearly seen this sort of thing more times than they cared to count, only wrinkled their noses at the stench. They gathered the bodies without once gagging.
"Oh. Looks like they hit a well-off household."
"Silver jewelry, huh? That'll fetch a decent price."
Having pocketed the valuables the greenskins had stockpiled, the mercenaries headed back toward the wagons with a pleasant weight in their packs. The corpses would be left for the forest's monsters and scavengers; once the band had swept through, only the stripped greenskin bodies remained.
"Pile the heads in this crate."
"Hey, what the hell is that?"
"The least disgusting thing they were eating. Looked interesting, so I grabbed one."
"You insane bastard. You'll be screaming for a healer when that wrecks you later."
They shoved the crates of loot and greenskin heads into the wagons, laughing and shouting over one another. The fight had been substantial, but they had won without a single fatality, and the mood was far from sour.
"Aaaagh!"
"Hold him down! Pin him!"
Even so, the wounded were screaming through their treatment, and the camp settled into a strange coexistence of despair and hope.
"……."
Still reeling from one shock after another, Kaisent sat in a corner with a vacant look on his face, carried along by the atmosphere without a thought of his own.
I don't understand any of this…….
He no longer knew how he had even ended up here after the battle, much less what he was supposed to do next.
"Oh, there he is."
"Slacking off when you're the youngest? Get over here!"
The mercenaries who spotted him dragged him off somewhere.
They had fought a battle of similar scale today and still come through without a single death, so Wolf had cracked open a few casks of beer. They would have to move once the wounded were treated, so no one could get properly drunk — but it was more than enough to savor the joy of victory.
"You're a mercenary now. You ought to be able to handle a beer at least!"
"Here. Drink up!"
A mercenary filled a wooden mug to the brim and pressed the handle into Kaisent's hands.
The murky brown liquid filling the oversized cup looked thoroughly questionable, but every mercenary nearby was watching him with expectant grins.
"W-well then……."
Kaisent squeezed his eyes shut and tipped the mug. One swallow was all it took.
"Ulp!? Pwah—!"
"Bwahahahaha!"
"Heheheheh!"
His first taste of alcohol produced exactly the reaction everyone had been hoping for, and the whole circle dissolved into laughter.
"W-what is this? Are people actually supposed to drink this!?"
"Kids really are kids."
"You think this is bitter? The world's so bitter this stuff tastes sweet to me."
"You absolute idiot."
"The first one to get shitfaced always has the sharpest tongue, doesn't he."
Kaisent was staring at the mug with a look of pure disgust, convinced the stuff was undrinkable, when Frederick finally took pity on him and swapped it for a cup of cool water.
"Kaisent. Water."
"Ah — thank you."
"You lot teaching a kid good habits, are you?"
Frederick glared at the surrounding mercenaries, but they had their excuses ready.
"Come on, it's because he's cute. Because he's cute."
"Right. You don't get a reaction like that from a bunch of washed-up wrecks who've already hit rock bottom."
They had all seen too much of each other, and among mercenaries who had lived as hard as these men, a reaction like Kaisent's simply never appeared. Add a cute face on top of that, and their teasing was almost understandable.
"Kaisent. If it gets too much, go rest in the wagon for a bit."
"I'm all right for now."
"That so. Still — if it starts to feel like too much later, go rest in the wagon. If anyone asks, tell them I gave you permission."
"Yes. Thank you."
Kaisent thanked Frederick for the kindness and drank the cool water. It left his head feeling a little clearer, and with that clarity came the certainty that every emotion and experience he had endured so far would only keep coming, over and over.
Until I find Noona and finish my revenge, I'll have to live with this feeling for the rest of my life.
Something inside him was being scraped away.
A sensation like his own emotions being worn down to nothing.
I feel like I'm becoming someone who isn't me…….
Kaisent understood, with a cold certainty, that he could never go back to who he had been. He had learned what it felt like to end a living creature's life by his own will.
Thump— thump— thump—
And then there was his body — still sitting still, yet growing more alive by the moment, flushed with the joy of victory. As if it had reclaimed something long lost, his flesh was exulting in a life-or-death struggle.
How to use his muscles. How to loose an arrow more efficiently. He could feel his body gathering everything it had learned and updating itself for the next fight.
Next time, he would draw the bow stronger, cleaner, faster.
I hated fighting so much…… and in the end, I really am Father's son.
He had never expected to discover, like this, that the blood of a father who thrived on combat ran in his own veins. Kaisent poured the rest of the water into his mouth with a bitter little smile.
Once the weapon fragments had been dug out of the wounded and cheap potions applied, the Wolf Mercenary Band got moving again.
Surviving goblins might well return with reinforcements, so the band advanced under constant watch. Days later, they reached a city called Munratel.
"Whew."
"Packed tight, isn't it."
Mercenaries with the same purpose as their own had already arrived and thrown up camps outside the walls. The best spots had been claimed by the first bands to get there, but with a little compromise they could still secure a site that, if not ideal, was more than serviceable.
"You lot set up camp. Frederick — I'm leaving the rear to you."
Among mercenaries who lived hard lives, gathering different bands in one place meant constant posturing and staring contests. Leaving Frederick to handle any trouble that might arise, Wolf took the men carrying the crates of greenskin heads and headed for the walls.
Greenskins might be running rampant, but Munratel's guard had locked the main gates all the same and was only letting people through a side postern — because a city full of mercenaries could, on a bad day, decide to sack the place themselves.
Wolf waited in a line of middling length, and beside him stood Kaisent with an awkward look on his face.
"Um… Wolf?"
"Hm? What is it?"
"I won't be any help in there. Why did you bring me along……?"
"Kaisent."
Looking at a boy who seemed to have nothing in common with confidence, Wolf let out a quiet sigh and fixed him with a firm gaze through the slits of his helm.
Timid by nature, and now dropped alone into a strange land after being forcibly torn from Dang Seol-yeong, Kaisent had grown more and more withdrawn. For reasons he couldn't quite name, Wolf found he couldn't simply leave the boy like that.
"Don't put yourself down. Don't sell yourself short. You proved your worth with your own hands."
"Th-thank you……."
"I brought you because you need a change of scenery. Stuck with a bunch of gloomy men all day, even a good mood would sour."
"That's a bit much, Captain."
"Right? You think we were born looking like this on purpose?"
The crate-carriers grumbled, but Wolf only smirked inside his helmet and ignored their protests.
"Once we collect the bounty, I'll cut you your share. With this many mercenaries in town, the merchants will have brought all kinds of goods. Take a look around."
"Yes!"
The idea of earning money through his own effort and buying something he actually wanted put a spark in Kaisent, and he answered with real energy.
A short while later, after showing the greenskin heads to the gate guards and proving they were mercenaries, the party was let into the city.
"CHEAP RATIONS RIGHT HERE—!"
"Ugh……!"
The moment they stepped inside, people lining the street started bellowing at every mercenary who passed. Shouted all at once, the words collapsed into pure noise.
Wolf's group, used to this sort of thing, ignored it with practiced ease and kept walking.
"My lord! First time in this city? For just ten copper, I'll show you the Mercenary Guild and every hidden gem of a restaurant this place has!"
Boys around Kaisent's age were hawking themselves as guides. Thin, grimy, and clearly living hard without any protection at an age when they should have had it.
If it weren't for Wolf, I might already have starved to death.
He could picture it too easily — himself with no knack for surviving like that, his age a barrier that kept him from putting any knowledge to use, simply wasting away.
"Out of the way."
Wolf drove the boys off in a voice cold to the point of cruelty — nothing like the tone he used with Kaisent. He had been here often enough that he followed the road to the Mercenary Guild without a moment's hesitation.
"Kaisent. Don't help those kids just because you feel sorry for them. Help them once and they'll come begging again and again."
"And if you were alone, they'd lead you straight into a trap and rob you blind."
"If any of them get close, assume they're pickpockets first."
Once Wolf set the tone, the other mercenaries piled on with their own warnings, telling him not to turn soft-hearted pity into action. As proof, the men without crates were already shooing children away, forming a loose escort around their burdened comrades.
This world…… has no room to spare…….
Systems that protected the young and the weak felt like the natural order of things — but they only existed when a nation could afford them. When a country was broke and stretched thin, the first to die were always the poor and the powerless.
Kaisent forced himself to ignore the envious, jealous stares of children his own age and followed at Wolf's back.
A chill ran through him—
"Hic!?"
Every nerve in his body flared a warning. Kaisent's spine went rigid of its own accord, and he whipped his head around, scanning the street.
"Pwahaha. What are you doing?"
"Step in something weird?"
"'Hic,' he says — hic! Kkkkk!"
The mercenaries, who had felt nothing at all, cackled at his cute little yelp.
"What's wrong?"
"N-nothing……. It just felt like something disgusting — like a bug — crawled over me. Probably… just my imagination."
People got random shivers for no reason sometimes. Everyone decided that was all it was and let it go.
I've never felt anything that repulsive before. Was it the jealousy those kids were aiming at me?
It was a sensation he had never experienced, so he couldn't identify it. Kaisent settled on the jealousy of the street children and moved on.
At the Mercenary Guild, Wolf's party cashed in the greenskin heads, then split up by assignment and headed out in small groups.
They needed to check the local market rates and decide whether it was worth selling the plundered goods. Under ordinary circumstances it might not have mattered, but with so many mercenaries buying and selling everything in sight, verifying the current prices was part of a captain's job when he was responsible for a hundred men.
"Um… Wolf?"
"What is it?"
Stuck with Wolf so the street rats wouldn't swarm him, Kaisent couldn't hide his bewilderment.
"From what we just cashed in… I don't think this much should be coming back to me……?"
The weight of a pouch holding three silver coins and forty copper felt almost ominous in his hand.
"It's payment for everything you've done so far. Think of it as a reward for all the chores, the cooking, the bookkeeping — all of it."
"Then… I'll accept it gratefully."
He knew perfectly well how meticulous Wolf was about money when it came to running the band. If a man like that had decided the sum was fair, there was no reason to feel guilty taking it.
What should I buy with this?
Until now, all he had ever needed to do was mention something to his sisters and they would bring it to him. Want a product that only existed on a particular planet, and they would buy the entire world — or, in extreme cases, launch a war of conquest and gift him the whole star system.
This money wouldn't buy anything expensive. But the knowledge that he had earned it himself made his heart race in a way their gifts never had.
Tasting the true value of money for the first time, Kaisent set out with a fluttering chest to find something he actually wanted.
First he checked the vegetable and bread stalls, just to get a sense of what his coins were worth.
A cheap bundle of vegetables for twenty-four copper. Black bread for eight. Probably inflated because of all the mercenaries in town.
Greenskin raids and a flood of sellswords would have driven food prices well above normal. Even accounting for that, Kaisent could tell the sum in his pouch was a fortune for someone his age.
Those guide boys had been asking for ten copper. This amount was proof of the trust Wolf had placed in him.
And what I need to buy with it… is that, isn't it?