Chapter 73
Chapter 73
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>Translator: Ryuma
>Chapter: 73
>Chapter Title: Rarely Smiled
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Second Base Camp.
“…….”
Harlig stood atop the watchtower, a cigarette dangling from his lips as he overlooked the camp below.
The Second Base Camp was quite substantial.
Towering wooden walls encircled it on all sides to fend off monster incursions, and massive trees had been reinforced with not just watchposts but also spaces for archers.
It looked less like a base camp and more like a small fortress.
Harlig was taking in the sight when someone climbed up to the watchtower right then.
“Harlig Chief.”
“Ah, you’re here.”
It was Plen, the vice-captain of Victima, the mercenary band that ruled the Second Base Camp.
“The men are all ready. But what about the facilities? If we leave them as is, goblins could move in and turn it into a village.”
“That’s not a bad idea. Still, it’ll be easier to take back if we leave it to the goblins rather than building anew.”
“……Hmm. Yes, understood.”
Plen started to say something but closed his mouth.
Goblins of the Hamern Great Forest weren’t your average goblins.
They were as clever as the ones outside but had physical prowess rivaling orcs.
Reclaiming a fortress from those bastards?
‘……Not going to be easy.’
It might even spawn a new goblin village centered on the fortress.
A massive ruling settlement with the surrounding area under its thumb!
But Plen kept his thoughts to himself.
The reason was simple.
‘Reclaiming’ was only possible if you could come back.
Plen had reached that thought when—
“Don’t it feel empty?”
Harlig’s hollow voice drifted over.
“……?”
“When I first became chief, I thought I had it all. Ah, you wouldn’t get it. You’ve never been up here.”
“……Hmm.”
“I’d have to croak quick for you to take this seat.”
“……Hoo.”
Plen let out a quiet sigh at the bitter joke.
That was Harlig.
A man who spouted nasty jokes like solemn truths with the most serious face imaginable.
“How about it? I could die right now if you want. Don’t you wanna try the chief’s seat before you go?”
“What good’s a chief without a camp? Why are you acting so out of character?”
“Out of character…….”
Harlig let out a deep breath.
It wasn’t a sigh.
Just exhaling the smoke he’d drawn deep into his lungs, leaving none behind.
As the white smoke wafted up, his mouth opened.
“Who knows. Maybe I’m getting sentimental ’cause it’s time to kick the bucket.”
“……?”
Plen tilted his head.
“Time to kick the bucket? What do you——?”
Something flashed through his mind right then.
“Chief, you don’t mean……?”
The intel from the Fourth Base Camp.
Not long after it reached each camp’s chiefs, word came from the First Base Camp.
The gist was simple.
- We’re joining the Fourth Base Camp.
Not a proposal.
Just a statement of intent.
No ‘what’ll you do?’ or ‘join us’ or anything.
But the implication was clear.
‘They’re throwing their lives away for the next generation.’
Frankly……
Ridiculous.
Yeah, utterly laughable.
To cynical, calculating Plen, it was an incomprehensible mindset.
‘What sacrifice from mercenary scum? Live hard, spend hard, eat hard till you drop—that’s it.’
What had Harlig said back then?
- Fisher, that old fool must be senile. Tell ’em to do their crazy shit among themselves.
No hesitation.
- We’ll come back once things settle, or wander the continent otherwise.
He hadn’t been that attached to the Second Base Camp anyway.
Just a place that paid well. No, paid insanely well.
Giving it up wasn’t ideal, but what’s more valuable than your life?
That’s how Harlig had been……
“You’re not saying you’re going with those un-mercenary-like bastards from Abiot, are you?”
“Not sure about together, but we’re headed the same way.”
Plen’s face flushed at the calm voice.
A sharp yell burst from his mouth right then.
“Chief!”
“Voice too loud. Makes me wanna rip your tongue out.”
“Are you insane? What’s that place? Destrow—you know Destrow? It hasn’t even awakened yet, and it’s already reshaping the forest’s ecosystem. What do mercenary trash think they can do there…….”
“Not just mercenary trash. There’s an old war mage too, you know that. Every mage in the forest right now is holed up at the Fourth Base Camp.”
“That’s…… true, but!”
Fair point.
The old war mage had entered Hamern Great Forest a year ago.
Rumors spread then.
- One old war mage is staying at the Fourth Base Camp, teaching anyone who asks.
Mages clamoring to study there.
They went berserk.
Eyes rolled back, begging to go to the Fourth Base Camp.
No way they’d allow it.
Mages defecting meant a huge loss of firepower for the camps. But what could they do? If left alone, they’d sneak off at night. Better to let them go.
“Haha! Now I see—they went looking for a place to die. Well…… lucky for us now? Forces concentrated and all.”
Harlig burst into mocking laughter at the memory, but Plen didn’t laugh. Couldn’t.
“Please, look at how it’s going. What can those guys do? It’s Destrow.”
True enough.
Even a horde of half-baked, mercenary mages—what could they achieve?
Sure, some had decent skill, but most were amateurs.
Good enough for mercenary work, but far from real mages…… lacking firepower and knowledge.
Destrow’s arrival.
Pathetic force against that tidal wave.
“Think it over again.”
“Again?”
“Yes. They’re ready to charge out right now. The Fourth Base Camp? Lucky if they don’t get stabbed first thing.”
“Like who?”
“Bexen, for instance…….”
“Hmm, Bexen. Yeah, always had shifty eyes. Might as well blind him for good.”
Harlig uttered the vicious joke flatly.
Plen’s face twisted, and he grabbed Harlig’s shoulder right then.
“Chief, this isn’t a joke. Don’t dodge. This time it’s really no good. And…….”
“You’re scared of dying too, huh.”
“…….”
Harlig blew out faint smoke.
Straight into Plen’s face.
Plen shut his eyes against the acrid haze, then slumped his shoulders.
“……Yes. I don’t want to die.”
“Even if defying means death?”
“……Damn it.”
Plen ground his teeth.
Harlig spouted vicious jokes like truths, but mostly they weren’t jokes.
Listen close, and they always sounded like something he could do.
Even the vice-captain like him—he could really kill.
So, he gave up hope.
“Joking.”
“……?”
Harlig rarely curled his lips upward.
“Just a few who see eye-to-eye. Barely over twenty.”
For Victima’s size, twenty wasn’t much.
They had over a hundred members.
Victima wasn’t even that big, really.
Abiot was just unusually small.
Anyway.
Plen stared at Harlig, dumbfounded.
“……So?”
“Get out of here.”
“What do you——.”
“Don’t you wanna sit in the chief’s seat? Oh, and no need to keep the ‘Victima’ name. Do whatever the hell you want.”
Every word was nonsense strung together.
No, he understood the words, but the sentences made no sense.
“What the hell…….”
“Dunno. Maybe Fisher’s senility rubbed off.”
“What the——.”
Plen couldn’t process the sudden declaration.
Over a decade with Harlig in Hamern Great Forest.
This didn’t fit.
Slap!
He slapped his cheeks to check if it was a dream—sharp, vivid pain in his mind.
“That wake you? Could just stab you instead.”
“Are you really crazy? I knew you were nuts, but…….”
Harlig watched Plen babble incoherently.
Swoooosh—
A chilling wind swept between them right then.
The eerie gust mercenaries called the ghost wind.
Blowing only near the Second Base Camp—not fierce, but slithering over skin like a ghost’s hair.
“Now, you’re the chief.”
“……Me?”
“Yeah. You’re Victima…… hmm, name’s up to you. Anyway, the Second Base Camp’s…….”
Harlig droned on with a blank expression.
But then.
“……Hmm.”
A foreign sensation prickled Harlig’s mind.
Something sticky, unpleasant.
The rupture came right after.
Crack!
“……?”
Was it a sound in his ears, or vibrating through his body?
Both.
“……Heh.”
He glanced down at his chest absently.
The rupture had burst from the center of his own chest.
“Ch-Chief……?”
Plen couldn’t continue, face ashen.
The low rupture echoed. Then a pale hand jutted from Harlig’s solar plexus.
All too surreal.
The voice came right after.
“Such a touching farewell…… what a shame.”
The hand’s owner was a man in black robes.
“Too early for goodbyes. See, I plan to send you all to the same place from now on.”
Face hidden by the hood, but Plen was sure.
That bastard’s smiling.
Skewering Harlig’s heart, grinning wide.
“You……!”
Rage flared in Plen’s chest right then.
“You damn bastard……!”
He drew his sword to charge.
But Harlig moved faster.
“Die, you—— Khek!”
Harlig kicked Plen’s gut hard.
So hard Plen’s vision flashed white, body shooting through the forest like an arrow.
‘Why…… me?’
A question flashed through his mind amid it all.
But his view receded.
As Harlig’s figure faded, Plen drank him in desperately. And when their eyes met, he understood.
‘Live.’
The eyes said it.
His lips mouthed it word by word.
‘You’re the chief.’
Harlig was smiling rarely.
Brightly, too.
That was the last Plen saw of Harlig.
* * *
When Plen’s arrowing form vanished completely.
Thud.
A limp corpse sprawled.
Belroc looked down at the gutted body, wiping his bloody hands on its clothes.
“Heh, damn.”
Disbelief plain on his face.
“Making me tear up? Saves his subordinate in that moment?”
Unthinkable to Belroc. Impressive, even.
Reacting that fast before fully grasping the situation.
“Hmm, what to do. Chase him? Flew pretty far, huh?”
Some special technique?
No mere kick sends you that far.
The hurtling figure was beyond even Belroc’s senses.
He pondered briefly.
“Eh, whatever.”
But.
“You.”
“……Yes, Forerunner.”
A man rose from Belroc’s shadow.
Utterly deferential, eyes fixed on Belroc’s toes.
“Chase that one.”
“How shall I handle him?”
“Just chase for now.”
“Understood.”
The black mage sank into the shadow.
Belroc glanced in Plen’s flight direction a moment, then looked away.
‘Should be enough sacrifices…… but just in case.’
Insurance.
Let a rat go, and it’ll lead to the others.
Anyway.
“Ch-Chief!”
“The chief’s down!”
Mercenaries yelling, crawling out from somewhere.
Nearly a hundred.
As he watched them, another black mage approached and whispered.
“Forerunner, all preparations complete.”
“Ah, good. Let’s begin.”
Second Base Camp.
Shadows erupted into the chaotic space right then.
No, not shadows.
Black mages in dark robes.
“Wh-what……!”
“Gah!”
Victima’s mercenaries fell helplessly to the sudden swarm.
No, they didn’t fall.
“Vermin. Suffer more painfully, more pathetically. Play.”
By Belroc’s order, they clung to life, tasting only agony.
Screams filled the Second Base Camp soon enough.
“Heh heh.”
Belroc smiled down at the orb.
Eerie black mist swirling within.
Ancient curse.
The darkness inside deepened with each echoing scream from the mercenaries.