The Traveling Merchant, Lionel 1
The first thing Lawrence did after learning Shadow Spear was to find a place where he could practice magic.
Its circumstances were different from Shadow and Fire.
The first two spells were simple enough to practice in his room, but he couldn’t exactly hurl a Shadow Spear through the window every time he wanted to use it.
There were too many eyes in a village.
So the boy had no choice but to head outside.
And being too close to the village would only cause trouble.
He slipped into the woods, looking for a place where the watchmen on duty and passing travelers wouldn’t see him.
What he found at the end of that search was this place.
A small clearing in the forest a short distance from the wall.
It still bore traces of logging around the edges.
That meant he could sit on a stump and rest, and because the view was open in a way most forests weren’t, he could keep an eye on his surroundings.
For something he’d found in a hurry, it was about as suitable as he could have hoped for.
From that day on, Lawrence plunged into proper magical training.
He began with the familiar Shadow and Fire spells to warm up.
At first, even a few uses would send a stab of pain through his chest, but as the saying went, practice made progress, and now he could cast them nearly ten times without any trouble.
Once he’d grown used to the movement of shadow and flame, he moved on to the next stage: Shadow Spear.
Unlike the first two spells, it took a little time to cast.
He had to peel shadow away and shape it into a spear, then refine the form until it held.
Imagining the shape wasn’t difficult.
The red-eyed magic he had seen so vividly, burned deep into his memory, was still clear as day.
Shadow Spear took form.
Compared with the spear in his memory, it looked crude and unimpressive.
Worse, simply maintaining it made the pain in his chest deepen.
In a way, it was similar to Fire, which had once seemed eager to run wild on its own.
It felt as if the spell were begging him to take off its leash.
Lawrence kept it under control as long as he could, carefully aiming it, and then finally let go of the leash.
The Shadow Spear, freed from its owner’s hand, shot toward a tree.
With a heavy crack, the trunk was gouged open.
The impact was clearly no small thing, because leaves burst loose and fluttered down.
And the spot where the spear had struck needed no further comment.
It had left such a huge scar that it looked less like a spear had hit it and more like an axe had been driven into the tree.
In terms of destructive power, it was the strongest of all the spells Lawrence had.
If there was any problem, it was that after using it once or twice, a headache would join the chest pain and bear down on him, but the force it carried was something none of his other spells could even begin to imitate.
After casting Shadow Spear one more time, Lawrence sat on a stump and caught his breath.
It was hot. Even after taking off his robe, the suffocating weather slowly drained away his motivation.
This wasn’t easy.
It would take time to grow used to a new spell.
Waiting for the headache to settle, he pulled out the water skin he had brought with him.
When the lukewarm water wet his throat, he felt a little more alive.
He still had a long way to go.
The Shadow Spear Lawrence used was nothing more than a spear made of shadow. By contrast, the Shadow Spear the red-eyed figure had used in his memory was a shadow spear that also held flame.
It was obvious which one was stronger and which one hit harder.
And there was the number of them, too.
The Shadow Spear that covered the dark sky had been a spectacle beyond words.
Would he ever reach that level?
For some reason, the thought filled him with energy.
Lawrence stood and began practicing Shadow Spear again.
* * *
Was all magic connected into one?
While practicing Shadow Spear, Lawrence realized something important.
If he had not first been able to shape shadow into an arrow, then Shadow Spear would not have been possible at all.
Shadow Spear required, as a first step, that he create the form of a spear.
Without the practice of shaping shadow into an arrow, the spell would never have taken its first step.
In that case, perhaps once Fire became more refined, it might also have an effect that supported other spells along the way.
On a whim, he tried to shape Fire as he did Shadow, but every reckless attempt ended in futility.
Its nature was fundamentally different from Shadow.
Fire, from the start, had the tendency to leap wherever it pleased.
Even now it felt like he was holding a leash and letting it run only where he wanted.
Maybe the very idea of changing its shape was wrong.
He hadn’t dreamed once since meeting the red-eyed figure.
At last he had learned that the world inside dreams was called the Spirit World, but if he couldn’t dream, then there was no way to meet the fairy friends there either.
This time, he didn’t grow impatient.
He had some notion why he couldn’t dream.
The sound that had echoed inside his head for an instant.
The cool relief that had replaced the headache.
He remembered something that had not been able to endure, something that had stained his vision red.
There was no miracle without a price.
Surely that was what the red-eyed figure had meant.
So he would wait.
And while waiting, he would do the best he could.
After devoting nearly a month to magic and training, Lawrence’s skill improved by leaps and bounds.
He could now cast Shadow and Fire without even extending his hand.
Reaching out was still faster when shaping the spells, but in the middle of real combat, he might not have that luxury.
Whether or not one could cast magic while holding a weapon was, of course, a tremendous difference.
In that sense, Shadow Spear was impossible.
Even with both hands outstretched, it took far too long to form.
Much less was there any hope of aiming it in the desired direction and keeping it from flying off on its own.
He came to understand once again just how extraordinary the red-eyed figure truly was.
The one small consolation was that the spear he had chosen instead of a sword was easier to use.
A spear did not require all that much time to master.
Given that even someone like Lawrence, who had known nothing at all, could at least make a clumsy show of fighting, Gazole had been right: the spear really was easy to begin with.
At the very least, it would be usable in real combat.
That was what all this preparation and training had been for.
After casting Shadow Spear one last time, Lawrence got to his feet.
The sun was still high overhead.
At best, it was a little past noon.
Compared to his usual routine, he had woken nearly half a day early.
Not because he was tired, or because he had worn himself out.
The reason was far more practical than that.
...He was almost out of money.
He had only been shuttling between the inn and the forest, doing nothing but practicing magic.
Even so, the cost of lodging and meals had steadily drained his purse.
If not for Betten’s kindness, he would already have had to give up training and go find work.
For now he had managed to hold out until a rather precarious point.
But continuing to do nothing but practice magic would only make the problem worse, which would be foolish beyond reason.
“You’ve got it rough, Mr. Nielsen.”
“Oh, Lawrence, is that you? You’re back early today.”
“It’s time for lunch. You should eat yours too, Mr. Nielsen.”
“Didn’t you usually bring a packed meal? Well, go on in.”
He had become fairly close with Nielsen, the watchman at the gate.
After seeing each other at the same time every day for nearly a month, they had reached the point where a light greeting and a word of concern felt natural.
Lawrence had worried that Nielsen might remember him claiming to be a priest along with Lenard, but fortunately there was no sign that he recognized him.
After taking care of lunch near the gate, Lawrence headed to the mercenary guild for the first time in a while.
It was time to take on and complete a commission.
He hadn’t spent the last month loafing around, after all, and he felt confident enough to handle something like a simple extermination request.
However, when he looked over the bulletin board covered in notices, Lawrence couldn’t help but frown.
His current mercenary plate was a Wood Plate.
The lowest rank among mercenaries, rising through wood, bronze, silver, gold, and platinum.
The commissions a Wood Plate could take were mostly menial work.
Please find my dog that ran away.
Reward offered for anyone who can find my lost key.
Anyone able to dismantle Under Wolf pelts.
Looking for a missing person, and so on.
They were jobs with miserable pay and a ridiculous amount of time wasted for the trouble.
They were close to the kind of shady commission that looked as if it had been pinned there for ages.
After standing before the board in thought for a while, Lawrence made his way to the reception desk.
“Welcome. How may I help you?”
“Are there any commissions besides the ones posted on the board?”
“So you’re looking for a commission. Pardon me, but may I ask what rank you are at the moment?”
“Wood Plate.”
The clerk took a ledger from the cabinet and placed it on the desk.
Rattle-rattle.
At a glance, the number of entries seemed to be over ten thousand.
“Let’s see. What sort of commission are you looking for?”
“The sort I’m looking for?”
“Yes. For example, extermination commissions for extermination work, escort commissions for escort work. Do you have a preference? If not, I’ll start by recommending commissions the guild itself suggests.”
It was more serious than he had expected.
He had thought that, since he was the lowest-ranked Wood Plate mercenary, they would either brush him off or just list the commissions casually.
It seemed he had underestimated them.
“Then could you tell me about extermination commissions first?”
“Extermination commissions, is it? There’s one from the Reynald Marquisate, a bit far away, recruiting mercenaries to exterminate orcs. It’s not a true tribe, but it seems like bands of stragglers show up from time to time. There are more of them than expected, so it’s currently open for continuous recruitment.”
Orcs.
Even Lawrence, a country bumpkin from the countryside, had heard of them.
They were monsters that clearly lived in groups organized by tribe.
It was a name that came up now and then among merchants who visited the inn.
Usually, the orcs encountered along the road were said to be stragglers cast out from their tribe.
That didn’t mean they were weak, though.
He knew all too well how dangerous orcs were, because their reputation had been drilled into his ears often enough.
Depending on the tribe, their strength varied as well.
He had heard that if the tribe was a famous one, even nobles had to lead knights and private soldiers themselves in a large-scale extermination campaign.
To put it in rough terms, a straggler orc was like a mercenary.
An orc warrior belonging to a tribe was comparable to a knight.
They were far too strong for Lawrence to face right now.
And hearing that there were many of them only confirmed that this was not the right first commission for him.
Besides, he had no idea where the Reynald Marquisate was to begin with.
“Do you have any other extermination commissions?”
“Not to your liking? It’s a good one for a Wood Plate mercenary, since many veteran mercenaries are gathering there too. It’s easier to form a party with others than to move around alone.”
Lawrence shook his head again.
“Let me see. A Bugbear in the Ulbazar Swamp, a Wendigo in Winterglen.... They’re all far away. Ah, here’s one near by. Horos Village in the Ilios Barony is recruiting mercenaries to exterminate Forest Spiders. Strictly speaking, it doesn’t pay a bounty like the Reynald Marquisate’s commission. Instead, they seem to pay by buying the by-products.”
“Forest Spider.... Could you tell me what kind of monster that is?”
“I’d like to say it’s a spider, just as the name suggests, but... well. No, you should think of it as a very large spider. Setting aside how grotesque it looks, it’s a monster that mainly operates deep in the forest, and it instinctively fears fire.”
As if he had been waiting for the question, the clerk went on.
“Usually, people lure it out of the forest and fight it outside the trees. A Forest Spider that comes down beneath the canopy is not nearly as threatening as you might think.”
“So it’s strong when it’s in the trees.”
“A Forest Spider with the forest around it becomes far more dangerous at once. More than anything, it can spin webs, which makes its movements impossible to predict. Still, webs burn too, so if you’re planning to exterminate one, you should bring torches with you.”
A monster closer to an insect.
Honestly, Lawrence had spent so much time living in back alleys that bugs didn’t frighten him all that much.
More than that, if it was a spider, then it was one of the creatures that had always been around him, whether he was sleeping or waking.
“The most dangerous thing is the paralyzing stinger on the Forest Spider’s rear end. That’s how they hunt: they paralyze their prey with the stinger, bind it in webs little by little, and then suck it dry.”
“...That’s a dreadful story.”
“Yes. Personally, I wouldn’t recommend it to you, but.... In terms of experience and payment, it should be decent.”
The clerk’s sales smile twitched.
Even so, Lawrence had already made up his mind.
If people avoided a monster, then it must be worth money.
“How far is Horos Village from here?”
“If you plan to walk, it’ll take more than a month. Or would you like me to look into an escort job? If there’s a carriage going to Horos Village, it should cut the time down significantly.”
Betten came to mind at once.
Traveling by carriage was far more comfortable than walking forest roads with Lenard.
Even light baggage had dug into his shoulders the longer the road stretched on.
If he could ride a carriage, that problem would be lessened too.
And if there was time, he could probably even practice magic.
Besides, since it was an escort commission, there would likely be a decent sum of money involved.
“I’d appreciate that.”
“Understood. I’ll contact you if an escort commission to Horos Village comes in. Where should I reach you?”
Lawrence gave her the inn he was staying at, along with the room number.
Just in case, with the clerk’s help, he also looked over every bit of information the guild had on Forest Spiders.
There was no harm in preparing ahead of time for the extermination commission he would be taking on later.
The clerk met his questions with that same businesslike smile.
* * *
A week after he had spoken to the mercenary guild, word finally came in about the carriage escort.
Lawrence tucked the letter telling him to come to the guild by noon into his coat and left his beloved room behind.
“What’s this?”
“A packed lunch. You’ve been staying here a long time, so consider it service.”
The innkeeper, who had once been so curt, gave him a wave as though telling him to do his best.
“Thank you. If I ever come back, I’ll stay here again.”
“Just make sure you come back alive. And don’t rush to the front just because it’s your first commission. I’ve seen too many overconfident kids die for nothing.”
“I’ll keep your advice in mind.”
“Take care.”
Leaving the inn behind, Lawrence arrived at the mercenary guild.
The clerk, as if she had been expecting him, stood up and guided him outside.
The client she introduced was a traveling merchant with a bushy beard.
“I’m Lionel. Nice to meet you.”
“I’m Lawrence. I hope we have a peaceful journey.”
Was he in his mid-thirties?
Unlike an ordinary peddler, he was broad-shouldered, and the palm of his hand, when they shook, was covered in thick calluses.
Lawrence hadn’t realized it from a distance, but now that they were standing face to face, the man’s frame was so large he seemed to be nearly two heads taller.
“The mercenary they introduced today looks quite young.”
“I only look young. I’ll be twenty next year.”
“Twenty... really?”
“Yes. So I’d appreciate it if you refrained from treating me like a child.”
It had been the right move to claim he was older.
If he had slipped up, the issue of his age might have become a problem from the very first commission.
“Still, that’s not exactly old, either. Well, age doesn’t matter much. As long as the skill is there.”
“On that point, you needn’t worry. I took special care in choosing him.”
The clerk wore her bright, polished business smile.
What exactly was she so confident about?
To be honest, Lawrence hadn’t even spoken to her that much.
Could it be...?
Did she know?
No. That couldn’t be.
He shook off the rising suspicion.
When he trained in the forest, he had been especially careful about his surroundings.
At the very least, no one in Redantus should know that Lawrence used magic.
...Probably.
“I see. The guild wouldn’t lie over something like this. I’ll be counting on you to keep this trading run safe.”
At that smile, Lionel’s dubious expression eased.
“You won’t regret it.”
Lawrence banished his wandering thoughts.
For now, he should focus on what was in front of him.
If there was a carriage, it would be easy to make use of the crossbow’s advantage.
And if the need arose, he had magic too. It was time to prove that he had not spent the last month merely playing around with a spear.
Lawrence climbed onto the driver’s seat with Lionel.
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