Then I Refuse
"But tell me—why in the world did you laugh back there?"
"We have an eye signal we use when we hunt together. He was telling me to make a loud noise. I figured he wanted me to laugh along, so I did."
"Good grief. A bunch of complete lunatics, the lot of you."
The village chief shot him a sideways glare at that hopeless answer. What kind of situation had that been, to burst out laughing on Messi's word alone? That was something you could never do without trust.
At any rate, the crisis had settled. At Ereb's command the knights sheathed their swords, and the mercenaries—save for a few—put their weapons away as well.
Those few still couldn't bring themselves to fully trust the knights.
"Captain, we need to get the hell out of here, now! What are you thinking, staking our lives on that sadistic noble bastard and some other-race?!"
He was a veteran who had been with the company a long time, and his word carried considerable weight. His name was Durek—the same man who had been shouting about teaching the knights a lesson before the clash.
"Durek, read the room. If we try to pull back now, we'll have to fight House Ahental's knights all over again. You up for that?"
"That's..."
"Right now we have no choice but to trust Messi. He opened a way out for us. I trust him."
"Trust an other-race? That's exactly how we got stabbed in the back by the likes of Noas!"
Durek spun around in a fury. A handful who shared his opinion trailed after him. The seeds of a faction were taking root.
Under any other circumstances it would have been unthinkable, but Ayla couldn't stop them. They had been driven into this crisis because of her own complacency.
But Messi is trustworthy. Just looking at how he opened an escape route for us, he's a man with a plan.
She had felt it even from the few words they had exchanged yesterday. Messi was no ordinary person. At the very least, his mind worked faster than hers. He seemed unfamiliar with the ways of the nobility, as if he had come from another world entirely—but that was simply the innate limitation of being an other-race.
If she stayed by his side and offered a little guidance here and there, he would surely become someone remarkable. A brain for the company—someone who could take charge of its direction and its livelihood.
It just popped into my head, but that's actually a pretty good idea. I ought to make him the offer.
Hoping he would excel in combat as well would be greedy. That was about as far as Ayla's expectations and hopes went. Still, it was true he was wasted stuck in some tiny village. There were other-races who concealed their bodies and worked as mercenaries; there was no reason Messi couldn't do the same.
She was still lost in thought when someone called her name.
"Captain Ayla. His Lordship is asking for you."
It was a knight of House Ahental. Ayla knew at last that the moment of decision she had been putting off had arrived.
"You want me to trust you and hand over full authority?"
"We need both the knight order and the mercenary group. Your Lordship, you have to trust my word completely."
"Have you lost your mind? Command of the knights belongs solely to me, the Knight Commander."
An argument was unfolding inside the tent. When Ramang bristled and stepped forward, Messi looked as if he had expected it.
He had already seen through the young lord: a man who chased practical gain in everything except the matter of a noble's honor. Ramang was another matter. He was closer to a traditional knight—strict, and intolerant of exceptions.
"The Forest of Resentment is home to forty-eight species of monsters, each living in strictly divided territories."
"That's right. The Sky Castle records I reviewed say the same. Look at this."
Messi looked over Ereb's materials and shook his head.
"...There's a critical fact missing here. That none of the forty-eight monster species are hostile toward one another."
"What? How is that possible?"
A startled Ereb scanned the documents again. There was not a single word about that.
"Sir Ramang! What exactly did we bring back from the Sky Castle? They told us to trust Sky Castle intelligence more than our own parents' words—are they just a bunch of frauds?"
Even as he raged, Ereb did not fail to sneak a glance at Ramang's face.
"...I have no excuse."
Ramang closed his eyes and bowed his head. Whether it was genuine shame or an attempt to hide some inner turmoil was impossible to tell.
"The reason is simple. It's a structure in which none of them need to compete. There is only one food source: the sweet bodily fluids of the giant ants that live underground in the forest. The ants share their fluids with every species and, in return, are guaranteed safety."
"Monsters with that degree of social structure and intelligence... that's astonishing..."
Ereb and Ramang found it hard to believe, but they had no choice. They knew Messi as one of the Forest Tribe.
"But the terrifying part is that all forty-eight monster species are bound together by one shared behavior."
"And what's that?"
"Sir Ramang, monsters typically have abnormally developed senses of smell, don't they?"
"That's true. Their wild instincts are still intact, after all..."
Ramang admitted it reluctantly. Ereb was still wondering what smell had to do with anything.
Messi's next words sent a chill down their spines.
"...Holy hell."
They had come within a hair's breadth of dying like dogs. It had been barely ten minutes since the idea of chopping up the mercenaries and villagers and throwing them in as bait. If they had gone through with it, they would have been wiped out at the entrance.
To leave out the single most important piece of information...
Ereb was filled with a murderous urge to tear apart whoever had deceived him, right then and there. Whether that someone was Ramang and his father, or the Sky Castle itself, he could not know.
By contrast, the other-race standing before him was arrogant, but he had essentially saved Ereb's life. He had utility, and with no backing of his own, he was actually more trustworthy. Wasn't that first-rate material for a subordinate?
Not bad. His healing's decent, and his mind spins fast. Plus he's an other-race—who else is he going to trust and follow? If I become his backing, he'll cling to me instead.
Secondary character education could wait. Violence was fine, and so was having him father a child to use as a leash. Those were ordinary things in this world.
"Fine. I'll trust your word and follow it. I'll give you full authority."
"Y-Your Lordship?"
"I'm sorry, Sir Ramang, but I'd like you to follow my decision on this matter. I bent the knee in front of my men earlier, so surely you can do the same?"
Ereb put particular emphasis on those last words. Ramang had no choice.
Messi asked once more.
"Can you promise me, on a noble's honor?"
This insolent little...
Something surged up inside him, but Ereb held it down. He knew his priorities.
"Fine. I promise on a noble's honor. But I want you to give me your trust in the manner of House Ahental as well."
The manner of House Ahental? Messi had a feeling that whatever it was, it would not be pleasant. The nobles of this world were far more primal than the ruling class of the modern era.
Footsteps approached.
"Your Lordship, I've brought Captain Ayla and the other guides."
Ayla, Leto, and the village chief walked in behind the knight. As if he wanted them to hear every word, Ereb spoke to Messi.
"Messi, I've agreed to give you full authority, so shouldn't you give me your trust in return?"
Full authority.
The three of them grasped what that word meant and froze on the spot. Messi had truly, with nothing but his tongue, obtained the authority to move this entire column. There would be limits, of course—but the fact that the words I'll give you full authority had come out of that arrogant noble's mouth was staggering.
That crazy bastard! Did he actually talk him into it?!
As expected... just like the boss's disciple. I had a feeling he was going to pull something.
Compared to the village chief and Leto, Ayla's expression grew grave. She now understood that the lives of eighty mercenaries would hang on Messi's decisions.
"...How would you have me prove my trust?"
"A man as sharp as you already knew I brought the village chief and the herb gatherer as hostages."
"I did."
"Heh. You don't even deny it. Fine, I'll be honest. House Ahental despises relationships bound by mere trust. We only believe in what we can see with our own eyes. Money, contracts, hostages, body parts, and the like."
"..."
"So here's the idea. I think I'll cut off one hand from each of those two."
The village chief collapsed in a heap. His legs had given out from under him.
"Funny old man. What do you say? I asked Boyle, and he said with your healing you could even reattach a severed hand. I'll cut off their hands and preserve them with magic. You complete the mission in the meantime. How about it?"
Ereb smiled slyly. More than trust, he wanted to watch the man named Messi squirm.
But Messi's expression did not change in the slightest. He said only one thing.
"What?"
"The guides, the escort—consider all of it cancelled. I don't need full authority either."
"You little...?"
Ereb's fist, resting as he sat, began to tremble. He was not angry because Messi had refused. He was angry that this other-race could speak with genuine sincerity and show not even a trace of fear.
Was he that powerless in this man's eyes? So powerless he could not even exert influence over a mere other-race? How many times in his life had he ever been this helpless? He could probably count them on one hand.
Until now, just putting the family crest on the negotiating table had been enough to make everyone tremble and take a step back. But this man had none of that.
"Then just kill us."
"Heh. Just kill you? Fine. I'll just kill you. All of you—and I'll burn the village to the ground while I'm at it! I'll tear your bodies to pieces and throw you to the monsters as feed!! You hear me? That's an easy thing for me to do!!"
"I can massacre the lot of you, turn around, march back, and just find new people. Better people to replace you!!"
He was like a beast begging them to tremble in fear of him. Even as his body shook with rage, there was something of a child throwing a tantrum in the display.
Messi merely wore a faint, mocking smile.
I've won. He was certain of it.
"Would a man as wise as Your Lordship truly do such a thing?"
"What's that supposed to mean? You think I can't?"
Ereb hated that composure of Messi's. The look of a man who knew everything. The pretense. It had to be an act. If he drew his sword and split this man and the village chief in two, that composure would vanish.
But he soon realized otherwise. Listening to the reasoning coming from Messi's mouth, he understood that the composure had a real foundation.
"This expedition. You came in secret, didn't you? If you give up and go back now, there won't be a next opportunity."
"...!"
Ereb and Ramang looked at each other, steeped in dismay.
"It's hardly surprising. You're not a man who lacks money, and yet you specifically hired the Red Fox Mercenary Group... after first turning someone on the inside, then engineering the whole scheme to bring them here. Why go through all that trouble? You could have just commissioned a large mercenary company and brought in powerful mercenaries from the start."
"That's all it took for you to conclude we came in secret?"
"At the very least, you weren't doing this openly. If you'd hired a large mercenary company capable of coming here, word would have spread through the mercenary market, so you avoided that. If you'd gathered up a bunch of small and mid-sized companies and marched them here like an army, rumors would have flowed along the road, so you avoided that too. And if you'd mobilized the family soldiers, rival houses nearby would have caught the scent."
"So the remaining option was a mercenary group that doesn't quite reach the level of a large company, but has enough numbers for secrecy, a decent amount of skill, and so little market influence that no rumors would spread. You went looking for a group like that. Especially one whose captain is greedy. Isn't that right, Your Lordship?"
When Messi's ceaseless talking finally stopped, everyone fell silent. Ereb could not say a word. His thoughts converged on a single point.
What the hell is this guy?
He couldn't tell. But it was clear he had been driven into a corner with no way out.
Messi did not fear death. Ereb feared failure.
The one who fears cannot defeat the one who does not.
"...Hah."
Ereb, who had held his silence, let out a long sigh.
Ereb raised the white flag. At last, he conceded—cleanly, and completely.