The First Hunt
Raon and the trainees followed their instructors through the dimensional gate and crossed to the southernmost reaches of the Zieghart Domain in a single day.
Under ordinary circumstances they would have taken their time, camping along the way and gathering all manner of field experience. But the mission had changed without warning, and they had no choice but to move as fast as they possibly could.
Whether it was the tension of their first real assignment or something else, the trainees' faces looked darker than the overcast sky above them.
"We'll rest in that village tonight."
Rimer pointed to a settlement visible at the foot of the hill. It was a small village, but the gray smoke curling from its rooftops looked warm and familiar. Because it belonged to the Zieghart Domain, the emblem of a burning sword had been carved into the gate.
"Instructor. Shouldn't we keep moving instead of stopping to rest?"
Burren stepped up beside Rimer.
"Look at yourselves. You burned through every last scrap of stamina just crossing a dimensional gate. You think you can track anyone like that?"
"Mm..."
Burren glanced back at the others and swallowed a groan.
A dimensional gate could carry a person across vast distances, but it exacted a heavy toll on both body and mind. Most of the trainees were using one for the first time, and the crossing had left them even more drained.
"Tonight is your last rest. From dawn tomorrow we track without breaks and without sleep, so don't worry about falling behind."
"But if we're late, more people could get hurt..."
"The Snow Tiger Hold bandits have one foot in the South-North Alliance, even if it's only a small one. Don't assume you'll win just because your martial strength is higher. If you run into them exhausted, they'll be the ones cutting you down."
Rimer's cold gaze pinned the trainees in place.
"I told you when we set out. Don't let your guard down, and don't get tense. Right now you aren't either of those things. Rest today and get your heads on straight."
"Yes, sir..."
"Let's go, then."
He started toward the village, and Raon and the trainees followed.
"Hm?"
Raon narrowed his eyes. A familiar, powerful wave of presence was radiating from inside the village.
"Instructor."
"What?"
"Is there a House swordsman in the village?"
"Damn. That instinct of yours is something else."
Rimer let out a whistle and nodded.
"You picked up on that?"
"I felt a strong presence inside that doesn't belong in a village like this."
"That's right. One of the House's swordsmen is already here. In case the bandits push north and try to raid the place."
"Ah..."
House Zieghart was famous for protecting every village and city under its influence without fail. The moment trouble had appeared near this settlement, they had dispatched a swordsman.
"That sense of yours really is something."
"Nngh..."
"Hmph!"
At Rimer's praise, Burren scowled and tried to pick up the swordsman's presence himself. Marta just snorted, as if it were nothing worth fussing over.
"The swordsmen of Zieghart have come!"
"Waaaaah!"
The moment they reached the village, the townsfolk spotted the burning-sword emblem on the instructors' combat uniforms and erupted into cheers, waving their hands.
"Open the gates!"
They didn't even bother to verify identities. The village gates swung open at once — a clear picture of what the Zieghart name meant in this place.
Robert was the same.
In his previous life, whenever he had moved under Robert's emblem, the people of the south had reacted much like this.
Raon drew a long breath, buried the old fire of vengeance that had flared in his chest, and stepped into the village. The quiet smell of evening meals drifted on the air.
"Welcome, swords of Zieghart. I am Kemen, village chief of Jarten."
A gray-haired old man approached with a cane and bowed his head.
"Rimer."
"The Light Sword of Zieghart! It is an honor to meet you!"
The chief bowed again and again as he said it. Rimer received him with a smile, then turned.
"He'll show us to our lodgings. Tonight is the last night you'll sleep in a real bed. Assembly is before sunrise. Don't any of you be late."
"I still have stamina to spare. I'll go survey the surrounding terrain."
Burren raised his hand. His eyes were bright.
"Good spirit. It'd be convenient if you already knew the roads. But do you actually know the geography around here?"
Rimer looked down at him with a blunt stare.
"F-from the maps, I..."
"This village is ringed by forest and mountain. Even if you've looked at a map, you won't know what's what until you've walked it yourself. What happens if the bandits hit you in that state? You won't even get a counterattack off before your head leaves your shoulders."
Rimer flicked Burren on the head and grinned.
"I know how you feel, but if you get impatient you'll just hand them an opening. Like I said, they can't leave this region. Settle your heart and take it slow."
"I-I understand."
Burren and the collateral-line trainees bowed their heads, looking awkward.
"From tomorrow on you won't have time to rest even if you want to, so get some real sleep. We start the search at dawn."
"Yes, sir!"
"Let's go."
The trainees followed Rimer toward the village hall at the center of town.
Dawn the next day.
Just as Rimer had declared, the forced march south continued without rest. They ate dried rations on the move and never slept more than three hours at a stretch. On top of that, a sudden blizzard swallowed their vision whole, and the trainees' pace slowed until a tortoise would have left them behind.
"Hrm."
Raon shook the snow from his shoulders and swept his gaze over the trainees.
"Hah..."
"This shit falling out of the goddamn sky!"
Even Burren and Marta couldn't walk properly through snow that came up to their knees.
"Ugh, I'm dying!"
"How long is this blizzard going to last?!"
"We can't get any speed."
If those two were struggling, the rest of the trainees were naturally floundering in the snow and ice. Their pace wasn't even half of what it normally was.
There was exactly one exception. Runaan was smiling as she gathered up snowballs, looking for all the world like she was having fun. But that was just this girl being strange.
At this rate, there was a real chance they would lose the bandits.
Rimer and the instructors said nothing. They simply watched from the side. They had come as guardians, and they seemed to consider advice a luxury the trainees hadn't earned. In the end, Raon would have to step in himself.
"Halt."
Raon moved to the very front and brought everyone to a stop.
"Don't put force into your ankles on a snow-covered surface. It only slows you down and wastes stamina."
He looked over the trainees as he continued.
"Ease the tension in your ankles and knees, and step on the snow the way you'd bounce off a blade of grass. You've all learned the Garam Footwork. A little practice and you'll have it."
He demonstrated, stepping lightly across the snow and gliding forward. His legs moved far more smoothly than they would in an ordinary walk — as if he were sliding across a sheet of ice.
"Huh?"
"Whoa."
The trainees watching him let out a collective gasp.
Raon demonstrated a few more times so that everyone could follow the snow-step.
"From here on we move in a single file. Burren, up front."
"Why?"
"When a blizzard or a hard wind is blowing, moving in a single line to cut the wind is basic. You lead the others from the front."
"Mm!"
At the word lead, Burren's eyes lit up.
"The rest of you, form up in a line facing Burren's back."
A single file took shape: Burren at the head, Marta in the middle, Runaan at the rear.
"We rotate the lead every hour. Move out."
Raon didn't join the line. He stepped off to the side and guided the trainees from there.
Once the trainees had the snow-step down and were moving in a single file, their pace nearly doubled.
"Huh."
"Th-that's actually fast. It's barely any different from normal."
"How does Raon even know this?"
"I told you that guy's something else."
The trainees watched Raon cut through the snow more lightly than any of them and let out murmurs of awe.
"He's doing it right, isn't he?"
"He is. The way he teaches is incredibly efficient. It's like he's actually been on a forced march before."
"I was going to give them a hint, but I guess they didn't need it."
The instructors at the rear clicked their tongues as they watched Raon's back.
Rimer looked at Raon and the trainees alike and smiled faintly.
Raon and the trainees pushed through the snowstorm and reached a village.
But more than half of it had been swallowed by fire, blackened to charcoal, and not a single living soul remained. One side of the village was piled with corpses — men and women, young and old, none of them with names or faces anyone here would know.
This was the village the Snow Tiger Hold bandits had raided.
"Urgh!"
"Bleagh!"
The weaker-stomached trainees retched. Even the ones who could handle it frowned or turned their heads away.
Raon, however, examined the bodies beside Rimer with a face that showed nothing at all.
Cut down first, then burned.
Most of them hadn't died in the fire. They had been slashed by blades and already dead before the flames took them. Just as he'd heard — the bandits had raided this place, stripped it of valuables, and fled.
Still...
These were bandits who had already paved the mountain roads and could live off the tolls they collected. He couldn't figure out what they had been after when they hit this village.
"You all right?"
Rimer came over with a worried look as Raon kept studying the corpses.
"I'm fine."
"I'm fine."
And it was true — among all the trainees, the only ones still looking at the bodies up close were Raon and Marta.
As I thought...
He had sensed it for a while now. Marta had seen a lot of corpses. Or she had made them herself.
"Kh."
Burren bit his lip and came forward to examine the bodies. It was obvious he was forcing himself.
"Mm..."
Runaan was struggling, but she still studied the wounds, trying to read the bandits' sword work. She was a different person from the girl who used to flinch at the mere sight of blood. He didn't think he needed to worry about her anymore.
"Yes, sir!"
At Rimer's last words, the trainees' eyes flashed a hard, cold blue. The tremor of a first mission had become the edge of anger.
Two days later.
Raon and the trainees arrived in the Luten Mountain region, where the Snow Tiger Hold bandits were believed to be hiding. Two more days of travel would bring them to the official road that had already been sealed off, and House swordsmen were tightening the encirclement. The bandits were definitely holed up somewhere nearby.
"Everyone, listen up."
Rimer clapped his hands and gathered the trainees.
"This is our base. From here we split into teams and track their position."
He assigned the teams himself. Raon was placed with Runaan. They were fewer than the other teams of three or four, but in terms of martial strength they were overwhelmingly superior.
"Each team takes a whistle."
Rimer handed out a silver whistle to every team.
"Only people who've been trained can hear it. If something dangerous happens, blow it. The instructors watching over you will move immediately."
"Yes, sir!"
"That said, don't just blow the whistle on instinct. Try to handle what you can yourselves. Teaming up with another group is fine. Even engaging them without our help is fine. But there is no mercy in their swords, so do not let your guard down."
"Understood!"
The trainees called back the horror of the raided village and set off in the directions they had each chosen.
Raon, however, did not move first. From the mountain path where he stood, he took in everything — Luten Mountain to the east, the low hills to the west, and the dense forest beside them.
That mountain.
His gaze settled on Luten Mountain. From up there you could look down on this entire area, and you could slip away behind it. If there was a textbook choice, that was it.
But that was exactly why it wasn't the mountain.
The encirclement was closing, and the bandits knew they were being hunted. There was no way they would hide on a mountain.
The forest was similar. It was thick and overgrown, so they wouldn't be spotted easily — but it would be hard to run.
Then probably...
Raon's eyes turned last to the hills. It was a place that sat too openly in view — but there might be other terrain hidden inside. It seemed best to check there first.
"Raon."
He had just made up his mind and stood when Runaan, his teammate, came over and tilted her head. The look on her face asked why they weren't leaving.
He had wondered why he'd been paired with her. It was probably so he would look after Runaan, whose heart was still soft.
"This way."
"Okay."
Raon took Runaan with him and climbed the hills.
Just as I thought.
It was exactly as he'd expected. Hidden inside the hills that had looked empty from below was a forest you couldn't see from the path. It wasn't dense, but it ran surprisingly deep.
He lowered his gaze and studied the forest entrance. Small animal tracks covered the ground — there were so many that human traces were hard to pick out.
But.
That was only true of an ordinary hunter or tracker. Raon was different.
To become the greatest assassin, it wasn't enough to be good at killing. Tracking, senses, intelligence-gathering — all of it had to be first-rate, or you would never stand at the top.
Raon refused to give up. He moved slowly through the forest, searching for the bandits' traces. They were professionals of mountain and wood — but they were still human, and humans always left something behind.
Found it!
Raon's eyes burned red. Not on the ground. At shoulder height, in the brush, a faint trace remained where someone had passed through.
"From here, don't even let me hear you breathe. Follow me."
"Okay."
Hearing Runaan's answer, Raon dropped into a crouch. He followed the traces he had barely found, gauging the bandits' position as he moved with deliberate slowness.
"Halt."
Raon put a hand back toward her.
"Why?"
"There's a trap."
Right in front of them was a trap strung from transparent thread. The moment anyone crossed it, their legs would be cut, and a signal would go off deeper inside.
I'm not watching that happen.
Raon disarmed the trap so the signal wouldn't sound, then pressed forward.
"You saw that?"
Astonishment spilled from Wrath's mouth.
"This King truly cannot tell what manner of human you are. Even through the eyes of one who has lived through long ages, you remain unreadable."
I got lucky. The sunlight caught it.
"Hmph. Ridiculous."
Wrath snorted, making it clear he didn't believe a word. Raon told him to think whatever he liked and pushed deeper into the forest.
The bandits' traces grew more numerous. He was scanning the ground to fix their position again when he found something strange.
This is...
There were small footprints that didn't fit the situation. A child's footprints.
A child from that village?
It seemed they had kidnapped children from the village to use as hostages.
Vicious bastards.
He exhaled and pressed down the anger rising in his chest.
"Runaan."
"Yes."
"From here on, don't make a sound when you walk. Walk like I do."
He taught her a silent step. He framed it as an application of the Garam Footwork, and she picked it up almost immediately.
"The whistle?"
"Not yet."
If there were no hostages, it would be different. But with children in their hands, blowing the whistle might send the instructors crashing in with noise. In this situation, the right move was to locate the children and the bandits first, then decide whether to blow it.
"When I give the signal, blow it immediately."
"Okay."
Runaan nodded, gripping the whistle tight.
"Let's go."
Raon pointed ahead and dropped lower.
"We're almost there."
They crossed the forest in a crouch for about ten minutes, and the bandits' traces began to appear everywhere.
They're just trampling around now.
At the entrance to the hills and forest they had reduced their traces to the extreme, and they had set traps in the middle — but not here. They must have believed they wouldn't be found. Careless, messy tracks were everywhere.
I wasn't wrong.
Raon surveyed the area and frowned. A child's traces remained here as well.
"The bandits are holding children as hostages."
"Hostages?"
"Yeah. We assess the situation first, then decide whether to blow the whistle or move on our own."
"Okay."
Runaan nodded at once, as if she would believe anything he said.
"Let's go."
Raon jerked his chin and crept forward on all but his belly, and Runaan followed.
They had crawled for maybe ten minutes when human voices began to drift from up ahead.
Raon's eyes sank dark as a shadow.
It was them.