Chapter 117: The Way of the Desert (2)
Chapter 117: The Way of the Desert (2)
It was an age when rumors took a long time to spread, but the Wandering Castle was the exception.
It was the last and greatest relic of the Ancient Kingdom. And it had descended during a tournament opened by Duke Ismar, the conqueror of the north.
The spectators who witnessed that chaos included mercenaries, adventurers, merchant companies, and even numerous nobles. It was only natural that the rumors would spread across the entire continent.
"I saw it with my own eyes! A colossal castle vanished riding a bolt of lightning, I tell you!"
"The storm knocked down every last noble tent. I heard that in some places, even the flagpoles snapped, and soldiers were flogged for negligence."
Rumors always came with their share of bluster. This time, however, the very subject of the rumors was already a legendary magical castle.
Because the subject itself was so unbelievable, the lies had crept into the storytellers rather than the story. Every teller claimed to have witnessed it personally.
It was around this time that a large-scale slave organization operating in the shadows of Samur was smashed to pieces in a single day.
"Who goes there? Curfew has been in effect for—...Lord Treasurer?!"
"Shh! Shh! Keep your voice down!"
The guards of nearby Tripol were bewildered to see one of their city's nobles return covered in sweat and dust.
Eugene had released him, but fleeing a hideout in the middle of a battle had still been disastrous. He had lost his escort and rushed home with little more than travel money, making the return journey grueling.
As was typical of a free city, internal power struggles were fierce, and it was only natural that those who exposed their vulnerabilities were torn apart.
"I never knew you were colluding with illegal slave traders."
"Colluding is too strong a word! I merely stopped by briefly to discuss business."
"Haven't you been taking kickbacks all this time? No wonder the scum vanished like ghosts whenever we conducted raids."
"This is unjust! I, too, am a victim! Do you have any idea how my heart pounded as I fled from that scene of slaughter?"
The 'guests' who had been attacked by their political enemies protested desperately. In the process, a fierce army composed of dwarves, humans, and dark elves was mentioned.
Furthermore, reports came in one after another through merchants and travelers that an abnormal lightning strike had been seen on a clear day.
"Were the rumors true?"
"They say even in Bonyad, lightning struck from a cloudless sky and a castle appeared."
As circumstantial signs kept emerging, the number of people in the city who believed that the Wandering Castle had appeared nearby rapidly increased.
"Why don't we take this chance to hire them? We happen to be in need of military force."
Naturally, the city's influential figures began contemplating joining hands with them.
"From what I've heard, they came to punish the slave traders who were playing tricks on the Black Hand Tribe. They likely bear no ill will toward our city in particular."
Tripol was a port city in northeastern Samur. Favorable currents made it ideal for shipping, and trade brought the city enormous wealth.
Moreover, a short distance away stretched a vast desert and wild jungle that civilization could scarcely touch.
Threatened by both humans and monsters, Tripol had always hungered for military strength. This threat was serious enough that recruiting officers had been dispatched in every direction.
Rumors that the Wandering Castle had appeared nearby drew the attention of one bold, enterprising recruiting officer.
"It would be best for us to turn back now."
"Keep your mouth shut and follow."
The recruiting officer dismissed the soldier's advice.
"We're not scouts or adventurers. We have an official recruitment mission..."
The soldier glanced back at the young men panting as they followed. It had been two days since they had ventured into a place far removed from any village, city, or trade route.
Those recruited from established villages with deep roots already wore expressions of regret. Only those forcibly conscripted from slash-and-burn hamlets were maintaining any sort of grit.
"At this rate, some will try to run during camp tonight."
"Beat one of them half to death as an example, and the rest will fall in line."
If such a punishment were meted out after being dragged into this wilderness, the victim would simply be unable to keep up with the march. In practice, it meant executing them with only half the blood on one's hands.
For untrained commoners, traveling even a day away from their village was extremely dangerous.
"Does that legendary castle truly exist?"
"If it were only one rumor from Roman, I wouldn't believe it either. But they say it appeared in Bonyard and Gord as well. Would nobles that obsessed with appearances make something like this up?"
"That is true."
It was a rumor that had emerged from three different regions, two of them tied to high-ranking noble families.
Nobles were braggarts who outdid mercenaries when boasting of their battlefield exploits, but on a subject like this, they tended to be solemn, guarding their dignity. It likely was not a false rumor.
"Anyway, those hastily gathered riff-raff are of no help."
What always came up when the Wandering Castle was mentioned was the young knight who had claimed the castle and led its formidable army.
It was because it was a magical castle controlled by human will that it drew such intense interest from people.
"House Meyer, was it? The All-Conquering Knight of Bonyard."
"Until last year, he worked as Champion in a Free City, and not long ago he took a commission from Count Andar in Gord. He's certainly worth hiring."
The recruiting officer could be terrifying toward commoners, but in front of a true noble lord he could only make himself small.
But the man in question was a knight lord without even a baron's title. His history of taking contracts in various places suggested he needed money and was unlikely to regard a commission as an insult.
"That is, of course, if the castle truly exists."
The recruiting officer had his doubts too, but his enterprising spirit was richly rewarded.
"Good heavens!"
"I-it truly was here!"
Standing before the enormous castle that loomed like a mirage in the empty wilderness, the recruiting officer and his party stared up with their mouths hanging open.
There were fortresses larger in sheer area, but those were mostly walls surrounding open ground dotted with smaller buildings.
The Wandering Castle, by contrast, was like one enormous ship. Every visible part was packed solid with stone, and its sheer mass felt suffocating to look at.
"The ground has collapsed under it."
The earthen ground had caved in beneath its weight.
They could not even begin to imagine how many men it could hold within, or how much matériel and wealth it could store.
"I heard it was a small castle housing about a hundred men."
Of everyone overwhelmed by the sight, the recruiting officer was the most confused. The rumors had badly understated the castle's size.
-A castle that size controlled by a mere hundred or so men?
Each time people retold what they had heard, they reduced the castle's size. It was a phenomenon born of the effort not to be branded a liar.
Eugene, who had claimed the castle, was no great territorial lord but a knight who typically commanded a force of about a hundred men.
As each retelling added a dose of "realism," the version that reached Tripol had reduced the castle to roughly the size of a galley.
"Recruiting Officer, sir."
"I know."
He could not turn back empty-handed after coming this far. The recruiting officer cleared his throat and looked up at the castle.
Beyond its sheer scale, the aura of mystery faintly emanating from the entire castle drew out the instinctive fear of those ignorant of magic.
"We come from Tripol! We request an audience with the Castle Lord!"
After he had shouted at the top of his lungs several times, the firmly shut, majestic gate began to open.
RUMBLE.
In the vast, splendid hall visible beyond, the dwarf guards stood in formation, casting piercing glares.
The young men, overwhelmed by their ferocity, averted their eyes—and then spotted the pitch-black, gigantic gnoll.
"M-m-monster!"
"Get a grip, you fools. It's stuffed, isn't it?"
The soldiers had to calm down some who fell into a panic and tried to bolt.
They had no intention of treating Eugene as an equal, but humiliating themselves from the outset was still bad. They would enter negotiations already cowed.
Conversely, the dwarf warriors felt inwardly satisfied. For imposing a sense of dread upon an opponent was the most gratifying moment in a warrior's life.
"The young lads were on the verge of bolting just before. Even knowing it was stuffed, they came in trembling."
"Still, they held their ground without running. Now I'm even more eager to claim that trophy."
Imposing a sense of intimidation upon visiting guests not only elevated a noble's honor, but also brought practical benefits with it.
An opponent taking a deferential posture in negotiations, or capable warriors showing up for a visit and then requesting to enlist on the spot.
"This is all thanks to Varda-nim."
"Leave the decorating to me from now on. This sort of thing requires a woman's touch, after all."
At Eugene's praise, Varda folded her arms with a rare, proud expression. She seemed pleased that the half day she had spent preparing the display for her knight had been rewarded.
Meanwhile, the recruiting officer's party, being guided to the reception room, drew wary glances from everyone they passed.
"Is this a dream? To think I'd lay eyes on a forest nymph."
"Nancy was nothing. I'm glad we left the village after all."
The young men, knowing nothing of the truth, stared in awe at members of the Black Hand Tribe busy cleaning, making repairs, and handling other work throughout the castle.
"You bastards. You think you've come here to play around?"
"You'll only come to your senses after you get your eyeballs ripped out."
The soldiers, knowing full well the Black Hand Mercenary Company's fearsome reputation for ferocity and exclusivity, roughly seized the young men by the shoulders and issued stern warnings. And what they said held true.
"I told you not to run in the halls... Hm?"
"Ahahaha... huh?"
That included a pretty young woman carrying a basket and adorable children running around.
The moment they spotted the outsiders, their expressions changed, like vipers eyeing a rat that had crawled into their den.
They truly were a tribe of born warriors. The grown young men lowered their eyes, cowed by the women and children.
From the outside, it had seemed a mystical magic castle, but once inside, it was no different from a hornet's nest.
"You want to hire me?"
"H-hire? No. This is a commission."
At Eugene's question, the recruiting officer corrected him with extreme deference.
"It's all the same. What does it matter?"
"A single word can make all the difference, sir. How could I treat a knight who has achieved such great feats as if I were dealing with a common mercenary?"
The recruiting officer had dealt with countless beastlike mercenary captains and wandering knights, but the pressure radiating from the young man before him was on another level.
It wasn't merely Eugene's martial prowess as a knight. A threat that seemed ready to bite into the recruiting officer's very soul seeped from him.
'Is the influence of assimilating with the castle manifesting in this form?'
Marbas, seated beside them as an advisor, observed with interest.
Hell was a fearsome place that devoured human souls. And Eugene had become one with a magic castle that carried that hell within it.
When he was inside the castle, he exuded the presence of a predator even without lifting a single weapon. An eerie chill overflowed from him, as if his anger would consume souls rather than blood and flesh.
It was another reason Eugene did not worry about rebellion, even after taking in outside groups far larger than his own.
"This is a very remote place. You managed to find your way here quite well."
"I heard people in the outlying villages all saying the same thing. A massive bolt of lightning struck, and then fearsome warriors began appearing."
They meant Eugene's cavalry patrols.
"No matter how I look at it, you must be..."
"It's the Castle Lord."
The nearby heavy infantrymen cut him off, their eyes blazing.
"Yes! I could only conclude that the Castle Lord had arrived! Wouldn't bringing in one Castle Lord be better than a thousand mercenaries or conscripts? Of course I had to come and plead with you."
As the heavy infantrymen nodded with satisfied expressions, Eugene was puzzled.
"What kind of danger is Tripol in? I understood it to be a city with considerable strength, one that usually settles disputes through negotiation without bloodshed."
"Because this time the threat is not one we can negotiate with."
"Pirates?"
As befitted a city made wealthy by maritime trade, Tripol had fought the pirates roaming its seas until it was sick of them.
Not only minor pirate bands; foreign pirates sent from lands beyond the distant east sometimes sailed in entire squadrons.
Some among them even landed on vulnerable shores to commit outright plunder, making them a genuine headache.
"Pirates would be easier. Give those bastards enough gold and they'll leave on their own. At least you can negotiate with them."
"Nobles, then?"
Powerful nobles had always coveted Tripol, the city that laid golden eggs—sometimes alone, sometimes in coalitions, and sometimes by planting traitors inside.
Being men who already had no lack of money, they were not easy opponents to negotiate with.
"The enemies after us don't want money or power. They want our flesh."
"Ah, so they're monsters."
"Not just monsters. Sain."
Civilized peoples with conscience and intelligence, such as Homi and the other snow leopard beastkin, were collectively called beastkin.
Sain, on the other hand, were demi-humans much closer to beasts or monsters.
Savage as they were, they formed tribal societies, possessed technology, and were fairly intelligent. Naturally, they were far more dangerous than ordinary monsters.
Samur, covered in jungle and desert, was full of sain. Long ago, humanity had driven them from the richest lands and founded nations there.
"Those bastards have been raiding the trade routes used by caravans, and the damage is severe."
"Paying a toll and passing through is out of the question, I assume?"
"A mercenary who barely escaped said the merchant and mercenary captain who tried to negotiate went straight into the cooking pot."
"A pot again? The gnolls we met before were the same. Surprisingly, they don't just eat people raw."
He had expected monsters to tear into raw meat, yet many of them cooked their food properly. Did human flesh make a particularly good broth when boiled?
"Originally, their threat wasn't this severe, but it has rapidly intensified since around last year. At this rate, they might even set their sights on the city itself."
That was the decisive difference between sain and ordinary monsters. In sufficient numbers, sain would even attack cities directly.
Humans needed ladders and siege towers, but some species were such capable climbers that they could scale the walls themselves.
Whenever sain became active, property values near the walls fell because of rumors that they climbed over at night and abducted people from their beds.
"If the Castle Lord comes to our rescue with his army, the city will certainly repay the favor."
The recruiting officer bowed deeply. The men he had spent two weeks recruiting were already forgotten.
Standing before him was a knight already infamous for destroying bands of hundreds of brigands, the Champion of Gord, the Emperor's knights, and all manner of monsters.
"...Castle Lord?"
When no answer came, the recruiting officer raised his head and found Eugene deep in thought.
"First a hero appears among the gnolls, and now the sain suddenly run wild. Something about this is suspicious."
"You're probably thinking along the right lines."
Marbas nodded at Eugene's words.
"It's the aftermath of the spiritual tide. The mortal realm drawing closer to the Otherworld is a catastrophe for ordinary people. Ancient gods that had been losing influence will regain the ability to exert their power."
In such an environment, the gods that cared for and were worshiped by humans were not the ones that flourished most.
Offerings, sacrifices, rites of praise—evil gods unconstrained by morality or conscience in any of them were bound to grow stronger.
"Winter has come to the mortal world. This one may be especially long and harsh."
Marbas murmured sorrowfully. As a summoner who studied and peered into the Otherworld, he seemed able to see the suffering that awaited ordinary people.
"Perhaps that's true outside."
Eugene, however, was as imperturbable as ever.
"But I'll keep my own people safe and well cared for here."
He had no particular desire to become the hero or savior of some epic.
Even if the world was engulfed in flames, providing peace and a stable life to those who followed him—that was Eugene's sole concern.