The Wolf's Loyalty and the Road West
"Come at me if you dare."
Johan picked up Karamap's longsword in place of his shattered one. Honestly, even this made him uneasy, but it beat wandering around unarmed. And unlike the plate armor, Karamap's longsword was plain and unremarkable, so most people probably wouldn't give it a second glance.
I should only use it when no one's watching.
But the black wolf didn't attack. It lowered its head and began creeping forward, its posture anything but threatening.
?
Johan was caught off guard.
Was this some kind of trick?
Do monsters even pull stunts like this?
It was no trick. The black wolf knelt before Johan and shook its head.
"...Are you seriously trying to sweet-talk me right now?"
Johan was dumbfounded. The memory of the wolves tearing into the mercenaries was still vivid.
Come to think of it, even back then they strangely left me alone...
Johan reached out and scratched the black wolf under its chin, fully prepared to smash its skull if it bit. It didn't. Instead, the wolf wagged its tail as if delighted, then all but rolled over to expose its belly.
"...You want to eat?"
Johan pointed at what remained of Karamap and the horse. The black wolf perked up with excitement and began tearing into the horse. With a body that size came an appetite to match, and bones started showing through in no time.
Is this... a good thing?
With the corpse mangled like that, no one would ever be able to identify it. Johan gathered up Karamap's belongings before the wolf could swallow him whole.
One longsword. A silk pouch containing six imperial gold coins and twenty silver coins — for a moment he almost forgot his grudge against Sir Karamap. And a ring bearing a family seal.
Meager, and yet lavish at the same time. Johan squeezed the pouch tight. It was more money than he'd ever held in his life.
An imperial gold coin was worth roughly twenty silver. And imperial silver and gold were trusted currency accepted anywhere in the Empire — even in other kingdoms.
What about the ring?
A family signet ring. The moment anyone recognized it, it would raise far more suspicion than the plate armor ever could. Johan debated burying it along with the armor, but in the end he tucked it into his shirt. He had no intention of selling it, and it might prove useful down the line.
It's small enough to hide well.
Having settled the matter, Johan approached the plate armor. The shattered, torn-up mess was a sorry sight.
Shhhlick—
"!"
The moment he pulled at the armor to strip it from the corpse, the plate moved as if it were alive. The pieces that locked it around the body swiveled smoothly — and released on their own.
"?"
Johan didn't know exactly how Earth people had worn plate armor in their day, but he knew at least that this wasn't how.
What the hell, dwarves. Is this some kind of shape-memory alloy? That's genuinely amazing.
Something like this would be several times more convenient than the real thing. Touch the armor and it dressed you; want it off and it undid itself. And from what he could see, it even adjusted its size to fit the wearer.
And this was after it had been split and torn apart.
I need to remember exactly where I bury this.
Johan cleared away Karamap's corpse and buried the armor first, leaving markers around the spot that only he would recognize.
— There are two kinds of hunter's marks. One fades with time; the other never does.
Marks made of wood were the former; stone was the latter. When the work was done, Johan wiped the sweat from his brow.
Now, the corpse...
Shloop—
He felt the black wolf's gaze. It was drooling over Karamap's remains.
"...You want this one too?"
The wolf clearly understood every word. It pounced on Karamap without hesitation. Whatever its appetite, the horse was already down to bare bones. Johan had no idea how much wolves normally ate, but even he could tell this black wolf was something special.
Leaving nothing behind but a neat pile of bones within minutes — that wasn't exactly common.
Wait — is it really okay to give a wolf a taste for human flesh? What if it starts attacking... no. It's already eaten the mercenaries, hasn't it?
These things had already devoured the bastards. What difference would a little more make?
Johan looked at the black wolf and spoke.
"Hmm, listen. I'd rather you didn't raid the serfs in that village. The iron-smelling mercenaries are fair game, but leave the villagers alone."
Nod—
"...You actually understand me, don't you?"
Instead of answering, the black wolf licked its front paws. Johan scrunched up his face and got to his feet.
Better bury the bones while I'm at it.
By the time he finished, the sun was rising. Even the forest caught glimpses of the morning light. He wanted nothing more than to sleep, but sleeping was out of the question. He needed to put as much distance between himself and that place as possible.
Where should he run?
The Eitz family's fief sat in the Empire's southwest. Thankfully, other countries were close by. Honestly, he doubted he'd be caught even if he stayed in the Empire — he was unlikely to be pursued at all, and even if someone did come after him, what technique did this era have for tracking a man down? Once Johan changed his name and settled somewhere, pursuit would become effectively impossible.
Still, another country would be safer.
A little further west lay the Kingdom of Erance, and beyond the massive Dwarf Mountains to the south were free cities where the Emperor's influence barely reached.
West it is.
Fighting armed soldiers was one thing; climbing frozen, snowbound mountains half-naked was another entirely. He had no desire to die in an avalanche or from a fall.
They said if you cut through the Black Forest heading west, you'd come out on an Ancient Empire highway. Take that road, and I can breathe easy.
From Eitz village, cutting straight through the Black Forest let a traveler head due west without making the long detour around the forest's edge. Yet no one ever chose that route. People detoured, every one of them — nobody was fool enough to risk a dangerous forest just to shave a week or so off the journey.
The Ancient Empire's highways, maintained for over a thousand years, were the lifeline and the signpost of every traveler on the continent. Seventy to eighty percent of the Empire's land was forest and mountain, and wandering through it meant offering your life up to the monsters.
Travelers, merchants, nobles, vagabonds, thieves, mercenaries — everyone moved along those roads.
Johan figured it would take him two to three days to cut through the Black Forest and slip out to the west.
Even if mercenaries who knew his face came looking toward Erance, they'd have to loop around over the forest and take the highway — a minimum of one to two weeks.
That was more than enough of a head start. If Johan kept moving along the roads, the gap would only widen, and by then the odds of meeting again on so vast a continent were nothing.
I made this plan myself, but it's flawless.
— Grff?
"Yeah. I don't think you should follow me. Having you tagging along would invite the wrong kind of attention. You're... a bit too big to pass off as a dog."
Plenty of people traveled with hunting hounds, but even a blind man could see this black wolf was no dog. Where in the world was there a dog like this?
"Sorry."
— Hrrrm.
The black wolf nodded its head, backed away, and began to melt into the trees. Johan let out a long breath and went to find the horse he'd tethered. He was curious about how the village had fared, but right now his only job was to run.
Even for Johan, three days of solo camping while pushing through the forest was soul-grinding work.
Damn it all.
Only when the forest finally ended and the road appeared in the distance did Johan allow himself a sigh. He'd been properly trained by Joseph; without that, he might have blundered around the woods, lost his way, and died in there.
The hunter's knowledge.
It was the sum of everything a man needed to do to survive in the forest.
Building fires, picking a proper campsite, scattering herbs that snakes couldn't stand, conserving the warmth of his body through the cold nights — all of it.
— A seasoned hunter uses the forest like his own bed.
That was what Joseph used to say, and Johan hadn't believed a word of it.
Camping alone meant sleeping half-awake, weapon within reach at all times, ready to move at a moment's notice. He'd taken off the chain mail to sleep, but forced himself to wear everything else. His stamina was more than up to the exertion — it was his mind that wore down.
And this man used the forest like his own bed?
I could never be a hunter.
Of course, Joseph's boast had been exaggerated to some degree. Even real hunters rarely entered the deep forest alone.
Johan's joints cracked as he stretched. He rubbed his stubbled jaw and thought that he'd love nothing more than to drain a few watery pints of cheap ale and collapse into a bed.
"!"
Down the road, a small party came into view — two wagons, loaded down with goods. Peddlers, no doubt about it.
Perfect.
Better to travel with a group than alone. It would spare him suspicion he hadn't earned.
"Huh? A knight!"
"What? For real?"
The mercenaries guarding the merchants went rigid with alarm. A knight.
The notion that knights were honorable men bound by chivalry was knight propaganda, pure and simple. To mercenaries, knights were ruthless warriors you did not want entangled with — cross one, and you were screwed.
Warriors trained relentlessly from childhood, equipped with the finest gear, a different breed entirely from mercenaries who'd survived the battlefield by clutching whatever weapon they could find.
If one mercenary could handle ten peasants, one knight could handle ten mercenaries.
"What's the matter with you lot? What possible business do we have with a knight?"
"Ah, you green little brat... If your head's empty, at least keep your mouth shut. Do you have any idea how savage knights are?"
At the words of the youngest among them, a green-as-grass rookie, the other mercenaries rounded on him.
Why else would a knight be out here with nothing better to do?
Two possibilities came to mind.
If the knight had even a shred of honor left, he'd collect a toll for passage. And if he didn't even care about that much...
Banditry!
There were knights who simply slaughtered every merchant and traveler crossing their territory and seized their goods. Absurd, but when you thought about it, an extremely convenient line of business.
Within his own domain, the knight was the lord — no one was coming to arrest him, and any traveler he robbed was almost guaranteed to be weaker than the men-at-arms he led...
It was practically free money.
The mercenaries swallowed hard and scanned their surroundings. The dark, gloomy forest suddenly felt menacing, as if an ambush were crouched behind every tree.
"Lord Eldans. We've no intention of crossing blades with a knight."
The captain of the mercenary band spoke carefully to his employer. It was a small company of less than ten, but he was a man who tried to keep his word — he had ambitions of climbing higher, after all. He could always run and start over in another city, but everything he'd built up here would be gone in an instant.