The Village Headman's Offer
"Hey, you mutt. Where's your friend? I said, where did your friend go?"
"I... I don't know! I really don't! *sniff*..."
"If you don't know, who the hell does?"
"Because of you and that friend of yours, we're stuck in a royal mess right now. And your friend's nowhere to be seen? Then who are we supposed to take it out on, huh? Tell me. Come on. Tell me."
"P-please... I'm sorry! Spare me!"
"Oh, we know you're sorry! Give me something better than that—even a goblin could say that. Say something that'll calm us down. Something useful!"
"I... I really don't know..."
"You stole the horse and you never even talked about what to do next? Ha, this bastard's got nothing. He's just spouting garbage. Hey. Fix this one's head for him, will you."
"With that thing? This one's less annoying than that one over there. Why not use it on him instead?"
"Suit yourself."
Even among trash, some are more hateable than others. The arrow turned on Pra. The man who'd been throwing the villagers under the cart just moments ago was now too terrified to squeak, his limbs shaking like leaves.
"Hey. You heard all that, didn't you? Don't even think about saying you didn't. If you claim you didn't, I'll keep beating you until you say you did."
"I h-heard it! I heard it!"
"Good. You've probably forgotten everything anyway, so we'll help you remember."
"What do you m—"
When the mercenaries grabbed his hand, Pra trembled all over. No. No, no, no...
Crack!
"KYAAAAAAAAARGH!"
"Is your head clearer now? Hmm? I asked if your head is clearer!"
"Stop... stop it, you fucking bastards! I said stop!"
"Oh my. Seems his guts grew instead of his head?"
"Wahaaah... please! Please!!"
"All right. One more time. Let's see if that helps him think."
"The city! He said he was going to the city!"
"Which city?"
"How the fuck should I know! I've never been there, how would I know! He's the one who came up with it, so why are you yelling at me! Ahhhgg!"
When Pra screamed and pointed at Bullun, every head snapped around at once. Cruel smiles spread across the mercenaries' faces.
"Well, well... so you were the one who started it?"
"N-no! That's not true! I swear!"
"Which means one of you two is lying, doesn't it?"
When the mercenaries turned their eyes back on Pra, he screamed desperately.
"Ask the villagers! He's the leader, I'm telling you!"
"Oh-ho."
The mercenaries had already figured as much. Even at a glance, Bullun looked older. In a backwater village like this, who else would play the boss?
"Damn. This bastard's as sly as an orc. We almost got played ourselves, didn't we? He pulled the whole thing and just sat there with his mouth shut?"
"Impressive, actually. Eh?"
"N-no, no, no..."
The mercenaries washed their hands with water from a wooden barrel as they talked.
"Looks like that Gamson bastard and those two saw eye to eye. Grab a share of something and run for the city, that was the plan."
Every one of them had been a Bullun or a Pra once. That was exactly why they could instantly see what kind of thinking lay behind the whole scheme.
Living as a serf in a dirt-poor village was a bitter lot for hot-blooded young men. Getting seduced by the sight of a mercenary band passing through and bolting for the city was hardly a rare tale.
The only difference was whether you ran with nothing but your skin, or grabbed whatever you could on the way out.
"So all this hell because of some half-penny greenhorn..."
Rookies who'd just joined a band, or country boys who'd crawled up hoping to become mercenaries, were called half-pennies — a sneer meaning they weren't skilled enough to earn even a single coin.
Of course, being incompetent didn't guarantee they'd do proportionally little damage.
"I was hoping they'd have a hiding spot near the village, or connections in a neighboring town we could lean on, but it seems they've bolted for good, Captain."
If that had been the case, they could have hunted them down. But if the bastards had planned to run far from the very start, tracking them was hopeless.
Where on this vast continent would you even begin to look?
"No. There might actually be a way to find them."
"Kahn, sir. Is that really true?"
"How so?"
"It's only if luck's on our side, mind you... but think it through. Where do you figure Gamson would run? You think he'd flee to some village he's never seen?"
"Can't imagine so. He'd head for a city, wouldn't he?"
A drifter couldn't easily put down roots in a small village. A suspicious mercenary with no skills whatsoever? Even less so.
A city, on the other hand, was where every kind of scoundrel washed up.
"Right. He'll go to a city. Which city, though?"
"There's no way for us to know that, is there? Just pick any... Ah. Wait a moment. He didn't have a single connection to his name, did he? Surely not—"
"I'd say there's a good chance he's doubling back to Marcel, the city we passed through."
Gamson had been a rookie treated as a half-penny. A country boy who'd run off with pocket change and crawled up to the city.
The only reason a bum with nothing to his name had gotten into the band at all was pure luck. Even Gowan wouldn't have taken in a Gamson if they hadn't suddenly been short-handed.
And what could anyone do if a man like that suddenly stole a horse? Fencing stolen goods took ability too. When a shifty-looking mercenary showed up hawking a horse, any merchant would gut the price on sight.
To sell at proper value you needed connections or a credible identity...
Gamson had neither.
"Marcel has quite a few shops and merchants within the reach of the Kettana Guild's network. He'd have made their acquaintance on the way through, so odds are good he'll drum up some excuse to try selling there."
"...!"
They'd all gotten to know one another as the guards escorting Eldans on the road through Marcel. From Gamson's perspective, the thought would surely be, 'If I make up a decent excuse, maybe I can offload the horse at a fair price.'
"No, come on. Even if the bastard's an idiot, is he really that stupid?"
"I say it's possible. He's a green pup who has no idea how far the Guild's reach extends. He failed to steal what he set out to steal, and his buddy got caught. With pursuers who might show up at any hour, a horse sticks out like a sore thumb. Wouldn't he want it gone yesterday? Marcel would tug at him a hell of a lot harder than some far-off city he's never seen."
Besides, their party was a slow one. If the unburdened Gamson made a run for it, he'd have plenty of time to sell and slip away.
But...
"The merchants in the city aren't that easy a mark, you know."
"True enough."
The city merchants were no fools. Even if the man had been escorting their own caravan, nobody would swallow a story from a mercenary who came strolling back alone out of nowhere trying to sell a horse.
So what if he's suspicious? If he prices it cheap enough, play dumb and buy it?
That was a daydream fit for country boys. That was the trade of itinerant snake-oil peddlers. Merchants inside a city didn't sell each other out for a few coins.
Doing business in a city meant being tangled up, thick and thin, in the city's rules.
And Gamson almost certainly didn't know this. If he went in ignorant...
The word would go straight to the Guild and the mercenary companies alike, and while he was standing there going 'uh, uh,' they'd have him in irons!
"Now this is fun."
"!"
When Johan, who had been listening nearby, spoke up, everyone jumped.
"So if we head to Marcel as we are, we can catch the man?"
"K-Knight. This is only a matter of what could happen. If he's run to some other city, then..."
"Then that's that."
Johan answered lightly.
"If we catch him, splendid. If we can't, well, there's nothing to be done about it, is there? From the look of things, you were all fooled by him too. I have no intention of holding anyone separately accountable, so ease your minds."
"...!"
"Th-thank you!"
At Johan's words, the mercenaries felt their eyes sting. What magnanimity was this? He'd seemed that way from the start, but this knight truly had a generous heart. A heart that stood in stark contrast to the savage thing they'd witnessed on the battlefield.
"Besides, the compensation is coming from this village anyway."
Johan cast a sidelong glance out the window. He could see the village head, Atanka, approaching with a tense expression.
—Headman, this is...
—Yes. That's the gear of that mercenary who calls himself a knight — the one we thrashed and sent running the other day.
Compared to Johan, he'd been a filthy fake of a knight, hardly worth the title — but the equipment itself had been respectable enough.
—D-didn't you say you dedicated it to the steward, sir?
—Do you want a beating?
—M-my apologies.
When Atanka snapped at him, the vigilante shut his mouth. Unlike Atanka, the man was poor at reading a room.
'I was planning to convert it into silver when the chance arose later...'
In a village like this, even selling weapons was a chore. Without a suitable buyer, there was no one to sell to. And Atanka had to do it behind the villagers' backs, no less.
But who could have known that very predicament would end up saving Atanka's neck?
With the clatter of boards being pried up, Atanka brought out the mercenary's armor and weapons, and the vigilante asked carefully.
—W-will this be acceptable?
—Acceptable for what?
—It looks... rather shabby, however one looks at it, compared to the noble knight's gear...
Even his accent and bearing had marked Johan as nobility from the first word. And with a frame like his, seated atop a well-built horse and wrapped in armor and surcoat as he looked down at you, it chilled a man to the bone.
By comparison, the gear here had little going for it beyond weapons that at least looked intact. The coat he'd worn as a surcoat looked like it had been stitched together from scraps of worn cloth, and the armor, with iron plates forcibly jammed between layers of padded cloth, looked wretchedly uncomfortable to wear.
—...And who said anything about handing over that? Look at the weapons. A knight travels with more than one blade. Weapons like these fetch a decent price.
—I... I see.
—And I intend to add one more thing on top. Don't fret.
"Knight. Well met."
"Hardly. So Lutzbeck's custom is to steal a guest's property and make off with his horse?"
"For that matter, I must offer my apologies once more."
Atanka bowed his head without a flicker of expression. He had clearly steeled himself before coming.
"As headman, I should have kept my young men properly in line. To fail at even this and bring disappointment upon you... I am truly sorry."
Humbled, groveling, offering not a single excuse. Watching him, Johan thought to himself:
'He'd be mortally offended if he learned my house is gone.'
The man's deference owed as much to Johan's blood as to his martial prowess. A village headman might play king within his own little patch of dirt, but set beside a noble, his station was lower than an earthworm's.
More than Johan's sword arm, Atanka surely feared his house.
"Of course, I have no intention of settling for mere words. I will properly repay the price of the horse stolen from you."
"How?"
"First, we will punish those two men. If you'd rather not dirty your hands with such worthless creatures, we can—"
"No. Unnecessary. I'll take them with me and deal with them myself."
The two of them were part of the price the village owed. Whether they were sold as slaves or had their necks severed — that was Johan's decision to make.
Atanka was inwardly disappointed. If Johan had left the punishment to the village, he might have spirited them away quietly.
"Punishing the guilty is only proper. Surely you don't mean to call that repayment?"
"Of course not! Stealing a knight's horse is a crime of monstrous proportion! It could never be paid off with the punishment of two nobodies."
A horse was expensive property, and a warhorse for a knight dearer still. A beast of good bloodline had to be trained from its earliest years — a different creature entirely from the pack horses merchants rode.
'Hm. But was my horse really worth that much?'
Johan honestly knew little about what kind of animal he rode. His half-brothers had procured it from somewhere without telling him. They had cared for it with a certain affection, at least — they'd fitted it out with a fine saddle and tack...
"Even if we scraped together every last coin of silver we have, it would fall far short of satisfying you, I imagine."
The man's slow, roundabout preamble was starting to feel suspicious. Then again, compensating a knight's horse properly would cost a small fortune. A village like this would have to dig up every hidden silver piece it possessed.
But that was the village's problem, and Johan intended to receive proper compensation regardless.
"Did the Lord not decree that a life be repaid with a life? It won't be as useful as your horse, but I have prepared a slave who will nonetheless serve you well."
"...?"
A slave!
Slaves were a common sight across the continent. A few of the servants on Johan's own estate had been slaves purchased by Lord Gessen.
Even the Church of the One God said nothing against slavery. Men who'd committed crimes, men who'd lost wars, men unlucky enough to be captured — all manner of them were sold off in chains.
Slaves bought this way labored across every field of life. The talentless were put to menial drudgery, but the skilled received a fair measure of respect in their own right.