Chapter 70: The Mad Eccentric
Karian rode alongside Hugo. A short distance behind, Astal Bergias clumsily urged his horse after the pair. Several wagons trailed in their wake—all assets under Hugo's management for Marhal.
Spotting Astal, Karian slowed his mount.
"Tired?"
"Karian, how do you even know how to ride?"
Astal was genuinely amazed. He might have been a bastard son, but his family hadn't completely cast him aside. They'd given him enough money for living expenses and even some indulgences, and he'd dabbled in horseback riding. Karian, on the other hand, was a total commoner. He never should have had the chance to learn.
Yet here was Karian, handling his horse several times more skillfully than Astal.
"Learned it to survive, I guess."
"To survive?"
"In the West, you can't get by without a horse."
If you were just sticking around near the Border, you didn't need to know how to ride. But if you planned to roam the West—or join a land race—horsemanship wasn't optional; it was essential.
"See any roads here?"
"Roads?"
Astal scanned the ground, but he couldn't spot any sign of human-made paths.
"Now that you mention it, there aren't any."
"Exactly. Without a guide, you're bound to get lost. And trying to walk to a village from there? You'd wander the wasteland endlessly. Plenty of people starve to death that way."
"For real?"
Astal sounded skeptical. Couldn't you just walk in any direction for three days and hit some village? The West was vast, sure, but starving because you got lost? Hard to believe.
Karian had thought the same when he first crossed into the West from the Border. Back in the Duchy, you could climb the tallest tree in the village and spot the next town or estate. The idea of walking a whole week without seeing a soul seemed impossible.
"For real. And more often than you'd think."
"...We're on the right track, though, right?"
"We've got an expert, so probably? Even if not, with horses, we'll manage somehow."
"How?"
It had been the same when Karian first settled in the West. Whenever he asked about something he didn't know, there were always a few uncles nearby to answer. He'd chalked it up to simple kindness back then, but after experiencing it himself, he realized it wasn't just kindness.
There's something satisfying about making someone else feel inferior.
"Slaughter the horse, and you've got rations for a while. Know how to make preserved food, and one horse can last you a month. You'll run into someone in that time."
If not, most folks hit a small village within a month anyway. If you didn't... well, you'd die.
"So, what kind of guy's that Marhal anyway?"
"Who? Marhal?"
Astal nodded. He frequented the taverns where commoners hung out, so he'd bonded quickly with Karian. But Marhal? No. Aside from that first meeting, they hadn't even properly talked.
He'd received conveniences he'd never gotten even when his family was intact, which only deepened the mystery. Who was this Marhal guy, and why treat him like this?
Karian fell silent for a moment.
What kind of person was Marhal? Karian didn't really know either. They'd only known each other for a short time. The land race had ended less than a month ago, and he'd only acted alongside Marhal a handful of times.
"A trustworthy weirdo. That's about it."
"A weirdo?"
"Heard this from that lady Ena: one day, someone in the village died, and another got hurt. The dead guy was a villager, killed by another villager in a drunken brawl at night—spur-of-the-moment murder. The injured one was the owner of a shop in the village. The perp was a laborer nursing a grudge over being scammed."
"So, they executed the murderer and let the laborer off the hook?"
Murder carried heavy penalties everywhere. Usually, killers became slaves, but villages without the means to manage slaves just killed them outright. And everyone knew it was hard to catch fugitives in the West—even Astal, who'd only been there a short while.
A perfectly ordinary answer.
And Marhal's was the opposite.
"The murderer lived, and the laborer died."
"...That's backwards, isn't it?"
"That's what I thought, so I double-checked. Nope."
Karian had asked Ena twice. She'd laughed heartily—louder than most men—and confirmed he'd heard right.
"The murderer didn't get off scot-free, though. Marhal severed his ankle tendons so he couldn't run, dooming him to work the village for life. And the laborer who fled? Bounty on his head. One hundred imperial gold coins."
"One hundred?"
"Crazy, right?"
Astal nodded instinctively. One hundred imperial gold coins was more than most nobles could throw around lightly. The highest bounty he'd heard of was for a rapist who'd assaulted and killed over a dozen women—five gold from the mercenary guild.
"The shop owner was just injured, right? Not killed?"
"Yeah, injured."
Karian couldn't hold back his curiosity and asked the man himself. The fabric shop owner laughed and lifted his shirt to show the scar on his belly.
"The West is big, but with a hundred gold on the line? He got caught in less than a month."
And then torn limb from limb in the village square.
"Was it worth going that far?"
"I thought a hundred was overkill myself, but what do you think the villagers made of it?"
"Dunno?"
"If someone attacks me, he'll avenge me in kind. Something like that?"
"Ah."
With those hundred gold coins, Marhal had earned the villagers' absolute trust. According to Ena, that incident sparked a rush of wandering merchants who'd been on the fence about settling—ballooning the pioneer village overnight.
(She'd added that covering a hundred-gold deficit like that was laughable, for the record.)
It had been Marhal's decision alone to post the bounty.
"Honestly, there's stuff even I don't get about him. That's why he's a weirdo. But a weirdo on our side is more trustworthy than one against us, right?"
Weirdo. Madman. Psycho.
Affectionate nicknames the pioneer villagers used for Marhal. Born from the faith that even if they died, this one madman would avenge them.
* * *
Marhal, Haribal, Ultekan, and Alasil Egoman entered the forest.
Haribal and Ultekan had worried about bringing Alasil along, but they shut up after she pulverized a brick with her fist.
The stench of blood grew thicker inside the woods. Traces of habitation littered the ground: campfire pits, what looked like latrine holes, rotting food scraps. People had definitely lived here.
A little farther in, they found a clearing made by felled trees. What should have been living space was now a pooled puddle of blood.
"This is bad."
Marhal grimaced. No intact corpses to identify. They'd killed people, dismembered them, mixed the parts. Hard to even guess how many victims.
Bad memories surfaced. Demons had desecrated bodies like this too. Traversing the black-misted West, he'd passed blood-soaked earth and towers of human bones several times. And demons—strong ones—always lurked near those towers.
Demons were mostly mindless beasts acting on instinct. They obeyed only the Demon King or higher-ranking demons. Rational demons typically commanded and controlled the rest.
This feels wrong.
Those bone towers weren't mere sadism. They were a way for demons to grow power—like a mage's eccentricity.
A scream echoed from deeper in the forest.
Before anyone could speak, Marhal bolted forward.
"Wait! Where are you going? What can you do alone? Why're you so fast?!"
Marhal wrapped himself in wind. Humans were affected by air resistance far more than they realized. Clearing the wind ahead let you move much faster than your physical limits allowed.
He wove between trees. The forest was dim even in daylight. Leaves rustled in the wind.
Shwaaah.
The breeze parting Marhal's path shook the branches. He reached the scream's source.
A man splattered in blood stood before a fallen child. Tears streamed from the kid's eyes. He looked out of his mind with terror, back against a tree. The man punched the trunk.
Crack.
The tree toppled sideways. The child's wails grew louder; the man chuckled softly.
Marhal drew the Pen of Responsibility. He'd planned to store it back in the warehouse, not use it again so soon.
The man's body froze. He couldn't even twitch his mouth, fist still extended.
Marhal approached the child.
"It's okay now."
"M-Mom... Mom...!"
"Yeah, yeah."
Marhal scooped up the kid and stood. At least one survivor. No—not good. The dead were Strekl's family. Settlers for the West. Future villagers.
People like that had died.
The other three arrived late.
Marhal handed the child to Alasil.
"What's this?"
"Magic. Just soothe him a bit. It'll be over quick."
Marhal neared the man. He looked normal enough. Mid-forties. No knight—rumor had it no bare-handed mercenary could snap a tree. Some secluded ascetic? That would explain the slaughter. Killing for power, the training method Marhal despised most.
"Is that real magic?"
The man spoke.
Marhal jolted in shock. The Pen of Responsibility was a Bachea Empire relic. Not just his father's—not even the emperors had used it for generations; it held at least a century of history. Even high knights could barely breathe under its effect.
Marhal met the man's eyes. A black whirlpool swirled in his pupils. Dark, ominous mist churned within.
Marhal drew his dagger from his belt. It aimed for the man's heart.
The man's hand blocked it. The blade pierced his palm and chest but missed the heart.
"Everyone, run!"
Marhal pushed off with his legs, retreating at top speed. He released the Pen's power.
Against that, the Pen was a liability. It would only strengthen the thing.
"If it's a fight, I can—"
"Just run, damn it!"
The man vanished.
That's how it looked to Haribal. People could slip from sight in close quarters—knights and mercenaries exploiting visual gaps. But he was over twenty paces away. Too far for blind spots.
Only one explanation: speed beyond human eyes.
Haribal instinctively raised his arm. It saved his life.
A gruesome crunch—his arm shattered. The fist that pulverized bone and muscle slammed into his head, sending him flying backward, motionless.
"...Insane."
Ultekan drew his sword. Could he match that speed? Forget speed—what the hell was that power? Haribal was borderline superhuman. His bones and muscles weren't normal. Yet one punch had crippled him. A knight might break an arm with technique, but raw power like that? Rare in the world.
Marhal shouted in Holy Empire tongue.
"What are you doing? I said run! You can figure that out without me spelling it!"
"If I go, can you kill it?"
"I've got a way, so shut up and go. You trying to get your wife and kids killed too?!"
Mention of family broke Ultekan's fighting spirit. Dying in battle was honorable for a plains warrior, but family and national restoration came first.
Ultekan turned to flee. Something flew at him.
Recognizing it, he caught it reflexively.
"Take him. I'll handle this."
"You know how to fight?"
"I've got confidence I won't die."
It was Alasil. She'd tossed the child to Ultekan and was treating Haribal. With her there, instant death was off the table.
"...Come back alive."
Ultekan vanished into the trees.
The culprit watched them go, amused.
Clap, clap, clap.
The man applauded. His palm and chest wounds had already healed, leaving only blood trails. Unmistakably inhuman regeneration.
"Curtain call on the village drama? You'll all die anyway—quite the fuss."
"You. That power. Who gave it to you?"
Alasil shuddered. A chill pierced her bones.
Marhal stared at the man. For a moment, the man seemed speechless.
Then he sneered.
"Who knows?"
The man moved. Marhal raised his arm to shield his head—and the man's leg slammed into position.