Chapter 267 - You Aren’t the Only Ones Who Can Hit Back

The first thing he saw when he opened his eye was a stone ceiling thick with mold. Meellun recalled the instant before he lost consciousness. A Frog’s formidable mind remembered every detail with perfect clarity.

Which was how he realized that, to put it crudely, he was royally fucked. “Give me some water. And while you’re at it, bring me something to eat. I like fruit.”

Meellun spoke as he half sat up. His arm had regenerated, and shackles encircled both wrists and ankles, chained to a pillar. Even a Frog couldn’t force his way out of this.

What else was left, then? Nothing but waiting. Perhaps it was the drug he had swallowed in his last desperate struggle, but his head felt ready to split, and his heart ached. ‘Will I be able to get out?’

Like most Frogs, he regretted being diverted from the pursuit of his desires and appetites more than he feared death.

‘Weird bastard.’

Naturally, that brought to mind the man who had beaten him senseless.

‘He looked like easy prey.’

Why hadn’t he been? He had definitely seemed manageable, weaker than Meellun. That was what his own eye had told him.

‘Why?’ A Frog’s combat sense let him judge in an instant who held the advantage. Meellun had fought according to the intuition that sense urged upon him. Then they should at least have been evenly matched. Why had he taken such a one-sided thrashing?

Their combat sense was an extension of their ability to see and assess talent. In that respect, Encrid was the least comprehensible sort of human a Frog could encounter: a man of negligible talent who had clawed his way upward anyway. This was what came of never giving up through his repeating todays.

Encrid was a human a Frog’s combat sense could not read. Meellun, in particular, wasn’t especially confident in his talent-reading eye. Frogs had different specialties, of course. Some specialized in assessing talent, others in combat. Meellun’s particular gift lay in his footwork.

‘He kept going for the joints, the bastard.’

His regenerated forearm still stung faintly. He had lost an arm last time, and he had lost one again. No, this time he’d had his eye stabbed out as well.

‘He knows how to fight.’ Being good with a sword and knowing how to fight were two different things. The idiots who holed up on their family estates studying swordsmanship swung their swords so prettily. Wasn’t that what people across the continent derided as aristocratic swordsmanship?

The man who had laid him out was nothing like that. He understood the weaknesses of a Frog’s slippery skin, targeting the eye and joints with his thrusts and cuts.

Had he been like that last time? Had he always fought so well? Honestly, Meellun couldn’t quite remember. The man had been a decent fighter, but Meellun had expected to overwhelm him when they met again.

‘Well, that took all the fun out of it.’

He had no energy, and he was hungry. “Water and dried fruit. Hard to get fresh fruit now it’s winter.”

The jailer readily brought him food. Friendlier than expected, wasn’t he? Meellun drank the water and chewed and swallowed the dried fruit. There was nicely baked bread and marmalade, too.

“Hey, this is good.”

“Glad to hear it.”

The jailer answered without a smile. He showed some tension, but his limbs weren’t stiff with it. ‘Well trained.’

As a Frog, Meellun could tell roughly that much at a glance. Of course, his talent-reading eye wasn’t particularly good.

‘Even so, that bastard’s unusual.’

It was no different from what countless others who assessed talent had said upon seeing Encrid. Two days passed that way. Realizing he had no hope of forcing his way out, Meellun tried bribing the jailer instead. That failed too.

“If I let you get away, I’m dead.”

“Doesn’t seem like they’d kill a soldier outright for one mistake.”

As Meellun tried gently coaxing him, something self-mocking, almost mournful, crossed the soldier’s face. Not that Meellun recognized it. He merely wondered what to make of the soldier’s next words.

“They’d take me off jail duty and throw me into an eternal training hell. Might be better off dead.”

What was that supposed to mean? At any rate, the jailer wasn’t strict, but he didn’t seem open to bribery either. He looked as though he would shake his head even at a lump of gold.

“And if I got caught doing that, I really would die. I’m happy enough with what I earn now. I’m not getting greedy for more and dying on my sweet little children.”

“You’re married?”

“Not yet.”

“... Then what sweet little children?”

“My future children. Future children.”

Did even the ordinary soldiers in this territory have sharp tongues? Another day passed with that thought, and Meellun began to wonder whether they had locked him up and forgotten about him. Trapped underground, unable to tell day from night, he even began feeling a little forlorn.

‘Should never have gotten mixed up in this fucking mess.’

Two more days passed. Meellun grew impatient. At this rate, he might spend the rest of his life here.

Should he cut off his arms and legs to get out? Tearing his limbs off would probably deal with the shackles, but even a Frog couldn’t bend those bars while missing all four limbs and bleeding like mad. Could he?

‘Ah, what the hell is this?’ Anxiety enveloped Meellun. Every passing day tormented him. When did a Frog, a creature true to its desires and appetites, die? When its head was cut off? When it contracted an incurable disease? When an arrow pierced its heart?

A ruptured heart certainly killed them, but there was a crueler way. Frogs could not endure being left to wither away. They were a race that lived swept up in curiosity and desire, after all. “Hey, haven’t they forgotten about me?”

Waking from what might have been a nap or a night’s sleep, Meellun addressed the jailer beyond the bars. As he spoke, he turned toward the small table and two chairs, only to see someone else instead. Four people, to be exact.

The man who had beaten him, a frail-looking human with large eyes, and another human standing half in darkness, with the torchlight illuminating exactly half his face.

The jailer was gone. They had finally come. They hadn’t forgotten him. Even if he was going to die, he needed a change by now, so inwardly Meellun rejoiced. “Where did you get the powdered drug?”

That stuff had made his guts ache so badly he’d nearly died. Since they weren’t even asking who he was yet, Meellun answered readily. He had waited long enough; he didn’t want to send them away with pointless talk.

“Picked it up on the way.”

“Where?”

“A little village.”

It was the Fairy asking. Her face was expressionless, her manner cold. He could tell at a glance she was at least his equal.

‘Is this place full of nothing but monsters?’

What were so many people like this doing in a frontier territory? Meellun continued. He hadn’t intended to hide anything in the first place. “Head west from here. Two days at my pace, a little over a day and a half on horseback. There’s a fenced village on a small plateau. Don’t know its name. The chief was a pretty young woman. Kaisella.”

A Frog’s aesthetic sensibilities favored beautiful humans.

“Did Black Blade send you?”

“The bandits? Black Blade? No?” Meellun had spent days imprisoned, and to a Frog that was worse than having his nails or eyes plucked out. If they kept him here forever, he would have to suppress his desires until he withered away and died. Ah, there could be no greater torment for a Frog.

“It actually works.”

At Encrid’s murmur, Krais piped up behind him.

“Better than I expected, too.”

Encrid nodded from his chair. Spending time with Luagarne had given him a rough sense of what Frogs were like, but Krais really was something else.

‘What an extraordinary head he has.’ He recalled what Krais had said.

[“Frogs follow their desires. What do you suppose a wandering Frog like that wants? Lock him up, and he might talk far more readily than you’d expect.”]

Krais himself had only been half certain, but even coming up with the idea was remarkable. He had said leaving the Frog for a few days might spare them the trouble of an interrogation, so that was what they’d done. His judgment had been correct.

Still... “Know a merchant called Fromshell? He was planting ears all over the continent. I was working for him. Put simply, he runs an information guild.”

Encrid hadn’t expected him to tell them absolutely everything. He couldn’t read a Frog’s expression, but the words were clearly true. Their prisoner was a Frog. Rather than lie about something like this, his kind would keep their mouths shut.

Which meant this had nothing to do with Black Blade. He really had obtained the powder by chance, and the person who had sent him was a merchant. A man running an information guild, in other words.

It sounded plausible, which made it all the more memorable.

‘Fromshell. Fromshell.’

Encrid repeated the name a couple of times, committing it to memory. “A noble?”

“Not as far as I know.”

“Is that everything?”

“If anything I’ve said is false, may the God of Impulse and Waves punish me.”

“And you’ll make a covenant?”

“Of course.”

To a Frog, a covenant was a promise, an oath, something that must be honored.

“I was deceived too. By Fromshell, that horse’s ass.”

Meellun snorted. Encrid decided he had heard everything he needed. More than he needed, in fact. They had learned the location of the village where Meellun had obtained the powder, for one. “All that trouble searching for it, and they had it hidden inside a village,” the Fairy murmured.

“How many can fight?”

Having already told them everything, Meellun answered the Fairy without hesitation.

“Most of the villagers, from what I saw.”

“How many altogether?”

“Over fifty, roughly.”

At the Frog’s answer, Encrid nodded. “Are you letting me out now?”

Encrid nodded again, rose from his chair, and approached the bars.

“We’ll see.”

“What?”

“I’ll let you out depending on how things go.”

“You bastard! You promised!”

He had never promised anything of the sort. Encrid did intend to release him, but before they came here, Krais had pleaded with him.

[“Could you please leave him to me?”]

At that earnest appeal, Encrid had agreed. “Wait, let’s talk for a moment.”

The Frog was just sticking out his long tongue to curse Encrid when Krais stepped in. His large eyes and looks were the sort a Frog would find appealing. Meellun was male, though, so he had no interest. Still, the large eyes weren’t bad. Meellun tended to consider a face more handsome the larger its eyes.

“Now then, Meellun?”

Krais smiled with utter innocence. Looking at that face, Encrid knew Meellun was in for it. Krais only smiled that way when he was fleecing a sucker.

* * *

They left the dungeon and headed for Marcus’s office. Encrid had waited until after the Frog’s interrogation so he could report everything at once. Battalion Commander Marcus was that busy. Judging by everything going on in the territory, even three or four bodies wouldn’t have been enough for him.

And hadn’t some Cultists slipped in and been caught amid all that? Encrid had heard that all sorts of things had happened in the territory while he was away.

The dungeon was in a corner of the barracks grounds. No sooner had they emerged than Encrid spoke. “I’d like an explanation.”

The Fairy Company Commander was connected to this. She had said more than enough to suggest it, even mentioning her search for the village. He had let it pass back there, but the Frog wasn’t here to overhear them now. So he asked.

“It was a secret mission.”

The Fairy turned her head to look straight at Encrid with her green eyes.

Then he would have to hear it from Marcus. Just as he thought that, she continued.

“But what meaning could secrets have between us?”

“Plenty. Please keep it secret,” Encrid said hastily. “No, it’s fine. This concerns the sinister reach Black Blade has established within the kingdom.”

“Let’s keep it secret.”

Encrid tried again, but the Fairy ignored him completely.

“They kidnapped alchemists and made a drug.”

“You don’t seem to be hearing me.”

“Not an ordinary drug, naturally. It’s banned by the kingdom and opposed by the alchemists’ guild. Though of course, they might oppose it publicly while accepting research findings behind the scenes.”

Encrid gave up. From her explanation, it was no ordinary drug. It had sent a Frog berserk. An ordinary person who took it could apparently fight like a berserker for a short time, only to drop dead from the backlash when it wore off.

The Fairy said she had been away on so many missions to locate their base. She had recently taken Pin along for a similar reason. There had been work suited to Pin, she explained.

Encrid listened in silence, then turned to Jaxon. He seemed to know something too.

“And you?” “I was searching for something I needed, and it seemed to be connected to Black Blade. While asking around, I found traces of alchemy in the drug used by the Black Blade messenger we met in Martai.”

Jaxon’s answer matched Encrid’s expectations perfectly. Which meant...

‘He’s hiding something.’

He had only said what the listener wanted to hear. It was just a hunch, but that was how it felt. Encrid didn’t press him, though. He let it pass. Jaxon wasn’t the sort to answer merely because he was asked. If Jaxon meant to use this to stab him in the back, Encrid was willing to take it once. Even if he didn’t trust him quite that much, he owed him that much. Especially when the foundation of his recently acquired Flowing Sword Technique had come from the sensory arts.

“All right. Let’s say that’s it.”

“You don’t sound convinced,” Jaxon replied, expressionless.

“I believe you.”

Encrid answered with Audin in mind. In other words, he answered with faith.

“Do you really?” Jaxon asked.

“I do.” By then they had reached Marcus’s office, and all three entered. The guard outside saluted. There were two Company Commanders here, one a Fairy and the other the commander of an Independent Company. Marcus’s guard stepped aside, ramrod straight.

As they entered, Marcus raised his head from amid stacks of documents and parchment.

“How does it feel to have assassins come after you right in the middle of the territory?”

Encrid answered with complete and heartfelt sincerity.

“Fucking awful.”

“Same here.”

They hadn’t said much, but somehow it felt as though something had connected them. While dealing with the assassins and searching their clothes for things worth taking, and ever since leaving the Frog to stew before questioning him, Encrid had kept thinking:

‘Why should we only ever take the hits?’

So he had asked Krais.

[“If you were the head of Black Blade, where would a blow hurt you most?”]

[“I think it would hurt if someone stole my purse of gold.”]

When Encrid pointed out that it might not hurt anyone who wasn’t like Krais, the answer had been:

[“Empty coffers hurt any organization.”]

A fair point. Then surely there was a way to do that? He had come to Battalion Commander Marcus partly to report, and partly to discuss that very matter.

“This is neither a commission nor retaliation. This is a mission I am assigning as the man responsible for this territory.”

After their brief report, Marcus’s eyes gleamed. Then came an order from their superior and the man in charge of the territory.

“Fuck them up.”

Encrid decided to carry out those words faithfully. Yes, they would fuck Black Blade up.

Why should they only ever take the hits? That thought kept circling in his head. “For the time being, I’m granting you independent operational authority. You too, Sinar.”

“Understood.”

Unlike when she spoke to Encrid, the Fairy Company Commander answered in an utterly cold tone. Encrid found the sight rather strange. A thought suddenly occurred to him.

‘Why is she only like that with me?’

He couldn’t tell. Perhaps he looked easy to tease. He had heard that a few times back when he ran with mercenaries.

In any case, Encrid meant to let Black Blade know.

You aren’t the only ones who can hit back.