Chapter 33

Time passed. The flowers that had bloomed throughout the summer had all fallen, and the lush leaves were drying to brown.

Students began leaving one by one with adventurers sent by the guild. There was no graduation ceremony. Leaving was graduation. This was an age without even the notion of holding an event to mark the occasion.

Volka, Molty, Lara, and Delphi left first. When the snow began to fall, Ice, Jerome, Menson, and Fallen departed as well.

Their farewells were subdued. There were no tearful embraces, and no one made a point of showing their regret. They simply smiled and wished one another good fortune in battle, promising to meet again.

Molty had said he would quit adventuring and keep working at the smithy, so they could still see him often when they went into town. That was a relief.

The spaces left by those who departed did not fill immediately. New students trickled in steadily, but the real influx would not begin until spring.

Those who remained now had to weather the winter. Winter was a season of rest, but also a season of endurance. Cold, hunger, and loneliness.

With so many students living together, Beringen Academy had no shortage of company. But there was no escaping or avoiding the cold and hunger. Firewood soon ran out, making it difficult even to light a fire, and the hard bread provided for free ran out as well.

They had to fend for themselves, but food was scarce everywhere at this time of year. Even going into town offered little hope of finding provisions.

Work was hard to find, too. What few jobs they managed to get paid in rotten potatoes or a handful of grain rather than money.

Students who had stockpiled food over the summer and autumn were somewhat better off. The trouble lay with those who had no stores.

They filled their stomachs with icy water, dug up roots to eat, or ventured into the fields hoping to catch a field mouse or a rabbit. That was how they scraped by.

Ricard and Boribori could survive on their stores of salted meat, blocks of cheese, and grain. But pretending not to see the people starving and falling ill right beside them was a cruel thing to do.

Pooling the food and rationing it out was no easy answer, either. What right did anyone have to take provisions from students who had worked as hard as they could to save them?

Yet what Ricard had was nowhere near enough to share, and he could hardly starve himself to help others.

Even the Count Palatine could do nothing about the winter food shortage. The people of his own domain were starving, too.

Still, Ricard had to try what he could.

He put on a thick gambeson and wrapped a cloak around himself, preparing to go out. He fastened a dagger at his waist and slung his longsword over one shoulder. Apparently determined to see something through, he packed extra provisions before heading out with Boribori.

Before leaving, he looked back. The students were gathered in a single room, every one of them huddled in blankets and shivering by the fireplace. They had to conserve firewood, leaving them no choice but to crowd together.

The sick students were gathered in another room, coughing beneath their covers and drenched in cold sweat. These days, the students began each morning by checking whether anyone had died.

“Let's go,” Ricard said.

Boribori pulled up his hood and followed without a word. It seemed winter could freeze even an innocent boy's smile.

At his waist, a one-handed blade called a sidesword rested in silence.

As they left the academy and descended the cliff, the sight was magnificent: white snow filled the world beneath a gray sky, and the fields lay blanketed in white.

It was so beautiful that Ricard wanted to ask how it could dare be so, when they were suffering this much.

At the foot of the cliff, a snow-covered trail of footprints stretched west. Ricard and Boribori walked across the vast snowfield, listening to the soft whisper of falling snow.

CRUNCH. CRUNCH...

After six hours of walking, they reached Beringen. Outside headquarters, they brushed the snow from their heads and shoulders, then stepped inside.

Warm air washed over them as the door opened. As the frozen muscles of Ricard's stinging face began to thaw, he almost felt light-headed.

The adventurers inside turned to see who had opened the door. Recognizing Ricard more by his build and red cloak than his face, they soon lost interest.

He was something of a celebrity in Beringen and the surrounding area. They called him the boy swordsman in the red cloak, or Riki the Severer, because whoever he fought, he always broke their sword.

Dunkel had his elbows on the bar and his chin in his hands. When he saw Ricard, he discreetly averted his gaze—as though that would keep Ricard from noticing him.

Ricard shut the door with a clunk and strode over.

“I'm not here to borrow food again.”

He had come to borrow provisions not once, but several times, and he knew how awkward it made Dunkel feel. That was why he made his intentions clear from the start.

Dunkel cautiously turned to look at him.

“Then what brings you here?”

“I was wondering if there was any work. A big commission that would pay enough to keep the students warm and fed through the winter.”

Dunkel studied him in silence. Why on earth did he care about other people's circumstances? What did they have to do with him?

Rather than thinking Ricard kind or noble-hearted, he simply could not understand it. He himself had lived entirely for his own sake.

“There's always work...”

“Really? What kind?”

“But... ha... His lordship is one thing, but the guild has its own position to consider, Riki.”

Dunkel seemed to be in a difficult position he could not explain. Knowing who Ricard's patron was only seemed to make it worse.

“What's the problem? Don't you trust me? Or have I ever caused trouble?”

“That's not it. I know how good you are. So does everyone here. But some jobs aren't things we can just hand out. There was trouble along the way with that deserter commission, but the job itself wasn't particularly hard, was it?”

“That's true.”

“But some jobs... Well, difficulty aside, some jobs absolutely cannot fail. To be specific, if you fail, we have nothing to do with it. To be even more specific, if you fail, you die like a dog for nothing. Do you understand?”

“... An assassination?”

The moment Ricard said the word, Dunkel beckoned him to follow and went through a staff-only door behind the bar.

Ricard and Boribori exchanged a glance, then followed him in. There was nothing remarkable about the room except the liquor bottles covering the walls.

Dunkel perched on a backless chair and resumed their conversation. Cold wind whistled through the cracks around a door leading outside.

“Ever heard of the Ehrenberg Five? Their leader, Steiner, is one of the Nine Swords of the Empire.”

“I've heard of them.”

“Two of the Five—Reto the Experimenter and Erze the Skin Collector. The job is to kill those two bastards. You're welcome to kill more. No, that would be impossible.”

They traveled as a group of five. Singling out just two to kill would be exceedingly difficult. In practice, that meant facing all five, and even Ricard could not guarantee success as he was now.

But an ordinary assassination commission would not pay enough to feed nearly a hundred students through the winter. To earn that much, he had no choice but to take a commission of almost the highest difficulty.

“Those five have made plenty of enemies operating around Ehrenberg. In other words, a lot of people have been itching to get them for a long time. But every person or organization that tried to put them down ended up dead or ruined.”

In short, they were not to be touched. You could hardly mobilize an army to catch five people, and even if you did, they could simply keep running.

“What exactly have they been doing?”

“Not that there's much distinction between good men and bad in this line of work, but those people are villains by their very nature. If they want something, they take it. They kill, do nobles' dirty work in exchange for protection, then stab those nobles in the back and run. They live however the hell they please. Reto the Experimenter enjoys torturing people, and they say Erze the Skin Collector flays people and wears their skin. Oh, and they call themselves adventurers, too. They don't belong to a guild. Their very existence drags the reputation of adventurers through the mud.”

Dunkel spoke as though he had a personal grudge against the Five himself.

“Hmm. So there's nothing much to feel guilty about in killing them. That's settled, then.”

“No, no. Have you heard a word I've said? The question isn't whether they deserve to die. It's whether you can kill them. If the job fails and they find out we arranged it, the guild will be in a very difficult position. We're struggling enough with rival guilds, and you want us to make an enemy of one of the Nine Swords?”

“If I finish the job, you're certain we'll get enough food and firewood to make it safely through the winter?”

'This little shit definitely isn't listening to me,' Dunkel thought. But he could not scold Ricard or do anything about it. He knew who Ricard really was.

He wondered whether he should have brought it up at all. Admittedly, part of the reason he had mentioned it was that Ricard kept pestering him to lend them food.

“That's certain. Several organizations have secretly pooled an enormous sum. Some have offered payment in goods from the start.”

“I'll start right away, so please lend us some food as an advance. You don't need to spend it on me. Send it to the academy.”

“... But do you really have to go this far? I can guarantee there's never been anyone like you in the academy's history.”

Ricard answered with a faint smile.

“I don't act because I have to. If I want to do something, and I can, then I do it.”

“... Is that so.”

Dunkel did not seem to share the sentiment.

“Anyway, I'm glad there's work.”

“No. There's always someone who wants someone else dead. Whatever the season. Spring or winter, snow or rain.”

“... I suppose so.”

It was a bitter reality, that there was always someone wishing for another person's death. But that would never change as long as humans lived.

“Which way is Ehrenberg?”

“First, follow the road southwest. You'll find a tavern called Anna's Loss beside the road. You have that cloak pin, don't you? Show it to them and say I sent you. They'll give you information about the job.”

“I take it that isn't a guild branch?”

“Right. It's a thieves' guild. The Arisen Brotherhood. Given the nature of the job, we can't act openly. Let me be very clear: we know absolutely nothing about this.”

Ricard turned to Boribori, who was simply staring blankly at Dunkel.

Dunkel assumed Boribori was coming along merely to assist Ricard and run errands, not to fight.

“Will you be all right?” Ricard asked.

“I'll be fine. I'll be with you, Riki. I don't mind dying.”

To Boribori, Ricard was a light. He had pulled him out of the swamp that was his utterly bleak life.

He could lose his life, but not that light. Boribori knew all too well that nothing was more miserable than living only because one had to.

“No, that's...”

“To be honest, having a student take this on is a good option for our guild,” Dunkel said. “The capable active adventurers have recognizable faces. You're actually perfect for this, Riki. But don't even think about taking them head-on. You really would die for nothing. The Nine Swords aren't child's play. Their notoriety reaches across the entire Empire.”

Famous though Ricard was, he was known only in Beringen and its surroundings. The difference between him and the Nine Swords of the Empire was, so to speak, the difference between a local name and a national one.

Besides, Ricard was still only a rising talent. He had not even established himself as the strongest in the region.

“I'll handle that myself.”

“... Are you really not listening to anything I say?”

“I'm listening to everything I need to.”

“...”

Dunkel wondered what on earth was wrong with this boy. Still, his skill was every bit as extraordinary as his peculiarities.

“It takes a day to get there, so sleep here tonight. Leave in the morning. The advance... I'll send it to the academy.”

Ricard nodded and left the room. He went upstairs with Boribori, took off his equipment, and lay down on a bed to rest.

He watched the snow falling outside the window. But the white snow could not fill the hollow feeling his friends' departure had left behind. If anything, it seemed to deepen the emptiness.

His gaze happened to fall on Boribori. It had been several months since they began training together through sparring.

To Ricard's eye, Boribori's original swordsmanship was practical enough, but whether it would really work in combat remained unknown.

In a real fight, not panicking, not being frightened, and not freezing up mattered more than skill itself. He wondered whether that innocent boy could truly kill someone.

A sword, with its peculiar, chilling allure, did not seem to suit his friend at all.

“Aren't you nervous?”

“No. I don't mind dying.”

“Why?”

“Because I think I already died when I abandoned my mother and left. Now I just want to be useful to you, Riki. That's all I'm thinking about. I won't get in your way.”

“... Don't say that.”

“All right. Sorry. I just wish winter would hurry up and end.”

Ricard looked back at the snow outside and agreed.

“So do I.”

Boribori understood. He knew why they were doing this, and why they had to.

Watching students starve, slowly sicken, and die beside them was truly painful. What had those boys and girls done so wrong that they deserved to die?

But it was not only academy students. Across the Empire, countless people died suffering from cold and hunger. That was the season they were in. Winter was cruel.

The silently falling snow was not simply beautiful. Surely the spirit of death was white.