Chapter 34

In winter, tales of horrors too terrible to put into words crawled across the snowfields. Stories of mothers driven by hunger to eat their babies, of people digging up graves to feed on corpses.

There was little need to worry about wild beasts when traveling in winter. It was the season when people became beasts themselves.

Wheel ruts and footprints crisscrossed the road through the snowfields. The mud had frozen into sharp ridges.

Beside one stretch of road, a half-wrecked carriage leaned at an angle. Corpses lay scattered around it. One body some distance away had no head.

The snow had stopped for the moment, and cold morning sunlight shone down as Ricard and Boribori stood gazing at the scene something had swept through. The vast snowfields glittered in the sun, and white clouds puffed from the boys' mouths with every breath.

Spending even a single night outside meant freezing to death. There could be no survivors. Here and there, blood had melted holes in the snow.

If there was one mercy, it was that no one had carved flesh from the corpses. Though whether it was right to be thankful that people had not sunk quite that low was another question.

What puzzled him was that if the attackers had wanted food or money, they would have stripped the bodies of their equipment. Instead, the dead were still fully armed. Even selling it as scrap would have brought in quite a sum.

But something else surprised him more than that puzzled him.

"Now that's surprising," Ricard said as he examined the scene.

"Huh?"

"It was one person. The attacker. Judging by the cuts and footprints."

He ran his fingers over a sharp gash gouged deep into the carriage.

Ricard had always possessed an uncanny eye for detail. His experience in his previous life, in particular, made him exceptionally good at assessing an enemy's strength from the scene they left behind.

That ability was what had allowed him to gain the tactical advantage during his earlier commission despite an unexpected ambush.

Here, he could practically see the entire sequence of how that lone attacker had killed these people.

He almost seemed to hear the tumult of the slaughter brushing past his ears. Clashing blades, desperate screams, terror, cries of agony.

People killed before they could take more than a few steps. People dragged back as they fled. People with their heads split in two...

The dead bore almost no other wounds. That meant each had been killed with a single blow. Most had their heads cleaved open. The weapon seemed to have been something like a battle-axe rather than a sword.

"Uh... but there are more than ten bodies. And most of them are armed."

"That's why it's surprising."

"Doesn't that mean it's dangerous here?"

"Not really. This is like a beast hunting. It's caught its prey, so it won't come back."

Ricard looked at the headless corpse in the distance as he spoke. It seemed the attacker had wanted that one head, not money.

Had robbery been the motive, the attacker probably would not have come alone in the first place, or left so many valuables behind. Perhaps it had been a grudge. Of course, he could not know that for certain.

Ricard looked inside the wrecked, tilted carriage. The corpse of an unknown noblewoman lay within, her clothes still on. There were no signs that she had been raped.

Unlike the other bodies, she had a dagger buried in her chest. A stab to the heart had killed her. That was not easy to accomplish in one strike, since the blade had to avoid the ribs.

It felt as though her killer had respected her honor even while taking her life. Or perhaps there was some other special meaning behind it.

Who had done this, and why? As he wondered, Ricard felt a strange, inexplicable sense of déjà vu.

In any case, they had a destination and could not linger. Ricard and Boribori rummaged through the bodies and the carriage.

They salvaged a few coins, some pieces of hard bread, and a little jerky. Did that count as good luck?

They wrapped the food in paper, put it in their packs, and resumed their journey, leaving the gruesome scene behind. Failing to reach their destination before sunset would put them in a difficult position indeed.

They had left Beringen in the predawn darkness, so if they hurried, they could reach the place called Anna's Loss by early evening. Fortunately, the lack of snowfall allowed them to pick up the pace.

Boribori kept up better than Ricard had expected. Considering that he had traveled all the way to the academy on his own in the first place, the boy had quite a tenacious streak beneath his naivety.

Even his physical weakness was relative. As his Mana Drive improved, he was actually becoming remarkably strong.

Clad in dark brown and red cloaks, the two boys crossed the snowfields along the southwest road.

Around sunset, the blizzard began again. Fortunately, they managed to reach a large roadside building.

It was a well-appointed two-story building, complete with an attached stable, though the stable was empty. White smoke curled from the chimney.

Large, conspicuous letters had been slashed into the wall like graffiti. They read, "Anna's Loss."

With his sword slung over one shoulder, Ricard opened the door and entered the tavern. Welcoming warmth washed over him, accompanied by a foul stench.

The tavern was filled with people who looked like bad news by any standard. It was as though every criminal in the northeast had been gathered under one roof.

A man had one eye clouded white, as though with a cataract. Others had only a few yellow teeth left, coarse, untended beards, or missing fingers. Filthy faces covered in scars were commonplace.

Each seemed to have found a unique, personal way of looking as wretched as a human possibly could.

The patrons turned toward Ricard and Boribori as they opened the door. Not all of them, of course. Some were already dead drunk and sprawled haphazardly across the filthy floor.

"Shut the door. It's cold."

Someone had spoken. Ricard squeezed his eyes shut, feeling as though the man's bad breath had reached him all the way across the room. Still, he had business here. He closed the door and stepped into the unpleasant establishment.

The patrons found it curious that a pair of youngsters had come here, but the boys were armed, and causing trouble here was forbidden, so they paid them little mind.

The place was run by the Arisen Brotherhood, a thieves' guild, and served as a kind of neutral ground.

Making trouble here was tantamount to making an enemy of the thieves' guild. Even hardened criminals knew better than to pick the wrong battlefield. If they wanted a fight, they took it outside.

Ricard approached the bar. The bartender was far too busy drinking to serve anyone. Swigging straight from a bottle, he was flirting with a cheap whore.

Ricard placed his gold cloak pin on the bar.

"Dunkel sent me."

The bartender, who had been flirting without giving Ricard a second thought, stared down at the gold pin.

Its intricate workmanship was not something that could easily be counterfeited. Only then did he take a proper look at Ricard.

After glancing between the pin and the boy's face several times, he snapped at the whore, who kept chattering, oblivious.

"Hey, shut up and fuck off for a minute."

"Tch! Asshole."

She pursed her lips and glared at him. Ignoring her, the bartender asked Ricard,

"What's this about?"

"The Ehrenberg Five..."

"Shut your fucking mouth."

The bartender cut him off the moment he began. Setting down the bottle, he shook his head hard, then slapped both his own cheeks.

He let out several hot breaths, as though calming his pounding heart, before speaking.

"So where's the one 'handling the job'?"

Apparently, he thought Ricard was merely an errand boy.

"I'm the one 'handling the job.'"

"... What? Don't fuck with me. Do I look like some worthless prick to you?"

"You do look like a useless little shit."

Since the man kept speaking to him so crudely, Ricard answered in kind. The bartender bristled, but the boy's unruffled gaze told him something was amiss.

Then something suddenly occurred to him.

"Is that you? Riki the Severer?"

"That's right."

The bartender slowly examined him once more. Blond hair too short to cover his ears, hazel eyes, a winter gambeson beneath a red cloak, and nothing more than a single longsword slung over one shoulder.

His body, not yet fully grown, bothered the man.

"... Even so, this is too much. That bastard Dunkel... Look, I've heard you're an exceptionally gifted swordsman. But not for this job. Go back."

Ricard blinked. He had not expected this. With Dunkel's approval, he had assumed the commission was his to carry out, but apparently not. Had Dunkel sent him here knowing this would happen, never intending to let him take the job at all?

There was no way to know unless he went back and confronted him. But he had walked all day to get here.

At a loss, he turned to Boribori, who merely shrugged. What solution could he possibly offer?

"He said skilled adventurers are too well known, so sending a student was the better option."

"I see what he means, but no means no. It's night now, so just stay here quietly..."

The bartender and thieves' guild member never finished his sentence. The tavern door was thrown violently open.

BANG!

Everyone, Ricard included, turned toward it. A huge man stood in the doorway, and the blizzard outside came roaring in.

WHOOOOOSH...!

The man wore a Nord-style helmet with a nasal guard. Black cloth attached to it completely concealed the lower half of his face.

Over his scale armor he wore something like a thick apron. Tough leather gloves covered his hands, and leather belts crossed his waist and chest. A rope hung at his left hip, a one-handed battle-axe at his right. He also carried a heavy cloth bundle crusted with dried blood.

The armor's sleeves reached only to his elbows, leaving part of his forearms exposed. They were thick as logs and covered in scars.

Breathing in labored wheezes, he swept his gaze around the tavern. Blue eyes gleamed like a beast's through the openings in his helmet.

"It's cold. Close the door," someone said.

The newcomer ignored him and strode into the tavern.

In one hand he held a badly crumpled sheet of paper. He seemed to compare it to someone in the room, then simply tossed it aside. It was a wanted poster.

One of the rough-looking patrons, who had been trembling in terror, suddenly shouted. That was how it began.

"... Fuck!"

WHOOSH! CRUNCH!

The man drew his axe and swung, splitting a man's head open in an instant. His victim convulsed, then collapsed.

The patrons scrambled to their feet in horror. The drunks sprawled across the floor were trampled, and more than a few people tripped over them.

Tables and chairs overturned, spilling gambling implements, coins, and cups. In an instant, the tavern descended into chaos.

"You son of a bitch!"

Many of the patrons were men who fancied themselves tough. They drew their weapons and charged him. And the man fought like a true beast.

WHOOSH! THUNK! SWISH! CLANG! CRACK! WHOOSH!

He ignored the lesser slashes, letting his armor take them. His iron-hard fists smashed faces, while every heavy swing of his axe split a skull. He kicked, stomped, and drove his knees into people whenever the opportunity arose.

Bones were crushed, broken, and hacked apart. Torn chunks of flesh landed wetly on the floor.

It was over in mere moments. Blood pooled across the floor among bodies twisted at unnatural angles.

The man stood in their midst, his shoulders heaving as he wheezed for breath.

"Uuugh..."

WHOOSH! THUD!

He brought his axe down on the neck of a man lying on the floor, groaning. Taking the severed head by the hair, he strode toward Ricard. Each step left a bloody footprint, and blood streamed from the stump of the head in his hand.

The cheap whore stood near Ricard, trembling too hard even to scream. Urine ran down her legs and spread across the floor.

The bartender who had been speaking to Ricard sank to the floor as the man approached, shaking with terror.

Wasn't causing trouble in this tavern tantamount to making an enemy of the thieves' guild? Yet the man seemed utterly unconcerned with such unwritten rules.

Ricard simply watched him. The man spared him a glance, then looked away, paying him no further attention. His wheezing grew louder as he drew near.

He simply grabbed the bottle on the bar and poured its contents liberally over the scratches and cuts on his forearms. Then he tossed it to the floor.

CRASH!

The man wrapped the head in an empty cloth and strode out of the tavern. Most of the patrons watched him from the corners where they huddled, trembling.

"Th-the Nameless. X the Nameless..."

The bartender muttered from the floor. X the Nameless was a famous bounty hunter and one of the Nine Swords of the Empire. What was he doing here?

"It must be cold out there..." Boribori murmured to himself.

Ricard was certain that this was the man who had attacked the carriage they had seen earlier. He bore a strange resemblance to Ricard's former self, and for some inexplicable reason, Ricard felt drawn to him like a magnet.

"Let's follow him."

"Huh?"

"Let's follow him. It's not like they'll give us any information if we stay here."

"But it's cold outside."

"Can't be helped."

"Let's go, then."

"Grab a lantern on your way out."

"Okay."

Boribori helped himself to one of the tavern's lanterns.

The two boys walked toward the entrance, through which the blizzard was still howling. They closed the door behind them.

CLUNK.

The tavern was quiet again, but it was already a scene of carnage.

Silence hung over the room. No one dared make a sound. The only thing audible was the steady drip of blood from the edge of a table.