Chapter 37

Ricard, Boribori, and the Nameless were practically a party now. They had made no explicit promises or contracts, but seemed to have joined forces for the time being to achieve their respective goals. Or perhaps they had simply grown on one another without realizing it.

The three headed west, toward Ehrenberg. They were not pursuing the Ehrenberg Five just yet, however. There was someone nearby they needed to deal with first. That was where they were headed for now.

There was still some time before sunset, but the party stopped early at a suitable campsite. It seemed to be a popular spot with travelers, with traces of past visitors still visible.

Ricard swept away the cobwebs with his scabbard and scuffed his feet across the ground to drive off the bugs. Then he lit a fire in the makeshift hearth already there. Fortunately, a few pieces of firewood lay scattered nearby.

Sitting down, Ricard unfolded the wanted poster the Nameless had been carrying. It bore a drawing of a thoroughly ugly, well-fattened bastard with an unpleasant grin.

Beneath it were a brief description of the criminal, his distinguishing features, and his criminal record.

[Haspil — Also known as “He Who Makes Mothers Weep.” Leader of the criminal organization known as the “Murder Guild.”

Criminal record — Murder of clergy, rape and murder of numerous women, multiple murders, looting of monasteries, unauthorized torture, human trafficking, trafficking in stolen goods.

Primary area of operation — Siegfringer. May be elsewhere. Possible ties to other dangerous criminal organizations.

For God and the Empire, a reward of 40 gold coins shall be paid for capturing the above criminal alive, or 10 gold coins for his head.]

“Wow...”

The man was so vicious that the exclamation escaped Ricard without his realizing it. Quite apart from the Nameless's personal revenge, what kind of bastard did all that?

The problem was the difficulty. In some ways, this looked even harder than taking on the Five.

Even so, Ricard did not consider it impossible. Difficult and impossible were entirely different things, and his personal philosophy was that anyone could be killed.

Several plans began taking shape in his head, vague though they were for now. He already knew plenty of ways for a handful of people to fight a larger force, and he knew the weaknesses of men like these well.

An organization made up of criminals was bound to be loosely held together. With no discipline to speak of, it lacked structure. They might go on about loyalty in ordinary times, but when it came to the crunch, they would betray one another in a heartbeat.

There were two main ways to bring men like these down: sow discord to weaken their cohesion, or give them something to fear more than their own leader.

Ricard decided he should start by making inquiries around Siegfringer and gathering information.

The broader plan was to help the Nameless have his revenge, then take on the Ehrenberg Five together. He was not helping the man out of pure goodwill.

His ultimate goal was to complete the commission so the academy students could make it safely through the winter without starving.

While Ricard considered his plans—or strategies—for what lay ahead, Boribori returned to camp from wherever he had gone. He seemed to have brought something cupped between his hands. Had he caught a bug?

Grinning, he addressed Ricard and the Nameless.

“Guess what I brought.”

“Some grubs for a snack?”

“No. Look.”

Boribori opened his carefully folded hands. A single bright red camellia lay in his palm. Beaded with moisture from the snow, it did look wonderfully fresh.

“Ta-da! Flowers bloom in winter too!”

After that brief spark of curiosity, Ricard's expression rapidly turned indifferent. He respected Boribori's tastes, but they were not his own.

Then the Nameless snatched up the flower and pushed it beneath the cloth attached to his helmet. He began chewing it up.

“Y-you're not supposed to eat it...”

Boribori was flustered, but the Nameless paid him no mind and actually gulped it down.

It was utterly absurd, but flowers or otherwise, they needed a hearty meal to give them strength for the long journey.

They roasted hardy staples such as potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes over the fire, and melted snow in a bowl before stirring in grain flour to drink. They sliced up some ham too. It was no feast, but they managed a reasonably balanced meal.

At one point, Boribori messily got some food around his mouth. The Nameless lifted a hand and wiped it away. Huh?

Watching beside them, Ricard felt slightly taken aback. What was this? Yet at the same time, he was strangely moved.

That tiny gesture conveyed so much. It felt like connecting with a savage beast that could not understand human speech.

Boribori himself was not the least bit flustered. He simply gave his usual sunny smile.

After spending the night outdoors, the three continued toward Siegfringer the next day.

Along the way, they sometimes stopped at villages and paid in potatoes and the like to sleep in a barn. At every village, they asked about Haspil and his criminal organization, the Murder Guild. But the villagers, who never left their villages their whole lives, said they had never heard of them.

As they drew closer to Siegfringer, however, one farmer took fright at Ricard's question and ran away.

Watching the countryman flee despite his offer of food—precious in winter—Ricard realized they were getting close.

He stopped asking around after that. He had learned their main area of operation: a city called Runenberg, within the Siegfringer region.

The thieves' guild there was in Haspil's pocket, and the bandits based on nearby Mount Runen were his underlings.

Apparently, he ordinarily roamed the city under the thieves' guild's protection, then retreated into the mountains to hide for a while whenever things looked dangerous.

The thieves' guild and the bandits seemed to be collectively known as the Murder Guild. As the name suggested, their main business was murder for hire.

But their assassination work was crude rather than professional. Often, instead of even starting a commission, they would turn around and blackmail the client for money and valuables.

In short, for all their grand talk of being a Murder Guild, they acted like petty thugs.

Could you even call that a business? And how did it stay afloat when they operated like that?

“Let's be honest. When adventurers' guilds take on shady commissions, they only deal with the very rich or the powerful. But anyone can want someone dead, no matter their station. There must be wives who hate their cheating husbands enough to want them killed, wouldn't you say? Who grants their wishes? When you hate someone enough to want them dead, you stop thinking rationally. So plenty of people bring them money despite their bad reputation. There's no end to them. For that rotten organization to go under, people would have to become good. But making a living is hard, and the people you trusted and loved are bound to drive nails into your heart. That's why they can run things that way and still stay in business.”

The speaker was a merchant organizing the cargo in his wagon. Ricard handed him a silver coin in payment for the information.

Apparently finding the payment rather more generous than expected, the merchant offered one more piece of information.

“Haspil is a hopeless gambling addict. You'll have no trouble finding him at the Mother's Sorrow tavern. Unless he's staying up in the mountains, that is.”

“Thank you. Good luck to you.”

Ricard bought a cloak from the merchant, then headed for Runenberg with his companions.

He had chosen one large enough to conceal the Nameless's entire body. It had not been part of the merchant's wares, but something worn by a large man in his party. It smelled a little, but they simply shook off the dust and put it on him. The Nameless did not mind at all.

On reaching Runenberg, Ricard surveyed the outskirts rather than entering the city immediately. Sure enough, a mountain rose to the south, with a river flowing between it and the city.

After walking around for a while, he stopped somewhere they could hide and spoke.

“Let's do this. First, we find lodgings in the city, then Bori and I go to the gambling den posing as customers. You stand behind us as our bodyguard, sir. We'll see how things work, head back to our lodgings, and make a plan. On the day we carry it out, we'll regroup here. What do you think?”

Boribori had learned a little swordplay, but knew nothing about running an operation like this. He simply nodded agreeably.

The Nameless, however, remained still. Whether he disliked the plan or had some other objection was unclear.

Ricard knew why he was not responding. It was easy enough to infer from the way he fought.

“I know something unexpected might happen. You might not be able to hold back and kill him on the spot. That's fine. Bori and I will cover the rear, so you clear an escape route.”

Only then did the Nameless nod.

Their styles differed, but both Ricard and the Nameless were experts at this sort of work. They would have to carry out an actual operation together to see how well they worked as a team.

Ricard understood which approach suited each of them and had assigned their roles accordingly. The Nameless was better at breaking through, while he himself excelled at countering attacks. Thus, even with only three of them, he had divided them into a front and a rear.

With at least a rough plan in place, Ricard, Boribori, and the Nameless entered Runenberg and found an inn as close to the city gate as possible.

That night, they went to the Mother's Sorrow tavern. Surprisingly, it stood in a bustling district rather than some secluded corner. Once they showed the doorman a purse full of silver, he let them straight through without asking their ages, status, or identities. In a gambling den, suckers were treated like kings.

Inside, it was as bright as day. Thousands of candles burned, their distinctive smell almost dizzying. But the patrons seemed oblivious, their eyes gleaming with greedy madness.

Wealthy men, even nobles, and people who had scraped together everything they owned occupied the tables, gambling while the house supplied fine liquor and whores.

The gamblers watched the dealers with grave expressions. When the results came, some roared so loudly they seemed liable to shatter the place, while others sighed as though the whole den might sink beneath them.

Drunk on uncertain hope, no one spared a thought for Ricard and his companions.

Boribori stared wide-eyed at this whole new world. Ricard calmly assessed where the guards were posted, where reinforcements would emerge from, and which escape routes would be safe.

Once he had a grasp of the building's layout, he took a seat at a long table. About four people were already seated there. The dealer put two dice in a bowl and upended it on the table, and the players bet on odd or even. Simple.

Before every round, the dealer held the two dice between his fingers and lifted the bowl, showing it to both sides to demonstrate that nothing was amiss. Outwardly, there really was nothing wrong.

“Odd! Or even!”

Perhaps to liven things up, the dealer chanted strangely as he flicked the dice into the bowl and slapped it down on the table. He shook it, then stopped abruptly. The rattling had a jaunty ring to it.

“Live! Or die!”

At the dealer's shout, everyone at the table placed their bets. There was not a single copper coin among them; all were silver. A considerable sum.

The rattle of dice and clink of coins were strangely pleasant to hear.

For now, Ricard simply watched the game. One round, two, three, four...

On the fifth, the dealer spoke.

“Aren't you playing? If not, you'll have to pay for your seat.”

“I'll play now.”

Without another word, the dealer rolled again. Ricard gazed at the overturned bowl, then put all the money he had on even. A full twenty silver coins.

Everyone looked startled, the dealer included. The other tables remained noisy, but silence briefly settled over Ricard's. The dealer slowly lifted the bowl. Even.

“Oh!”

“Wow!”

“Holy shit!”

The other gamblers' eyes went wide. Wasn't this thrill what gambling was all about? They were not the lucky winners, yet simply watching it made their hearts swell.

His expression rigid and grim, the dealer took money from beneath the table, added it to the losing bets, and paid everyone who had bet on even an amount equal to their stake. Ricard's money had grown to forty-two silver coins in the blink of an eye.

“R-Riki. We're rich. What do we do?”

An excited Boribori grabbed Riki by the shoulders and shook him wildly.

“Hey, calm down. Get a hold of yourself.”

The real trouble began from there. Every single bet Ricard placed started coming up right.

He was identifying the dice rolls by remembering their sounds, while watching the dealer's eyes for signs of cheating.

There was no way he could get it wrong. Of course, that was only possible thanks to his inhuman perception and senses.

The other people at the table did not care how Ricard kept guessing correctly. They simply followed his lead and put everything on the same result. The dealer ran out of money in no time.

“Wahahahaha!”

Laughter burst out in a rush of dopamine. One man even grabbed Ricard's head and started kissing him, forcing the Nameless to push him away from behind.

Silver coins piled up like a mountain before Ricard, so high that he could not see over them without standing.

By now, everyone in the gambling den had noticed. They crowded around to watch.

Then someone approached the dealer and tapped him on the arm.

“Move aside.”

Ricard looked up at the man who had appeared across the table. It was Haspil, the man from the wanted poster. The Nameless stood directly behind Ricard.

Haspil flashed a genial grin, exposing a mouthful of gold teeth. Recalling the wanted poster, Ricard marveled at how accurately the artist had captured him.

“This is entertaining, little boy.”

“It's getting a little dull for me. Too easy.”

“True. It's not gambling without the sting of losing. But losing money gets old, doesn't it? How about we wager something else?”

“Like what?”

“Life or death. Literally. Isn't that the true spirit of odd or even? Capture me and take me to an adventurers' guild, and you'll make a fortune.”

The poster had offered forty gold coins for taking him alive. That was a full eight hundred silver.

“Roll.”

Ricard did not hesitate. Haspil excluded the other gamblers, beginning a one-on-one game with Ricard alone.

Before they knew it, everyone in the gambling den had come to watch. The once-noisy room was as quiet as the grave.

Haspil tossed the dice into the bowl and upended it on the table. Unlike the dealer, he did not shake it repeatedly. He moved it just once.

RATTLE.

Ricard smirked at the sound. He had gotten his hopes up, only to be met with such a clumsy trick.

“When did there start being three dice?”

“Hmm?”

“One will disappear depending on what I say. And you'll win no matter what. What do they call that again?”

“Are you saying I cheated?”

There were many grave sins in the world, but in a gambling den, the gravest was cheating. Trickery was the worst offense of all, and punishable regardless of one's status.

Ricard regarded Haspil for a moment, then drew the dagger from inside his clothes with lightning speed. He drove it into the back of Haspil's hand covering the bowl.

“Let's look and see!”

CRACK!

The dagger pierced Haspil's hand, split the bowl, and sank into the table. The onlookers' eyes flew wide. Three bloodstained dice rolled out.

Haspil sucked in a sharp, involuntary breath. Just as he was about to shout, the Nameless sprang from behind Ricard like a tiger, bounding onto the table and lunging at Haspil. His axe was already drawn and raised high overhead.

Utter chaos. That was the Nameless's ideal situation—his battlefield. Ricard knew it, and when the opportunity arose, he had set the stage for him.

Without a word, without even exchanging a glance, they understood each other perfectly. Like gamblers working in collusion.