Ch 35

When Merlin stopped the fight before it could happen, Caron clicked his tongue disappointedly and came down to the floor. At the same time, he assessed the gentle-looking knight next to Merlin and tried to measure his skills. He did not seem to be much worse than Bors. Merlin was different, however. Caron thought he could definitely beat Merlin in a physical fight, but his instincts fiercely warned him not to. The only other person who gave this feeling to Caron was his older brother, Helios Blade. Noticing Caron was still alert and in a cold sweat, the leader of the merchant party approached Merlin in a welcoming manner.

"I'm the leader of the Palares Merchants. I came to deliver important goods to Sir Merlin, at the request of the Holy Kingdom." he said, holding the small box in his hands.

Merlin looked at the box in surprise. It clearly had seal magic on it, engraved by Merlin himself.

"This… A valuable guest has come. I have been waiting." Merlin smiled and spoke, but Caron's instincts whispered that his words were lies.

"You've done a great job coming such a long way. You all need to rest too, so I'll sign the receipt confirmation right away.”

"Yes! Here you are!"

The leader of the merchant party quickly took out the receipt confirmation and received Merlin's seal. He couldn't complain about the bandits’ ambushes along the way, even if he wanted to now. Although he had a feeling that Merlin had created the rumor about the fake treasure, there was no physical evidence, and Merlin was the closest aide to the Holy King. In order to continue his merchant group in the future, he couldn’t get on Merlin’s bad side.

"The Palares Merchants. I think it'll be okay to trust you from now on. I'll remember the name."

Merlin meant what he said. It didn't matter whether the box was real or fake. Merlin had thought the delivery would fail of course, but they hadn’t given up and delivered it safely even in the midst of such hardship. That was not something just anyone could do.

"Thank you! The Palares Merchants will continue to devote ourselves to God!"

After handing over the box, the leader of the merchant party looked relieved, as if a weight was lifted off his shoulders.

"By the way, I am sorry Sir Bors was quite rude. He's a bit of a battle fanatic, so he can’t help it when he sees someone strong.” mentioned Merlin.

If Bors had heard Merlin, he would have defended himself and called Merlin’s words unfair, but he was unconscious.

At Merlin's apology, Caron replied with a casual nod, "I know, right? I was surprised when he suddenly emitted such a strong martial aura."

Caron spoke slyly, trying to figure out if Merlin was the source of the mana he sensed. However, something was disturbing his senses. This disturbance was similar to the magic his hometown friend Hecate Ainsmall used.

At Caron's shrewd attitude, Merlin laughed and smiled mysteriously. "Hahaha, I apologize again, my friend with a strong scent of Olympus Forest."

"You have a good nose."

"Just a lot of experience."

At Merlin's reply, Caron licked his lips. The fighting spirit that was cooling off after Bors fainted seemed to boil again within him. His gut was warning he couldn't win yet, but that made him want to fight even more. It wasn’t fun to fight an easy opponent, Caron wanted a challenge. Merlin felt that Caron was about to pull out his sword, and tossed a pouch in his direction.

"This is an apology, so take it."

Caron opened the pouch. It was full of gold coins. Considering the size of the pouch, it was even more than the reward he had received from merchants. Although Caron didn’t know much about money, he was happy. His attention was still focused on Merlin, but his focus was soon broken by Benjamin.

"Wow! Old man-nim, you have a lot of money! How much is all this? Even if we split this, each of us could buy magic-reinforced armor and horses. There might even be enough left over to eat at a top-class restaurant!"

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Although Caron had yet to grasp the concept of prices and currency in the Holy Kingdom, he knew that meant it was a lot of money.

"Oh! Really? Are the classy restaurants here tasty?" Caron asked.

Benjamin smiled broadly and gave Caron a thumbs-up.

"Of course! The only problem is that they only give you a booger-sized meal for a ridiculous price, but it tastes great!"

Caron hummed and turned to Merlin, "Iya! Is it okay for you to give this much?"

"It's a small apology, don't worry about it," replied Merlin.

Caron was happy and decided to stand down. "I'll use it gratefully. See you again, old man-nim."

Caron's instincts said that they would meet again soon.

* * *

Carrying the fainted Bors on his back, Gwalchavad asked Merlin carefully, "Even if it was Bors' fault, was it okay to give them that much money?"

Merlin laughed awkwardly. "Actually, I think so, too. I gave them the wrong pouch."

Originally, he was going to give them the pouch containing silver coins, but had accidentally pulled out the one with gold coins.

"Ugh, I'll have to cut back on the experiments for the time being.”

Losing his valuable experimental budget, Merlin was in tears. Still, he did have the ‘Miracle Crystal’, so he could still do research without any other magic materials or tools. That was a relief.

Gwalchavad looked at Merlin with a sigh. "Then shall we ask for their understanding and take it back? We can just tell them we gave them the wrong pouch."

"No, it's fine. If we hadn't turned their attention to the money, the great temple would have collapsed. Considering the cost of reconstruction, we got a good deal."

"… What?"

"Didn't you hear me? The scent of Olympus Forest was strong. I know exchange with them has been cut off, but don't you know where the Crow tribe lives?”

Merlin's question reminded Gwalchavad of old memories. "Ah! You said the Crow tribe lives in Olympus Forest, the worst of the Nine Forbidden Places!"

About twenty years before, the Holy Kingdom had actively traded with the Crow tribe in the east and the Butterfly tribe in the west. However, due to the conspiracy of the wicked witches, the Holy Kingdom lost trust with the two tribes, and the exchanges gradually decreased to the point that few people in the present day even remembered where they lived. Even the mountains and rivers changed after ten years, so twenty years was enough time for them to be forgotten in the public's memory.

"Then, are you saying that the black-haired one is from the Crow tribe?"

"I think so. Anyways, I thought Helios was the only young monster around, but it seems Hephaestus was hiding another monster."

Merlin pondered, recalling a time fifteen years prior when he had visited Olympus Forest to improve relations with the Crow tribe. Then, he immediately went up the stairs again. He wondered about how to soothe Arietta, who was upset about not being allowed to come down from the bell tower.

* * *

On the morning of the third day of his arrival at the holy land, Caron got out of his hotel bed and went down to breakfast with disheveled hair.

"Oh, did you sleep well?" Benjamin greeted him.

Caron nodded his head, still half-asleep, and yawned, "Ha~! Good morning.”

He put the military gear down next to the table and asked the mercenaries of the Dragon Fang who were having breakfast, “Hey, why did you all pack so much?"

Buruko, the oldest of the mercenaries, replied with a smile, "I told you yesterday. We are mercenaries, so we need to go back to our headquarters. We just received an escort request from the Mercenary Association, near the vicinity of the headquarters.”

It would have been nice to rest more since they had gone through such a hard time, but since they had to go back to the main headquarters anyway, and there weren’t many opportunities in the Holy Kingdom to make money, they had accepted the request immediately.

Caron looked disappointed. "Oh, it was today? You earned a lot of money, you should rest and hang around for a while."

It hadn't been long since he had met them on the outskirts of the Olympus Forest, but Caron was still sad to see that the people whom he had shared joy and affection with were leaving.

"Ahahaha! I'm thankful for that, but our leader nags a lot. If we don't go back quickly, he'll kick our butts for dragging our feet."

"Really? Seems your leader is a bit of a stickler. It would be nice to give a little vacation to your subordinates who have worked hard."

The mercenaries all laughed and agreed.

"Hahaha! The leader is called the Mercenary King, but it’s true, he is a bit of a stickler!"

"I know, right! Hahaha!”

Laughing loudly, they took turns saying their goodbyes to Caron.

"I survived thanks to you. I won't forget this grace."

"Please take care of the captain. He’s rather clumsy."

"Thanks. You’re a good man, you’ll do well at anything."

After saying goodbye, the Dragon Fang Mercenaries left the inn with their military gear. Caron sighed quietly when the inn restaurant, which had been filled with the sound of the mercenaries laughing and talking, fell silent.

“It feels empty without them now.”

“I know.”

Benjamin also grabbed his head, not hiding his complicated feelings. He had drank too much at the farewell party combined with the retirement party the previous night, and was now reeling from the hangover.

"You look fine, even though you drank with me." said Benjamin, with his head still in his hands.

Caron, who had drunk even more than Benjamin, still felt perfectly fine.

"Ayy, what we drank yesterday was child’s play. And it’s not like we only drank yesterday.”

The mercenaries had drank for three days straight, from the day they had arrived at the holy land. Benjamin always drank moderately, but he had gone a bit harder the night before because it had also been his retirement dinner.

"We have to take the entrance exam a little later. Will you be okay?" asked Caron, concerned.

Benjamin smirked. "Don't worry, I won't fail due to something like a hangover. Unlike you, who drank with my comrades every day, I steadily got to work on a preliminary investigation."

"Oh~! What did you find out?"

"Eat first. I'll explain it to you on the way." said Benjamin.

Caron ordered his breakfast. "Noonim! Give us everything on the menu here!" [1]

The innkeeper began to serve the food immediately, as if she had been waiting. Benjamin kept drinking water and looked on in awe as plate after plate of food was placed in front of Caron. He didn't know how all that food fit inside of him.

* * *

Benjamin began his explanation as they headed to the training ground east of the great temple, the site of the entrance exam.

"The exam consists of five rounds in total."

"Five rounds?" Caron asked in surprise.

Benjamin grinned. "The first two rounds are there because there are too many exam participants, so there are really only three rounds."

"What's the first round?" Caron asked.

Benjamin pointed to the huge stele built on the training ground in the distance. "Using any weapon, you need to make a mark at least the size of a palm on the stele within three strikes."

"That simple?"

"That simple."

Caron and Benjamin thought nothing of the first round challenge. However, what they didn’t know was that the stele was protected by Merlin's magic. It would not be easy to leave even a small scratch on it if you weren’t good at handling mana. Caron and Benjamin showed their exam identification cards, and each received a numbered ticket at the entrance to the training ground.

Benjamin continued his explanation. "The second round is a physical fitness test. I heard that they’re going to make you run for a long time with military gear on."

"That’s simple."

"Simple, right?"

Thousands of applicants had gathered in the training ground, but the first exam was over quickly. Most of them couldn’t even leave a scratch on the stele after three attempts. There were some people who made a fuss, asking for more chances, but the size of the line quickly decreased. Caron put sword aura on his finger and drew across the stele like it was clay.

"It's nice that the test is quick. So what about the third round?” asked Caron.

He had engraved ‘Caron Blade was here' into the stele.

Benjamin drew his sword and swung it at the stele. "I heard that they’ll make all the hopefuls fight each other.”

Underneath Caron’s, Benjamin carved ‘Benjamin Farhan also was here’ in elegant handwriting.

"Oh, you have such pretty handwriting."

"Ahem! I practiced a bit!" Benjamin said boastfully.

The exam supervisor looked at them in surprise and stamped their passes for the first round.

Then Caron asked, shaking the exam ticket to dry the ink, "Then what about the fourth round?"

1. Noonim is a combination of noona and -nim, which is just used to politely call an older female. ☜