Chapter 41

Translator: Willia

There were a lot of frogs around here. Every night, they croaked their heads off. Sometimes they were noisy, but other times the sound was comforting in its own way.

But right now, there was no croaking nearby. It could still be heard in the distance, but perhaps because so many people had gathered here, tonight’s chorus seemed to be taking a break.

Several people holding torches stood near the reed beds. And, for some reason, there was also someone sitting tied to a chair.

The man in the chair sobbed and begged like a baby.

One of his ears had been sliced off, one eye was swollen nearly shut, all his fingernails had been pulled out, and several of his fingers had been cut short at the joints.

“Please...... Please...... I really told you everything...... I swear......”

His face was smeared with tears, blood, snot, and saliva.

Reilly watched him without the slightest expression. He did not look frightening or cold, nor did he seem to be enjoying himself. He was simply businesslike to an almost excessive degree. That was what made him so terrifying.

Roy approached with a waterskin and gave the seated man some water. Keeping him hydrated meant they could torture him longer.

Unfortunately for the victim, they had not even started yet. Flaying off strips of skin and rubbing salt into the wounds was where the real torture began, and gouging out the eyes was the crowning touch.

Reilly picked up the sharpened pincers again, and the man began wailing like a baby.

He struggled hard enough to rock the chair, but its legs were sunk into the mud, so it barely moved. In a way, he almost looked like a child throwing a tantrum.

Just as Reilly was about to cut off another finger joint, someone sitting a short distance away stood and spoke.

“That’s enough. Stop.”

Reilly lowered the pincers, wiped his hands on a bloodstained handkerchief, and stepped back.

The tortured man did not know who had spoken, but hearing those words made him feel as though he had been granted salvation.

Torture did not merely destroy the body. It destroyed the mind as well. Overcome with emotion, he burst into loud sobs.

He kept repeating, “Thank you, thank you,” until someone approached and held an index finger to his own lips. It meant shut up.

The torchlight revealed Valery.

“Our brickmaker is dead, yet you’re still alive.”

“What!? B-but! I was only following orders! There was nothing personal about it! I swear!”

“Nothing about this is personal for me either.”

“What!?”

Valery drew his sword, Und.

The tortured man’s eyes widened in terror. Yet even then, the sword reflecting the blazing torchlight looked inexplicably beautiful to him. He had never seen such a smooth, flawless blade in his life.

At the very moment he felt those conflicting emotions of terror and admiration for its beauty, his head fell from his shoulders.

The lack of any sensation of cutting through flesh felt almost unnatural in Valery’s hand. Not a single drop of blood stained the blade.

The sharpness and durability of Dwarven Steel were magical in themselves, even without any enchantment.

Valery sheathed the sword at his waist again and said,

“Send it to the guild master of the Peat Guild. He may have meant this as nothing more than a warning, but what we’re sending back isn’t a warning. It’s a challenge.”

The man behind the brickmaker’s murder was the guild master of the Peat Guild.

The Gem Guild and the Peat Guild were currently the two greatest powers in Grinnen, and it was the Peat Guild that had ordered Valery’s brickmaker killed.

The reason they had warned Valery was simple. He had been gathering people and mining peat.

In other words, he was taking away people they wanted to exploit, leaving them short on workers, while mining peat himself posed an obvious threat to their monopoly. Naturally, they had reacted.

Put simply, their interests had collided.

There was no good or evil involved. Just as always, there was only the law of the strong preying on the weak. The only question was who was stronger, and therefore who would end up as meat for the other.

The guild master of the Peat Guild was a man named Mackonen. He was the second generation of his family to run the peat-mining business.

He was effectively a local magnate, a man whose status within Grinnen was little different from that of a noble.

His work consisted of gathering the heads of the guild-affiliated operations once a week for meetings and punishing anyone or any faction that posed a threat to them.

Lately, the main topic at those meetings had been none other than The Froskar. A bunch of nobodies they had never even heard of. No, that was not quite right. The Salt Prince was fairly famous, so they could not exactly say they had never heard of them.

A meeting was underway even now, and they were discussing that very subject.

“Just when is the Duke going to finish mustering his forces? He can’t even keep one of his own sons in line, and now look what’s happened. The fool......”

“If the Duke mobilizes his army, we’ll be under threat as well. I don’t think relying on outside force is particularly wise.”

“Then what do you suggest? Are you saying we should actually go to war with those Frog bastards? Even if we win, we’ll only be doing someone else a favor.”

“Has there been any word from the Gem Guild?”

“Those bastards care about no one but themselves. They don’t understand that they’ll be the next target after us.”

“Or perhaps they intend to let the two sides wear each other down, then expand their influence afterward.”

The men traded opinions, but everyone had an opinion of his own and there was no shared direction. Providing that direction was the guild master’s job.

“Ahem. Hm.”

Mackonen cleared his throat, and the meeting, which had been growing somewhat heated, quieted down.

“We sent them a clear warning, so there should be some response. And don’t worry. I’ve hired a Wandering Knight.”

“You mean Sir Ingolf, ‘Iron Head’?”

“Indeed. He’s a full-blooded Nordic knight who murdered a noble and then killed twenty men from the pursuit party by himself. There’s no questioning his skill. He’s far stronger than even that terrifying Ball-Ripper, so not even the Salt Prince will be able to threaten our safety.”

“Then why not have him eliminate the Salt Prince before he can make a move?”

“Even then, the Third Young Lord would still remain, would he not? If they retaliate, we’ll have to suffer losses as well. The best outcome would be for them to come to us with their heads bowed, and I’ll handle the negotiations myself. War is our final resort.”

Unfortunately for them, while they were still discussing the matter, Valery had already begun the war.

At that moment, the meeting-room door opened and one of the guild employees entered carrying a heavy box.

“It was sent by The Froskar.”

“Already? After just one day? Don’t these bastards even hold meetings? Open it.”

They were puzzled, but when the employee placed the box on the table and lifted the lid, everyone recoiled.

Inside was a severed head, its mouth hanging stupidly open and its tongue lolling out. One ear had been sliced off, while pulled fingernails and severed finger segments had been arranged around the head almost like decorations.

“Gah!”

“Ahem!”

“Tch!”

The men in the room reacted according to their personalities. Some were openly horrified, some merely disgusted, while others felt their minds go cold.

Mackonen, the guild master, belonged to the last group.

“A warning, or a challenge......”

“This does not bode well. We should summon all the employees for now.”

They called them employees, but they were laborers and fighting men at the same time. They knew how to use weapons.

They were not merely in the peat-mining business. They possessed a respectable amount of armed strength, which was precisely why they had been able to maintain their dominant position in Grinnen for so long.

“But we still have work left.”

“Given the circumstances, I don’t believe this is the time to worry about losses.”

“Let’s get this thing out of here first. Damn it.”

At the others’ words, Mackonen waved a hand as though telling the employee to remove it quickly. The man closed the lid again and carried the box away.

“Summon the employees. Open the armory as well, and do not lower your guard for the time being. You should all head back for today. We’ll hold another meeting tomorrow morning.”

Mackonen sent the mining operators who made up the guild away. He needed to make one final decision: whether it would be war, or whether he should still attempt one last negotiation.

He could not sleep at all that night, and when he reconvened the meeting the next morning, two men were absent. Only three people, including Mackonen himself, were in the meeting room.

“None of us likely slept much last night. Perhaps we should reconvene a little later, Guild Master.”

“Mm. That would be best.”

Mackonen returned to his bedroom, caught a little sleep, ate a meal, and held the meeting again around noon. This time, he was the only one there.

He called for an employee and ordered him to find out what was happening, but all he got in return was that no one knew where the missing men were. They were already searching as hard as they could.

Only then did Mackonen realize that something was seriously wrong.

“Ingolf. Bring Sir Ingolf.”

“Yes, sir.”

The employee went to fetch him, and soon a massive man entered the meeting room. Strangely enough, Mackonen had no idea how it had been done, but the man’s forehead was plated with iron.

“It seems those bastards are up to something. From this moment on, stay by my side and protect me.”

“Understood, Guild Master.”

That was when the commotion began outside. Mackonen hurried out and found someone pounding on the main gate, while the employees raced across the broad courtyard, hurriedly grabbing weapons and preparing for battle.

Clang! Claaang! Clang!

They were not simply pounding on the gate. Someone outside had pushed something like a chisel through a gap and was striking it with a hammer against the bar holding the gate shut.

Before long, the iron bar split cleanly in two.

Claaang! Clatter!

The gate creeeaked open, and someone stepped through. It was Valery. Skard and the men he had trained followed him in. There were five of them.

By sheer numbers, Mackonen’s side had a considerable advantage, with around twenty men. Valery did not look intimidated in the slightest. Instead, he threw what he was carrying into the courtyard.

They were four severed heads. They belonged to the heads of the various operations affiliated with the Peat Guild. Over the course of the night and the following morning, Valery had Knut assassinate all of them while their defenses were weak.

Valery walked into the courtyard and looked up at Mackonen on the balcony. Then he spoke.

“I’ll give you one last chance. Surrender and hand over all your rights to me.”

The demand was simple, but utterly impossible to accept.

Mackonen’s heart pounded violently, but he forced himself to remain calm as he replied.

“Absurd. You’re nothing but a bastard with a little talent, yet you run wild because you don’t know enough to fear the world. Can you not even count? What are you doing!? Kill those bastards already! What are you all doing milling around the courtyard!?”

Mackonen shouted at his men. They were not exactly words to inspire courage, but they did remind them that they had the advantage in numbers.

Valery spoke to Skard and the men, then strode forward alone.

“Wait here.”

His enemies were confused. Was he really planning to face them alone? At the same time, his sheer confidence was intimidating enough to make them hesitate.

Finally, one man gathered his courage, shouted, and charged with a spear. Others carrying swords, axes, and assorted weapons followed behind him. This was not a large-scale battle, so they did not form any coordinated battle line.

“RAAAAAAGH!”

Valery lightly avoided the spearpoint of the man charging at the front, drew his sword at the same time, and swept it from left to right through the man’s head as he passed.

He immediately stepped sideways and sliced through the next man’s waist from right to left. Continuing the same motion, he lifted his sword and brought it down on the next attacker. The man split open from shoulder to belly.

By then, the fourth man’s sword was nearly upon Valery. Valery twisted and blocked the attack with his own blade.

Clang!

The enemy sword broke the instant it struck Dwarven Steel. Valery shifted toward the man whose weapon had snapped, and the next attacker accidentally stabbed his own comrade in the back.

“Ghk!”

While they were still stunned and confused, Und flashed in the noon sunlight like a lightsaber and swept through both men’s necks at once.

This time, enemies attacked from both sides. Valery avoided the attack from the right by stepping in close to the man and slamming into him with his shoulder.

At point-blank range, Valery instantly drew his dagger, stabbed it into the man’s belly, and ripped it across. He then stabbed the attacker on the left, whose strike had missed, in the abdomen and dragged the blade upward. Warm entrails spilled out in a rush.

He immediately hurled the dagger with all his strength at another enemy charging toward him. With a whoosh, the dagger flew through the air at tremendous speed, punched through the man’s ribs, and buried itself in his heart.

Thunk!

“Ghk!”

Eight. Eight men were dead. How many seconds had passed? By this point, the remaining enemies could no longer bring themselves to attack and began edging backward.

“Whoa......”

Even the men who had followed Skard stared in a daze. Their first reaction was not fear, but awe. How was something like this even possible?

Corpses lay scattered across the courtyard, while the men whose guts had spilled out were still alive, groaning as they slowly died.

“Uuugh......”

Valery stood among them and calmly looked up at the balcony. More precisely, he was not looking at Mackonen, but at “Iron Head” Ingolf standing beside him.

Perhaps he had read the challenge in Valery’s gaze, because Ingolf headed downstairs without hesitation.

“S-Sir! Where are you going!?”

Once Ingolf reached the ground floor, he drew his sword without hesitation. It looked rather like an enormous, elongated butcher’s knife.

He stared at Valery with a vacant expression, the whites showing all around his irises, and approached with heavy steps. Then, in an instant, he charged like a storm and swung his sword.

Valery swung his own sword at the same time, and Dwarven Steel once again split his opponent’s weapon apart.

Clang!

But Ingolf’s true weapon was something else entirely. It was the iron plate attached to his forehead. He closed the distance even further and drove forward with a headbutt.

Valery immediately turned his head aside and drew his right foot back, evading the blow. Ingolf’s thick hand shot out and seized Valery’s left arm, preventing him from creating distance.

His grip was so powerful that Valery’s arm felt as though it might snap. At this range, a longsword was not much use. His dagger was already gone as well. If Ingolf managed to grab his right arm too, he looked ready to land a proper headbutt.

Then Ingolf’s body suddenly went rigid. Valery had already reversed his grip on his sword and slashed upward between his legs.

He had not been able to put enough force into the initial swing to cut deeply, so he simply kept forcing the blade upward with all his strength, cutting higher and higher. It was something he dared to do only because he trusted the sharpness and durability of Dwarven Steel.

Ingolf began trembling. The blade cut through his lower abdomen, split his ribs, and reached his heart. Then, once Valery reached an angle where he could put his full strength behind it, the sword tore upward in a single burst, splitting through Ingolf’s neck, jaw, and even the iron plate on his forehead.

The sword that had split a man from end to end burst out through the top.

Splash!

An indescribable flood of blood and viscera poured out. Valery immediately stepped away, and the body split in two collapsed.

The shocking sight plunged the courtyard into utter silence. Not even the sound of someone swallowing could be heard.

Valery swung his sword through the air, flinging away the blood and everything else clinging to it. Then he looked up at the balcony again. Mackonen, horrified out of his wits, sank to the floor where he stood.

Valery entered the building alone. No one could stop him now.

Instead, they stepped aside to clear a path. Valery casually plucked the dagger one of them carried as though it belonged to him. The man offered no resistance. His body had simply frozen solid.

Mackonen scrambled away in a panic, crawling toward his bedroom. But Valery was already climbing to the upper floor, and he was moving faster just by walking.

Mackonen frantically looked around the room for somewhere to hide, but of course there was nowhere.

Valery entered with his sword at his waist and calmly sat down in front of the table. Then he placed the dagger on the tabletop with a tap.

“Come and sit.”

Was Valery going to let him live? Trembling violently, Mackonen clung to that final hope. No, he wanted to believe it. So he obeyed and sat across from Valery.

Valery spoke.

“As I’ve gone through life, I’ve noticed something. Gangsters, businessmen, and rulers aren’t all that different, yet there is a difference between them. A gangster cannot think about what comes afterward. A businessman cannot think about those beneath him. And a ruler cannot think about himself.”

What was he trying to say? Mackonen could only tremble. No sound would come from his throat.

“Killing the brickmaker was the act of someone who failed to think about what would come afterward. Then are you a gangster, Guild Master?”

Valery asked the question while staring at him coldly. At that moment, Mackonen thought the handsome face before him looked like the most terrifying thing in the world.

“......I, I...... Wh-what can I do? What should I do?”

Apparently, that was not the answer Valery had wanted. He let out a small sigh.

“I wondered whether you might be different, but you’re ordinary. So utterly ordinary it’s disgusting.”

Valery rose from his seat and approached him. He seized Mackonen by the hair as the man looked up at him in terror, picked up the dagger from the table, and drove it into his throat.

“Ghk! Grrk! Grrrgh!”

Then he carelessly tossed the dagger back onto the table and left without looking back.

He walked downstairs again, and just as before, no one dared stand in his way. Valery headed toward the gate and spoke to Skard and the men who had accompanied him.

“Let’s go.”