〈 Episode 56 〉The East Targets the West 2
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The first day's battle ended in victory. The soldiers, hunters, and knights, who had been cheering and jubilant, were now quite drunk on their victory, pumping their fists in the air or shouting their victory to their men.
"Is it possible that the remnants or others are hiding?"
Sergen asked me as we emerged from the tent.
"Better ask the other knights than me.
She glanced at Joffin, who was now eagerly reporting that they had captured what appeared to be the leader of the hermits.
"It's possible, but I think it's better to leave it alone."
"Is there any reason why we should?"
"Yes, because the main players in today's victory are suffering."
I look at the soldiers around me, coiled with sticky grass juice and grass leaf flies.
"If it weren't for them, we wouldn't have been able to keep the hermits out of the shadows. The knights and hunters who fought earlier did a great job, but it seems they were the ones who were hiding without proper rest."
I subtly shifted the credit for the victory to the soldiers. Everyone had to agree, the smell of the grass stung their nostrils as soon as they got near them, and the sight of them rolling in the dirt to stifle the stench and the smell was beyond words.
"I see, we'd better take them to the nearest river and let them wash."
"Yes. Of course, they're elite soldiers, so that level of fatigue shouldn't be too much for them, but this fight is going to be a long one to say the least."
Everyone could definitely feel it. If it was a small bandit raid, it was unlikely that a group of assassins would be able to infiltrate and assassinate the knights overnight.
"Knights, listen to me. First, wash the men who have suffered the most and organize their gear. Arrange their weapons and shoes, and stand guard, ready for another surprise."
Now that the conventions of guerrilla warfare had been revealed, vigilance was next on the agenda. Quickly escorting the soldiers to the river to bathe and shower, he puts them to sleep first.
"I'd like the Hunters to do the heavy lifting from the beginning."
It doesn't seem like a good idea to have the knights stand guard, so I turn to the hunters.
"Even if they're hired Hunters, they'll recognize that things are weird right now, so they'll be on board.
However, you can't rely on hunters as mercenaries for hire. Some of the soldiers who have been hiding in the trees and bushes all day come out and try to stand guard.
"No, the first watch will be on the side of our knights and hunters. Let the soldiers get as much sleep as possible."
Zhao Feng stepped forward.
"Hmm, being an opportunist comes in handy in times like this.
Undaunted by the lack of praise he had received for taking charge of the hermits, he did what he thought would be most meaningful under the circumstances. Many of the soldiers bowed their heads in respect, and Sergen looked at him with a nod of his own.
"Then I, too, shall stand at the fire."
"Serchen. First of all, it's not proper for a Legionnaire to stand in the fire..."
There was no stopping Serghen. Jopin bows his head in response to her shy gesture.
"Instead, since the knights have chosen to do so, you, Tir, my escort, will join me in taking the fire."
She smiles, and I can tell from her laugh that she expected it.
.
"Tadak!
I sit down by the blazing fire and watch as a few Hunters sit elsewhere.
"Are you out?"
She emerges from the large Legionnaire's tent, which she occupies alone. Serghen looks at me and nods. Then he sits down on the seat next to me and stares at the fire.
"I camped like this once before, on my first monster slaying."
"I see."
"You and I share a similarity in that our first slaying was an orc."
I was a little curious about Sergen's old story.
"Did you capture an orc?"
"Did I?"
He smiles, as if remembering himself.
"No, I just shivered and could barely hold my sword properly, and I have a not-so-fond memory of a rookie soldier I went out with who died instead of me."
"That..."
"So I insisted that I would stand unbroken, just like today, and I remember camping out and crying to myself, vowing that I would never lose a soldier in vain again."
Her determination alone made me think she would make a good boss. Or maybe she was already a good enough boss.
'Even opportunist Joffin would listen to her first...'
"Next time we meet, I'll be sure to dry up the monsters' seed, and with that in mind, I'll make sure the bandits that plague our Sirtus are wiped from the face of the earth before I inherit the county."
"...."
"But now that I've been through it, I see why. You say monsters can't be helped, but the bandits saw the truth in what you said."
"What do you mean?"
"Why the bandits held their ground and fought until the end. I only thought it was because of their evil."
"Evil, yes. It is evil to harm the property of others."
"Not being a bandit is not evil?"
It could not be said no.
"Are not the bandits the ones who risked their lives to go into the mountains, to damage the property of others, whether it be property or something dear to them, and then when I think of the evil that is done..."
It must be men like Serghen.
"Not everything can be solved by fighting and slaughter. Arwell's notion of necessary evil was all about difference and choice, and I'm beginning to think that what I'm talking about is nothing more than romance."
"When I first met you, Sergen, I realized something new in what you said to me."
"Like what?"
"That if an okra doesn't harm us, they're xenomorphs, and if a human tries to harm us, they're bandits and monsters."
"....."
"I suppose I shouldn't be saying this to the Count's young lady, but...shouldn't we be doing most things for ourselves, unless we're gods?"
He picks up a twig and places it in the firewood.
"It's something you have to do for yourself, but I'm sure you don't agree with the Earl, and if any of your folk have been wronged in some way that you don't like, then that's when you come forward and discuss justice. Even if you have been wronged and have become a bandit, you are harming others who are not harmed by your banditry. Wouldn't that make them no different from the monsters you speak of?"
A monster is a monster is a monster.
"I see. That's what I was thinking."
"It's not an easy thing to do, though, because even when you say you're slaying bandits, you're doing it for show, and you're doing it for nothing, or you're doing it for the good of the lords and merchants, while being told that you're worse than bandits, and that you're slaying bandits."
"...."
"Haha, that's just coming from someone who's been a gentry, but if you keep doing the right thing, in a small way..."
I hadn't thought of that either, but I wanted to offer a voice of support to Sergen, who was now struggling.
"You're trying to do the right thing, Sergen. Aren't there more and more like-minded people?"
"...I see."
"You can't have everyone's gratitude and blessings, because life is just a series of choices that create regrets, and regrets create other choices."
"And how do you know such things?"
"Well, most of them...I've heard them in bars in passing or in the stories of people around me."
"Strange."
Sergen shook his head.
"Why is that?"
"I thought the Deckard estate wasn't exactly the kind of place where intellectuals hang out in the slums and bars."
"I've never thought about it, but...I've heard plenty of people talking about it, and I've often wondered..."
I stare at the fire for a moment. The story he told as he ducked around a pickpocket target.
[Life is just a series of choices, from regret to regret, from regret to choice].
He was talking to someone else, thinking about his regrets about the pickpocketing job I was doing.
"No way.
People playing chess.
['You know, it doesn't matter how good a knight, queen, rook, or bishop you have, if you don't have a king, it's not a game.]
I listened to him. The ones who slowed their work to a crawl at the sound of his voice as he picked at his pocket.
[As in chess, if the pawns are willing to defend the king with their lives, any plan can succeed. It's good to be on the lookout for one little thing.]
The many thoughts I learned became wisdom, and that wisdom came from...
"Million.
Sometimes he was a merchant, sometimes a drunkard, sometimes an old man. When he saw an old man who looked poor, he didn't touch his pockets, he just walked by.
[It's not good character to judge everything by what you see. Especially if they're a hermit.］
By the time he looked at the old man, dumbfounded by his words, he had already disappeared into the crowd around him.
"Millions.
He was certain. 'You've taught me strategy and wisdom and monarchy and life and...
"You survived pickpocketing because...
The people who told me these stories, peculiarly, appeared whenever my pockets ran low on food, or my income dwindled, and always with new clothes or bags of new materials.
[This is a leather bag with the breath of the Salamander, which is impenetrable by ordinary means, and which is enough to keep most thieves at bay.]
He was bragging in the gravelly voice of a drunkard. That spurred me on, and in the failed theft, he failed to catch me in his drunken stupor.
[Oops, I got my hopes up too high, I'm not drinking well tonight].
If that's what he said to me...I wonder what he was expecting when he looked at me then.
'A leather sack with the breath of the Salamander in it...did he expect me to be a hermit good enough to cut it?'
He spoke to me as if he knew the measurements of my every garment, my habits, and my thoughts since I came to him as a servant.
'Yes...Ellie's apprentice...Millian knew of Ellie's character, and yet he allowed her to teach me the dark arts...then.
Ellie was Millian's apprentice, and she was intrigued by the idea of her teaching me...
'That's why she taught me...and Sophia...a major reason she left me.
Ellie taught me, and that's what got Million interested in me, so if...
[Aster.]
The flower that holds so many memories. And if Sophia, the bearer of that flower, was nothing more than a jealous child...
"She was jealous of me... and that's how she got kicked out.
Millian and Ellie, Sophia and Jeffers, they all mingled together to bring me to the same place.
"What the hell were you thinking?
Why did they do that to me, the one who would eventually be killed by Noelle. That was unclear. The most important initial reason for the evidence so far. It was all part of the great key held by Million.
"The whole truth is...
Only Million knows. And then, as if to greet me, he tests me with a leather sack of Salamander's breath.
'Fire!
The flames blazed, yes, like the flames now... He was testing me.
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