Chapter 31

Chapter 31. Mercenaries (1)

The Red Bear Mercenary Company was using a building tucked inside the shopping district, a little way off Mercenary Street.

It consisted of a two-story wooden building that looked like an inn, a warehouse, and a fairly spacious open yard.

Perhaps because most of them were out, only a few places still had lights on.

I could not tell whether that was good luck or bad luck.

Either way, it was an ideal situation for secretly spying on someone else’s home.

I softened my footsteps and pressed myself against the wall of the building.

The wall was not the smooth stone wall I was used to seeing at the lord’s castle or the ducal estate, but a rough plaster wall.

Going in and out of a heavily guarded place like the ducal estate or the marquess’s lord’s castle would have been impossible, but climbing the wall of an ordinary house like this was hardly difficult.

The lit rooms on the first and second floors revealed nothing special.

There were mercenaries maintaining their gear, someone writing a letter, and even one room from which a pinkish, suggestive atmosphere drifted out.

At last, I climbed higher toward the third-floor window where light was leaking out.

It was the final room.

"How much longer do we have to stay here? I’m so restless I can’t stand it."

I had gotten lucky.

A familiar voice came from the window spilling light.

It was the female mercenary’s voice. Her name was Noah, right?

I flattened myself directly beneath the window.

Hooking my fingers into the cracks between the window frame and the plaster wall, I pressed my body as tightly against the wall as I could.

'This is cutting it close.'

Both the window frame and the plaster wall were incredibly old. They were only barely holding my weight.

Thank goodness I was just a little brat. If I had weighed even a little more, the wall or the frame surely would not have held.

Another voice sounded from inside the room. It was familiar too.

"You only need to hold out a little longer. We’ve already gotten close enough to Martin, and Martin will soon bring us a way to wipe out the entire marquess’s family."

"Can we really trust that? He hasn’t been getting things right lately. This time too, he suddenly moved the whole affair up by several months...."

Several months earlier? What was that supposed to mean?

"He’s never been wrong in other regions. Maybe there’s something in this area that interferes with his ability."

"Then doesn’t that make him even less trustworthy?"

"Even so, the overall framework hasn’t been wrong. So just wait a little longer."

"Yes. Yes."

Was this about an inherited ability again? Whose ability were they talking about, and what kind of ability was it?

"Is everything ready?"

"Things were moved up so suddenly that the training’s still a little lacking.... But anyway, the boys are more or less ready. We’ve also finished talking with the other mercenary companies. The companies our people have already made arrangements with will clean things up inside, and if the Count of La Palma brings the knights in on time, it should work."

What I was hearing was getting stranger and stranger.

Surely... they were talking about the things that had happened in my previous life?

But that was supposed to happen several months from now! Why were they already preparing for it? Had the things I did in this life somehow caused a butterfly effect?

But all I had done was join Brother Simon’s journey.

Then again, I had also met Martin, come here with him, and slipped out through the secret passage with Adria....

Hm. Looking at it that way, I had done quite a lot.

Even so, it would have been difficult for those things to affect their actions. The timing did not line up.

I strained my ears even harder.

Their conversation continued. Stories about the mercenaries working with them, and petty complaints here and there.

Unfortunately, I did not hear anything that was exactly what I wanted.

Worse still, perhaps they had moved, because their voices grew faint.

"So then... like that... and that issue...."

They moved? But why would the voices grow quieter just because they moved?

At that instant, a chill ran down my spine.

Smash!

I kicked hard off the wall.

At that exact moment—

"You filthy rat!"

Crash!

The window frame shattered, and with a shout, a man burst out through the window.

Through the scattering splinters of wood, a sword shot straight at me.

Clang!

With the sword I had drawn the moment I kicked off the wall, I blocked the blade flying toward me.

A sword brimming with mana. The sword I used to block it screamed, and for an instant my hand felt as though it had gone numb.

I barely managed to stop it.

But I was sent flying backward. Hanging in midair as I was, I had no choice but to lose to the difference in weight.

Ordinarily I would have been irritated, but right now I could only be grateful.

Using the force that had knocked me back, I hurled my body away as far as I could.

Whoosh!

After soaring across a wide stretch of distance, my feet hit the ground, and I immediately broke into a run.

Now then, time to run!

"So it really was a rat!"

"He’s awfully small, though. Is it a woman?"

"I don’t care whether it’s a dwarf or a woman. Hurry up and chase him!"

"Yes. Yes."

It seemed the woman had come down as well.

A sharp whistle sounded from behind me, followed by the female mercenary’s voice.

"Wow! It’s been ages since I had this much fun! Wait up, whether you’re a rat or a dwarf!"

Noah’s voice was getting closer and closer.

Damn it, I had thought she only had a good nose, but she could run fast too.

"Is that the enemy?"

"Stop him! But why is he so small?"

On top of that, mercenaries began spilling out from both sides of the street.

They had not been there when I came through, so where in the world had they all sprung from?

"Don’t tell me it’s a brat? We can catch him barehanded.... Urk!"

I struck the mercenary who had blocked my path without even drawing his sword with the flat of my blade.

Thud!

"Gah!"

The mercenary behind him, who had been trying to draw his sword, got a kick to the ribs.

The mercenaries blocking my way were hurled aside in every direction. I had made sure not to kill them, just in case, but I was fairly sure I had shattered a few bones.

But more mercenaries poured into the street than the ones I had just sent flying.

"You idiots! He’s not a child, he’s a skilled fighter! Just surround him!"

And in that same instant, Noah’s voice sounded even closer behind me.

There was no way I could keep running down the street and escape like this.

I had not checked the back alleys in advance, but there was no helping it now.

I darted straight between two buildings.

A narrow alley where only one or two people could barely pass.

For a full-grown adult, it would have been an alley that was difficult to flee through.

But on a dark night, in a narrow alley where no light could enter, it was the perfect playground for a child not even ten years old to hide in.

"Where is he?!"

"He isn’t in this alley!"

"He isn’t here either!"

Voices of mercenaries rang out from alleys all around me.

"Then where the hell is he?! Check every house with an open door or window!"

"They’re all shut."

"He might have gone into an open one and then closed it behind him."

"Then open them and check!"

It seemed everything I had heard earlier was true.

There was more than one mercenary company taking part in the search. The other mercenary companies around the lodging were all in league with them as well.

Coming here the moment I heard about the mercenary company’s lodgings had been a mistake.

I had thought I was being cautious enough, but in a real situation, my mistakes kept showing themselves.

'I need to be careful. At this rate, I won’t even have any excuse if I die again.'

Watching the mercenaries running through the alleys below, I made that vow to myself again.

As expected, climbing onto the rooftops had been the correct answer.

The mercenaries searching for me did not seem to have considered that I might have climbed onto the roofs.

Because they could not do it themselves, it never occurred to them that someone else might.

Well, even from my point of view, for an ordinary person it would have been impossible to get onto a roof in that brief span of time.

While I was looking down below, the female mercenary appeared in the alley beneath me.

"Hm, where did he run off to?"

She took a deep breath and looked around.

Then she lifted her head and looked in my direction.

Damn, I’m going to get spotted.

Like a turtle, I quickly tucked my head back in.

She didn’t notice me, did she?

I cautiously shifted my position.

She was a woman with an excellent sense of smell. It did not seem as though I had been noticed, but I still needed to get out of there quickly.

Moving almost by crawling, I slipped away from my spot and jumped across to the roof of another house.

Mercenaries were running through the alley below the gap I crossed, but not one of them looked up.

So I kept leaping from building to building.

The night air brushing my face felt wonderfully cool, and only now did my pounding heart begin to calm.

Beyond several rooftops, I could see Mercenary Street. And beyond several more, I could see the roof of the inn where Martin was staying.

Even from here, the noisy sounds of the inn carried over.

I had just caused all that chaos, yet over there nothing had changed at all.

"Then I suppose it’s time to head back."

Mercenary Street where the inn stood was noisy, but this area around me was very quiet.

I had escaped the mercenaries’ encirclement.

Given enough time, they might come searching even here, but before that happened, I would already be back at Adria’s side as the harmless little boy.

I lightly jumped down.

The roof of the second floor was fairly high, but I was already past the age where a height like this would frighten me.

"Found you!"

At that moment, a woman’s voice rang out from the dark alley beneath my feet.

It was Noah’s voice.

At the same time, she leaped upward.

In the darkness of the night, the flushed face of the woman came rushing toward me.

Her face, reddened with excitement, was full of smiles.

I had no idea what made her so happy, but together with that radiant expression, a sword flashing green came slashing toward me.

'Do all the mercenaries in this damned town use poison?!'

I swung my sword with all my strength and blocked the poisoned blade rushing at me.

Clang!

But the moment the two swords collided, an unexpected sound rang from my blade.

At the same time, I was flung backward and slammed into the wall.

Ugh!

I felt the difference in weight yet again, but that was not what mattered right now.

"Your skill’s good enough, but what’s wrong with your sword? Were you poor? So you weren’t a rat, you were just a petty thief?"

More than the absurd look on her face, I was the one who wanted to sigh.

After a single clash, my sword had snapped clean in two.

Was this the limit of a mass-produced steel sword?

It had looked dangerous earlier when I clashed with the mercenary captain’s blade, but I had not expected it to break this easily.

I forced myself upright.

My back hurt from being smashed into the wall, and blood was running down my thigh, either because the broken blade had cut it or because I had struck something on the way down.

Damn it, this was dangerous.

The alley Noah was blocking was the very alley that led back toward Mercenary Street.

My condition was poor, my sword was gone, and now even my escape route had been cut off.

With my leg bleeding like this, climbing back onto the rooftops was not a good option either.

Fweeeeet!

At that moment, Noah blew a whistle.

"The others will be here soon. Whether you’re a rat or a petty thief, we’ll know soon enough."

If the mercenaries came swarming in, that would be bad. Both the woman in front of me and the mercenary captain had seen my face before.

The moment my cloak was pulled aside, they would know exactly who I was.

'Damn it, is this the end?'

The thought of having to live through it all over again was horrifying, but being captured alive and tortured without even the chance to die sounded worse. Better to end it here.

Once I thought that, this life suddenly felt terribly regrettable. I had finally thought I was beginning to understand things, but my own arrogance had ruined everything.

Even so, I had no intention of giving up. If I were very, very lucky, there might still be a chance to escape.

Just as I was about to force strength into my injured leg and dash forward—

"What do you think you’re doing?!"

A voice rang out from Noah’s side.

"Threatening an injured child! Have you no honor?!"

It was not Noah’s voice. It came from behind her.

Noah turned around with an incredulous expression.

"Honor? You’re talking to a mercenary about honor?"

Hm. It really was not a word that suited the situation.

Then, from the darkness behind Noah, someone stepped forward.

A small-built mercenary wrapped in a cloak.

It was the mercenary who had tried to help Adria earlier.

"Mercenary or knight, anyone who carries a sword bears responsibility equal to the sword he carries! If you do not know that, then you have no right to hold a sword!"

Both Noah and I stared open-mouthed at the newly arrived mercenary.

To think I would hear a line so embarrassingly melodramatic, the sort that only came out in movies from my previous life.

He had clearly come to save me, yet right now all I wanted was to pretend I did not know him.