Chapter 36

Chapter 36. Even So, I Still Got My Revenge (2)

An inn tucked away in an alley a short distance from the inn where Martin had been staying.

As I looked the place over from top to bottom, I tilted my head.

A freshly painted signboard, clean exterior walls, and from inside the inn drifted the soft scent of bread.

'It’s definitely an inn, but....'

It looked nothing like the hotels from my previous life. It looked as though it had leaped straight out of a fantasy novel.

Every inn I had seen so far had been painfully realistic places, full of flying mercenaries and food plastered here and there, so an inn like this felt extremely unfamiliar.

That strange feeling did not go away even after I stepped inside.

The first-floor dining room was clean, and even the clothes of the servers carrying the food were neat and tidy.

Yet for such a fine inn, it did not seem to have many guests.

'If it’s this good, why are there so few people here?'

Looking around in puzzlement, I asked a passing waitress,

"Is there a guest staying here called the Firebird Hunter?"

Firebird Hunter. What a childish nickname.

I could not help my face reddening even as I said it.

At my words, the waitress looked at me with amusement.

"So you’re not just an ordinary little brat. She’s here right now. Shall I call her for you?"

Fortunately, she was at the inn.

"Yes."

"Father! There’s a guest here! Please call Lady Firebird!"

The waitress shouted toward the back, then led me to an empty seat.

Apparently the nickname was not considered all that strange here.

The waitress who had guided me over—or rather, the innkeeper’s daughter—showed me the menu with a friendly smile.

"Then if you’re one of Lady Firebird’s guests, there’s no need to worry.... I’ll take your order."

I did not understand what she meant by that first part, but before I could even think about it, the menu made me jump in shock.

'Why is it so expensive!'

The prices written on it were enough to surprise even me, who had never lacked for anything.

No wonder there were so few guests. If the lodging fees were this expensive too, any ordinary mercenary who was not a noble would take one look and bolt.

'This is like putting a five-star hotel right in the middle of a market street.'

Still, it was not my problem.

"If you have whatever the Firebird Hunter usually eats, please bring two portions of that."

"An excellent choice. Lady Firebird won’t feel burdened by that either."

Ah. Could it be that she thought Lady Firebird, rather than me, would be paying for all this food?

Tch. Then again, that would have been a reasonable assumption.

I had taken off the cloth around my head, but I still had a cloak wrapped around my body, so no matter how fine the clothes underneath might be, there was no way she could know.

And since I had wrapped the sword I had newly received from the marquess in layers of cloth and dragged it all the way here so no one would recognize it, I must have looked like nothing more than a little errand boy carrying luggage.

Only then did I understand the odd expression the waitress had been giving me.

'I suppose I should be grateful she didn’t throw me out.'

While I was thinking that, I heard footsteps on the stairs.

When I turned my head, a woman was coming down.

She had short red hair, and her appearance was somewhat androgynous. Quite handsome, really.

She walked straight toward me.

'Did the cloaked mercenary actually look like that?'

The appearance suited the husky voice well enough, but it was different from the sturdy image I had first imagined.

Rather than a tough mercenary, she looked more like a slender knight—or perhaps a handsome scribe.

Well, since she was a woman, perhaps that was only natural.

"I’m a little late. Still, you came at just the right time. Things are noisy in the territory, so I was thinking of slipping off somewhere else."

She sat down in front of me and waved to the waitress.

"I already ordered two portions of whatever Lady Firebird Hunter usually eats."

"Good work. Hahaha, the nickname does sound a little odd, doesn’t it? But there are nicknames even stranger than mine."

"What’s wrong with Lady Firebird? My father used to be called Greatsword Bigfoot when he was younger."

The waitress said that as she set down the food before us.

Hm, Greatsword Bigfoot. It was certainly a very direct nickname. One could probably identify the man just from hearing it.

"Ah, then Firebird Hunter too...."

I looked at the red hair of the woman sitting across from me.

"It’s a perfect nickname, isn’t it? When you see that red hair, no other nickname comes to mind."

The waitress who had set down the food shrugged her shoulders.

Apparently she herself was the one who had come up with the nickname.

'Since arriving in this territory, she’s been going around using a nickname given to her by an inn waitress?'

If that was the case, then either she had not been using a nickname before, or she was concealing the one she originally had.

'Does this woman have some kind of secret too?'

A sigh escaped me.

Somehow, every single person I met turned out to be anything but ordinary.

The food laid out before us looked very appetizing. The hot stew, the bread, and the meat did not look much different from what I had eaten at the lord’s castle or the estate.

With the food in front of us, Firebird... stared at me intently.

Ah. I had not introduced myself.

I had no nickname, nor was I in any position to give one.

So I simply gave my name.

"I am Alex de Gresia."

At my words, she tilted her head.

"You were a noble?"

"Only half of one. I’m an illegitimate son."

"Ah, so that’s what it was. Now I understand."

She did not look especially surprised that I was a noble, and hearing that I was an illegitimate son did not change the way she treated me.

If she had really been a mercenary, she would at least have been startled, or started speaking politely.

I had felt it before the last time I saw her too, but she was the kind of person who could not deceive others well.

Someone who did not look surprised even when faced with a noble, and who did not put on tinted glasses even after hearing I was an illegitimate son.

'Could she be an unusually open-minded noble? Or else someone of a position or skill that nobles can’t push around carelessly?'

Judging by the ease with which she handled that female mercenary Noah, there was nothing to fault in her skill.

After hearing my name, she picked up a piece of bread and dipped it into the stew.

Then she looked at me with startled eyes.

"Ah, wait a second. Weren’t the nobles visiting this time from Duke Gresia’s ducal house?"

So, just as in my previous life, the rumors were slow. Or perhaps she had simply noticed late.

"That’s right. I came with them."

The moment I admitted it, instead of lifting the bread soaked in stew, she pressed a hand to her head.

"No, what is going on here?"

What was going on? The matter she had been watching from a distance had fallen right at her feet, that was all.

"Right now there are rumors flying around that mercenaries attacked the marquess’s house and got slaughtered, and outside the soldiers are prowling through the streets with murder in their eyes."

She pointed at me.

"And the little brat who was running away from the mercenaries that night was a guest of the marquess’s house. If the rumors are true, then when I tried to save that little brat, I ended up brawling with the very mercenaries who had attacked the marquess’s house?"

Her expression crumpled all at once.

"Don’t tell me the girl you were with that night was a noble too?"

"She was the marquess’s daughter. The one who was set to become engaged this time."

She stared blankly at me.

While she did, the bread slowly sank deeper into the stew.

That one was finished. Thinking it a waste, I picked up a piece of bread myself.

I dipped it into the stew the way she had and tried it.

Oh. It was extremely good.

Seeing me eat the bread, she came back to her senses. When she saw that her own bread had sunk completely out of sight in the stew, she sighed.

"This is bad. This isn’t the time to be relaxing. Judging by how things turned out, I got dragged into this far more deeply than I realized."

Dragged in properly, yes. If someone who knew her showed up, both the surviving mercenaries and the soldiers would surely come looking for her.

It was not something I had asked of her, and it had all happened because of her own meddlesome streak, but still.

"As repayment for the help you gave me, I’ll pay for this meal."

"Ah, you don’t have to. It’s not even that expens... no, thank you."

Well now, it seemed only at the very end did she remember that she was supposed to be a mercenary.

Still, that meant even this sort of meal was not considered expensive to her. I had learned another thing.

"So what in the world happened? No, never mind. It’s probably better if I don’t hear it. It must be noble business, and if I hear any more, all I’ll get is extra trouble."

She was right. There was already far too much trouble.

"More importantly, where am I supposed to go now?"

"You have nowhere to go?"

"I didn’t expect things to start moving this suddenly."

Huh. It seemed as though this might turn out easily enough.

"In that case, how about coming to Duke Gresia’s territory?"

"Huh? Are you inviting me to the ducal house?"

"No. There’s no way an illegitimate son like me could do something like that. I’m merely recommending it as the next territory to go to."

At my words, she shook her head.

As expected, things were not going to be that easy.

"It’s too far. And it’s not as though I’ve decided on no destination at all, but that doesn’t mean I’m wandering around at random either. There’s something I need to find as I travel."

As she said that, she stroked the sword resting upright against the table.

Something to find, and a sword... Hm, maybe I should try probing her a little.

"Could the thing you’re looking for be related to that sword?"

At my words, she flinched in surprise. There was no need to hear her answer. One look was enough to tell me I was right.

"In that case, I believe I can help. I don’t remember it clearly, but I think I saw the emblem engraved on that sword somewhere in the territory. It was a bird in flight, wasn’t it?"

At my words, she drew the sword halfway in excitement.

The emblem of the soaring bird came into view on the blade.

I checked the emblem and nodded.

"Yes, that’s the one."

She became visibly excited at my answer.

"I’ll pack up quickly and follow after you. Once I get there, how should I contact you? Is there any chance you could tell me roughly where it was in advance? Was it an object? Or part of a wall? It wasn’t in a book, was it?"

The effect was so strong it was almost frightening.

Even so, she quickly regained her reason.

At once, she called for the waitress.

"I’m checking out of my room! I’m leaving tomorrow!"

"What? Since the amount is so large, it’ll be difficult to refund your room fee tomorrow."

Wait, it was an inn that gave refunds? And what kind of booking had she made that it was expensive enough for a refund to be difficult?

"You don’t have to refund it."

"What? Really?"

At her answer, the waitress’s face lit up.

Just how large a sum was it?

But the girl’s face darkened again almost immediately.

"We can’t accept that from you. I’ll put it on your account. Either we’ll collect it when you come back, or you can stay here free for the same number of days later."

"Father!"

At the voice of the man who had come out from the back, the waitress let out a shrill cry.

He was a sturdy middle-aged man. Exactly the sort of man one would expect in a story—a former mercenary who had once been famous in his youth and now ran an inn in his older age.

But the muscles of his hands and body looked less like those of a mercenary and more like those of a knight.

It seemed Lady Firebird Hunter and he had known each other for some time.

I looked at the Firebird Hunter as she spoke with the innkeeper.

Her face made her age impossible to guess, but I had thought she could not possibly be older than her twenties. Now I wondered if she might be older than I had expected.

While she busied herself skipping the meal and packing her things, I calmly finished eating.

It was a meal well worth the price.

After setting an arrangement with the Firebird Hunter, I left the inn.

Above the entrance, a signboard swayed.

Mercenary Rest.

The inn’s name was extremely ordinary.

But no matter how I looked at it, it was no ordinary inn.

No. No. The moment I started paying attention, I’d lose. This was just an expensive, high-quality inn.

It was not a place I would have any reason to come back to. There was no need to make more work for myself by concerning myself with it.

Not long after I left the inn like that, I came face to face with a matter I had not finished dealing with yet.

"I really didn’t think you’d turn out to be a child."

The female mercenary named Noah had blocked my path once again.