***
"Thank you for saving us. I am Eddy of the Trevis Merchant Guild."
Despite his haggard face and painful wounds, Eddy walked over to Bellun and held out his hand.
The man supporting him by the arm was frowning deeply.
Even as he held Eddy up, the man supporting him was badly wounded himself.
"I simply could not stand by and watch people in danger. Any soldier of Arden would have done the exact same thing."
Fighting back the urge to let one corner of his mouth twitch upward, Bellun replied in a humble tone.
'So this is why those knights used to make such a fuss about playing the hero. Just like they said, it really does feel pretty damn good!'
He had to work hard to keep his shoulders from puffing up on their own.
Now he felt like he could finally relate a little to the stories the knights used to chatter about so excitedly back in the Demon Realm.
Whenever those knights reminisced about the human world, bragging about the times they'd rescued people and praising each other to the skies, he'd thought they looked ridiculous...
Yet now that Bellun had experienced it firsthand, he understood why knights loved saving people so much.
As the survivors crowded around giving him thumbs-up and thanking him profusely, Bellun felt like he was walking on air.
"I never imagined bastards like these would be operating out here too. Just what is this world coming to..."
Looking pale as a sheet, Eddy let out a heavy sigh.
His spirits soaring moments ago, Bellun tilted his head at the merchant's worried expression.
"Bastards like these? Do you mean because some of the bandits were former knights?"
"How could there be that many bandits who used to be knights? Those men were active knights."
Hearing Bellun's question, Eddy answered with an even gloomier face.
Which only left Bellun more puzzled.
"Are you saying active knights are moonlighting as bandits?"
Finding that hard to believe, Bellun frowned.
The idea of a knight—someone treated well wherever they went—turning into a bandit wasn't completely unheard of on its own.
Knights still had to eat and make a living like anyone else.
And there was no guarantee a knight wouldn't commit a crime and be forced to flee into the mountains as an outlaw.
Yet active knights serving a lord disguising themselves as bandits?
By Bellun's common sense, that made no sense at all.
"Until today, I had only heard rumors of it myself—this is my first time experiencing it firsthand. They say certain lords deliberately disguise their knights as bandits and raid merchant guilds to stir up unrest. Since my line of work brings me face-to-face with bandits fairly often, I know their habits reasonably well. These men were not normal bandits."
Eddy's eyes darkened as he looked down at the bandit corpses laid out in a neat row on the dirt.
Bellun knew the ones he was looking at.
The bandits who had known how to use mana.
"In what way were they not normal? I would appreciate it if you could explain a little more."
Unable to hold back his curiosity, Bellun asked.
If ambushes like this were common, Bellun needed to watch his step on the road too.
If sixty bandits came swarming after him alone, even he would be in for a rough time.
And what if three of those sixty bandits had the strength of full-fledged knights?
There'd be no easy way out of that.
"It looks like a scheme to expand territorial borders. The idea is to pin the blame on a rival lord while seizing merchant goods and coin on the side."
"Isn't raiding merchant caravans just what bandits naturally do?"
Tilting his head, Bellun looked at him as if to ask what was so strange about that.
To him, robbing travelers and merchant caravans was just a bandit's day job(?).
"Ordinarily, when a merchant guild like ours passes through their mountain, real bandits collect a toll and let the wagons pass. If they fought to the death every single time, replacing their dead men would be impossible. Our Trevis Merchant Guild had around thirty guards and mercenaries escorting this caravan. Ignoring the usual toll negotiations and launching an all-out slaughter against a force that size is anything but normal."
"So a simple toll wasn't enough to satisfy them."
Bellun murmured briefly.
He had a rough grasp of what Eddy meant.
Lords scheming to swallow up one another's territories meant they were expanding their armies.
To devour a rival, you needed the military strength to back it up.
Soldiers and knights... Raising and maintaining them—the absolute pinnacle of non-productive manpower—cost a staggering fortune.
Listening to Eddy's explanation, it sounded like these lords were aiming to score a massive windfall by wiping out entire caravans rather than settling for pocket change from tolls.
'Goddamn noble bastards! Up north, our soldiers are dying by the thousands to foreign invasions, and back here they're pulling shit like this.'
Bellun felt nothing but disgust.
In a kingdom like Arden that was already strapped for fighting men, staging insane ambushes against their own countrymen out of greed for a scrap of land...
"I agree completely. That they attacked us even after we increased our escort means we will need to hire even more guards once this trade run is over. Which brings me to a request. If it is not rude of me to ask, would you consider working for our merchant guild?"
Eddy asked with an earnest look on his face.
He was only making this offer because Bellun had introduced himself earlier as a soldier rather than a knight.
If he was a soldier, there were ways to pay a fair sum to his lord to buy out or transfer his service.
However,
"I appreciate the offer, but I have somewhere I must be, so I must decline."
That was an offer Bellun could never accept.
He hadn't even made it back to his hometown yet, so taking a sudden job offer on the road was out of the question.
Besides,
The men he'd assumed were disgraced knights turned bandits might very well have been active knights serving a nearby lord.
With a high chance of troublesome blowback once their deaths came to light, taking a job with the merchant guild they'd targeted was way too dangerous.
"That is a shame, though I understand. Please accept this as a small token of our gratitude for saving our lives. Please do not think me vulgar for offering coin, and take it without burden—it also includes your share for the weapons and gear recovered from the bandits."
"Not at all."
Bellun accepted the pouch without a second's hesitation.
Feeling good about saving people was one thing, and settling accounts properly was another.
"Then we shall get moving first. If fate allows, I hope we meet again. And should you ever visit our Trevis Merchant Guild at any time, I will treat you with the highest hospitality."
Eddy bowed his head deeply in gratitude.
Hidden behind a helmet, Bellun's face wasn't even visible, yet the young soldier had saved every last one of them.
What if Bellun hadn't shown up to help?
Just imagining it made Eddy shudder.
Every single one of them would have been slaughtered by the bandits, and the Trevis Merchant Guild would have been ruined.
"Please go on ahead. I will set off shortly as well."
Tucking the coin pouch away, Bellun inclined his head in return.
Because he had no intention of traveling alongside their caravan.
Getting tangled up any further with them wouldn't do him any good.
Loading the bodies of their fallen comrades onto the wagons, the Trevis Merchant Guild set off down the road.
Giving them a single wave of his hand, Bellun clicked his tongue.
He had just returned from a battlefield, yet to his eyes, simply making a living out here was a war in itself for these people.
***
Playing the hero had been pretty fun, sure, but not fun enough to risk my neck for it regularly.
After getting tangled up with the Trevis Merchant Guild, I didn't even stop by any cities along the way.
Because getting back to my hometown came first.
My home territory was Silverstone.
A dirt-poor barony, sure, yet still one of the noble fiefs under the king's rule.
Even if it was out in the furthest backwater of the frontier.
Bordering the County of Griffin, the domain of a great lord, it was also a rural fief where border disputes flared up from time to time.
Right up until the day I left for the Demon Realm expedition, I'd hated it as a suffocating backwater, yet while I was in the Demon Realm, you wouldn't believe how badly I missed Silverstone Village.
Riding Cruder... the warhorse I'd named after the knight I hated most in the Demon Realm, I galloped down the road.
While keeping the pace reasonable so I wouldn't wear the horse out, of course.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD...
"Mmm!"
Familiar mountains and streams came into view, and in the distance stood a small castle.
Before I left, I'd thought of it as a grand castle, yet looking at it now that I was back, it really was tiny and shabby.
A town had formed in front of the small, weathered Silverstone Castle.
Calling it a city was honestly embarrassing given its size, yet because it was the place where I was born and raised, something warm welled up in my chest.
I had been away for over ten years, even if only a year and a half had actually passed here.
The village looked the exact same as ever.
Before reaching the village entrance, I dismounted and led my horse by the reins on foot.
Since I had no desire to make the villagers uneasy by riding in on a warhorse.
Painted across the chest of my infantry breastplate was the roaring tiger emblem of the Kingdom of Arden.
Taking off my helmet, I hooked it onto the saddle ring and walked up to the village entrance.
A settlement where roughly four thousand residents lived together.
It couldn't even compare to cities of tens or hundreds of thousands—a tiny town that really might as well just be called a 'village.'
A rundown village where even the wooden palisade surrounding it barely reached chest height.
Standing at the village entrance were two men in crude gear.
Because the territory was so poor, the men guarding the village were local militia.
Their entire armament consisted of a single worn short spear and a bow and quiver of arrows.
Spotting me walking up, the militiamen nocked an arrow to the bowstring and went on guard.
Because so few outsiders ever visited this backwater, their wariness toward strangers was needlessly high.
And I knew both of them.
"Jimmy! Dominic! I'm back!"
Smiling broadly, I gave an exaggerated wave of my hand on purpose.
Were we close?
Not really.
Yet seeing them after so long made me so happy that I found myself acting buddy-buddy with them without even thinking.
"Whoa! Y-you!"
"Wait—Bellun?! Is that really you, Bellun?!"
Somehow... their reaction is way more intense than I expected.
"You rascal! You came back alive!"
"Thank goodness you made it back safe!"
Well, look at this?
The two older guys from the militia rushed over and threw their arms around me like I'd risen from the dead.
Ah!
Right, technically I did die from a curse and come back to life.
"Y-yeah! Th-that's true, except... Urgh!"
I wasn't groaning because they were hugging me too tight.
Don't these guys ever wash up before coming to work?! The stench is unreal.
This must be why men need to get married.
How many wives out there would leave a husband smelling this foul alone without hosing him down?
"Ah, seriously! Back off a little, will you?!"
Unable to stomach the smell a second longer, I shoved them back by force.
"Whoa there! Packing some real muscle now, huh? This kid's all grown up!"
Making a round 'Hoh?' shape with his mouth in surprise, Jimmy looked me over fondly.
The neighborhood simpleton big bro.
With his half-dazed eyes and goofy grin, he really hadn't changed a bit.
"Hey, punk! Your big bros are hugging you 'cause we're happy to see you, and you're acting shy?"
"Shy, my ass! Just when was the last time you two washed?! I think my nose is rotting off!"
I meant every word.
It smelled like someone who hadn't washed for half a month on a battlefield.
Throw in the metallic reek of blood, and it'd be the exact same stench.
"Listen to this brat? Wait—did you come back all by yourself? What about the others? What about our lord?"
Speaking with an awkward grin at first, Dominic's face turned urgent by the end of his question.
I knew why.
Because his close friend had been one of the ten soldiers drafted for the Demon Realm expedition alongside me.
"They were wiped out. Only I... made it back alive."
Because the news was so heavy, a lump caught in my throat too, forcing me to hesitate for a moment.
"Our lord too?"
"...Yes. He fought the Demonic Dragon to the very end and fell in battle."
"And the Demonic Dragon?"
"We slew it."
I couldn't bring myself to say that I was the one who killed it.
Not only did I have zero proof, back when the expedition set out, our lord had been a senior Expert.
While I had been a green recruit who hadn't even finished basic training, let alone started mana training.
And once we entered the Demon Realm, turning into a skeleton soldier had kept me from practicing even the basic mana training taught to the regular troops.
Though thanks to that—if you could call it thanks—I had eventually learned the completed, final form of the mana training method directly from our lord, the supreme commander of the expeditionary army...
Given all that, blurting out 'I killed the Demonic Dragon myself' was out of the question.
With no proof to back it up, claiming I slew the Demonic Dragon wouldn't change a thing anyway.
I'd be lucky if they didn't laugh in my face.
"Dammit... Every last one of them died..."
Hearing my answer, Jimmy's eyes welled up with tears.
True to form for the neighborhood softie, watching him cry so pitifully like that... made my own throat tighten up.
"What are grown men bawling their eyes out for? We all figured nobody was coming back alive anyway. Let's just be grateful that at least Bellun here made it back to us alive."
Dominic spoke with a deep scowl.
You do realize saying that while tears are streaming down your cheeks isn't convincing at all, right?
Tch...
I hadn't even realized tears were rolling down my own face too.
Whoops!
This isn't the time to stand around crying at the gate.
"I should probably head on inside now. My father's doing well, right?"
I doubted anything had happened to him, of course, but just in case, I asked after my father.
"Ah! Your father?"
"Yeah."
Wiping his tears away with his palm, Dominic pointed toward the weathered lord's castle in the distance.
"Head over to the lord's castle."
"He's on duty today? On a Sunday?"
That's a little weird.
My father is a Centurion and the captain of the guard.
As the man with the highest seniority in the garrison, he never works on Sundays, though?
Calling it the sole privilege of being guard captain, my father always swore he'd take Sundays off even if someone beat him to death.
"Your father became the lord."
"...Huh? My father is the lord?"
Out of nowhere?
What kind of bullshit is that?