Find the War God's Apostles.
'What a sinister thing to say.'
An apostle was someone who served as a god's proxy.
That included 'evil gods.'
Of course, the War God symbolized by this necklace might be a piece-of-shit god, but it wasn't an evil being.
Naturally so, since this was the god Father had served.
'Father was a noble man.'
If I'd never met Father, I might've become a monster that killed anyone indiscriminately.
But Father taught me swordsmanship alongside the proper mindset for facing war.
Unlike strategy and tactics, that was something I'd understood perfectly.
"Jack, war advances the world."
History proved as much.
The life I'd lived proved it too.
By the time I turned forty, the world had achieved tremendous progress through war.
Humans advanced magical engineering, dwarves developed all manner of war machines, and elves created grand spells drawing on the World Tree's essence.
At first, I'd thought the world would keep advancing as long as war continued.
But that was my mistake.
"War makes victims of the weak."
Father had said.
That he'd spent his life serving the War God and couldn't march onto battlefields where the weak were victimized, so he wished that I, his son, would be different.
Those words appealed to me.
How pathetic would I look if I used this monstrous strength to join a knight in slaughtering young mercenaries?
'May my wars have meaning one day.'
Father had wished for that.
Had my life been that way?
I'd tried, but.......
'I hope I find it in this life.'
Clip-clop— clip-clop—.
I rode leisurely toward our encampment atop my spoils, the white horse.
Though the enemy territory had already declared defeat and the official overseer had acknowledged it, not a soul had left the field.
Probably because of the display I'd put on.
I looked at the fidgeting allied soldiers.
'Was it really just the black mark on my record that drew me to this battlefield?'
A thought occurred to me.
I think I simply hadn't wanted to watch these kids get butchered by a knight.
My gaze naturally drifted toward the ones who'd orchestrated this battlefield.
The people of Baron What's-His-Name's house.
They were busy conferring among themselves and showed no sign of approaching me.
I waited for a moment, lost in thought.
'This kingdom fell because of territorial wars.'
The nation's annihilation was due to the dwarves' bombardment, but the nation's decline was due to pathetic wars like this.
Young soldiers died in droves, and territorial wars escalated into civil war.
My homeland. I remembered it because it was a kingdom that meant a great deal to me in many ways.
'Mel was from the Kingdom of Alton too.'
I'd meet Mel, my company's strategist, two years from now in the Empire.
At the time, she'd been the head of a mid-sized merchant company that drifted around the Empire's military.
It was a mid-sized merchant company in name only; she was a bona fide war merchant who had an uncanny eye for picking out exactly what each battlefield needed and selling it hand over fist.
She'd been charged with treason for supposedly causing an imperial defeat and was being held captive by an imperial nobleman.
That's when I came for her.
"One-Eyed Mel, you belong to my mercenary company now."
"M-me?"
"That imperial count bastard who imprisoned you says he can't pay my hiring fee. I'm in the middle of forcible collection."
"B-but the count paid exactly what the contract specified?"
"Contracts are just formalities to me. If the payment doesn't match the work I did, it becomes evidence that I was scammed."
"Excuse me?"
The Empire was a nation of deep grudges for me.
The incident where I accidentally killed my first imperial noble went something like this:
1. I was commissioned to win an utterly hopeless war.
2. I won, and demanded fair compensation.
3. The count, who'd hired me, tossed me the pittance written in the contract, told me to deal with it, and tried to have me assassinated.
4. I killed the count and began forcible collection.
"So the upshot is I'm taking you, the count's captive, with me."
"But why me, of all people? I'm just a merchant who drifts from battlefield to battlefield......."
"I hear you're from the Kingdom of Alton. Nobility, apparently. You had a hard time before you became a merchant, didn't you?"
"Th-that's......."
"I'm saving someone from my homeland."
I remember that only when I said this while showing her the count's crushed skull did Mel reluctantly tag along.
She'd spoken with fearful eyes during our conversation, but her expression as she followed me was something else entirely.
Mel was smiling.
A wickedly chilling smile.
'Mel wasn't a merchant. She was a genius of military strategy.'
The merchant's eye for identifying what each battlefield needed.
That was actually an eye for military strategy.
I had no idea about Mel's talent at the time.
I'd just brought her along because she was a merchant, so she could read for me.
But in the end, it was thanks to her that I achieved staggering feats and built my reputation at an overwhelming pace.
'The bit about finding three Apostles—.'
By Apostles, it must mean my first companions.
'I need to find Mel before the inquisitors get to her.'
Mel had a deeply twisted nature.
Before becoming a merchant, she'd been a noblewoman of the Kingdom of Alton.
She'd been betrayed by her family and dragged before the inquisitors, where she'd suffered every kind of torment.
In the end, she was found innocent, but she'd lost an eye and her mind had broken.
On top of that, the homeland she might've returned to had been wiped out by dwarven bombardment.
'If I act now, I can save Mel before she's broken.'
Perhaps the Mel of this life would possess a more whole temperament.
'Would that make her a different person?'
It puzzled me, but.
I'd save her first and think about it later.
—Ep. 03 The First Apostle
"P-please take me with you!!!"
While waiting for my employer at the encampment, someone ran up and shouted.
'The kid who hollered that he'd fight alongside me when I was facing the knight.'
Young mercenaries drifting through these territorial wars were mostly pitiful souls.
Ages between fifteen and twenty.
They didn't even have parents who'd sell them off, so they sold themselves to the battlefield instead.
'He'd die in an instant if I threw him into a real battle, but—.'
Every person has some use.
I smirked and looked at the kid.
Brittle brown hair and a grubby look.
The look of the destitute, yet his overall nutrition seemed surprisingly good.
He didn't look like he'd go flop—and keel over dead any second.
"Can you read and do numbers?"
Not that a mercenary from a slum like this would know his letters, but.
I asked anyway, to see if he had some use of his own.
And wouldn't you know it.
"I-I know letters and numbers well! I can do anything you ask!"
Was he secretly a fallen noble or something?
"U-um....... I can handle h-horses a bit too!"
He eyed my white horse as he said it, and it didn't sound like a lie.
"I-I'm good at cooking, and I know a little about butchering monsters too!"
This kid had more skills than I'd expected.
No, a great many.
'What's his deal?'
For the first time in a long while, genuine curiosity stirred.
I gave a slight jerk of my chin and asked.
"Name."
He flinched and blurted out.
"Thomson!"
An unremarkable boy from the slums.
And yet there was something oddly capable about him.
If anything, he seemed too capable, and that was the problem.
'Doesn't seem like a lie, but.......'
My experience and instinct could distinguish truth from falsehood with near-perfect accuracy.
By near-perfect, I mean not quite a hundred percent.
But with the aid of my Spirituality, I could judge a statement's truthfulness with a hundred percent certainty.
I stirred my faint Spirituality.
Then asked.
"Thomson. Is everything you just said true?"
He straightened his posture and shouted back.
"Y-yes, it is!"
THOOM——.
A heavy sensation settled in.
That weight meant truth.
'Why would a guy who can read and do numbers, handle horses, cook, and even butcher monsters come to a battlefield?'
Inn worker, stable hand, monster-butchering specialist, administrative clerk for a domain.
Didn't he have the skills to land just about any job and live a decent life?
Something felt off, but these kinds of gray areas would get 'verified' once I brought him to Mel.
It was also true that I needed someone to serve as an attendant until I found her.
"I'm Jack. Call me Commander, or use my name."
"C-Commander...... you said?"
"That's right. I'm going to build a mercenary company."
In my past life, I'd founded the company at age twenty.
This time, I was starting now.
"Don't you need approval from the Continental Mercenary Guild for that......."
"If I say I'm doing it, I'm doing it."
I said this and steered the white horse to the side.
Things were settling down, and I could see the baron's representative returning to the encampment.
But that expression of his looked rather sour.
"Is that the baron himself?"
"The one who hired us is the baron's young lord, Mikhail."
Now I understood why the young baron wore that sour face.
A nobleman was approaching.
But the soldiers, both our own troops and even the baron's escort, couldn't tear their eyes away from me.
Nobles were, by nature, attention hogs.
'Putting on airs of nobility, is he?'
I, Jack, didn't give a damn about status.
No, that sort of thing lost all meaning before my monstrous strength.
In my past life, I hadn't realized that until twenty, but now things were different.
'Is there anyone in this backwater barony who could beat me?'
If I set my mind to it, a baronial house would cease to exist in short order.
I turned to Thomson and spoke.
"Thomson, first assignment. Handle it well so that I receive fair compensation."
***
Thomson examined the contract.
'Generous hiring fee, but every other clause is complete nonsense.......'
The terms were shockingly lax: anyone with arms and legs still attached could sign up.
And the pay was generous for it.
'One silver coin.'
A single silver coin was enough for a commoner's family to live on for a week.
In exchange, there was a special clause: no return, no pay.
'In other words, die and you get nothing.......'
Thomson formed an ominous hypothesis.
The enemy soldiers had seemed more professional than expected; could it be that they'd assumed most of them would die here?
'That's why they dangled such a large hiring fee while keeping everything else slapdash.'
While he was thinking that, the young baron approached Jack.
'Commander Jack is.......'
Despite every commoner in the vicinity bowing at a nobleman's approach, Jack sat casually on his horse, looking down at the young baron from above.
What on earth had this man been before?
'He seems like an incredibly difficult person, though.'
Thomson stole a glance at Jack.
A massive frame with muscles that looked absurdly solid.
And yet his face was so youthful that it was hard to guess his age.
Maybe.......
'Commander Jack might be the one who changes my life.'
Thomson thought back on his own.
The life of being treated like garbage by a criminal gang had been wretched.
Back when he was with the Family, he'd felt like a mayfly.
After all, he'd lived any old way, with no dream to speak of, chasing cushy gigs day after day.
That was the world Thomson knew.
'I want to change too.......'
Thomson looked at the fearless man and dared to dream.
So he resolved to give everything he had to his assigned task.
Of course, even if he wanted to give his all, his station limited how much he could do, but.......
'What if the young baron demands the knight's horse and armor?'
If the young baron said something like that, what would happen?
'Commander Jack might grab the young baron and rip him apart.'
Killing a noble.
Something no one in the world should ever do.
That's what he'd been taught his whole life, and it was common knowledge shared by all.
Nobles were born nobles, rulers of their domains with exalted bloodlines.
Yet Thomson worried.
'The Commander is a different kind of person.'
He couldn't be sure about anything else, but this much he was certain of.
While Thomson stewed in his worries, the young baron spoke.
"A magnificent display of valor."
"It was nothing."
Contrary to Thomson's expectations, the young baron used polite half-formal speech to address Jack, and Jack responded in casual speech as if it were only natural.
Thomson, too, felt that Jack's casual speech was more fitting.
The man ripped knights apart bare-handed, after all.......
A sudden realization struck.
'Ah!'
He might have a knight for an escort, but wasn't the person who'd ripped that knight to shreds the very Commander Jack that Thomson had decided to follow?
Perhaps the young heir of this territory was afraid of the man named Jack.
That fearsome Commander asked.
"My compensation?"
He gave Thomson a sidelong glance.
Thomson stepped forward, reading the cue.
'The Commander asked for three things.'
First, the knight's kill needed to be properly recognized.
"Slaying a knight warrants at least two gold coins."
Thomson spoke.
He had no idea what a knight's head was worth, but he said it anyway.
The young baron's face twisted in displeasure.
"Insolent—."
Insolent commoner!!!
That was what was about to come next.
But Commander Jack spoke faster than that.
"He's one of mine."
"One of yours?"
"A member of my mercenary company."
"......Mercenary company?"
"I haven't formally founded it yet, but that's what it is."
The young baron narrowed his eyes.
A brief silence fell.
Thomson used the pause to consider various angles.
'He's going to shove the contract in our face and say the pay was already generous, isn't he?'
The young baron turned out to be simpler than expected.
"According to the mercenary contract, that white horse and armor also become property of our baronial house. Simply acknowledging your claim to them should already be considered—."
He rattled off exactly what Thomson had predicted, muttering about how 'this much alone is a great privilege' and the like.
Thomson was trying to figure out what leverage he could use in the negotiation, but.......
That turned out to be a pointless exercise.
What Commander Jack said next made Thomson's eyes go wide with shock.
He said:
"Hm, so that means this contract becomes evidence that I was scammed?"