—Tromp, tromp, snap.
In front of the mercenary company's headquarters, Hans called out.
"Hans Gale Zimmer is here to fight the duel announced three days ago."
—Bang.
"Welcome!"
The doors of the company building flew wide open and the desk man came running out.
For all that his manner looked ready to rub his palms together, Hans was cold.
"If you're ready, let us begin at once."
Hans was not alone. One watch officer of the Capital Administration Office was with him.
'That administrator's name was Louis Chel Lindenmann, was it.'
A man to be truly grateful to. All the more because his goodwill was, quite literally, goodwill. Had it not been for him, Hans would have had to ask Count Pellone or Marquis von Bieri, and that might well have become a shackle on him.
'Nothing in this world is free, they say.'
Taking in the watch officer at his side, the desk man said.
"We withdraw from the duel. This Redstone Mercenary Company will accept Sir Hans Gale Zimmer's demand."
One of the watch officers stepped forward.
"I shall confirm once more. Do you withdraw from the duel?"
"Yes, though we ask for some small adjustment of terms."
The watch officer looked at Hans.
"The other party has conceded conditionally. How will you proceed?"
"I'll decide after I hear the conditions."
When Hans shrugged, the desk man let the breath out of his chest.
"We have made a place ready. This way."
***
"Valter Eil, commander of the company."
—Nod.
Hans kept his face blank. Wasting feeling in a place like this, he thought, was pointless.
"First, I apologize for the misconduct of mercenaries under my command."
—Bow.
The commander and the desk man bowed their heads.
"For now, I accept the apology."
'I know exactly what you two were scheming.'
Hans took a suitably arrogant posture. It was an ambiguous manner: not drunk on victory in particular, but not looking as though he meant to strip them to the bone either.
The desk man took the lead in the negotiation.
"Our position is that we will make compensation, but the company's finances are not favorable at present."
"A moment. Let us make one thing clear before that."
Hans raised a hand and stopped him. He recalled what the administrator Louis had said.
'What matters in a negotiation is seizing and gathering up the favorable words first. Compensation admits no wrong, only moral responsibility. It is rather light. Damages, by contrast, admit illegality and accept responsibility for the loss, and so carry a far firmer binding force.'
"Not compensation but damages. Is that not so?"
The watch officer and the commander looked at the desk man, and the desk man looked at Hans.
The watch officer was recording each reaction and the substance of the exchange, and the commander had looked over because he did not know what it meant.
The desk man nodded reluctantly.
"Yes. I acknowledge it. Our position is that we will pay damages."
"And how much will you put up?"
At Hans's straight pitch coming in fast, the desk man lost his pace from the very start.
"Th-that is, well, for now."
"Before I demand anything, I want to know how much weight you feel your apology carries. How much will you put up?"
"Ah......."
War hero, newly minted noble, country bumpkin — the pieces of information that had defined Hans got jumbled together and confused the desk man.
Unable to watch any longer, the commander stepped in.
"I should like to negotiate at one hundred gold."
"C-Commander."
The desk man went pale at his commander skipping the whole process and showing his last card. But there was nothing to be done.
"These funds are next year's branch expansion budget. They are carried over from the past two years and are the maximum the company can presently make available."
Hans uncrossed his legs as he spoke.
"Branch expansion budget?"
"Yes. It is a plan our company drew up to prepare for the future in a changing age. Not one or two years but a long-term plan of ten and more."
"I don't like it."
"If you want more, the company has no choice but to go bankrupt."
"I nearly died before I could even become a noble. Do you happen to know the feeling of coming back from the dead?"
Taking those words for a refusal, cold sweat ran down the faces of the commander and the desk man. Watching the change in their expressions, Hans spoke with a smile in his eyes.
"Might I make a proposal?"
The desk man closed his eyes in despair, and the commander stared at Hans with bloodshot eyes, hoping against hope.
***
"That was a satisfactory negotiation."
"We are grateful for your grace, Sir Zimmer."
"We will not forget your consideration."
"I was impressed by the commander's insight and by the devotion you both have to your company. Let us look for a good relationship from here on."
"Of course."
—Bow.
The ones who had come back from the dead just now were the commander and the desk man. The two of them threw away their dignity and bowed their heads again and again in thanks.
Having shaken hands, Hans left with the watch officer.
The commander and the desk man followed him out in front of the building to see him off.
"Go well!"
—Bow.
—Bow and scrape.
Merry as anything, the two of them set aside the dignity of their rank and bowed to Hans's receding back.
"Is he gone? Gone?"
"Yes."
The commander straightened his bent back.
"Eugh."
The desk man came over and patted his back and his waist for him.
"Yes, there. Ah, that's good."
Hans's proposal had been to site a company branch at Gale Village.
Hans's plan of idling comfortably in his home village was, as things stood, perfect. The three hundred gold from selling the title was enough to buy serfs. There was land to clear everywhere. But the limits of a remote place — monster incursions and bandits — were the problem.
With a mercenary company established there, it would help the village's public order and its defense against monsters.
For the company's part, making Gale Village the one undecided site of the two planned branches was not a bad choice either. It was a village in the back of beyond, but counting its function purely as a training ground for C-rank mercenaries at the least, it fell within the plan they had meant to carry out anyway.
By turning the hundred gold of damages, which would have been written off as a loss, into a training branch exactly as planned, the company took no loss at all.
"That went well. Good work."
"Yes. We took no loss whatsoever. This is good fortune."
"From now on I shall listen more carefully to your advice."
The commander's trust in the desk man felt a good deal deeper. And the desk man's respect for the commander had deepened as well.
"Today's negotiation turned on the commander's plain speaking."
"I was afraid I had barged in and ruined the negotiation."
"Not at all. I learned a great deal."
The two of them, a weight lifted, shook hands and praised each other.
***
His heart light, Hans went to the market on the capital's outskirts. His circumstances being somewhat easier now, he meant to sell the donkey and cart and buy a horse. He had to stop forgetting a noble's proper part. Lying down in a cart was not a thing he could do.
'I need only hold back until I reach the home village.'
There are no nobles in his home village, so there would be no one to watch. Whether he lived like a noble or like a beggar would make no difference.
Finding the horse market in one corner, Hans looked over the animals.
"Good day to you, my lord."
"These are good horses."
"Yes. Go anywhere in this horse market and you will not find better than mine, Hauns Nagram's. I guarantee it."
"I have only heard your name and somehow I already trust you. Let us have a look at something suitable to ride."
***
"Go well."
"A satisfactory transaction. Good day to you."
He bought the black horse he had marked out beforehand. It had been priced cheaply because it was judged too rough to sell to nobles.
The merchant offered the comment, 'Even so, this is a horse that dragged its dead master all the way back from a battlefield.'
As the merchant said, it had ranged a battlefield in its time, and there were scars here and there on its body, but no serious wound, and its teeth were in good condition. Above all it was not a gelding, so it looked suitable for use as a stud later.
"There are plenty of decent mares in Gale Village, so it will do nicely for a happy old age for you."
Hans stroked the horse's mane gently and considered what to name it.
And the horse, pleased with its new master, looked at Hans with eyes full of mischief — like hell it did. It shoved its teeth at him and squared up, and only when Hans let a little killing intent show did it finally drop its tail.
'An entertaining fellow.'
Hans left the capital and took to the road again.
As he passed out through the gate the guards gave him a military salute, and he felt how his standing had changed.
'So I have some bearing about me now, even as the lowest of nobles.'
"Good day to you. If by chance we are going the same way and it would not hinder your journey, might we travel together?"
As he was fixing his direction out of the capital, a party of merchants asked to join him. It brought back the time he had left Hainen and climbed onto a caravan's cart without permission.
'Clothes really do make the wings.'
Once he had become a presentable figure with the proper forms about him, those around him turned looks of goodwill on his respectable dress. Just as now.
'Is it any wonder?'
Caring about appearances, they say? You are meeting a man for the first time; are you to see his insides instead of his outside? Clothes, Hans thought, are the least effort one makes to win another's trust. He felt good, as though he had stepped out of being a discharged soldier who could not master the stress of the battlefield.
"Chason Appendorf, of the Chason Caravan."
"Hans Gale Zimmer."
At the other man's middle name the Chason caravan master said 'just so' to himself and was satisfied with his choice. A middle name means a noble, and the fact that no title was mentioned, along with the simple armor covering chest and belly and the sturdy build, said knight. A party was formed on the premise of mutual benefit.
A journey with a caravan was familiar and new at the same time. Everyone was careful around Hans, and when they met him they paid their respects at their own level. By the caravan's consideration he was assigned a private tent and served a warm meal at every sitting. It was his first experience of such a thing, but Hans took it calmly.
'What the other party wants and expects — showing them the figure they hope for is a kind of consideration too.'
The chance to show people the figure they hoped for came soon enough. Entering an unpoliced stretch a week's distance from the capital, they were attacked by orcs.
"We camp here tonight."
At the Chason caravan master's shout the caravan pitched tents and the escort mercenaries went out to scout the surroundings. A band of travelers was just settling in a little way from the caravan.
"Orcs!"
The two mercenaries who had gone scouting came running and shouting, and in the sudden crisis people rushed about in confusion.
—Neiiigh.
Hans mounted with a fairly smooth motion and rode.
—Shiiing.
And he drew his blade.
Hans, who had been a ten-commander, had no experience of mounted combat. But he judged that time had to be bought, and he was confident that a horse that had been a warhorse would not fear monsters, so up he went.
On the running horse Hans called the battlefield to mind and put force into his eyes, and the horse took the killing intent and carried it well.
"Hiik."
"Hup. Uuh......."
If anything it was the mercenaries fleeing toward him who faltered at the killing intent and got out of the way.
"Good."
Hans and the horse became one body and charged. That was enough. The thirty-odd orcs scattered to avoid a collision with the horse. The people, given their time, formed a defensive line, and when the mercenaries joined them the orcs milled about and then fled in all directions.
"Waaah!"
As the orcs drew off, the people cheered.
"Well done."
—Nod.
Hans stroked the mane of the horse, which was still snorting with its excitement not yet gone. Soon the caravan's people crowded in and made a great fuss of giving it hay and washing it down.
'Comfortable.'
He had expected that putting on the forms and leading a horse out would mean 'troublesome cleanup in an unfamiliar situation.' Now he understood why nobles take attendants about with them, and why knights take squires.
'With three hundred gold, could I keep a squire of my own?'
Hans shook his head. A squire is a knight's successor. Whether his own skill had the depth to warrant one was an unknown. And besides, was the point not to go home and live quietly?
"Human greed has no end."
He muttered something he did not fully mean and then flinched. The dream he had forgotten for a while, the nightmare, came back to him.
—Shake, shake.
A dream that will not come when you try to remember it.
"Tch."
A caravan hand came over to him as he stared blankly at a distant mountain.
"Your meal is ready."
—Nod.
'Comfortable. Truly comfortable.'