Chapter 15: Chapter 15

When Shan borrowed the deceased knight’s warhorse to ride, the beast acted finicky, as if not at all pleased with him climbing onto its back.

Perhaps its bond with its former master had been particularly special, or otherwise the weight loaded onto its back had been too excessively light, leaving it unable to trust him.

Thus, Shan asked the other subjugation team members for their understanding and took some time to tame the warhorse.

Just as Roden had taught him, he forcefully yanked the reins or kicked its belly to pick a fight, then stayed mounted on the thrashing beast for a long while as it tried to throw him off.

Thanks to that, the knight’s warhorse was somewhat exhausted now, but Shan was still satisfied.

Because the sense of speed as it ran in obedient submission to his will surpassed his expectations.

‘It’s ridiculously fast…!’

The black horse Shan had ridden for this expedition was decent compared to the grey horse he had ridden before, but it was nothing compared to this beast.

Despite the muggy summer weather, every time its four hooves kicked off the ground, the wind hitting his face felt cool.

It even possessed delicacy and intelligence that the black horse lacked.

Without holding the reins, subtle applications of pressure with his two feet allowed acceleration, deceleration, and controlled changes of direction.

It truly felt as though he had gained four sturdy new legs.

‘I want to have an even better horse!’

A desire he had not particularly felt while riding the previous two horses sprouted within Shan.

Come to think of it, the horse Feonil Alten had ridden was even faster than this one.

A horse belonging to a figure of that stature was likely the rumored Horais warhorse.

What on earth would it feel like to ride such a beast at tremendous speed while thrusting a spear…?

The thought was brief, as Shan’s excited consciousness returned to reality.

Right now, he was charging head-on against a troll rushing toward him.

As this was truly a situation where his life hung in the balance, he had to focus here first.

Of course, Shan did not feel even a shred of mortal peril.

Because in a span of time as brief as an instant to others, he could see and think far more.

The very first task was to check the state of the approaching troll.

Last night, it was so far away that only its silhouette was visible, but now its appearance was laid bare under the sunlight.

‘It lost a lot of weight.’

Unlike its initial chubby appearance, the troll’s waist was now slender, and the muscles all over its body stood out prominently.

Apparently, it had not eaten anything to replenish the flesh it lost during the previous battle.

Come to think of it, had it also left Knight Soros’s corpse behind without feasting on it?

Perhaps it had meant to instill fear or provoke them, but put differently, one could say it had felt no need to eat anything in particular.

Judging by its movements, which were nimbler than before, the creature seemed to have sacrificed part of its defense, endurance, regeneration ability, and the superior brute strength derived from its weight in order to gain agility.

‘Even so, it’s useless.’

At the moment of clash, Shan lifted the knight’s lance he had received along with the horse in one hand and drove it downward.

A thrust following an ideal trajectory that wasted not a single drop of force, just like the one Black Spear Feonil had shown in the past.

Although it lacked the destructive spirit found in Feonil’s, power originating from correct stance was not something to be ignored.

Added to that were the speed and weight of a fine warhorse, as well as a well-crafted knight’s lance, making its power several times greater than the previous day.

As the lance dug in, the horse veered slightly to the side according to its master’s command, accurately dodging the club.

[□□■□!]

If he had stabbed the eye like the day before, he could have torn apart its brain and pierced through its skull, but since the monster raised its thick hand to cover its face, Shan slightly adjusted his target and stabbed its neck instead.

Although it was not life-threatening, the troll gagged as if breathing was uncomfortable and pulled out the lance from its neck.

A massive amount of blood poured out, and then the wound slowly began to heal.

“First strike…”

Though he lost his longest weapon, the lance had fulfilled its purpose by halting the enemy’s charge and stripping away its momentum.

The next weapon Shan drew was the harpoon he had bought at the shop.

Just as he had demonstrated in front of Merchant Poave before the city, Shan circled around on horseback, picked up speed, and thrust the harpoon directly.

His target this time was the heel tendon area, which had relatively little fur and thin hide, lowering its defense, while also allowing him to rob the opponent of its mobility.

“Great! That’s it!”

“Reinforcements are coming now, so hang in there a bit longer!”

As he diligently carved away at the beast, Kob and the squire standing at a distance, as agreed upon beforehand, shouted loudly to cheer him on.

It might have seemed like a useless act, but surprisingly, that alone proved quite helpful.

Because the troll kept glancing back, bothered by the mounted humans shouting incomprehensible sounds.

Whenever it looked away like that, Shan continued his attacks to draw its attention.

Blocking with the back of its hand an arrow that almost struck its eye again, the brute charged wildly and swung its club, but following Shan’s directions, the warhorse moved adeptly to open up distance.

It was truly a feat worthy of being called horse and rider as one.

“Look over here. Your opponent is me.”

As he muttered softly, the troll let out a roar filled with rage.

Compared to when it had been frightened fighting two knights earlier, now the monster seemed purely enraged.

Perhaps it was because it could not feel spirit in Shan’s attacks… a power capable of snatching its life in a single strike.

To the beast, he was not a threatening rival, but merely a bug as annoying as a mayfly that couldn’t be caught.

Considering that Shan’s role right now was a decoy, it was a fortunate thing, but it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘I wish I could use that thing called spirit soon too.’

If he could, he would have ended it during that very first clash by impaling its hand and head with the lance and scrambling its brain.

Regrettably, the problem was that it didn’t just burst forth on command simply because one wanted to use it.

After several more exchanges, Shan drove the last remaining two harpoons into its tendons to seal its mobility, then glanced downward.

He felt the heart of the horse he was riding beat furiously as its breathing grew rapid.

‘It’s exhausted.’

The stamina drain from facing a terrifying troll was considerable, but it seemed the morning’s wild rampaging to tame the horse had been the bigger issue.

Yet without going through that process, he couldn’t have handled the horse so perfectly in the first place, so it was a trade-off he had to accept.

Just as he was contemplating whether he should dismount and fight, the sound of horse hooves trampling the earth resounded from afar.

“I have arrived!”

Sir Katra, who had fallen back to a distant point barely within line of sight to let Shan lure the troll, roared loudly and charged with his lance raised.

For the first time, a light of terror surfaced in the troll’s eyes, having recognized his appearance and voice from fighting him the day before.

The monster tried to quickly dodge away, but with harpoons sticking out all over its heels, it could not move as nimbly as before.

Unlike Shan, who had only managed to make a small hole in its neck earlier, Sir Katra’s lance, thrust after charging at top speed, dug into the monster’s back and carved out a hole larger than a human head.

No matter how immortal a monster the troll was, it could not possibly remain standing unscathed with its spine completely blown away.

As the beast collapsed, Sir Katra immediately drew his longsword and leapt off his horse.

Having sprinted at full speed for over a kilometer, his horse was already foaming at the mouth.

“Now let’s finish this!”

“Yes!”

Shan also pondered briefly before jumping off his horse likewise and grasping the knight’s longsword.

Though it was his first time using a two-handed longsword, it was not difficult because the two knights had demonstrated how to use it with his own eyes the day before.

Although blocking a club with a sword like they did would be impossible for him.

While Sir Katra grappled with the troll resisting with only its upper body, Shan moved behind it, stabbed the creature’s slowly regenerating spine with his blade, and twisted it around to tear it apart.

With the sharp and sturdy knight’s longsword, scrambling a wound unprotected by fur and hide was no difficult matter.

Seeing this from the opposite side, Sir Katra laughed boisterously and shouted.

“Good! Keep doing just that!”

For the troll, it was truly driving it mad.

In front, someone capable of lopping off its head the moment it let its guard down threatened it while swinging a sword, while from behind, a weaker but far nimbler pest was scrambling its wound like a worm burrowing into a corpse…

Because its super-regeneration continuously consumed body nutrients to restore its broken spine, its fat had withered away before it knew it.

Now, if a little more time passed, it would consume even its sturdy muscles, and then it would be the end.

The troll squeezed out its cunning wisdom, rolled its eyes once to the left and right, and then made a final decision.

First, ignoring the knight, it swung its club wildly toward the brat to entice the opponent to approach.

Then, the moment Sir Katra tried to finish it off from behind by severing its neck, it pinpointed his position accurately through his shadow, threw away even its club, collapsed, and rolled its body to the side.

In other words, it had launched a desperate full-body charge with everything on the line.

“Khk…!?”

An unprecedented situation where a monster unable to use its two legs used its hands to roll sideways and attack.

Sir Katra, who had unwittingly let his guard down in an advantageous situation, was helplessly swept up and tumbled across the ground together with the troll.

Slicing off one reaching arm at the final moment was his last resistance.

Though all its fat was drained, its frame alone weighed several hundred kilograms with just bones and muscles.

Groans escaped him automatically from the agonizing pain of broken arms and crushed ribs.

If the beast had been in a state where it had accumulated enough fat like during their first encounter, Sir Katra would have died from this alone.

“Kahk, hah.”

Exhaling painfully for a brief moment, Sir Katra widened his eyes as he realized the troll was mounting over him, dripping saliva.

Having entered a state of extreme starvation, the monster grabbed Sir Katra’s helmet with its single remaining hand and opened its maw wide as if to chew him up on the spot.

‘No!’

He saw the pitch-black darkness inside its sharp teeth approaching to devour him.

Having just been knighted with only his rise ahead, was the future unfolding before him starting with a troll hunt meant to end in a place like this?

With the disgraceful record of two knights fighting together only to be slain by a troll?

At the instant his past memories flashed like a kaleidoscope, something flashing under the sunlight sped past his eyes and thrust straight into the troll’s mouth.

Along with the sound of tearing flesh, the brute’s maw approaching Sir Katra ground to a dead halt.

“Ah…”

Only then did Sir Katra realize that Shan, who had swiftly circled back from behind, was plunging his arm into the troll’s wide-open mouth.

Held in the hand pulled back out was the longsword that had just pierced through the roof of the mouth to scramble the monster’s brain.

“Are you okay?”

“Th-This, please…”

At the request to clear off the troll crushing his body, Shan tossed aside the longsword and tried pushing the corpse while groaning, but the massive carcass did not budge an inch.

Only after Kob and Sir Soros’s squire (who rushed over upon realizing the troll was dead) joined their strength could they barely roll the troll’s body half a turn to pull Sir Katra out.

*

A moment later, the other subjugation team members who came rushing frantically from afar let out cheers upon seeing the troll sprawled on the ground.

“We got it!”

“Long live Sir Katra!”

“Wait, are you alright, Sir Knight? Your condition seems…”

“To fight until you ended up like this…”

Sir Katra’s squire, who had been leading the second group, rushed over hastily to attend to his master.

Of course, since first aid such as removing armor and setting bones had already been performed by Sir Soros’s squire, there wasn’t particularly much left to do.

A seasoned hunter diagnosed the knight’s condition.

“Seeing that he hasn’t vomited blood from his mouth, fortunately his internal organs don’t seem to be damaged.”

“Haa…”

Leaving behind Sir Katra’s squire who was sighing in relief, the late-arriving subjugation team members ran into a single question.

Namely, that no external wound capable of ending the troll’s life was visible.

“Could it have bled to death?”

“Maybe. Looking at it, it’s insanely thin. It looks as if someone caught it and squeezed it dry…”

“He pierced the roof of its mouth with a sword and stabbed its brain.”

Everyone’s gazes turned to the speaker, the Altoan swordsman Kob.

With a triumphant expression, he pointed at Shan and spoke.

“That kid over there, the Altoan you all looked down on, finished off the troll. I saw it clearly.”

Shan paid no mind to whatever they blabbered about and remained absorbed in his own work.

Namely, stabbing and slashing various parts of the troll’s body with all kinds of weapons he possessed to figure out its weak points.

If he had to fight one again next time, the knowledge gained here would prove helpful.

‘Stabbing through the ear to reach the brain doesn’t work. Unlike humans, there’s bone under the lower jaw protecting the head… And why is there bone inside the nose too? Is there really no answer other than stabbing the eyes or inside the mouth?’

Perhaps because its only weak point was its head, the troll had a structure that encased its brain far more thoroughly than a human skull.

Its neck bones were also thick, making them hard to sever.

Meanwhile, the heated argument that had broken out among the subjugation team members concluded as Sir Soros’s squire alongside them confirmed it was true.

Had he not shown the sight of taking the troll’s eyes yesterday, they would never have believed it.

The next thing to do was collecting the spoils.

The spoils to be obtained from a troll were its bones.

Its bones were medicinal ingredients of tremendous value, and the remedy Roden had used in the past to treat Shan’s chest had also been a medicine made by boiling troll bones.

While Shan, who had participated in the battle, and the severely injured Sir Katra rested to one side, the subjugation team members used all sorts of tools (from large razors to saws, chisels, and hammers) to tear away the troll’s fur and hide, extract its bones, and clear them out.

Before long, where the slender giant had once been, only tattered fur, hide, flesh, and entrails remained.

“Oof, so heavy.”

“Don’t slack off and lift more!”

Troll bones, which were already dense, weighed well over two hundred kilograms, so sharing the load among multiple people was not enough, requiring them to be loaded onto horse saddles as well.

The two squires carried Sir Katra on a makeshift stretcher, while Shan also brushed aside attempts to stop him, dismounted, and carried as many bones as he could.

Fortunately, they were not attacked by monsters during their return to the city.

Thanks to the stench of troll blood remaining on the bones wafting in all directions even after the flesh was carved off.

As the sun inclined downward, the city guards were astonished at the sight of the expedition members returning laden with troll bones.

Shan waved his hand as he saw Roden, who had rushed over immediately upon hearing the news.

“I’m back!”

“Are you hurt anywhere this time?”

“I’m completely fine!”

In truth, his forearm had been scratched by teeth when he thrust his hand into the troll’s mouth, but by Shan’s standards, that didn’t even count as an injury.

A moment later, Roden participated in discussions over the distribution of spoils in his capacity as Shan’s representative.

Without knowing the details, it seemed he was asking to raise the reward money because the creature killed this time had been tremendously intelligent.

Finding the complex discussion bothersome, Shan backed away to wipe his sword, and before long Roden approached and held out something to him.

“Here.”

“What’s this?”

“Your reward, obviously.”

Shan accepted the heavy pouch of gold coins placed before him with a blank expression.

Mr. Poave had definitely said that since he was going as a scout, he wouldn’t receive much money.

When Shan said that, Roden scoffed incredulously.

“I heard you lured the troll alone, fought it, and even dealt the final blow at the end. Getting a share like a night scout after doing that would be a scam. Half of the reward put up by the city and the money from selling the troll’s bones is your cut.”

An explanation followed that the remaining half had been distributed to the fallen knight, the hunters, and the warriors.

Listening quietly, Shan realized that no share had been distributed to the surviving knight and asked.

“Then what about that knight?”

“Sir Katra? He handed his share over to you. He said you saved him when he was practically a dead man. If not for that, they probably would have had to bicker over distribution for a week.”

“Ah.”

Just then, perhaps sensing Shan’s gaze, pale-faced Sir Katra smiled faintly toward him and approached.

“My thanks come late, young hero. I was quite out of it on the way back.”

While returning after killing the troll, he had been groaning on a stretcher the entire time, but in the meantime he seemed to have received a priest’s healing miracle and improved.

However, he still appeared far from a healthy state.

“It’s nothing. More importantly, I heard you didn’t get any money, are you okay with that?”

“It is a painful loss, but I intend to accept it. Considering I was able to realize my shortcomings without offering up my life, it is a cheap price instead.”

In his calm response, not a trace of the young knight’s characteristic arrogance seen on the first day could be found.

Perhaps by enduring countless hardships like that, tempering himself and maturing, he would become a presence like Feonil.

Or die fighting somewhere before then.

“I do not think the grace of saving my life ends with mere money. I swear that henceforth, in any honorable setting, I will not hesitate to declare that the Altoan boy Shan saved my life.”

Even after talking with Sir Katra, a few more people came to chatter with Shan.

Starting from Kob, who was delighted that he received a large share thanks to luring the troll together, to several unnamed subjugation team members who hoped to fight alongside him again someday.

On the way back to the mansion after wrapping things up, Shan unwittingly sighed in regret.

“Haa…”

“Why?”

“That warhorse and weapon were really good, though.”

The deceased knight, Sir Soros’s warhorse and armaments were to be recovered by his squire and returned to his house.

Sir Katra, who was an acquaintance if not quite a friend, decided to escort them.

Roden patted the shoulders of the regretful Shan and encouraged him.

“I’d like to give them to you too, but we can’t just take a dead man’s belongings. Well, we’re heading to the capital soon anyway, so let’s take this chance to get something even better. You have plenty of money now, right?”

“Money… Right, it’s my money.”

“Yeah. It’s your money. Belonging to nobody else.”

Shan jingled the pouch of gold coins inside his shirt a few times with his hand.

Real money, different from the melted lump of gold and silver he had picked up while leaving Willow Village.

Unlike what he had received and used from Roden, it was what he had earned in payment for working for the first time in his life.

“I want to keep this money without spending it.”

“Isn’t it better to buy a good weapon or horse?”

“Ah.”

At the remark that the desire he had recalled just a moment ago could be resolved with this, Shan felt he now understood why people were so frantic to earn money.

Though it was nothing more than a lump of metal in itself, simply paying it as compensation allowed one to obtain all sorts of necessary items.

Having previously learned of the desire for strength and power, the boy was slowly learning the desire for wealth.

Considering that desire was the force moving a person forward, one could say another sail had been attached to his ship.

*

Three days after returning from subjugating the troll.

Shan experienced popularity for the first time in his life.

Was it because a boy carrying a sword like a mercenary in his early teens was rare?

Whenever he walked down the street, everyone looked at him and whispered, asking if that boy was the Altoan boy who had played the greatest role in catching the troll.

He was used to being topic of talk for others, but because it was the first time that direction was positive rather than contempt and hatred, Shan flusteredly hid his body behind Roden, who accompanied him.

At such times he looked like a child fitting his age, so Roden would chuckle.

“Why are you acting so embarrassed?”

“No, it’s just… feels weird.”

“You’ll have to get used to it from now on. To become a knight, you need to become far more famous than now.”

Although skill-wise it wouldn’t be strange even if he became a knight right now, and considering his age nobles would line up, Shan was strictly an Altoan.

To reach a point where nobles would bear other nobles mockingly asking ‘Are you insane, making an Altoan a knight?’ or criticizing them, he had to stack up far more achievements than now.

Until the day when some noble knighted him in the future, everyone could say, ‘Ah, that Shan fellow. If it’s him, he’s worthy of becoming a knight even if he’s an Altoan.’

“Keep this in mind. For a knight, fame is a resource as important as money. The criteria by which kings and nobles judge a knight’s skill is ultimately fame alone.”

Nobles did not bother checking one by one to find out how strong and fast a warrior was, or how precisely and cleverly he handled weapons.

What was needed to prove oneself to them was solely what powerful monsters and knights one had defeated to build achievements.

Interacting with the influential figures of Obilos City over the past three days through Poave’s introductions was also an extension of that.

Though in truth Shan had merely watched blankly from behind while Roden took the lead in building friendships.

Mentioning this, Roden added another nag.

“Right now it’s okay because they are all commoners and you are young, but you must learn etiquette properly. I can’t keep doing it for you forever.”

“It’s too hard…”

Learning things that were of zero help in fighting (such as how to hold tableware or how to speak) naturally brought out yawns.

Memorizing the names of people he had no interest in was also tiresome.

That was the reason why there had been little progress in this area despite Roden teaching him throughout their journey.

‘He seems smart, but is the problem that his concentration drops and he lacks interest?’

As Roden was harboring thoughts like a typical parent of a child poor at studying, Poave’s servant sought them out and spoke in a cautious tone.

“Um, Young Master.”

“What is it?”

“Someone has arrived from the main family.”

“Ah, they’ve finally arrived.”

Three days after sending a messenger by mail as soon as the hunt ended.

The people Roden’s father had sent to bring back his runaway son had finally arrived.