Chapter 7: Chapter 7

That night, contrary to what he had initially said, Shan let Roden sleep inside the cabin.

Since there was only one bed, Roden had to sleep on the wooden floor, but even that was a luxurious sleeping spot compared to sleeping outdoors.

The problem was that lying in the same space as another person made it impossible for sleep to come.

Even with a dagger hidden in his chest, Shan spent a restless night having nightmares of Roden suddenly jumping up and strangling his neck.

The next morning, Roden, who woke up energetically, looked at Shan’s haggard expression and asked in bewilderment.

“What’s wrong with your face? Did I snore too much by any chance?”

“No…”

Even if it was uncomfortable, it was something he had to get used to from now on.

After all, if they were going to Pendia together, they would have to live together for a long time, so he couldn’t stay up all night every single time, could he?

Shan blinked his eyes, yawned, and began packing his bags in earnest for the long journey.

In truth, there were not very many items to take.

Most of the spoils obtained from the bandits had become junk due to rough handling or lack of maintenance, and the food taken from Leaf Village was also almost completely depleted.

The only things worth taking were the silver candlestick and silver plate from Willow Village’s church, as well as scraps of charred gold and silver.

When Shan shouldered them using his cloak as a bundle, Roden let out a small sigh and spoke.

“Put all those items in my bag for now. I should find a separate bag for you to use as well. I can’t keep carrying everything myself all the time.”

“Can’t we ask for one when we go to a village… I mean, can’t I ask?”

“Absolutely not!”

At the stern restraint, Shan smacked his lips in regret.

Roden had told him to speak comfortably and informally to him from now on, but Shan, who had spent his entire life using honorifics, couldn’t get used to it at all.

Though this too was likely something time would resolve.

Having completed their preparations, the two set off toward Scops Owl Village to the east, the place that had been destroyed first during the bandit attack a few months ago.

The reason they did not head north along the path Roden had originally come from was because of the notoriety of the ‘Green-Eyed Devil’ accumulated in the meantime.

It would be troublesome if they passed near the lord’s castle and happened to run into the lord’s army.

No matter how genius a warrior Shan was, there was no guarantee he could defeat an army composed of dozens of armed soldiers plus knights, and even if he did somehow defeat them, that would be a problem in its own right.

Right now, he could excuse it as having simply received donations, but if he did that, he would truly be branded a bandit.

Shan, who was walking lightly with his light body wearing only cloth clothes and a leather shirt, looked at Roden’s clanking metal boots and spoke.

“Isn’t that heavy… I mean, is it heavy?”

“It is heavy. But taking them off and walking around is troublesome in its own way.”

Roden walked at a speed similar to Shan’s even while wearing chain armor, pants, metal gauntlets, and shoes.

Part of it might have been his wide stride due to his tall height, but fundamentally, he possessed superhuman strength fitting his large frame.

According to what they discussed last night, during his solo travels, had he not beaten a man-eating leopard to death in a single blow with that flail?

If not for his phobia of edged weapons, he might have become a quite splendid knight as he had desired.

While moving, the two engaged in small talk to pass the time, and the content was mainly Roden’s general knowledge education.

Shan, who came from the countryside and had lived like a slave without a proper guardian, was extremely lacking in the basic knowledge he ought to know.

If Celina hadn’t occasionally chattered about stories from traveling merchants, he might really not have known that a world existed outside the village.

“The five Western countries originating from the old Arman Empire are commonly called the Arman Alliance. There are Libert where we are right now, Pendia, Ajun, Ruman, and Horais.”

“I don’t know what an alliance means.”

“Hmm, a friendly relationship… it means friends. Though for being friends, they’ve waged wars among themselves and even captured and killed each other’s kings.”

Thanks to having a merchant father for whom information was life, Roden knew a lot in this field.

Just by chatting with him for a few hours, Shan was able to encounter more stories of the world than what he had heard from Celina over the past few years.

He was also able to correct a few pieces of wrong information he had known, such as an elephant being larger than a mountain.

What was surprising was the story about mages he had heard occasionally from long ago.

“In Pendia, there is a group of mages called the Mage Academy.”

“You mean mages have formed a group?!”

At Shan’s astonished expression of disbelief, Roden chuckled and answered.

“If you put up a sign like that in an Old Faith country, you’d be sent to the stake immediately, but Pendia is a country that declared religious neutrality. However, the western lords bordering Libert have many Old Faith believers, so mages can mostly be seen only in the capital or the east.”

According to the explanation, mages were not as amazing beings as commonly thought.

Was it not the case that using various ingredients, chanting long spells, and performing all sorts of rituals to display a few special powers was the best they could do?

Roden was not a mage either, so he did not know well, but it seemed that unlike the golden age of the old Altoan Empire, the power of magic had weakened nowadays.

In comparison, the miracles performed by priests of the Goddess religion were far more useful and powerful.

It was not for nothing that Roden had thought of simply scaring Shan away after hearing his story.

Not only did Altoans not possess particularly superior magical talent, but among mages, those powerful enough to incapacitate armed warriors were so few they could be counted on one hand… virtually nonexistent.

The education that began with geography and general knowledge soon crossed over into the realm of simple life skills.

The reason the bandit’s bow he had favored during hunting had broken was that he hadn’t unstrung the bowstring when not in use, or that after using metal tools, one had to sharpen the edge with a whetstone and wipe it with an oiled cloth so it wouldn’t rust…

“So that’s why the bow stopped shooting properly.”

“After using it, it’s good to lightly expose it to fire to remove moisture.”

Shan, who had ruined several precious weapons due to failing to maintain them properly, stored all that content in his mind as if spellbound.

How long did they chatter like this?

In exchange for receiving a lot of useful information, Shan also passed on the techniques he knew to Roden.

It was his sole specialty… the talent of using his body.

“Now, look. When you swing your arm like this, you apply force starting from the small muscle next to your shoulder to the large muscle. Smoothly… no, I told you that’s too stiff. You move it like this, like this.”

Unfortunately, Shan did not make a very good teacher.

No, to be precise, the problem was that what he was trying to teach was too high-level a technique.

Shan, who had pointed to the muscles in Roden’s forearm with his fingers several times, sighed at the sight of Roden swinging his flail in midair.

“Your bones, joints, and muscles are interfering with each other’s movement. You just need to control them well and go swish…”

Roden, who was smiling bitterly at that incredibly unfriendly explanation, suddenly recalled a past conversation.

It was a story left by the retired knight who had taught him in the past.

‘As you hone your skills, at some point the flow will become natural, and you will be able to produce great results even with little effort. Executing this across more techniques and with higher probability is the ultimate realm you must pursue.’

‘Master, have you reached such a realm?’

‘Only a single secret technique that I have trained my whole life: only that one can I do so. Achieving such a domain across all techniques would likely be impossible even for Marquis Abel.’

The ultimate realm that even the Lord Protector, famed as the king’s maternal relative and the strongest knight in the kingdom, could not reach.

Could it be that this boy, who had not even received proper instruction, had naturally reached such a domain?

If so, when Shan grew up sufficiently and accumulated experience, what kind of monster-like existence would be born…

Feeling his chest pound with a strange anxiety and excitement, Roden shook his head as if he couldn’t take it anymore.

“Let’s stop here for now. It’s not something that can be done in a day or two, and if you overexert yourself, you’ll tire out.”

“Got it.”

“So, what do you want to eat for lunch?”

“Smoked duck!”

At any rate, the current Shan was merely a child full of curiosity.

*

It was late afternoon when the two arrived at the place where Scops Owl Village used to be.

Shan, who had better eyesight, spotted the traces and let out a soft exclamation.

“Ah…”

“Why?”

“There are no corpses.”

The remnants of burned and collapsed buildings remained similar to Mountain Shade Village, but no sprawled skeletons were visible here.

On an open plot on one side of the village stood a large grave and a stone monument, but Shan, who did not know how to read, could not decipher its contents.

“It says Scops Owl Village Mass Grave.”

“I see…”

“It seems travelers passing by the area or people from other villages came and collected the bodies. Since a long time has passed since the incident occurred, it must have been hard to identify individuals.”

Shan glanced back at the remaining traces.

Celina had likely lived in this village before being murdered and buried over there.

Perhaps because he had not seen it with his own eyes, unlike in the case of Priest Ador, that fact did not feel real to him in the slightest.

Roden, who had been quietly watching Shan’s blank expression, knelt first in front of the grave, gathered his hands, and spoke.

“Let’s pray. May the deceased be embraced in the Goddess’s bosom.”

“Yeah.”

A wicked thought briefly crossed his mind that the people of this village were ultimately ones who would have despised him as well, but soon Shan likewise knelt beside him and offered a prayer.

Because he thought that Celina, at least, was someone worthy of being embraced in the Goddess’s bosom.

Having finished their prayer, the two discussed for a moment and decided to keep moving east for now.

Even though Roden was also a foreigner and did not know the local geography well, it was certain that continuing east would eventually lead to Pendia.

From now on, it was a wild region where not even proper roads existed, with only forests and fields spreading out, so Roden pulled out the secret weapon he had kept hidden.

“What’s this?”

“A compass. A treasure that tells direction. It’s an expensive item.”

“Whoa…”

Looking at the transparent glass and the black needle inside pointing in one direction, Shan let out an exclamation.

Surprisingly, even if he spun around or turned a somersault while holding this item up, the needle always pointed in only one direction.

Roden, who chuckled at that appearance like a curious cat, softly explained.

“The needle always points north. So east is that way.”

“If we have this, we’ll never get lost.”

“That’s not true. There are also many impassable mountains, valleys, and rivers. I can’t be certain where I am right now either. In the end, asking people passing by is the most accurate.”

Listening to the story, Shan became certain that he could never have pulled off a journey on his own.

If not for Roden, would he not have just walked and walked without knowing where he was going, hoping by luck that a place where people lived would appear?

The two, who kept walking east after that, failed to find a village by the time night fell, so they set up a campsite in the middle of the plain.

Since a monster could come at any moment, they decided to light a single torch and take turned standing watch.

“Then what did you do when traveling alone?”

“Hmm? When alone, I rarely sleep outdoors on the open road. But if I had to, I’d find a place like a cave and block the entrance with rocks.”

“Aha.”

“I’ll sleep first, so wake me up around the time the moon’s shadow passes the mark indicated here. Got it?”

“Got it.”

That night, Shan slept deeply without having nightmares even after swapping night watch duties with Roden.

Being able to sleep deeply despite knowing a threatening large man was awake right beside him was not merely because he had walked all day and stayed up half the night.

For the first time in his life, Shan felt that he was being protected by someone.

Of course, saying such a thing out loud was far too embarrassing and shameful, so Shan conveyed his gratitude simply by greeting him that he had slept well.

After washing their faces and bodies in a nearby stream and eating breakfast, the two walked east again following the compass.

“When will a place where people live appear?”

“I don’t know. But it will probably appear within today. Libert is a prosperous and populous country, so there isn’t much uninhabited land. Though this northeastern part is a bit of a backwater even among them.”

“Is Libert prosperous?”

“The most prosperous among the Arman Alliance.”

Half the land of the Ajun Kingdom located to the north of the alliance was a block of ice, and Horais located to the west was mostly dry plains, which was good for raising horses but unsuitable for farming.

Ruman to the south was an archipelago nation where most of its land consisted of islands, and Pendia to the east was at least similar to Libert in terms of prosperity.

“However, to the east of Pendia lies the Demonic Realm. Because of the monsters pouring out from there, Pendia has almost no small villages like this. Most build stone fortresses as strongholds and live inside them.”

“The Demonic Realm…”

As Priest Ador had said in the past, it was a place cursed by the Goddess and the devil’s womb where all the world’s monsters were conceived.

And it was also the location where the mighty magic empire built by the ancient Altoans had once stood.

“Well, thanks to that, there’s a high demand for skilled warriors. Powerful monsters aren’t something that can be slain by numbers alone. Do you happen to know what a cockatrice is?”

“No.”

“It’s a monster shaped like a mix of a chicken and a lizard, and its entire body is covered in stone skin. No matter how much ordinary people thrust spears and shoot bows, they can’t leave a single scratch. Only skilled knights can cut off its head.”

“Whoa…”

“If you were to cut off the head of a dragon that invaded the kingdom, you might even receive a dukedom.”

“Could I do something like that? Whenever I cut a large tree with an axe or a sword, the blade gets damaged or breaks.”

No matter how much he thought about it, Shan didn’t feel like he could possibly cut off the head of a monster whose entire body was covered in rock.

Because even the sword of the bandit chief that he treasured most would snap right in half if he tried such a thing.

At this, Roden laughed heartily and spoke.

“Well, of course it’s impossible if you use just any weapon. Not only must you use a weapon infused with a priest’s blessing or magic, but sufficient fighting spirit must be imbued in it as well.”

“Fighting spirit?”

“Hmm, this is actually a somewhat difficult concept to explain.”

Rolling his eyes as if contemplating how to explain it, Roden softly began his explanation.

Warriors who had reached mastery were able to intervene in reality to some extent with the power of their well-trained minds.

Such as the will to cut by all means being imbued into a sword so that an ordinary iron sword could cleave through a boulder, or the will to block being imbued into a shield so that a charge from a monster several times one’s body weight could be defended against without being knocked back.

“Well, even so, a knight who wields fighting spirit isn’t invincible. No matter how firm your will is when armed, a blade still pierces bare skin, and you die if you drink poison. Besides, displaying such power quickly exhausts you too.”

“How can someone obtain that fighting spirit?”

“If you train while pushing yourself to the extreme, you naturally come to be able to use it.”

The point to keep in mind was that being able to wield fighting spirit didn’t necessarily mean one was a stronger warrior.

For even if one possessed the skill to slice through iron like cheese with a sword, if the opponent quickly thrust a spear and pierced one’s neck, there was nothing one could do.

It was best to accept it as merely being armed with a better weapon and armor.

Just as he was repeatedly exclaiming at the mysterious stories he had never heard before, an unfamiliar noise reached Shan’s ears.

“Wait.”

“Why?”

“There’s a strange sound coming from over there.”

“I can’t hear anything… What kind of sound is it?”

“Screams and shouts. Isn’t someone fighting, perhaps?”

At Shan’s words, Roden’s face hardened, and after taking a deep breath for a moment, he spoke.

“Let’s go take a look for now. Where is it?”

“Over there.”

Guided by Shan, the two moved through the forest at a pace much faster than usual.

Before long, the noise grew loud enough to be clearly heard by Roden’s ears as well.

The source of the noise discovered by the two was located at the bottom of the hill they had stepped onto.

“Do not fall back! Hold the formation!”

“Archers! Fire!”

“U-aaaagh!”

The field, which must have originally been green, had already turned dark red, soaked with blood.

Soldiers armed mostly with cloth and leather, and some mixed with metal armor, pointed spears and swords at each other and shot arrows.

Not some clumsy clash, but a real war where hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand, warriors fought each other unfolded below them.

“Ugh…”

Seeing the bladed weapons scattered everywhere, Roden’s face turned pale, but fortunately, since they weren’t aimed directly at him, he seemed able to endure it more or less.

Checking the flags on both sides back and forth, Roden figured out the identity of the armies and nodded.

“Duke of Morayen and Count Balik… I heard talk of the two gathering troops in their respective domains, but to think I’d end up seeing them clash in a place like this.”

“Do you know who they are?”

“I just heard rumors on the way. They are the uncle and maternal grandfather of the young King of Libert, respectively. Wasn’t it said recently that Count Balik named Duke of Morayen as the culprit behind the raid on a village belonging to his territory?”

Words like uncle and maternal grandfather were difficult to understand, but he could grasp the meaning of being the culprit behind a village raid.

“Ah, could that be…”

“That’s right. Those bandits you killed.”

“Is the person named Morayen the one who hired the bandits?”

“That, I don’t know. It might be true, or it might be a third party’s scheme to provoke conflict between the two.”

Even that was something only the high and mighty would know.

At any rate, thanks to that, he could understand why the lord of Leaf Village had not dispatched an army to subjugate Shan.

In a situation where he had to send troops to his liege lord as a vassal, it would have been difficult to pay attention to a mere Altoan bandit.

While Roden was contemplating the complex political setup, Shan was captivated by the primal bloodbath unfolding down below.

‘What if I were to fight down there…’

Most of the armed warriors moved much faster and stronger than ordinary farmers.

Of course, they fell far short of Shan, but seeing several of them move like a wall with large shields joined together, he had no idea how to breach it.

Even if he leaped and killed one or two, if a few of them drew their swords and thrust, he would be hacked to pieces.

How should he deal with the rain of arrows fired simultaneously by dozens of archers?

A few arrows might be one thing, but if there were more than ten, he wouldn’t be able to block them with weapons in both hands, so he might need a shield.

While he was lost in thought for a long while, the horses galloping from one side and their riders entered Shan’s eyes.

Their number was four in total.

‘Ah, could that be…’

Clad in plate armor from head to toe, the knights rode huge horses while holding long lances and shields.

The horses were likewise clad in chain mail, so even when arrows flew from around them, they suffered no harm.

The place where the knights who broke through the rain of arrows headed was the shield wall of heavy infantry that Shan had thought impossible to breach just a moment ago.

Looking down at this from a high vantage point, Shan instinctively drew a conclusion.

‘They can’t breach it.’

Even if the knights’ momentum was fierce, their weight and speed were insufficient to break through a shield wall with dozens of men shoulder to shoulder.

The front one or two might fall, but after that, they would definitely come to a halt.

At the same time as the thought occurred, the knights charging toward the shield wall thrust out the lances held in their right hands.

Along with a roaring sound that echoed all the way up the distant hill, more than twenty soldiers were knocked flat, creating a path.