WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Ode of the Brave ◈

Chapter 102

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People gathered around every flickering fire. Under the firelight, they rolled dice or played cards.

It was not so much for fun. Gambling and alcohol were simply part of life.

Were they easing the boredom of a sleepless night, or was there a reason they could not sleep?

It was closer to the latter. Though this was not a battlefield, they stood night watch to protect their families and belongings. Theft was common here.

Of course, if someone was caught, losing a hand was the least of it. An angry crowd might hang them on the spot.

Broken wooden planks lay across the muddy ground here and there. Like uneven stepping stones, people walked over them.

Ricart took Lena's hand and steadily crossed the planks.

A thick smell of dung drifted over from afar and assaulted Ricart's nose. And, of all places, the direction Lena pointed was where the smell came from.

At the source stood a wide, crudely built fence divided into pens for livestock. Goats, sheep, cows, packhorses, and donkeys. There were also rabbits, chickens, and geese in one corner.

It seemed as if every animal humans could raise had been gathered there. This was where merchants bought livestock cheaply from migrants, then sold it at high prices for profit.

Bonfires flickered, but they could not drive away all the darkness. Lena looked around, unable to find the merchant she had sold the cows to.

Ricart waited for a while, then went to a gambling table where people were rolling dice with great enthusiasm.

“Where can I find a merchant who buys and sells cows?”

Someone watching the game with their arms crossed turned to look at Ricart. After giving him a quick once-over, they pointed toward another gambling table.

“Try over there.”

Ricart looked up. Several bonfires burned nearby, surrounding a fairly large gambling table.

He walked over with Lena. She was anxious, but there was nothing she could do except entrust herself to Ricart. Even so, she felt an odd sense of expectation and security.

The large gambling table had its own dealer. Cards were laid face down, and the gamblers participating in the game placed their bets. The minimum bet was a silver coin, and Ricart spotted a few gold coins as well.

He asked Lena,

“Is that person here?”

Lena carefully examined the faces lit by the fire. Then she pointed at one of the people placing bets.

“That man...”

The moment she pointed, Ricart strode over and tapped the man on the back.

A man with a filthy beard and a coif turned around.

Unsure whether Ricart had deliberately touched him or they had simply bumped into each other, he stared up at him. Ricart said,

“You know this girl?”

He indicated Lena with a tilt of his head. The cow merchant recognized her at once without needing a closer look. He also guessed why Ricart had come.

“The deal is already done.”

“That was not a deal. It was fraud.”

“If I had committed fraud, people would have torn out my tongue already. But look, I'm fine, aren't I?”

“So you're saying you won't pay a fair price?”

“Ha ha, what an odd fellow. You should pick your place before you start with that screech-and-kill stuff.”

Screech-and-kill? Ricart did not know what that meant, but it seemed to be some local slang. Perhaps it meant threatening people and making a scene.

Sure enough, several large people around the gambling table looked at Ricart provocatively. It was an unspoken warning that things would not end well if he kept talking nonsense.

But Ricart answered with action rather than words. Without warning, he kicked the gambling table over.

Crash!

The cards scattered from the table, and coins clinked across the ground. The people nearby were startled and confused.

But not everyone was. The mood turned ugly in an instant.

Ricart stared at the cow merchant, who remained seated.

“I asked you. Will you pay a fair price now? Answer me.”

Those with no involvement hurriedly picked up their money and fled, sensing violence was about to break out. Others came from afar to watch the fight.

Even then, the cow merchant did not rise. He looked Ricart up and down. His clothes were worn but clean, and he wore a red cape. He had no weapon, only a staff.

What kind of outfit was that?

The merchant could not tell what sort of person Ricart was from his appearance. Was he merely a young man acting tough on youthful bravado, or did he have real skill to match that boldness?

Fortunately or unfortunately, he soon had a chance to glimpse Ricart's true ability.

“Hey, brat.”

Apparently unable to stand it any longer, a large man reached out to grab Ricart. But Ricart suddenly seized his wrist, and an unsettling sound rang out.

Crunch.

More than pain, the large man felt his hand go limp and fall against his will. A chill ran down his spine.

The moment he went, “Huh?” Ricart grabbed his waist and the back of his neck, then threw him over the fence into the livestock pen.

It was tremendous strength.

The man plunged face-first into mud thick with dung. He flailed there helplessly.

For a while, the place fell silent. Then, realizing their companion had been attacked, the thugs shouted.

“Fuck!”

“You want a fight?”

But Ricart's staff danced like lightning. With a series of Crack! Crack! sounds, the thugs dropped one after another in utter disbelief.

The other thugs did not even know what had happened to their friends and companions. They hurriedly tried to draw their weapons.

But Ricart pointed at them with the end of his staff, without the slightest tremor.

“If you draw a blade, you die.”

Among swordsmen, there was an unwritten rule as firm as law. If someone pointed an edged weapon at you, it was acceptable to kill them.

That was why those who lived by the sword were more careful when drawing their weapons.

No matter how close they were, they must never point a blade at each other. That was why Boribori had been so shocked four years ago when Ice pointed his sword at his friends.

This was one of the few rules Ricart followed. Someone empty-handed would only get beaten up. But if they drew a weapon, he killed them whenever possible.

Faced with Ricart's ghostly skill, disciplined movements, and unwavering gaze, the thugs froze while trying to draw their weapons.

Only then did they realize he was a fighter on an entirely different level.

His unhesitating confidence subdued everyone at once.

Ricart planted his staff on the ground again and looked at the cow merchant. The man's expression had gone blank.

“Answer.”

“...What?”

“I said answer me. Will you pay a fair price?”

“Ah... Y-Yes, of course. A merchant should do business with a conscience. Of course.”

His hands trembling, the cow merchant took out a money pouch and offered it to Ricart with both hands.

But Ricart only took twenty silver coins from it, then casually tossed the rest back. He placed the twenty silver coins firmly in the hand of the girl who had endured so much.

“Let's go. Do honest business from now on.”

Leaving the merchant with that final remark, Ricart led Lena back to the campsite.

The cow merchant stared blankly down at the money pouch returned to him.

Why was this back in his hands?

For a moment, he was confused as he tried to understand what had just happened.

When Ricart returned to the group's camp, everyone watched him with worried eyes.

It seemed he had succeeded in getting the money back, perhaps by beating someone up or by some other means, but they feared retaliation.

Marie, of course, did not seem concerned at all, as if nothing had happened. Roy merely looked at Ricart with admiration.

Even his own father sometimes remained silent in the face of unfair threats and pressure, but Ricart had boldly gone over and recovered the money.

Bremen, the guide responsible for the group, felt differently.

“My friend, did you truly have to do that...?”

“What do you mean?”

“The merchants here are under the protection of the Reiken Brotherhood. They won't let this pass.”

“That doesn't mean we should stand by and let ourselves be cheated.”

“Still, they didn't lose all their money. With a few silver coins, those children could have found enough food and drink to get by until Thorweil.”

Ricart sensed a difference in their ways of thinking, apart from who was right or wrong. He did not want to judge or criticize what other people believed, but wrong was wrong.

“I don't know. If you give in once, they'll do it again next time. It's like retreating bit by bit. If you keep yielding to the threats and intimidation of bad people, you'll eventually reach a dead end and become a slave. Even if you reach the Eastern Frontier with the spirit of a slave, do you think you'll find salvation or hope there?”

Whether it was something large or small, if you gave things up one at a time, you would eventually lose everything. That was how Ricart saw it.

To preserve one life, one ends up handing their soul over to another person.

Ricart respected those who fought stubbornly to survive. But at the same time, he despised servile self-abasement.

It was not so much the mindset of a warrior as an unavoidable fate for anyone seeking independence.

Salvation reached out its hand to those who wished to stand on their own, just as Marie and his friends had become Sword Masters. That was why Ricart was certain about this.

Perhaps because he was naturally that sort of person, Hartmann thought Ricart was right and nodded. Roy listened to Ricart's words as though spellbound, unknowingly engraving them in his heart.

But Bremen and the others still seemed worried.

“We aren't as strong as you...”

Perhaps too old to summon the strength to resist, Bremen murmured quietly.

“I don't think companions who travel a long road together are a light connection. I'll help you, so don't worry too much. Perhaps doing things this way may even give us a better chance of succeeding.”

Ironically, perhaps one had to accept danger to push through danger and achieve one's goal. Maybe they had failed until now because they only avoided and ran away.

In any case, Lena clutched the recovered money tightly in her hand. It felt especially precious now.

It was the price of her mother's life, and a hero-like young man had recovered it for her.

The night deepened.

The next morning, as if it were an inevitable step, a member of the Reiken Brotherhood came to visit. The visitor wore splendid silk clothes and a thick fur cape. Already large, they looked even bigger because of the cape.

They wore a ring set with a large gemstone on each of their ten fingers, and gold necklaces hung from their neck.

They arrived with subordinates and the cow merchant. The merchant pointed at Ricart, who was sitting by the fire eating breakfast.

As everyone watched anxiously, Ricart swallowed the food in his mouth, silently picked up his staff, and walked toward the visitor.

“Good morning.”

The visitor grinned and greeted him first.

“What is it?”

“I heard you can fight.”

“And?”

“Can you show me?”

Ricart stared at the visitor quietly, then flicked his staff back and forth in front of them with a twist of his wrist.

Thinking they were about to be hit, the visitor flinched slightly, then quickly pretended nothing had happened.

Ricart planted the staff on the ground again with a Thud!

The cord holding the fur cape in place had been cut, and the cape fluttered to the ground.

But that was not all.

The long gold necklaces were cut too, spilling down with a clatter. Then the drawstring of their trousers was cut, and their pants slipped straight down.

The eyes of everyone watching anxiously grew wide as lanterns.

A magician. He was definitely a magician.

No one thought Ricart was a swordsman.

They thought he was a real magician.

The visitor who had arrived leading subordinates stared for a long while at their bare, hairy legs.

Quietly pulling up their trousers, they said,

“I apologize for disturbing your meal.”

Then, holding up their trousers, they turned around and went back the way they had come. His subordinates hurriedly picked up the fallen cape and necklaces, then followed.

Around noon, another person arrived with subordinates. Unlike the one from that morning, this was a young swordsman dressed simply in a gambeson and cape, with a sword at his waist.

His presence was formidable, but to Ricart and Marie, he was nothing special.

To everyone else, though, it seemed a bloody sword fight would break out at any moment, and their hearts clenched with anxiety. Hartmann quietly reached for the axe he had set down.

Beside the swordsman stood the person who had come that morning and had their trouser cord cut for no reason. This time, he raised a hand and pointed at Ricart, who was eating.

So much for being sorry to disturb his meal.

But the newly arrived swordsman stared at Ricart for a moment, then tilted his head. Suddenly, his eyes widened in mild surprise.

“Huh?”

Ricart did not recognize him at first either. Then, seeing a face that seemed familiar, his eyes widened.

“Huh?”

He could not remember the details at once, but then it came back to him. This was an adventurer he had seen in Rainfurt after leaving home at the age of ten. The leader of Sandy's clan.

Bletter, was it?

Having met someone neither had expected to see in such an unexpected place, Ricart and Bletter could only stare at each other in bewilderment.

Why are you here?

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