WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Ode of the Brave ◈
Chapter 37
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Ricart, Boribori, and the Nameless One were now practically a party.
They had not made any clear promise or contract, but they seemed to have joined hands for the time being to achieve their respective goals.
Or perhaps they had simply grown close without realizing it.
The three headed west, toward Ernberg.
For now, however, they did not pursue the Ernberg Five. There was someone nearby they needed to deal with first.
They headed there.
There was still time before sunset, but the group found a place to spend the night early. Travelers seemed to use it often, judging by the traces left behind long ago.
Ricart brushed away cobwebs with his scabbard, then swept the ground with his foot to drive off the insects. After that, he lit a fire in an old makeshift hearth.
It was fortunate that several logs lay scattered nearby.
Ricart sat down and unfolded the wanted poster the Nameless One carried.
It showed an enormously fat man with a truly awful face, grinning unpleasantly.
Below it was a brief description, identifying features, and criminal record.
[Hasphil: Also known as “the One Who Saddens Mothers.” Leader of the criminal organization known as the Murder Guild.
Criminal Record: Murder of clergy, rape and murder of numerous women, multiple murders, monastery raids, private torture, human trafficking, dealing in stolen goods.
Main Area of Activity: Sigpringer. May be elsewhere. May have colluded with other dangerous criminal organizations.
For God and the Empire. A reward of 40 gold coins will be paid for the criminal’s live capture, or 10 gold coins for the head.]
“Wow...”
The man was vicious enough to draw an involuntary reaction from Ricart.
Setting aside the Nameless One’s personal revenge, Ricart could not help wondering what kind of bastard this was.
The problem was the difficulty.
In some ways, dealing with Hasphil seemed harder than facing the Five.
Still, Ricart did not think it was impossible.
Difficult and impossible were entirely different things. Ricart believed any human being could be killed.
Several rough plans already came to mind. Ricart knew more than one way for a small group to face a larger force, and he knew the weaknesses of men like these well.
Groups made up of criminals tended to be loosely organized.
They had no real discipline, so they lacked structure. Normally, they went on about loyalty and brotherhood, but when a decisive moment came, they betrayed each other as easily as turning over a hand.
There were two main ways to bring such people down.
One was to sow discord and weaken their unity.
The other was to become a greater terror than their leader.
Ricart decided they first needed to gather information around Sigpringer.
The larger plan was to help the Nameless One get revenge, then face the Ernberg Five together.
He was not helping out of simple kindness alone.
His ultimate goal was to complete the request so the Academy students would not go hungry and could survive the winter safely.
While Ricart considered the plan and strategy ahead, Boribori returned to camp after going somewhere.
He had both hands cupped together as if holding something.
Did he catch a bug or something?
Boribori grinned and spoke to Ricart and the Nameless One.
“Guess what I brought.”
“Did you bring us some grubs for a snack?”
“No. Look.”
Boribori opened his carefully folded hands.
A bright red camellia rested in his palm. Moisture had gathered on it from the snow, making it look especially fresh.
“Ta-da! Flowers bloom even in winter!”
Ricart was curious for a moment, but his expression quickly turned indifferent.
He respected Boribori’s taste, but it was not his own.
Then the Nameless One suddenly grabbed the flower and slipped it beneath the cloth attached to the helmet.
Then they started chewing.
Crunch, crunch.
“I-it’s not food...”
Boribori was flustered, but the Nameless One swallowed it anyway.
It was absurd beyond belief, but to keep up their strength for a long journey, they had to eat well, whether it was flowers or anything else.
They roasted emergency crops like potatoes, corn, and sweet potatoes over the fire. They melted snow in a bowl, mixed in grain flour, and drank it. They sliced ham as well.
It was not a feast, but they ate a fairly balanced meal.
As Boribori ate, he messily got something around his mouth.
The Nameless One slowly raised a hand and wiped it away.
Huh?
Ricart, watching from beside them, felt a little confused. What was this?
Still, he also felt strangely moved.
A single small gesture could say so much.
It felt as though he had connected with a fierce beast that could not communicate.
Boribori did not seem flustered at all, merely wearing his usual sunshine-like smile.
After spending the night outside, the three set off for Sigpringer the next day.
Along the way, they sometimes stopped at villages and offered potatoes or other goods in exchange for borrowing a barn.
They asked about Hasphil and his criminal organization, the Murder Guild, in every village they passed.
But people who had never left their villages said they had never heard of them in their lives.
Then, as they drew closer to Sigpringer, a farmer fled in shock when Ricart asked.
Ricart watched the farmer run away even though he had offered precious winter food as payment.
They were close now.
So he stopped asking around so openly.
They learned that Hasphil’s main area of activity was Lunenberg, a city in the Sigpringer region.
The Thieves’ Guild there was Hasphil’s lackey, while bandits settled on nearby Mount Lunen were said to be his underlings.
He usually walked around the city under the Thieves’ Guild’s protection. When things seemed dangerous, he went up into the mountains and hid there for a while.
It seemed that the Thieves’ Guild and the bandits together were called the Murder Guild.
As the name suggested, their main business was contract killing.
But their work was neither professional nor refined.
Once someone placed a request, they often did not even begin it. Instead, they threatened the client and extorted money and valuables from them.
In other words, they called themselves the Murder Guild, but they were really just thugs.
Could that even be called a business?
Wouldn’t a business run that way fail?
“Let’s be honest. When the Adventurer Guild takes on dark requests, it only deals with people who have a great deal of money or high status. But anyone can want someone dead, regardless of status. There might be a wife who hates her cheating husband enough to want him killed. Who is supposed to grant the wishes of people like that? When you hate someone enough to want them dead, you can’t think rationally. So even though their reputation is bad, many people bring them piles of money. It never stops. For that rotten organization to fail, people would have to become kinder. But making a living is hard, and the people you trusted and loved are bound to drive nails into your heart. That’s why they don’t go under, even with such terrible management.”
A merchant organizing goods in a wagon said this.
Ricart handed the merchant one silver coin in payment for the information.
The merchant seemed to think it was a fairly large sum and gave them one more piece of information.
“Hasphil is a terrible gambling addict. If you go to a tavern called Mother’s Sorrow, you should be able to find him easily. Unless he’s staying in the mountains, that is.”
“Thank you. I wish you luck.”
Ricart bought a cloak from the merchant, then headed to Lunenberg with the others.
He bought one large enough to cover the Nameless One completely.
It had belonged to a large member of the merchant’s group, not something the merchant had intended to sell. It smelled a little, but they merely shook off the dust and put it on.
The Nameless One did not care at all.
When they reached Lunenberg, Ricart did not enter the city right away. He first looked around the outskirts.
Sure enough, there was a mountain to the south.
A river ran between the mountain and the city.
After walking around for a while, Ricart found a place where they could hide and spoke.
“Let’s do this. First, we’ll find rooms in the city. Bori and I will pose as customers and go to the gambling hall. Mister, you stand there as our bodyguard. We’ll first see how things are going, then return to the inn and make a plan. On the day we carry it out, we’ll meet here. What do you think?”
Boribori had only learned some swordsmanship and knew nothing about this sort of work.
So he simply nodded without objection.
The Nameless One, however, simply stood still, perhaps displeased with the plan or perhaps for some other reason.
Ricart knew why.
It was easy to guess from the Nameless One’s fighting style.
“I know something unexpected might happen. You might not be able to hold back and kill him right there. That’s fine. Bori and I will cover the rear. You clear an escape route for us.”
Only then did the Nameless One nod.
Ricart and the Nameless One merely had different styles. Both were experts at this sort of thing.
They would only know how well they worked together after doing the job together.
Ricart understood what each of them did best and assigned their roles accordingly.
The Nameless One was better at breaking through, while Ricart was better at responding to an opponent’s moves.
Though there were only three of them, he divided them into front and rear.
After making a rough plan, Ricart, Boribori, and the Nameless One entered Lunenberg and found rooms at an inn as close to the city gate as possible.
That night, they headed to the tavern called Mother’s Sorrow.
Surprisingly, it was not tucked away in some shadowy place, but stood in a busy district.
When they showed the doorkeeper a purse full of silver coins, they were allowed in immediately, without any questions about their age, status, or identity.
A gambling hall treated easy marks like kings.
Inside, it was as bright as daytime.
Thousands of candles burned, and the distinct smell of candlewax was enough to make their heads spin.
But the people inside did not seem to notice. Their eyes gleamed with greedy madness.
Rich people, even nobles, and people who had come after stripping themselves of every last possession sat at tables gambling.
The establishment provided expensive liquor and prostitutes.
The gamblers watched the dealer with grave expressions. When the result came out, they either erupted into cheers loud enough to tear the gambling hall apart or sighed as though it might collapse.
They were completely drunk on uncertain expectations, so no one paid attention to Ricart’s group.
Boribori stared wide-eyed at this strange new world.
Ricart calmly examined where the guards were stationed, where reinforcements would likely pour out from, and which escape routes would be safest.
After grasping the building’s layout, they sat at a long, wide table.
About four people already sat there. The dealer put two dice in a bowl, overturned it on the table, and had the players guess whether the total would be odd or even.
It was simple.
Every round, the dealer put two dice between their fingers, lifted the bowl, and showed both sides to prove there was nothing unusual.
At a glance, nothing seemed suspicious.
“Odds! Evens!”
Perhaps trying to liven things up, the dealer called out strangely as they swished the dice into the bowl and thumped it down on the table. Then they shook it, the dice making a lively rattle, before bringing it to an abrupt stop.
“Live or die!”
At the dealer’s shout, everyone at the table placed their bets.
There were no copper coins, only silver coins.
It was a fairly large amount of money.
The rattle of dice and the clink of coins sounded strangely pleasant.
Ricart only watched the game at first.
One round, two rounds, three rounds, four rounds...
When the fifth round came, the dealer spoke.
“Are you not playing? If you’re not, you’ll have to pay for the seat.”
“I’ll play now.”
The dealer silently rolled the dice again.
Ricart stared at the overturned bowl, then bet all the money he had on even.
Twenty silver coins.
Everyone, including the dealer, looked surprised.
The other tables were noisy, but silence briefly fell over Ricart’s.
The dealer slowly lifted the bowl.
Even.
“Gasp!”
“Whoa!”
“Damn!”
The gamblers at the same table stared wide-eyed.
This was why people gambled, was it not?
Still, they were not the ones blessed by luck.
Even so, merely watching made their hearts pound.
The dealer wore a grim expression, pulled out money from beneath the table, combined it with the losing bets, and paid everyone who had bet on even according to their stake.
Ricart’s money became forty-two silver coins.
In the blink of an eye.
“R-Ricky. We’re rich. What do we do?”
Excited, Boribori grabbed Ricky’s shoulders and shook him wildly.
“Hey, calm down. Get a hold of yourself.”
The real problem began after that.
Every bet Ricart placed turned out right.
Ricart remembered the sound and determined the dice numbers from it. At the same time, he watched the dealer’s eyes to tell whether the dealer was cheating.
He could not be wrong.
Of course, this was only possible because of his inhuman insight and senses.
The people at the same table, however, did not care how Ricart got every answer right.
They simply followed him and bet on the same side.
The dealer ran out of money in no time.
“Wahahahaha!”
Unable to contain the dopamine surging through them, people burst into loud laughter.
One person suddenly grabbed Ricart’s head and started kissing him, so the Nameless One, standing behind him, had to push the person away.
A mountain of silver coins piled up in front of Ricart, high enough to block his view unless he stood up.
By then, everyone in the gambling hall had turned their attention toward him.
They crowded around to watch.
Then someone approached the dealer, tapped their arm, and spoke.
“Move aside.”
Ricart raised his head and saw the person who had appeared across the table.
It was Hasphil, the man from the wanted poster.
The Nameless One stood directly behind Ricart.
Hasphil smiled with a genial expression.
Every visible tooth was gold.
Ricart remembered the wanted poster and wondered how it had captured Hasphil so perfectly.
“Interesting, kid.”
“It’s so boring that I’m starting to lose interest.”
“Right. You need a taste of losing for it to be gambling. But isn’t losing money dull? How about putting something else on the line?”
“Like what?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. Life or death. Isn’t that the true nature of odds and evens? If you capture me and bring me to the Adventurer Guild, you’ll make a great deal of money.”
The wanted poster said there was a reward of forty gold coins for Hasphil’s live capture.
That was eight hundred silver coins.
“Roll.”
Ricart spoke without hesitation.
Hasphil excluded the other gamblers and began a one-on-one match with Ricart.
Everyone in the gambling hall came over to watch.
The gambling hall, so loud just moments ago, became quiet as a grave.
Hasphil tossed the dice into the bowl and overturned it on the table.
Unlike the dealer, he did not shake it several times.
He moved it only once.
Rattle.
Ricart heard the sound and snickered.
He had expected something more, but the trick was far too clumsy.
“When did there become three dice?”
“Hm?”
“Depending on what I say, one will disappear. Then you’ll definitely win. What do you call something like that?”
“Are you saying I cheated?”
There were many serious crimes in the world, but in a gambling hall, the greatest crime was cheating.
Using a trick was the worst sin and deserved punishment, no matter one’s status.
Ricart quietly watched Hasphil, then drew a dagger from his clothes like lightning.
He drove it into the back of Hasphil’s hand, which covered the bowl.
“See for yourself!”
Crack!
The dagger pierced Hasphil’s hand, split the bowl, and buried itself in the table.
The surrounding people’s eyes widened.
Three bloodied dice rolled out.
Hasphil sharply inhaled.
Just as he was about to shout, the Nameless One sprang forward like a tiger, stepped onto the table, and charged at Hasphil.
The axe already drawn was raised high overhead.
Chaos.
That was the battlefield where the Nameless One fought best.
Ricart knew it, and when the opportunity came, he laid the stage for the Nameless One.
Without speaking or even looking at each other, they understood perfectly.
Like gamblers whose rhythm was already in sync.
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