WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

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◈ Ode of the Brave ◈

Chapter 50

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You should not judge people by appearances alone, but sometimes nothing else came to mind.

Reinhart, the clan leader of the Widowmaker Clan, looked exactly like a bandit. He spoke and acted like one too.

“Hey! We might live today and die tomorrow, so just drink!”

A huge, bearded man sat sprawled on the floor inside the defense tower, speaking in a rough voice. He seemed over two meters tall, and the belly straining against his clothes looked like a small hill.

A wooden club as tall as a person leaned against the wall. Judging by its weight, it was hard to imagine anyone could even use it as a weapon.

Yet dried blood, bits of flesh, and hair were stuck all over it.

“No, forget the alcohol! There are about a hundred enemies gathered down there right now!”

Volka shouted in frustration.

“We know that, idiot! So what? You want us to abandon this place and run? My orders were to defend it. Whether a hundred come or a thousand, I defend it. What do I care?”

Reinhart raised a bowl of alcohol and gulped it down. He drained the whole thing in one go, then let out a massive belch. It was enough to stir a breeze.

Buuuuuuurp! Grrrk. Urp.

“Ugh, damn!”

Delphi frowned and turned her head away. Ricart, Boribori, Marie, and Volka did the same.

They kept fanning the air with their hands, but it did little good. The foul stench that rose from deep in his stomach was unbearable.

Volka cursed inwardly. Or rather, the curse that should have remained in his head slipped out.

“Damn it.”

Even so, Reinhart did not care. He grinned with a mouth big enough to swallow a person whole. Seeing the younger ones suffer from his belch seemed to please him.

“Heh heh heh. You cute little things, leave if you want. I won’t force you. But unless different orders come, my brothers and I will die here.”

Was it responsibility? Loyalty? Even noble knights would not go that far. Anyone could see that retreating from an obvious defeat was the right choice.

Still, Delphi’s assessment was probably right. He was simply too stupid to know better.

Reinhart did not think about anything else. Orders came from above. He had agreed to do it. So he would do it. That was all.

Unlike Volka, Ricart looked at Reinhart and thought the guild’s command had made an excellent choice.

Every military commander had a certain temperament and character. Some were suited to attack, while others were better suited to defense.

Of course, some were good at both, but regardless of ability, such differences existed.

The kind of commander who excelled at holding a position usually had exceptional stubbornness, unusual grit, or sheer perseverance.

The command of the Beringen Guild seemed to have taken that into account when they stationed Reinhart here.

But this was not an ordinary war fought with armies. It was similar, yet clearly different in some ways.

Then Reinhart spotted Ricart standing beside Volka, and his eyes lit up.

“Hey, Red Cape. Are you the genius swordsman who killed Mad Dog?”

“Yes.”

Ricart nodded.

Volka, Delphi, and Marie had not known that, so they turned to Ricart and blinked. Who was Mad Dog? Surely not that person among the Nine Swords of the Empire?

At first, Ricart and Boribori’s execution of the Ernberg Five alongside the Nameless One had been top secret, so the rumors had not spread widely.

But everyone who needed to know, including clan masters, knew about it. Yet Volka and Delphi, who were close to Ricart, had not.

Reinhart was not a clan master overseeing several clans, but he held a comparable position in the guild, so he had heard about it.

“Mad Dog wasn’t someone you could kill with luck alone. Even with the Nameless One helping, it couldn’t have been easy. I know that much. I saw that terrifying rabid bastard myself.”

Slightly drunk, Reinhart naturally recalled that vivid memory.

Steiner, standing with a burning village behind him, holding a sword that glowed crimson. His eyes had gleamed with madness like a rabid dog’s, and Reinhart had felt his knees weaken, thinking he might charge at any moment.

They had only crossed paths while Reinhart was passing through on a job, and he had felt immensely fortunate not to meet him as an enemy.

A Sword Master was one who had surpassed the human realm. Since that day, Reinhart had believed it was impossible for a human to kill a Sword Master.

Yet Steiner had died. At the hands of a young genius swordsman. Of course, it had only been possible because the Nameless One was such a powerful ally, but it was still an incredible feat. Reinhart certainly could not have done such a thing at that age.

“If you want to catch a tiger, you need the guts to enter its den. No matter how it happened, you did something remarkable. But remember this. Fame is a double-edged sword. It looks like it’ll lead you to success, but it’s really a rope stretched across a cliff. You could fall at any time. And more people will come after you, hoping to kill you and take that fame for themselves.”

Hearing Reinhart’s words, Ricart thought he was not simply a brute. He only smiled faintly.

“I didn’t kill him for success. I only put him down because he was a rabid dog bastard. And I’m already used to people coming after me for fame.”

Ten years as a shepherd, ten years on the battlefield, and ten years as an infamous murderer. In his previous life, he had spent ten years killing people who came after him for fame.

Ricart had faced every kind of person, experienced every kind of scheme, and overcome every kind of crisis.

“Have you lived two lives or something? What kind of kid has no charm at all?”

Reinhart spoke with an expression that asked what kind of child Ricart was. Ricart simply laughed at the unexpectedly perceptive remark.

Then he left the defense tower. Outside, the sun had just begun to set.

“Mad Dog doesn’t mean Mad Dog Steiner of the Nine Swords of the Empire, does it?”

Volka, still confused, hurried over and asked.

“Ask Bori.”

Ricart answered as though it were nothing, then inspected the area around the defense tower first.

The cylindrical tower was built of brick. Its top had collapsed, leaving large stones scattered around it. Thick brush, grown over many years, covered the pile of stones as though showing the passage of time.

In other words, the defense tower had lost its defensive function. It was only suitable as a temporary shelter now.

Adventurers from the Widowmaker Clan lived in tents around the tower. There were only around fifteen of them. Combined with Ricart’s Viola Clan, they numbered about twenty.

Ricart walked over to inspect the south side of the tower. Below lay a sheer cliff, and it seemed impossible for enemies to approach from there.

A stream ran through the valley below the rocky cliff from east to west, with a road beside it. Going straight west, the road split north and south.

This road was very important to the enemy. They had to pass through it to reach Sigpringer, in the north-central region of the Empire.

A short walk west from the defense tower led to a suspension bridge connecting to the opposite mountain. The old ropes still looked strong, but the planks were half-rotted and unsteady.

That meant the likely points of attack were the gentle slopes to the north and east. Even there, the paths near the defense tower were narrow.

They could defend it if they had to, but if too many enemies crowded the entrance, they would be trapped and starve.

Ricart reached his conclusion. The defense tower had become a name without substance, but its location still made it a strategic stronghold. The terrain offered a good view in every direction and even provided an escape route.

“What are you going to do?”

Marie, who had been following Ricart closely, asked.

“Hmm?”

“Like Mr. Volka said, I don’t think staying here is a good idea.”

“What’s with the ‘Mr. Volka’? Just call him Volka.”

“No, fine. What are you going to do?”

“I think we can defend it. Even if we can’t, I don’t think we should just hand it over. If we give them everything every time enemies come rushing in, what will be left? We should at least make them pay for it. What do you think, Marie?”

“What about requesting reinforcements?”

Ricart shook his head. The guild was probably pouring almost all its manpower into securing the newly acquired territory. They were likely as overwhelmed as this place, if not more.

That did not mean Volka’s reaction or Marie’s opinion was wrong. Both were understandable and sensible.

“Ricky, aren’t you afraid of dying? Is it confidence in your skills?”

“Well, I’m not sure either. What do you think?”

“I don’t think it’s just because you’re brave.”

Ricart did not answer. He only smiled faintly. To be honest, even Ricart himself did not know.

Looking at everything Ricart had done so far, he had risked himself to the point of seeming reckless. Yet he also felt it was not simply because he was brave.

Ricart moved on to inspect the enemies stationed below the eastern high ground. From here, even a hundred people did not look like much, but it was clearly a large number.

To Ricart’s eyes, however, the enemies looked disorganized. They had not dug trenches or planted stakes to establish a camp.

It looked as though people acting separately by clan had simply gathered until they numbered a hundred.

More importantly, they had no separate supply unit. There was no system or organization for securing food. They could only rely on whatever each person had brought, so their supplies would soon run out.

Their careless thinking was obvious. Gather a lot of people, and somehow it will work out. They looked like a mob of beggars living in tents, though they were not dressed like beggars.

Perhaps they did not even have a commander. Otherwise, they would not have gathered down there and wasted time doing nothing. They would at least have spread out and surrounded the place.

Of course, even if they had a commander, it would be useless if no one listened. Adventurers had strong individual personalities and were harder to handle than ordinary soldiers.

Their individual combat ability was high but uneven, which made it difficult for them to show strength as a group.

As the sunset deepened, several groups broke away from the bustling crowd below. They walked up toward the defense tower.

They were coming up armed, so they seemed to be here to fight. But if that was the case, why did they not attack together?

Ricart learned the answer soon enough.

A man with a longsword at his waist walked alone halfway up the slope and shouted toward them.

“Hey! Red Cape! Red-Caped Ricky! Come out! Fight me!”

This was what made it different from an ordinary war. Personal goals mattered more than the group’s objective. They wanted fame.

Ricart silently watched the man who had stepped forward. Then, holding a sword in one hand, he walked down.

“R-Ricky.”

“Ricky!”

Marie called Ricart in alarm, and Volka, who had been talking with Boribori, also shouted in surprise. There was no need for him to accept such a fight.

But Ricart did not even look back. He continued down the gentle slope covered in short grass. The rocks jutting out here and there were dyed red by the setting sun.

Holding his sword in his left hand, Ricart calmly walked down and stopped some distance from his opponent. The ground where Ricart stood was slightly higher.

“I am Eberstein, the Second Sword of the Three Swords clan.”

It was a clan Ricart had never heard of. It might have been famous somewhere else, but this was the first time he had heard its name.

The man, whose beard covered his lower face, stared silently at Ricart before speaking again.

“You’re younger than I expected, Red Cape. I hold no personal grudge.”

Eberstein did not waste any more words. He drew his sword.

He took a steady stance and pointed the tip at Ricart. Judging by his eyes, there was no room for carelessness.

Honestly, Ricart had ended most of his fights so far with a single strike by taking advantage of his opponent’s carelessness. The Biltun brothers had walked toward him defenselessly, while powerful people had underestimated his age and rushed in recklessly.

If there was a reason Ricart had kept winning, it was that he caught those moments of carelessness precisely and never missed his chance.

But now his fame had spread far enough that no one was careless. They did not underestimate him because he was young.

Leaving aside the realm of swordsmanship, increasingly difficult fights awaited him.

But even if he had won by taking advantage of carelessness, that was not all Ricart had. Nor did he rely on that alone.

People from the Beringen Guild stood scattered across the high field, looking down from above, while the enemies looked up from below.

Not only Ricart’s friends, but Reinhart as well, had stopped drinking and come out to watch. Everyone’s eyes were fixed on Ricart and his opponent.

All those who gained great fame in the world had to prove that their ability matched that fame.

The closer a person came to being the strongest, even if they had already reached it, even if they looked beyond it, proving themselves until death was the fate of a swordsman.

Without introducing himself or saying a word, Ricart drew his sword. He had no interest in proving anything, but proof was not made with words anyway.

His cape fluttered softly in the wind, and the blade turned red as the sunset seeped into it.

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