Ode of the Brave - Chapter 61

WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR

◈ Ode of the Brave ◈

Chapter 61

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When Marie, dressed in a one-piece dress, stepped forward, Regina widened her eyes in surprise. Then she quickly smiled smugly.

“A Lady stepping forward herself. How amusing. Is that the freedom you were talking about? Being stupid is not freedom. Oh ho ho ho!”

“When something important needs doing, hiding behind others is not how a noble should behave. It just makes you a coward.”

“Oh, does it look like I’m hiding behind them? No. This is an order. Something you could never give. Why not put your puny knight forward now? Before you regret it.”

“Then you’ll probably die.”

Marie offered the warning without exaggeration.

Faced with Marie’s consistently cold, blunt words, Regina dropped her polite speech as though a mask had slipped off.

“...You really don’t know any restraint, do you?”

Marie was already tall, so she looked down at Regina and gave a faint snort. Regina no longer had any composure left. Her smile was gone, and she breathed unevenly with anger.

What irritated Regina most was Marie’s appearance. Anyone could see that Marie was prettier than her. No amount of expensive clothes or jewelry could change one’s face.

Regina might have been willing to let it go if Marie had humbly fawned over her. But Marie was arrogant and haughty even in her attitude.

That made her unforgivable.

“Lowborn trash only comes to its senses after getting a taste of pain. It’s so hard to show mercy as a noble. Boys, would anyone like to ruin that face for me?”

Regina spoke to the men standing behind her. There were five or six grown men, and all of them looked like thugs. Regina had been putting on airs, but now it was easy to see the sort of company she kept.

“What a waste.”

One of the men spoke. It was an utterly unpleasant thing to say.

The men looked at Ricart, who stood idly behind Marie, and took him for a worthless coward. He was letting a woman take the lead while he just watched.

That thought did not last long.

Marie suddenly closed the distance and drove a front kick into one of them with her long leg.

Thud!

Her kick struck his stomach like a spear being thrust into him. The man immediately dropped to his knees and poured out the contents of his stomach like a waterfall.

Bleeergh!

Marie moved so naturally and quickly that ordinary thugs like them could not react right away. They could only stand there in stunned confusion, wondering what had just happened.

Marie immediately swung her fist in a full arc and drove it into another man’s face.

Crack!

The sound of bones breaking rang out. His nose, philtrum, and jaw had been shattered. The blow was strong enough to kill someone if it went wrong.

Only then did the remaining three men feel the hairs on their bodies stand on end. They had picked the wrong target.

But they froze and could not respond. At the same time, they could not run. The situation was so unexpected that they could not decide what to do.

Marie clenched her teeth and struck the next opponent with a powerful kick, as though swinging a club. Then she threw another punch.

Crack! Thud!

Two more people fell. She did not need to attack them repeatedly. One blow each was enough.

People who threw fists around their neighborhood could never defeat someone who risked their life wielding a blade. More than anything, Marie knew how to use mana.

Using mana did not guarantee victory or make someone impossible to kill, but it was obvious that ordinary people could not handle someone at that level.

Marie casually pulled a tooth from her fist and tossed it to the ground. Then she looked at the last remaining man.

He stood frozen until he finally flinched and tried to run.

But Marie grabbed the back of his neck, tripped him, and brought her foot down hard on his face.

Crunch!

She could not smash a head like a watermelon the way the Nameless One could, but it was more than enough to destroy teeth and a nose.

Still, fighting in that dress had exposed Marie’s pale legs and backside. Watching from behind, Ricart felt a little embarrassed. He found himself mildly regretting that he had not stepped in himself.

After turning five adult men into pulp in an instant, Marie casually pushed aside the head she had stepped on and looked at Regina.

In the dark night, her blue eyes gleamed coldly.

“This is real strength, little Reggie.”

Smiling, Marie threw Regina’s words about strength and power being the difference between nobles and commoners back at her.

But Regina did not hear her. Her mind had gone blank because she could not accept what had happened.

Marie walked toward Regina in her low-heeled shoes, click, click. Regina did not tremble in fear. She only stared blankly up at Marie with wide eyes, unable to understand the situation at all.

Marie slowly raised her hand and swung it into Regina’s cheek with all her strength.

Crack!

It sounded as though a tree had split apart. Regina’s jaw broke, and she collapsed unconscious. As she fell, broken teeth scattered through the air like kernels of corn.

Once it was all over, Ricart walked over and stared down at Regina.

“She looks like a crushed rat.”

Regina lay unconscious with her mouth hanging open, drool mixed with blood running down her chin.

Still, Ricart figured a contract with the Merchants’ Association would be difficult now. But what had happened had happened, and he did not want to blame Marie.

For a moment, a thought crossed his mind. If they killed Regina now and threw her into the canal, could they cover it up?

But he did not want to go that far at this point.

If they were going to do it, they should have handled it faster and more cleanly. Now there might be witnesses.

“Is your hand all right?”

“Yeah. If I put on some of Boribori’s herbs, won’t it heal quickly?”

“I don’t know. Honestly, I’m not very convinced by that stuff.”

“Aren’t you two best friends?”

“Being close doesn’t mean I have to agree with everything.”

“You really are cold.”

Ricart only laughed as he passed beneath the overpass. The sounds of thud, thud and click, click gradually faded away.

The aggressors who had chosen to make themselves into victims lay miserably scattered across the ground.

The next morning, Ricart and his friends sat around a table and ate together in the spacious building they used as their own place.

Volka spoke to Marie while chewing.

“So you just beat her up? A girl from a merchant family?”

“Yeah. Sorry.”

“They threatened us first, so you have nothing to apologize for... but will this be okay? It’ll be fine, right?”

Volka looked at Ricart as he asked. His expression clearly said, You’re the noble, so you’ll sort this out, right?

“I heard somewhere that merchant families aren’t nobles under Imperial law.”

“Are you sure?”

“I don’t know.”

“...”

Volka had nothing to say. No matter how this turned out, he would be the one taking responsibility. He trusted his friends, of course, but honestly, he was starting to break into a cold sweat.

“How was the dock?”

Boribori picked pieces out of the soup with his fingers, sucked on them, and answered.

“The Stoneworkers Guild had occupied the dock. The Merchants’ Association’s ships couldn’t leave. Apparently, it’s because they haven’t paid the construction fees. There wasn’t much of a fight yesterday, but they were practically living there. Looks like they won’t move until they get paid.”

“Hmm... I see. But listen, I looked into it a little. The Stoneworkers Guild has been here in Ernberg for a very long time. The Merchants’ Association is old too, but its members and families seem to change often. In simple terms, the Stoneworkers Guild and the Merchants’ Association are Ernberg’s two major powers.”

“So?”

Ricart asked.

“Should we get involved in their fight, or should we just watch? If you get involved in things like this the wrong way, you can get seriously screwed.”

“Isn’t it already over between us and the Merchants’ Association? We beat up their girl.”

Delphi spoke as she gathered the empty bowls everyone had finished with. She was not blaming Marie. It was simply the reality of the situation.

“Still, we could stay out of it and just watch.”

“But if the Merchants’ Association gains the upper hand, won’t that ruin us too? I think we should take someone’s side while we still can.”

Ricart was in favor of actively getting involved in the fight.

“But how do we connect ourselves to the Stoneworkers Guild?”

“Collecting unpaid debts is what adventurers have done since ancient times. It’s a line of work with deep roots.”

“Collecting unpaid money from the Ernberg Merchants’ Association... Still, why aren’t they paying? It’s not as if they have no money.”

“We can find out. I’ll go ask. I think those men like me.”

Boribori said it. It was hard to be entirely sure, but Boribori was indeed the most sociable after Volka. He was especially popular with gruff older men.

“Hmm, all right. But first, let’s learn some of your work. There’s more to it than I thought. We should also get familiar with the faces of the merchants around here. Benny from the grocery, Glot from the general goods shop, Waylen the blacksmith, and the tanner, potion shop owner, cloth merchant, and so on. We need to know all of them if we’re going to get goods from them. You know what I mean, right?”

One of the Adventurer Guild’s duties was providing coordinated supplies to visiting adventurers.

To do that, it had to keep goods stocked in advance, so maintaining good relationships with local merchants was very important. Food supplies were especially important, which meant getting along with the farmers around the city as well.

Volka could not handle all of that himself forever. As members of the same clan, they naturally all had to help.

“Ice, can you do it?”

Ricart asked because, unlike Boribori, Ice had almost no social skills. If that could be expressed as a number, it would be close to zero.

“He only needs to stand beside us. Let’s get to know the women merchants first.”

Besides his talent for swordsmanship, Ice’s unfairly good looks were one of his greatest abilities.

“I’ve never paid full price for anything in my life.”

Ice said it as though tossing out a casual remark. In other words, merchants had always lowered their prices for him on their own.

Had he just made a joke? Was he serious? Everyone at the table let out disbelieving laughs. Only then did Ice give a faint smile.

A girl lay in an expensive bed with bandages wrapped around her head. It was Regina. One side of her face was swollen black and mangled beyond recognition.

Marconis stared silently down at his daughter. Other family members stood nearby, and he muttered as though making sure they heard him.

“She’s completely useless. Useless... Tch.”

He seemed less worried about his daughter than irritated by her.

“When was the arranged marriage meeting with the Hafinn family?”

Marconis asked his grown son. Armen’s brown hair was neatly combed back and gleamed as though it had been slicked with oil.

“Next month.”

“Cancel it. This won’t do. By the time she recovers, she’ll have missed her marriageable age. Stupid bitch.”

There was not the slightest affection for his daughter in his voice. He seemed to think of her only as a tool for the family.

“Still, Father, shouldn’t we teach these bastards a lesson?”

“Are we some country bumpkin knights, blinded by revenge? What do I always say? When you take action, you weigh the gains and losses first.”

“I’m sorry.”

“But we cannot simply let this go. Make contact with the Beringen Guild. And dig into those two.”

Marconis was a thorough man. He was not someone who simply charged in because he was angry.

He certainly was angry. But the source of his anger was not that his daughter had been assaulted. It was the fact that his plans had been disrupted.

Arranged meetings, engagements, and marriages were important events for a family. They were ways to gain allies or strengthen existing alliances.

Something had gone wrong with such an important matter, so he was angry and annoyed.

On top of that, he was already in conflict with the Ernberg Stoneworkers Guild. He had more than enough to worry about.

In truth, the Merchants’ Association had not failed to pay the construction fees because it lacked money. It had simply picked at one of the contract terms as an excuse not to pay. The reason was to pressure and subdue the Stoneworkers Guild.

The Ernberg Stoneworkers Guild was a group of craftsmen, practically the native people of this place. They passed their skills down through generations and made their living that way.

The Merchants’ Association’s ultimate goal was to bring them under its control, completely take over Ernberg, and enjoy a monopoly.

Its current plan was to pressure their livelihoods, drag things out, then gradually give them room to breathe before eventually controlling them however it pleased.

Compared to all that, his daughter being beaten was not a major matter. It was merely annoying. Still, it nagged at him like a hangnail. Ignoring it bothered him, but pulling it off would hurt more than expected.

Besides, the Red Cape and Fivefold Dismemberment required careful handling. Marconis knew how fierce and frightening the Ernberg Five had been. Anyone who had killed men like them was clearly no ordinary person.

Several days later, a letter arrived from the Beringen Guild. But after reading it, Marconis tilted his head.

Good fortune in battle? Rather than just good fortune?

One word bothered Marconis strangely. It was not appropriate wording for an official letter.

Good fortune in battle specifically meant one’s luck in winning or losing a battle. Had those uneducated fools simply used words carelessly?

The hangnail was becoming more and more irritating. It was the sort of thing that bothered him if he ignored it, but hurt more than expected if he tried to tear it off.

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