WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: ZERO_SUGAR
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◈ Ode of the Brave ◈
Chapter 89
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It was a chilly night, cold enough to make the tip of one’s nose ache. A campfire burned deep in the mountains near Rubensheim.
Wrapped in his cloak, Ricart stood and took in Rubensheim, glowing faintly in the darkness like starlight. That city housed the headquarters of the Rubens Guild.
Ricart and his three friends had boldly camped nearby.
“Ricky.”
Marie called from behind him. The scent of agarwood brushed past his nose, slightly numb from the cold.
When Ricart turned around, he saw his friends.
Boribori and Ice were lending each other maintenance tools as they tended to their weapons. Marie was burning agarwood incense at the end of a short, thin, grooved stick.
Ricart sat beside Marie and breathed in the incense smoke she held beneath his nose. Boribori and Ice looked up and stared at him.
The way he inhaled the smoke was rather unsightly, perhaps even a little ridiculous and strange.
“Mm... You can get kind of addicted to this.”
Still, Ricart enjoyed the incense without caring what his friends thought. It was not addictive, but the scent itself was so pleasant that, after smelling it morning and night, he had begun enjoying it beyond its medicinal purpose.
“It does smell nice. It feels calming.”
Boribori spoke.
“But isn’t it expensive? How much do you have left?”
Ice asked.
“We have to use it morning and night, so I think there’s more than a month’s worth left.”
Marie answered.
Without even lifting a hand himself, Ricart inhaled the smoke from the stick Marie held for him and frowned slightly.
“You guys need to stay alert. We’re in the middle of enemy territory. Don’t get complacent.”
“You were the one who wanted to camp here, Ricky.”
Boribori replied with a baffled look.
“I know. I’m just saying, stay alert.”
“Are we going into the city to kill them? Aren’t we not supposed to fight inside the city?”
“They crossed the line first. If we alone keep to the rules, we’re choosing an unfavorable fight. We’ll avoid it if possible, but for now, I just want to see how they react.”
“Do you think they’ll accept negotiations? Bringing up the antidote feels like a mistake. It makes us look like they have something over us.”
Marie asked, still holding the short stick beneath Ricart’s nose.
“I never intended to negotiate from the beginning. It was just bait. Bait I threw out to see how the other Guild Master reacts.”
Ricart had named three conditions for negotiation. The Guild Master could die alone as their representative, suffer losses close to annihilation, or hand over the antidote.
In truth, none of it meant anything.
“I don’t really understand. We need the antidote, don’t we?”
“We need one, but we don’t need one from that bastard. And if you get hung up on what you need, you get dragged around by it. If he thinks the way you do, Marie, that works out well for us. If he thinks I’m desperate for the antidote and tries to stall for time, we can take our time tearing his people apart.”
“Ooh... Ricky doesn’t study, but he really is smart.”
Boribori said in admiration. Marie, however, could not simply admire him.
“Not ‘ooh,’ Bori. I think you’re being too complacent. How do you know what will happen if you aren’t treated in time? What you just said means you aren’t looking after your own life. I don’t understand why we need to use tactics to that extent.”
“What can we do if that’s what he wants? I’m not Ricky’s fiancée, so I wouldn’t know.”
“...You’re starting to talk like Ricky.”
“Me? Is that an insult or what?”
Boribori was two years older than Ricart. He was already an adult and had learned much, so he was no longer as innocent as he had once been.
And as Marie had pointed out, he had spent so much time with Ricart that he had been influenced in many ways without realizing it.
“Enough. What are you two saying right in front of the person involved? Marie, don’t get too hung up on the antidote. We’ll find some way to treat me, even if it takes time. Trust me. What matters now is creating a favorable situation.”
“Nooo... But...”
Marie whined, still clearly unhappy. Boribori and Ice watched with blank expressions.
Somehow, while they had not been looking, those two had become insufferable. They had both been cool kids, too.
Still, Ricart had enough sense to clear his throat a few times. Then, to escape the awkward situation, he focused on business.
“Let’s say the Rubens Guild has around a hundred members. If they scrape together every last student from their affiliated Academy, they might have around a hundred and fifty. But if all of them gather in one place, they’ll only consume food. If we leave them alone, they’ll suffer massive losses on their own. But their Guild Master probably isn’t an idiot, right? What would you do in that person’s position?”
“I don’t know. Just tell us.”
Ice answered flatly.
Ricart wondered if teaching through questions and answers was not such a good method after all. Still, they were friends, not teacher and student.
“If the Guild Master is a coward, he’ll panic and gather every available person in one place. If he has guts, he’ll let the adventurers keep working where they are. The most sensible response would be to form a small group and pursue us. I watched today, and nobody in particular was gathering in Rubensheim. That means he has some nerve and plans to handle this with only his close associates. Really, he has no other choice if he wants to keep his position from weakening.”
The Rubens Guild had already been in poor condition. It showed the typical signs of a declining organization. Recently, it had been pulling in money with something close to desperation, which proved it.
When an organization was struggling, the most dangerous thing was for its unity to weaken and its members to leave. Then the whole organization would fall apart.
Leaders of every kind of group feared that most, regardless of rank or class.
That was precisely what Ricart was aiming for. A person who had survived as an adventurer for so long would hardly fear death. So Ricart intended to drive him toward what he truly feared.
Collapse.
Bit by bit, he would cut off every limb.
Whether the Guild Master was cornered and begged with tears and snot streaming down his face, or tried to make a final stand, the result would be the same. He would be ruined.
“Tomorrow, let’s go to Hets. If we wipe out the people there, procuring food will become difficult. Let’s see how long they can hold out.”
Once the agarwood had finished burning and he was done inhaling the smoke, Ricart wrinkled his nose.
His sense of smell seemed numb, but it quickly returned. He could smell the campfire. He could smell Marie’s hair beside him.
Even though Ricart had told them to stay alert, the other three seemed unconcerned. But they were not being careless. They simply had accumulated a great deal of real combat experience.
Looking back, he had gone through many things with Boribori, Ice, and Marie. When he considered each one, it felt as though they had barely survived, as though they had only just managed to win.
As a result, their affection for one another had deepened. They understood each other better, and they had become able to face most crises calmly.
Had they grown? Were they becoming adults? What even was an adult?
Such questions came to Ricart, but one thing still bothered him.
“Ice.”
“Hm?”
“Have you ever heard of a prophetic nun?”
Ricart told him what he had heard from Daisy’s mother, whom he had encountered by chance in Nibelungen. Since it concerned the Church, he was somewhat careful.
Ice, however, did not seem especially bothered. He looked at the campfire, gathered his thoughts for a moment, then spoke.
“The Church has steadily researched the Codex for a long time. I heard that it includes secrets of long life, things like magic, and techniques related to prophecy. My training was part of the process of becoming a Sword Master. My mission was to steal the imperial family’s techniques. I never saw any prophetic nuns myself. I only heard that they foresee the day God is resurrected. And they’re preparing to carry on the god’s sacred bloodline when that happens. They bathe and purify themselves every day, then pray and such.”
“So when is God supposed to be resurrected?”
“I don’t know. They say the prophetic nuns only see fragments. So several of them train together and compare their visions to infer the date. The incident in Nibelungen recently was probably a ritual offering sacrifices. They believe that if the imperial family and nobles suppress the Church, God will be resurrected on the promised day and wipe them out.”
“...”
To Ricart, it sounded as though they had made meticulous plans based on utterly absurd grounds. What good was any amount of planning if the foundation itself was absurd? He truly could not understand it.
Well, they believed it was real, not absurd. That was probably why.
“But what if God really is resurrected?”
Boribori asked.
“We have Ice, so God will let us off.”
When Ricart replied jokingly, Ice finally smiled.
“Sorry, but I’m an apostate. I committed a greater sin than an atheist.”
“That’s harsh. You’ve worked hard all this time. You should get something in return. Even if it’s a god.”
“That’s not how it works, Ricky.”
Ice let out a small laugh at Ricart’s profound ignorance about religion.
“But that Holy Temple you mentioned. Is its headquarters really in the Haiden Fields?”
“Yeah. The Church members there are different from the ones outside. The Holy Temple is guarded by holy knights who have ‘closed their eyes’ and protect the holy sword for the promised day.”
“The holy sword?”
“Yeah. The sword the God of Judgment used to punish sinners. From the sinners’ point of view, it must be a demonic sword.”
“...”
It seemed to be the sword Ricky had wielded in his past life. It still existed?
“All the closed-eyed holy knights are Sword Masters. That was ultimately my goal too. It doesn’t matter anymore, though. Who cares about being a Sword Master?”
“How many holy knights are there?”
“At least thirty.”
“Thirty!?”
“How is that possible!?”
Boribori and Marie’s eyes widened in shock.
“The number of children who died for that must be hundreds of times greater. I almost became one of them.”
The world was not perfect. It had many problems. But the Church of Judgment was far from normal as well.
It seemed as though monsters born from the world were trying to take revenge on it in even crueler ways.
Just like Ricky in his past life.
The mood sank as they thought about the children who had died to create Sword Masters.
“Can’t people just respect each other a little and live together?”
Boribori said.
No matter how he thought about it, it seemed simple. It should not have been difficult. Was that why it was difficult? Because simple things so rarely, so completely failed to happen?
Everyone silently agreed with Boribori.
“How about you? Are you okay?”
Ricart asked Ice.
“Me? Well... Honestly, some anxiety remains. The difference from before is that I’m not controlled by it anymore, but I don’t think I can get rid of it. I came this far thanks to you, Ricky, and Armand. Thank you.”
“What are you anxious about?”
Boribori asked. When Ricart was not around, the two of them were surprisingly close. Their personalities seemed to fit well.
“What if what they said is true? What if God really is resurrected? What should I do then? What about my younger sibling? Things like that.”
“Why don’t you date some women? Love changes everything, Student Ice.”
Marie said as she suddenly wrapped her arms around Ricart.
Ice shook his head with an awkward expression.
“I don’t really trust women. I haven’t done anything, but they all say they like me.”
“Wow...”
At something an ordinary man could never say, Boribori let out an amazed sigh.
Ice gave an embarrassed smile.
“I’m not trying to brag. It’s just true. I don’t know that I’m handsome.”
“Woooow...”
This time, Ricart, Boribori, and Marie all stared in disbelief. Ice shook his head as if he could not say anything more.
No one knew what would become of the world, but the four focused on what was in front of them.
Following Ricart’s plan, they went to Hets and killed every Rubens Guild adventurer there.
Then they went only to the places that hurt the guild most, killing every adventurer they encountered.
The opponents could not match them, so Ricart’s group openly wandered around at their leisure. Sometimes Marie stepped forward, sometimes Ice did, and sometimes they went together.
Ricart had it easiest of all. So easily that his bad lungs felt like an excuse.
From the Rubens Guild’s point of view, doing nothing meant their losses kept mounting. But gathering their people also raised the question of whether it was worthwhile to face the four of them.
This was not a war between guilds. If things turned bad, Ricart’s group could simply flee back to Beringen. Ricart clearly held the initiative. He could do this or that.
It was like repeatedly stabbing them with a spear, asking, Are you still going to sit there? What are you going to do?
The Rubens Guild Master saw no chance of victory even in a direct confrontation. There was simply no solution. It was as if inescapable death circled around him.
These people were even more vicious than the Ernberg Five.
As time passed, he lost more trust, and adventurers began leaving. Their communication network was paralyzed, and they could not even determine the strength of their own forces.
But even he had one last resort.
Ricart and his friends were wandering near the village of Kogts. It was a small village with flowing ditch water and a mill.
Brown frogs hopped around in the grass near the ditch. It was nearly time for them to hibernate.
Ricart craned his neck and looked around the village as though searching for something when someone walked toward them along the path beside the ditch.
“Huh? Isn’t that Dunkel?”
Boribori spotted him first. Ricart turned his head and looked at the man approaching from afar.
Dunkel was, unusually, dressed for work. Work clothes meant the kind of outfit worn for assassination or battle.
He wore a dark brown leather vest that fit tightly against his body, covered in pockets. There was no telling what hidden weapons might be concealed inside.
A machete hung at his waist, and he carried a large cloth bundle in one hand.
Dunkel approached Ricart and smiled faintly.
“It’s been a while. What are you doing here?”
“What are you doing here, Dunkel? This is Rubens Guild territory. Can the Beringen Guild Master come here?”
“Didn’t Sally say she killed Dunkel?”
“Hey, you believed that?”
Sally tended to speak rather harshly, and apparently Boribori had believed her when she said she had killed Dunkel.
“Ricky.”
Dunkel took a deep breath and let it out before calling Ricart’s name.
“What?”
“It’s time to stop. The Rubens Guild has surrendered.”
“To whom?”
“A guild should surrender to a guild. That’s how it should be.”
“Uh... But this is a personal grudge.”
“You’ve killed at least forty adventurers. Haven’t you taken enough revenge?”
“I don’t know. Isn’t that for me to decide, not you, Dunkel? Shouldn’t they at least apologize to me? I almost died because of them.”
It was clear that if he had drunk even a little more poison, his life would have been in danger.
“There is no antidote. I heard they bought it from a Wasteland Wizard.”
The Wasteland Wizard was a Salaman mage. They had not sold the poison because they held a grudge against Ricart. They had simply sold an item.
“So you’re telling me to just end it like this?”
“Yeah.”
“Why?”
“Because I’m ordering you to.”
“Mm... But I belong to the Ernberg branch. Isn’t there a chain of command? Can a Guild Master give orders directly to an adventurer from an ordinary clan?”
“Ricky.”
Dunkel’s amused expression turned serious as he called Ricart’s name again.
“What?”
“I kept the secret about your handsome friend. I hope I can continue keeping it.”
Dunkel had known for a long time that Ice belonged to the Church of Judgment. He was the one who had warned Ricart to stay away from Ice.
“Hey, talk to me.”
Ice stepped forward with a frown, but Ricart held him back with an outstretched arm.
“That was a threat, right?”
“Ricky, are you going to act as you please like the Ernberg Five? With things already like this? Aren’t forty people enough?”
“But why is it Dunkel who gets to judge and decide that? I’m the one who almost died.”
It sounded like Ricart was throwing a tantrum, but he was right. Why should the guild tell him what to do about a personal grudge?
Dunkel turned his head toward the quiet village and let out a long sigh. Then he looked back at Ricart.
“The imperial family does not have the capacity to recruit troops right now. At the earliest, adventurers will be deployed in an operation to subjugate the Church of Judgment next spring. If you keep slaughtering adventurers here, you’re reducing forces that have done nothing wrong. Do you understand what I’m saying?”
“So if the imperial family orders it, we have to obey?”
“Why do you think the Adventurer Guild was created? The old man planned everything, from creating us to raising us. Long ago. To cultivate the ultimate swordsman. In any case, if the imperial family cuts its ties with us, adventurers will be nothing more than swordsmen. I’m not saying that as an insult. We truly would be nothing more than a band of swordsmen. Is that what you want?”
“...”
Dunkel even revealed top-secret information to persuade Ricart. Ricart considered it silently, then nodded.
“Fine.”
“Go back to Ernberg. I will guarantee your handsome friend’s identity and safety. And I’ll give you the Rubens treasure they offered in surrender. You’ve truly done enough, and Rubens has paid enough of a price.”
Dunkel set the bundle on the ground and left again. He entered the village, passed the temple, and disappeared from sight.
Ricart suddenly remembered what Volka had said.
You would not last long under someone else.
“The Church’s followers and us, we’re both puppets in the end.”
Boribori said.
It was impossible to deny.
Still, Ricart accepted Dunkel’s orders because he believed something had to be settled in the Haiden Fields eventually.
There was no choice but to seek the answer where it had all begun.
Chapter 18: Where Fate Points. End.
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