WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Oblivious

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◈ Prince of Rage ◈

Chapter 26

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Four boats traveled along the river the young heroes had passed down only a short while ago.

Each boat carried four or five people, all heavily armed.

A few wore helmets, but most had taken them off. Their shields hung from the railings, while long weapons such as spears were neatly gathered to one side.

With this many people and this level of equipment, no one seemed likely to dare attack them.

Yet one person was completely unarmed. His excessively fat body was wrapped in what looked like an absurd amount of expensive fabric, though it suited him terribly. It was Guttorm, the Second Young Master.

Even while soldiers rowed the boat, he sat still and panted as though he had done something strenuous. On top of that, he complained.

“Can’t we go faster? Can’t you even row properly? It’s hot as hell.”

The weather was cool. The soldiers were rowing in full gear without sweating, while Guttorm alone was drenched.

At his urging, the soldiers had to exert themselves even more, until they began sweating as well.

They pushed through the morning mist and arrived at the dock where Valerie’s group had landed around noon.

The soldiers put away their oars and moored the boats. After climbing onto the dock and tying the boats down with ropes, they grabbed Guttorm and hauled him ashore.

A knight pushed from behind while two men clasped hands and pulled him from the front. It was quite a spectacle.

Having finally made it onto the dock, Guttorm rested his hands on his knees and waddled for a while before looking around. Beggars lay scattered everywhere.

“Clear those things out. Don’t make me tell you every little thing. Do I have to give orders for this too?”

The soldiers approached the beggars and told them to get lost. Those who seemed out of their minds, half-dead already, were dragged away and tossed aside.

“Where is the warehouse keeper?”

At Guttorm’s words, two knights searched the area, but no such person could be found.

So Guttorm concluded that no force had properly taken control of the place since the Groin-Ripper’s death. Even when they opened the warehouses, there was nothing inside.

Only a few useless-looking loads, or cargo abandoned long ago, lay scattered about.

“Looks like we didn’t even need to come here...”

That was how it seemed, on the surface.

Someone with a keen eye might have found the unnatural quiet suspicious, but Guttorm had no experience in the field.

“Five soldiers are to remain in each warehouse. The two knights will stay behind and manage the place. I must stay at an inn.”

He meant that he would take two knights as guards and stay at an inn himself. No one else seemed to find that strange.

Taking control of a place meant clashing with the force that already controlled it. But there was no such force here, so there was nothing to do but sit around and guard the place.

Who would dare challenge four knights and twenty soldiers who had come properly equipped for battle?

They only needed to pass the boring days, gradually reduce their forces, and return once Duke Sven sent an administrator. That was all.

In a way, it was like the bear doing the tricks while someone else pocketed the money. Valerie suffered, while Guttorm reaped the benefits.

“No matter how hard he runs around, what can that illegitimate child even do...”

Guttorm muttered as he fiddled with his nipple.

He stayed at an inn some distance from the warehouses. He had the knights throw out everyone inside, then stayed there alone without even paying to hire out the inn.

Then, at dawn that day...

Guttorm snored as though heaven and earth were breaking apart. Driving the others out almost seemed merciful.

One of the knights guarding him woke him.

“Young Master. Young Master.”

“Guhuaak! Cough! Cough!? Hm? Wh-what is it?”

“There is a fire at the warehouses.”

“...Then put it out.”

“It does not seem to be coming under control. There have already been quite a few casualties.”

“...How many?”

“Two knights and ten soldiers died in their sleep. The soldiers came to report it. The flames can be seen even from here.”

“Two knights died?”

Guttorm was instantly wide awake.

Training a single knight took at least ten years. At least.

Warhorses, weapons, and armor were expensive, but they were far cheaper than the value of one knight.

Where could one find a person who could ride, wield weapons, and possess both courage and loyalty? They could hire someone with money, but loyalty was another matter.

The problem was not money, but time. Losing a knight from a family that had served the ducal house for generations was like having one’s limbs cut off.

This was no longer merely a matter of taking control of the dock.

Guttorm leapt from the bed with his enormous body. The bed gave a loud Creak.

The moment he stepped outside the inn, the acrid smell of burning filled his nose. Flames glowed in the distance, and black smoke rose into the sky.

Spectators had already gathered to watch the fire, and Guttorm hurried toward the scene with two knights.

Two warehouses were completely engulfed in flames, making it virtually impossible to put them out, and the fire was spreading to another.

The soldiers desperately carried water to extinguish that warehouse’s fire. Still, even stopping the flames from spreading seemed difficult.

The heat had reddened the soldiers’ faces. Covering his own face with an arm, Guttorm headed around to the dock and reached the scene.

“Young Master, what do we do?”

One knight asked. At times like this, the person in charge had to give orders. Whether to fight the fire or abandon everything and withdraw.

“...”

But Guttorm looked utterly dazed, as if he could not think at all.

Then, crossbow bolts suddenly flew from the warehouse that was still relatively intact.

Thwack! Thududududung!

“Urgh!”

“Argh!”

“What was that!?”

The soldiers had taken off their armor because of the heat. The sudden barrage of bolts knocked them down. No one died instantly, but everyone was badly shaken by the unexpected attack.

One knight grabbed Guttorm and put him aboard a boat at the dock. The other charged at the enemies without concern, even though several bolts were lodged in his body.

“The margrave. It’s the Dunbria margrave’s army.”

Someone spoke. At those words, Guttorm came to his senses. He knew this would happen. He had said they should not have brought so many people!

Thududududung!

More crossbow bolts shot at the knight who had nearly reached the enemies hiding in the darkness. Bolts struck his body again in quick succession.

Yet the knight swung his sword in that state, cutting nearly half of one enemy’s torso away. Then he grabbed another by the head and jabbed his thumb into the man’s eye.

“Aaaaaagh!”

A scream erupted.

If he could fight properly, he was no different from a monster. But the situation was too unfavorable.

A series of spear thrusts followed, forcing even that monster to stop in place. He held onto one spear until the end, then finally fell.

“Hey! Get on the boats! Hurry!”

The knight who had guarded Guttorm to the end shouted at the soldiers. Some boarded the boats to save themselves, while others merely writhed on the ground.

The knight leapt up onto the dock and rescued the fallen soldiers. He lifted the heavy men one after another and loaded them onto another boat, but Guttorm, concerned only with saving himself, pushed away with an oar and sent his boat into the water.

The knight was too busy rescuing the soldiers to notice until too late that Guttorm had boarded a boat alone and was drifting away.

“Young Master!”

He called to Guttorm from the dock.

“W-well, your duty is to guard me anyway! I survived, so I hope you manage to survive too!”

At that moment, flames surged from the boat carrying the soldiers. The Black Hand had loaded peat onto the boats beforehand, then approached underwater and set them ablaze.

Furthermore, the remaining warehouse began to catch fire. The area shone as brightly as day, and the knight stood alone, watching only Guttorm drift away.

More bolts flew at him. The knight tore off something like a plank, used it as a makeshift shield, and charged at the enemy.

He resisted fiercely to the end, but this was not truly a fight. He had fallen into a trap.

It was only a struggle to escape that trap, not a battle. Who would be mad enough to fight a knight head-on?

As if determined to take at least one enemy with him, the knight seized an enemy’s spear shaft, pulled the man close, and leapt into the flames with him. That was the last anyone saw of him.

It was fighting spirit that someone like Guttorm could never display, even if he died and came back to life.

Guttorm rowed desperately. But since he was not used to physical exertion, he became breathless after only a few strokes and had to stop repeatedly.

He regretted not taking at least a few soldiers aboard. No, why had that knight disembarked again to save soldiers who were practically dead already?

Guttorm resented his last remaining escort. The knight only had to protect him. Would he not have survived then?

Fortunately, or unfortunately, the fire was so large that its glow reached far away. It did not seem likely that he would lose his way and enter the marshes.

Guttorm continued rowing. At times, he became exhausted, threw down the oar with a curse, then forced himself to row again, only to rest once more from fatigue.

Once the area grew quiet, he began worrying about how to report this to his father. He was afraid as well. No, it was not his fault. The Dunbria margrave had set an ambush. He tried to justify himself that way.

Then something suddenly moved beneath the water. He thought it might be a fish, but there was more than one, and they seemed large when he looked closely.

Above all, he became terrified that the things swimming around his boat might be monsters.

Guttorm raised an oar to poke one of the unknown creatures. Then something burst from the water and climbed onto the boat in an instant.

“Eeeeeek!”

Guttorm was so startled that he nearly fell into the water. He barely clung to the railing and flailed his arms without even knowing what had climbed aboard.

Yet a calm voice, entirely unsuited to the situation, spoke.

“Please calm yourself, Young Master.”

Amid his shock and confusion, Guttorm looked at the other person. What had climbed up from beneath the boat was a person. More than one, in fact.

“W-wh-wh-what are you!? A ghost!? A monster!?”

“We are neither ghosts nor monsters.”

Guttorm calmed his racing heart as much as he could and looked again. They really were people. However, their faces were hidden behind masks.

“...W-who are you?”

“We are an organization called the Black Hand. You may think of us as Gringen’s Thieves’ Guild.”

“The Thieves’ Guild? Do you want money?”

“Well, perhaps we may want your life, Young Master.”

“...T-that is going too far for a joke.”

Guttorm forced a laugh and treated it as a joke. But when they merely stared silently at him, his heart sank despite himself.

He rubbed his nipple fiercely, but his unease did not fade.

“R-ransom. Yes, release me first, and I will p-pay, pay you ransom.”

At the end, he proposed a negotiation that made no sense. He would pay ransom if they released him first.

“The reason we have come forward like this is to determine whether it would benefit us more to let you live, Young Master, or simply kill you.”

“What? A mere Thieves’ Guild would threaten me? N-no, that makes no sense. If you are thieves, should you not want money? I do not understand. Release me first. I will absolutely pay the ransom.”

“That won’t do. You’ll simply have to die.”

“H-hey! This makes no sense! This is madness! How dare you! How dare you say you will kill me!? This is impossible!”

In a situation like this, difficult as it was, the right thing would have been to calm down and coldly judge how he could survive.

But in a desperate situation, the only thing Guttorm could cling to was his status, not ability or judgment.

“I naturally respect your status, Young Master. Unfortunately, death is equal to all people. I do not think this is something to complain to us about.”

His manner was polite, and his voice was calm and pleasant to hear, but his words were utterly cold.

Then he swung something through the air. Guttorm felt a sharp pain in the nipple he had been unconsciously touching, and something dropped with a soft thud.

“Argh! What are you doing!?”

“We need proof. We said we would answer with results.”

The Black Hand member said this while picking up Guttorm’s nipple.

Guttorm’s face twisted as if he might cry. His eyes repeatedly moved between what the other person held and his own chest.

“Results... Could it be that my brother is behind this?”

“It is your final moment, so we will tell you. The Salt Prince, Winslow’s illegitimate child.”

At the words illegitimate child, Guttorm’s face twisted grotesquely. A sense of defeat briefly crossed his mind, and anger immediately surged up to bury it. He could not feel the pain in his chest at all.

“What? That bastard? He is doing this to me? An illegitimate child thinks he can have me killed!? I am the legitimate child of a ducal house! Why are you listening to him instead of me!?”

Perhaps they felt there was no further need for conversation. The Black Hand members gave no answer. They threw peat into the boat and set it alight, then slipped back into the water.

Flames fiercely rose across the boat in an instant. Even while his chest hurt, Guttorm hurriedly scooped up water to put out the fire, but it only grew stronger.

“Hey! Where are you going!?”

Absurdly, the people who had set his boat on fire were now the only ones who could save him. So he desperately called after them. But they had already gone too far away to be seen.

“Nobles! I will make you nobles! Come back at once! I will give you land and titles!”

It was all useless. At some point, the boat broke apart with a Crash!, and Guttorm fell into the water.

His body was so enormous that even as he clung to a piece of wreckage, he kept sinking. Until the end, only his mouth rose above the surface as he shouted words that were hard to make out.

Then, at last, silence settled in.

He had many chances. He did not have to involve himself in this from the beginning. He could have remained at the warehouses and strengthened their guard. He could have waited for his last escort to the end. Even at the very last moment, he might have survived if he had only answered properly.

It was neither Valerie nor anyone else who threw away all those chances.

It was Guttorm himself.

Chapter 7: Inferiority Complex. End.

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