WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: Oblivious
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ Prince of Rage ◈
Chapter 54
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The smell was foul, as if someone were selling rotten vegetables.
“Who? The village chief? I don’t know. I really don’t know. If you’re not buying vegetables, go away.”
The vegetable seller spoke with obvious reluctance.
Valerie’s group did not question the seller further. They left the market and went to a cloth shop to ask about the village chief.
The person cutting fabric on a table gave an awkward smile and shook their head.
“I’m just a worker. I don’t know much about how the world works. Hahaha...”
They had no choice but to leave the cloth shop. This was the fifth time.
“This isn’t Gringen.”
Knut spoke.
The people of Gringen acted as though they had blocked both their eyes and ears. No matter what crime occurred, they never said a word. This place felt similar.
Unlike the criminal city of Gringen, however, Benholm maintained some degree of order and public safety.
“Isn’t the word ‘village chief’ strange to begin with? No matter how I look at it, this doesn’t seem like a rural farming village.”
Yorick was right. A village chief was someone one might find in a rural community, not in a city.
But Benholm itself was difficult to classify as either a city or a village. Not many people lived here, yet neither did they raise livestock or farm.
Valerie felt eyes on him from the market. Even from afar, he could tell that people pretending to shop were watching them.
“Did we ask around too openly?”
“They might have felt like we were looking into them.”
“Should we just leave?”
“No. Let’s ask one last place.”
Valerie headed toward the source of the clang, clang, clang sounds. It was a smithy.
There were five or six workers in Benholm’s smithy. At a glance, they were not making weapons or combat equipment. They mainly made pots, farm tools, and such things.
Heat poured from the furnace. Some worked the bellows while others hammered iron into shape.
Rather than immediately asking questions, Valerie simply stood there and watched them work.
Although they noticed Valerie’s group observing them, they focused only on their work. After some time, when they had a little breathing room, the person hammering iron finally put down their hammer and asked,
“Looking for something?”
“Nothing in particular. But I have something to ask. In return, I’ll show you something rare.”
At Valerie’s words, the blacksmith pulled down the cloth wrapped around their head and wiped their face. Then they looked at him as if asking what nonsense he was talking about.
“If you have questions, ask them quickly. As you can see, I’m not idle.”
“Do you know the village chief here? Their name is Oder.”
The blacksmith gave a short laugh and sat down somewhere. They shook their head before answering.
“What do people like you, walking around with swords at your waists, call yourselves? Knights? Mercenaries? Swordsmen? Adventurers? I don’t know the difference between people like you and thugs. The village chief is the same. They say they’re the village chief, so they’re the village chief. That isn’t important. What matters is that when they come here and write something on paper, someone dies the next day or some village is devastated. I don’t care where that stray dog bone came from or what they used to do. They’re not the first of their kind. About a year ago, there was a mayor. Before that, three people ran some kind of committee. Looks like it’s that person’s turn now.”
“...”
From the blacksmith’s words, Benholm seemed to be a place whose body always remained the same while only its head was replaced from time to time.
And whether they were village chiefs or mayors, those in such positions appeared more interested in handling outside affairs by writing up requests than in governing this place.
It was not so much a village or city as a garrison.
More precisely, a command post.
“I heard thugs had occupied a nearby farming village.”
“So?”
“What do you mean, so? Isn’t it a serious matter if thugs occupy a village?”
“Isn’t that the village chief’s job?”
“?”
“Ordering thugs to occupy villages and demand money. Isn’t that what those village chief or mayor types do?”
“...”
“Let’s go to this farming village first.”
Knut spoke, and Valerie nodded.
“So what was this rare sight you promised?”
the blacksmith asked. Valerie lightly nudged Knut.
“What?”
“Show them your dagger. The one called Freedom.”
“Why mine?”
“Yours is small and simple.”
“I haven’t even used it yet.”
With no other choice, Valerie drew the sword at his waist. As it came free with a shing, the blacksmith leaned their head back slightly.
But upon seeing the blade, their eyes widened. Its surface gleamed like a mirror, and its edge was unrealistically clean and perfectly sharp.
Despite the fact that Valerie had cut through weapons, armor, shields, and people alike with it, it did not have a single scratch.
Even someone unfamiliar with weapons would immediately recognize that it was no ordinary item.
“It’s dwarf steel. I thought a blacksmith would want to see it at least once.”
“...What? Dwarf steel?”
Valerie sheathed the sword again with a faint smile.
“Not every swordsman carries the same sort of sword.”
Then he left the smithy with his companions.
They retrieved their horses from the stable and mounted them, then left Benholm and headed west toward the farming village.
They had left in the morning, and it was still before noon. Long stakes stood beside the road, with corpses impaled upon them. There were not merely one or two. Four or five lined the road.
Maggots teemed in the rotting corpses, and flies buzzed around them. Their dreadful stench carried far.
The feeling of passing between them on either side was something no one could understand without experiencing it.
An ordinary person would not even think of passing through. It was truly horrific, naturally inspiring fear.
“Ugh...”
Yorick covered his face with one hand and hunched his shoulders. Perhaps nobles were different, whether by temperament or birth. Valerie and Knut showed no particular change in expression.
“It’s a warning.”
Knut said.
“Yeah.”
After they passed through that stretch of road, they soon saw a farming village beside a river in the distance, along a hilly path.
The village was surrounded by a palisade, but the broad farmland nearby was not properly cultivated or harvested. Some plots had barely been harvested, while others looked trampled or burned.
Observing from afar, they saw that the palisade surrounding the village had collapsed in several places. Broken carts and whatever else was available had been piled there as temporary barricades.
There was no proper gate. Instead, sharp stakes had been woven together to form a barrier. Someone stood atop the watchtower, their head turned in this direction.
In other words, Valerie’s group and the people there had both noticed each other.
Valerie carefully examined the surroundings in case there was an ambush.
It was a wide field, and one might wonder where anyone could hide. But the land rose and fell in subtle waves, creating an illusion that made things invisible until one got close. That made it even more dangerous.
Even so, Valerie urged his horse forward. He judged that the other side could have no more than a few dozen men. A force that small could not deal with two mounted fighters in such an open field.
Valerie approached the farming village until he was nearly within arrow range. Then he shouted toward it.
“Is anyone in charge? I would like to speak!”
A short while later, several people emerged. They did not come all the way out, instead standing behind the barricade and shouting.
“Who are you!?”
“I came to investigate after hearing thugs had occupied this village!”
“What nonsense!”
The people on the other side shouted back indignantly. Valerie approached more slowly and studied them carefully. They were armed, but they did not look like professional mercenaries or swordsmen.
“My companions and I are travelers from Eldeira. We stopped in Benholm to find a wagon, but they said there were none. We were told we could only get one here, but that thugs had occupied the place.”
“Who told you such rubbish?”
“The village chief, Oder.”
“Ha!”
The other side reacted in disbelief. Then one of them glared at Valerie and said,
“Listen carefully, handsome knight. I don’t care what that bastard calls himself, but he’s the one ordering thugs to occupy villages and terrorize people. Not long ago, they were constantly raiding a village beyond those hills. We took in the people who fled and decided to fight. Is that an occupation?”
“...Let’s say you’re right. But how can that person cause all this trouble? What is the Count doing?”
“Tax collection rights. The Count sold the tax collection rights for this area. As long as they pay the Count a set amount, they can handle the rest however they like.”
It was shocking. The Count of Westlanding had sold the tax collection rights for this area.
No, thinking about it, it was not that shocking. Valerie had seen something similar before, when he traveled around Eldeira as the Patrol Commissioner.
Back then, someone who was not up to the task had bought tax collection rights and died miserably. This time seemed different.
“Sounds like they couldn’t do this alone.”
“Some mercenary band or merchant company is backing them. It’s always like that. Oder is only a front for them.”
The real problem was that after the Count sold tax collection rights to someone, the buyer could sell them to someone else. And those who bought them would naturally try to recover their investment.
Simply put, village chief Oder, or the organization he belonged to, had received a subcontract from the Count. Those subcontractors then gave further subcontracts to swordsmen and mercenaries.
Nominally, it was to collect taxes. In reality, it was to extort money by any means necessary.
What made it even worse was that tax collection rights could be seized not through a normal sale, but by killing someone or driving out the existing force.
From the Count’s perspective, it did not matter whether they sold or stole the tax collection rights among themselves, as long as they paid the Count a fixed share of the income.
“Has it always been like this?”
“It was never this severe before. There would be some arguing. Sometimes one side would pretend to lose, sometimes they would make concessions. Things went on that way, but this time they suddenly started killing people. They decided to go all the way. What else could we do? We had to make up our minds too.”
Valerie roughly understood the situation and reached a conclusion.
“Then let us do this. Hire us. The payment will be a wagon. Prepare equipment for setting up a few tents and other tools needed for camping. I would also like to hire some people for odd jobs. In return, we will drive out those occupying the village beyond that hill.”
“...”
The villagers looked suspicious of Valerie’s proposal, but they also seemed tempted. After whispering among themselves, they answered.
“That would be a fair price for hiring capable problem-solvers. If you can drive out those who occupied the village, we would gladly do it. We won’t be able to use a wagon if this keeps up anyway.”
“Good. Then we’ll go take a look.”
Valerie turned his horse around. He and his friends headed for the place indicated by the farming villagers.
“That Oder fellow lied to us.”
Knut said.
Oder had claimed that thugs occupied the village, but they were simply locals. In truth, Oder had hired thugs, and when things did not go well, tried to hire Valerie too. No wonder Oder had smelled like trash.
They had said there was a village beyond the hill, but there was no village immediately beyond it. In truth, the terrain made it difficult to distinguish hills from flat ground.
From the locals’ point of view, any slightly higher ground was probably a hill.
After riding slowly for around thirty minutes, they saw another village in a hilly area. There seemed to be a cattle shed some distance outside the village, so it appeared to be a place where people raised sheep.
A large tree stood beside the road leading to the village. Corpses hung from its branches by their necks. There were six or seven of them, and they too had rotted and stank.
“What a brutal place...”
Yorick said from behind Knut.
In Gringen, people usually disposed bodies in the marshes after killing someone, so they rarely displayed them this openly.
“What now?”
Knut asked. Valerie considered for a moment before replying.
“I have an idea. Let’s say Oder sent us and get inside first. Since we’re on horseback, they won’t suspect us.”
Valerie immediately rode up the hill. Here too, broken carts and driven stakes blocked the entrance.
The person guarding the place was sitting on something like an empty crate rather than a chair, joking with their companions. They did not even stand up when they saw Valerie.
It was obvious at a glance. Unlike the people at the farming village, these were outsiders.
“Who are you?”
“Oder sent me.”
Valerie lied without shame. He hated lies, but if necessary, he could tell them without hesitation. War was deception.
As expected, at the mention of Oder, the person who had been sitting finally stood.
“...Please wait a moment.”
They entered the village and soon returned with someone who appeared to be their captain. The captain carefully examined Valerie, his horse, and his companions.
Valerie looked a little young, but his outstanding appearance, tidy clothing, and excellent horse made him seem unlike an ordinary swordsman.
Perhaps he was the second son of a noble family who had entered the mercenary trade. That was the captain’s guess.
“What is it?”
“How long do you intend to squat here? Are you planning to waste time without even occupying one farming village?”
“Ah, well, we need to meet the quota. Some of the men have already been hurt, so if you could send support...”
“Shut your mouth! Incompetent fool! If you drag this out, it’s obvious you’ll only sit around eating food among yourselves! Then meeting the quota will take even longer! Do you think you’ll be paid more for holding out longer?”
Valerie’s fierce rebuke made the captain flinch and lower their head. They did not even dare meet Valerie’s eyes.
Seeing this, Valerie discreetly gave him a way out.
“How much have you collected so far?”
At Valerie’s question, a thought flashed through the other person’s mind. They thought Valerie was asking for a bribe. At this point, it was better to pay one.
“Please, come inside first. They’re only shepherds, so they hardly have any money. They have to shear and sell wool before they can earn any, you see... Still, I worked hard and found some worthwhile things. The cheese is excellent, at least. Please allow me to serve you some.”
“Hmm. Let’s see it first.”
At Valerie’s favorable response, the captain urged the subordinates on.
“What are you all doing? Hurry up and clear this away! You fools have no sense at all! Do I have to order you around every single time?”
At the order of their leader, whether a boss or captain, the subordinates cleared away the debris blocking the entrance.
At last, Valerie entered. Inside the village was a bleak vision of hell.
Corpses that appeared not to have been killed by blades, but beaten to death, lay scattered carelessly about. The vegetable plots were ruined, and in the cattle shed, women barely covered in rags stood in place of livestock.
Was there any need for a separate hell? Life itself was hell. Those who talked about the end of the world clearly had never truly lived. Was the end not right here?
If strangers came into a peaceful daily life, killed the men, and treated the women like this, that was hell. That was the end of the world. Ragnarok and great floods were all meaningless nonsense.
“Ah, those bitches over there are cheap goods. We’ve kept the truly fine ones elsewhere, so have a look later.”
As the captain spewed disgusting words, Valerie coolly assessed the thugs’ numbers, weapons, and positions.
They were certainly not mere thugs, but they were low-ranking mercenaries. Every profession had its levels.
There were roughly twenty of them. After noting the crossbowmen’s positions, Valerie immediately looked at Knut.
Knut understood his meaning from his eyes alone and nodded. Knut would handle the crossbowmen while Valerie dealt with the rest.
Valerie dismounted first. As he followed the mercenary band’s captain, he saw a child crouched beside a building, holding something.
At first glance, it looked like a large yellow ball.
But it was a human head. Long blond hair covered it, making it look like a ball.
“Whose head is that?”
Valerie stopped briefly and asked. The child holding the head looked up at him. Their blue eyes were dead.
“Mom.”
“What about your father?”
“On the tree.”
“Do you want revenge?”
“...I just don’t want to live.”
“No. I will take your revenge. You live your own life.”
Even if the world had collapsed and life felt like hell, what else could one do but live while one still breathed? Whether one became a devil in this hellish life, or still yearned for heaven.
Valerie followed the leader into a nearby building. The door shut with a thunk.
It did not take long for the door to open again. When it did, something like a ball was flung outside with a whoosh, leaving a trail of blood as it rolled across the ground.
It was the mercenary captain’s head.
Only then did life begin to return to the eyes of the girl who had been dead.
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