WeTried Translations

Translator: Coughing Baby

Editor: Coughing Baby

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◈ Reformation of the Deadbeat Noble

Chapter 85

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Alhad Den (3)

"Hm?"

"Demonic aura, did you say?"

Lulu and Kubharu asked at the same time.

Airen Farreira nodded and looked down at his necklace.

It was an artifact gifted to him by his brother and his brother's Master, and it showed exceptional performance detecting demonic aura, mana, and poison.

The necklace's current color was red.

Very faint, but the shift in color was unmistakable.

Actually, he hadn't even needed the necklace's help.

The moment he'd laid eyes on the bandits, the feeling had already come to him.

That none of them were in their right mind.

'They don't seem to have turned into demonoids, but...'

Airen studied the bandits carefully, including their chief, Kazar.

It was nothing like the demonoids he'd seen during the subjugation campaign. Most of them were indistinguishable from ordinary humans, and only Kazar carried the faintest trace of demonic aura.

Had he had contact with a demonoid recently?

Or if not that...

He was still turning the thought over when Lulu floated up in front of his face, her eyes worried.

"Airen, are you okay?"

"Huh?"

"Your state of mind, I mean. You're not feeling that sudden shift like during the subjugation campaign, are you?"

"What do you mean by that, Lulu?"

Kubharu asked the same question.

He'd caught something off about the shape of her worry, something that didn't quite match up with sensing demonic aura, and realized there was more going on that he didn't know about.

Airen spoke.

"It's related to the iron stake. When I come into contact with demonic aura, the symptoms get worse. I get colder, less able to think about anything but what's in front of me..."

"Ah..."

"But I'm fine. Maybe because the demonic aura here is weak. It's manageable."

Airen tried to reassure the group.

But his face was set so hard that the words didn't land the way he wanted.

Both Kubharu and Lulu studied his expression with heavy looks on their faces.

Of course, they weren't the only ones taking this seriously.

The merchants, laborers, caravan guards, and mercenaries who'd heard Kazar's demand all struggled to hide their tension.

The mood coming off the bandits' faces and postures said everything. That what Kazar had said wasn't a joke. He meant it.

"I can't make sense of this."

In place of the merchant, who'd gone slack jawed at Kazar's words, an elderly man stepped forward.

He was the most experienced member of the merchant coalition, someone who'd crossed Alhad Den more than twenty times over the years.

He spoke in a calm voice.

"This doesn't seem like the mood for small talk, so I'll get straight to the point. Half our goods. That's outrageous."

"Why? Is there some rule that says how much a bandit's allowed to take from a merchant?"

"There is. If it were some nameless rabble from a backwater mountain gorge, maybe not, but you're practically an agent of the three neighboring territories. A man of sense, courage, and wisdom in equal measure."

"That's true enough. Boys, you hear that? That's me! Ha ha ha!"

"Wahahahahaha!"

Kazar laughed loudly, looking pleased with himself, and his men followed, roaring along with him.

The seasoned merchant faltered at the sight.

The people of Alhad Den had always carried themselves more like soldiers than bandits. Seeing them like this was jarring.

A distinct sense of wrongness and foreboding crept over him.

Still, some things had to be said no matter how uneasy the room felt.

He opened his mouth again to bring up the customary toll, the sensible figure everyone had agreed on for years.

Thwack

"Boring talk."

"Guh!"

Crash!

"That's enough out of you."

"Guh, ugh..."

"Old tolls, blah blah blah, forget all that. Starting today, the toll is half your goods. No exceptions."

"..."

"Ah, of course, if you don't want to pay the toll, you don't have to. But then we'll have wasted our time coming out here, so as a little something for our trouble, we'll just take everything instead."

The instant he finished, Kazar's men burst into laughter again.

It was exactly the kind of scene straight out of a bandit story, and the merchants could only stare in shock.

This wasn't what Alhad Den was supposed to be.

Chief Kazar, despite his rough looks, had always dealt with merchants in a clean, courteous way.

He'd shared meals with the ones he'd gotten to know, and some of the more senior porters had even struck up real friendships with his men.

Seeing that same group turn around and act like total strangers was almost too much to take in.

But giving in just because the other side came in strong wasn't an option either.

The senior merchant, supported by a guard as he stepped back, looked over at the caravan's chief guard.

That man gave a nod and passed the look along to someone else, and a sharp eyed man soon emerged from among the mercenaries.

"Oh? What's this? Looking to throw down?"

"You misunderstand. We still hope this can be resolved peacefully."

"Funny way of hoping for peace, with those wide open eyes of his. What's going on here?"

"For peace, we thought it best to let you know we still have the strength to resist."

Shing!

The moment the senior merchant finished speaking, the sharp eyed man drew his blade.

A heavy sword, edge ground razor sharp.

The entire blade glowed blue, and one of the mercenaries in the group cried out in surprise at the sight.

"Glacial Blade! That's him, that's Wolfgang!"

"Wolfgang was with the caravan the whole time!"

Wolfgang the Magic Swordsman.

A veteran mercenary who wielded a magic sword so cold that just standing near it, as everyone could see, was enough to send a chill through you.

He'd earned his Silver Plate in the capital of the Western Five Kingdoms, a region with standards every bit as strict as Alkantrea's, and word had it he might make Gold Plate within a few years. A veteran among veterans.

His appearance lifted the caravan's gloomy mood a little.

The merchant, his face still twisted from the shock of the demand, forced a smile and kept talking.

"Wolfgang isn't the only one. Our merchant coalition has four more Silver Plate mercenaries besides him, and plenty of Bronze Plates backing them up."

"That so? Funny how much you cared about guards when all you ever did before was pay your toll and move along."

"Because there's never a guarantee something like this won't happen. And as it turns out, that caution's paying off. Now then. What's your decision? Still no change of heart?"

The senior merchant spoke with a confident look on his face.

Of course, their forces didn't outmatch the den's.

Chief Kazar alone was said to be nearly at Expert level. That put him above Wolfgang.

Beyond that, the den had a small army of skilled hands, too many to count on both sides. Objectively speaking, the merchant coalition was still at a disadvantage.

'But Kazar has to know it too. With this much firepower against him, fighting would cost him far more than it's worth.'

Bandits drew their swords to squeeze out wealth and live well, not to risk their lives against a strong enemy in a knock down fight.

Kazar was sharp. He'd know that much.

If the den fought a force like this, it would come out of it gutted, maybe cut in half. And if luck ran bad, Kazar himself could take serious injury.

So the merchant was certain.

Whatever had happened to send Kazar's eyes rolling back like this, even he would have no choice but to come around to a compromise in a situation like...

BOOM!

Crack, crack, crack!

"Gah!"

"Aaah!"

"Uh, uh, uhh..."

"...Hic."

A hiccup slipped out of the mouth of the merchant who'd been so calmly reading the situation a moment ago.

The other merchants and mercenaries were no different.

Eyes wide with shock, mouths hanging open, faces frozen blank.

It was Chief Kazar.

He'd swung his war hammer down with full force, and it had torn a massive crack straight through the ground.

"Looks like you took me for some kind of joke..."

Crack, crack.

Kazar lifted the war hammer out of the ground where it had buried itself.

A weight an ordinary man could barely lift, and he handled it one handed like it was nothing.

Wolfgang, who'd stepped forward so boldly a moment ago, felt his hand tremble.

Cold sweat kept running down his back.

"You want to throw down that bad, fine by me. Wolfgang, was it? Let's have a go. But once this bastard's dead, you're all next."

"...We'll give you half."

"No! What are you saying! Absolutely not!"

"But we can't let everyone here lose their lives like this..."

"If I lose half my goods, I'm a dead man anyway!"

The moment Kazar's threat landed, the merchant coalition dissolved into pure chaos.

One side arguing that life mattered most and they had to give in even to an unreasonable demand, the other side shouting that losing half their goods meant death either way, so what difference did it make.

The merchants split into two camps, eyes bloodshot, shouting each other down.

The mercenaries were no less rattled than the merchants.

Most of them had taken this job thinking it was easy work for modest pay.

None of them had actually expected to end up putting their lives on the line.

And the enemy they were supposed to face, Kazar, looked far stronger than the rumors had suggested.

At that level, he had to be Expert rank.

Strong enough that he could have earned a title even in the Western Five Kingdoms, a region famous for its swordsmen.

'Please, let this end without a fight...'

'Just hand over the goods! There's no way we win this!'

Most of the mercenaries, even the Silver rank ones among them, were thinking the same thing.

Not one of them found the courage to step up.

A few merchants and laborers, sensing the mood, shot them looks full of disappointment.

Trant had no answer to give those disappointed stares.

"..."

He'd never told anyone, too embarrassed to admit it, but the truth was he'd wanted to be a hero.

That was why he'd become a swordsman in the first place.

Listening to the heroic tales of Ian, the swordsmen of Krono, and countless others, swinging his own sword while picturing them, he could almost feel like he'd become a hero himself.

He'd believed in himself, too.

Talent far beyond ordinary swordsmen.

A far nobler heart than mercenaries who only cared about money.

A far steadier resolve than the pampered sons of great houses who'd grown up without hardship.

All he needed, he'd thought, was time.

Pile up experience, let the years pass, and he'd become a fine swordsman too, someone on par with the people of Krono. That was what he'd believed.

He'd been wrong.

'I can't... do anything.'

The moment he saw Kazar's strike land, he understood.

He was lacking.

He had no courage to step forward bravely into the crisis bearing down on them, no skill to cross blades with that hammer and look good doing it.

He'd never truly tried hard at anything.

He'd only drifted through his days, drunk on glorious tales, telling himself over and over that he was different from everyone else.

This was the result.

Standing there, mouth bone dry, cold sweat running down his skin, doing nothing.

Trant closed his eyes against the wave of self loathing washing over him.

Maybe that was why.

Why he could hear the voices behind him more clearly than anyone else could.

"Airen, are you going to step up?"

"I should. I've more or less decided what to do. It's probably not the right answer either, but..."

"Are you okay with the demonic aura? You're not, are you, right now..."

Lulu trailed off.

But the meaning came through anyway.

She was asking if he was under the influence of the man in the dream.

It made sense she'd think that. The whole way here, Airen had wrestled with the resolve to cut down another person and the question of right and wrong at the den.

And he still hadn't reached a clear answer.

For him to step forward now without a shred of hesitation raised the worry that the man in the dream's influence was surfacing again.

"I'm fine."

Airen smiled at Lulu.

His face was still set hard, some trace of the demonic aura's influence lingering.

But his eyes, at least, looked like his usual self, and Lulu let out a sigh of relief when she noticed it.

"Do great out there."

"Good luck. I'm curious what choice you'll make... but I trust you'll handle it well."

"Yes. I'll do my best."

That was the end of the exchange.

The blond young man walked forward, step by step.

Despite his mild looks, the confidence in his eyes drew every eye in the clearing.

Kazar was no exception.

Pushing past even Wolfgang, who still stood in an awkward spot, Airen closed the distance until he stood right in front of Kazar. The bandit chief looked him over.

"What's this, you?"

"Airen Farreira, official trainee of Krono Fencing Hall's 27th cohort."

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