WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 3

──────

The Nameless Mercenary (3)

Kyle followed the staff member upstairs and stopped before a door on the second floor. It opened onto a modestly furnished room. A man was inside.

"Ah. You're here."

A faint smell of tobacco hung in the air. Had he just been smoking? The man at the desk rose from his chair and gestured toward the hallway behind Kyle.

"You can go."

"Yes, sir."

The staff member who had escorted him retreated carefully down to the first floor. Listening to the footsteps fade, Kyle fixed his gaze on the man before him, the branch chief of the Traben Mercenary Guild.

"Thanks for making the time."

"......."

"Have a seat, at least. I'd normally offer tea, but..."

"Don't bother."

"Appreciated. This won't take long."

He leaned back against a nearby sofa and gestured toward the seat across from him. Kyle sat.

"You've probably got a rough idea already, but I'm Max, branch chief of Traben."

"Kyle."

Max extended his hand first. Kyle shook it, brief.

"Right, Kyle. About the reason I asked you to come..."

He trailed off the moment their handshake ended. Kyle's brow twitched.

"Is there a problem with the bounty payment?"

"No, nothing like that. The guild runs on trust, plain and simple. Practically state-regulated. We'd sooner go into debt than stiff someone on their pay. Especially someone with your ability."

"Then?"

"I'll get to the point."

Max straightened up.

"Any interest in a new commission? A big one. Kyle, silver-rank mercenary of the Kirian Kingdom. Or rather... the Night Crow."

He said it plainly. Kyle gave no reaction.

The Night Crow of Kirian.

Well-known fighters often earned an alias in place of their real name. Kyle was no exception. The mysterious mercenary who had appeared from nowhere, boasting a hundred-percent commission success rate. A wanderer who left corpses and black crows in his wake wherever he went.

"You know who I am?"

"Of course. Mercenaries put fighting strength above all else, but men like us put information first."

Max grinned. Half right, half wrong. Branch chiefs tended to be skilled administrators, yes, but plenty had come up through the ranks as veterans too.

"It would be stranger not to know you. You're quite famous, Kyle."

"......."

"Even people without much access to intelligence, anyone in this industry, had heard the name Night Crow at least once. Couldn't be any other way. Reaching silver rank in a single year wasn't enough for you, and now you're actively refusing your gold promotion."

An outrageously capable mercenary who had appeared from nowhere. No real name. No known past. That was Kyle's reputation. All anyone knew was that his swordsmanship was exceptional, and that every person who had ever moved against him had ended up a cold corpse.

"So you called me out here separately because you want to give me a commission?"

Kyle kept his voice low. It wasn't as though he needed money right now. If anything, gold was the one thing he had more than enough of. Bringing in the heads of the Dex Mercenary Band had been more of a "might as well get paid while I'm at it" decision. More gold was always better.

"That's right."

"......."

"I'm sure an ordinary commission wouldn't satisfy someone of your caliber. This one's a big job, like I said."

"What kind?"

"Merchant escort."

Simple as that. Merchant escort was one of the most common commissions for a mercenary, right up there with monster subjugation.

"The client is the head of the Narme Trade Company. He's passing through Traben on his trade route and is currently staying at the city mayor's estate. When he leaves tomorrow, he wants capable mercenaries arranged for him."

"If he's already on the road, he'd have hired mercenaries already, wouldn't he?"

Trade routes drew trouble. The larger the operation, the more so.

Merchant groups always hired escorts before setting out. Even large groups had limits to their own forces, making hired protection a necessity. It was a considerable expense, but skimping on it could mean losing everything.

So Kyle couldn't follow the logic. Not before departure, but in the middle of the route. Why hire more now?

"He wants to reinforce his escort as a precaution. You know as well as anyone how unsettled the continent has been lately."

"The pay?"

"Ten gold per person. That's the base rate, with room for more depending on performance. For someone of your ability, it's a prime opportunity. But the most important part, and this is the key detail, is that the one paying the reward is Count Metis himself. The destination is Dornel, where the Metis family estate is located."

Ten gold a head matched the combined bounties on all seven members of the Dex Mercenary Band. On top of that, Count Metis was one of the higher-ranking nobles in the Brendel Kingdom. Dornel was considerably larger than Traben, this free city.

A mid-route hire of a highly capable mercenary. Payment coming not from the merchant group head, but from a count.

"You're hiding something from me."

Kyle's dark eyes settled on Max.

"This is supposed to be a merchant escort, but the reward comes from a count. And for a simple escort, the payout is far too high. Is this actually a trade run?"

"I don't know. I wasn't told that much."

"Then..."

"But the benefits are real, and that's equally true. High risk, high return. The reward being well above a standard escort rate is precisely because of that. So what do you say? Doesn't it appeal to you? Not just any nobody, but Count Metis himself?"

Max said it like he was already sure of the answer. Kyle looked down at the table in silence.

Money didn't hold much appeal anymore.

Three years of activity across the southern continent. Commission after commission without a single failure, building a reputation and a fortune few could match.

The spatial-magic-sealed pouch at his hip held more gold than most people could imagine. Magic tools were the exception, though. Artifacts and relics from dungeons and ruins, even more so. Some things couldn't be bought at any price.

"Goes without saying, but if the trade run succeeds, you'll be compensated more than generously. The merchant group head said it himself, so you can trust that. And if you distinguish yourself, money's the least of what you might walk away with. Count Metis has a reputation for generosity."

And Kyle needed artifacts. Badly.

"Word is the Night Crow will take any commission as long as the pay is right... Was I wrong about that?"

Max glanced over as he raised his head. Kyle was already rising from his seat.

"When do we depart?"

"Tomorrow morning. Head to the east gate."

"Anything I should watch out for?"

"Watch yourself. I'd say that, but for the Night Crow of Kirian, it probably doesn't apply. It's been an honor meeting you. Don't forget to mention I sent you when you meet the Narme merchant group head. There'll be other hired mercenaries at the meeting point besides you."

***

Out of the branch chief's room, Kyle went straight to collect his bounty and slipped out of the building. The sun had nearly set.

The streets were far quieter than before. He moved at a brisk pace, looking for somewhere to spend the night. The city center, unlike the outskirts, had rows of large, clean inns lining the roads.

He walked into the biggest and best-looking one.

"Welcome. Will you be staying the night? Or just dining?"

"Both. Skip dinner, but I'd like breakfast arranged for tomorrow morning. Just the one night. How much?"

"Ten silver. One large silver coin will do."

"Is there a bathroom in the room?"

"Of course. Best inn in Traben. Hot water's free."

The waitress said it with pride. And the room rate was steep, as she implied. Finest inn in a city of this size. The usual clientele were wealthy merchants or capable mercenaries, and the prices reflected it.

Kyle handed over a large silver coin and added a silver tip before taking the key and heading upstairs. The version of himself who had first arrived in this world would have scolded him for spending a large silver on a single night. Not anymore. He had more money than he could use, and ruining his condition at some run-down inn to save a few coins was foolish.

The room lived up to its price. A large window facing the street, a private bathroom that was practically a luxury in a fantasy world. Kyle confirmed both and lit the lamp on the bedside table.

Soft light spread through the dark room. He sat on the edge of the bed and slowly unpacked, which amounted to stripping off his cloak and clothes and laying out the sword and spare daggers from his belt. Still, it felt considerably better.

Once that was done, Kyle shuffled into the bathroom. Small as it was, it held a fairly large wooden tub, and the water inside had already been warmed.

The moment he sank in, the fatigue dissolved. Under the dim lamplight he rubbed at the corners of his eyes. He had thought he had grown used to life in this wretched world by now, but every so often it still caught him off guard.

Nearly a week of sleeping rough outdoors.

Seven killings he had long since grown numb to.

There had been a time when every morning he wished it was all a dream. That he could escape this hellish reality, close his eyes for one night, and wake up back in his own home as if none of it had ever happened.

He had no other choice, back then. When Kyle had first been thrown into this wretched world, he had been a college freshman with almost no real-world experience. Never served in the military. Calling him an adult would have been generous. His high school graduation was only a few months behind him.

And then a second life. In a world where he knew no one. No connections, no money, no experience. Nothing.

No one could imagine how desperately he had fought to survive each day. It was worse because back in Korea he had never wanted for much, not wealthy, but comfortable. The warm food he remembered had become cold, stale scraps well past their expiry. The soft bed had become a flea-ridden stretch of hard floor that smelled like rot.

When will I get to go home.

That thought, every single moment. That was how close to the edge Kyle had been back then.

Maybe dying would be easier.

The wish never came true. Because that was when he finally understood.

Going home was a dream. A fantasy that could never be realized. And the dead never came back.

My life is probably the same.

"The Night Crow...?"

The memory surfaced without warning. Kyle let out a hollow laugh.

The Night Crow of Kirian. A rising mercenary who had appeared from nowhere. A strangely capable, unknown wanderer who always traveled with corpses and black crows in tow.

"What absolute nonsense."

Kyle raised his right arm. Slowly, he drew the mana in his right hand upward, and with a sharp, searing pain, purple thorns erupted from his forearm.

The mana vanished as if it had never been there. He couldn't use magic. Before it could flow outward, it took this shape, sharp and thorned. A curse. Three years it had been gnawing at his body, a mark of past transgressions he could not undo.

"Ha..."

A dry laugh, unwanted.

He couldn't draw out even a thread of mana. Even leaning on artifacts and relics, he could barely reach half his peak strength.

And people were calling him talented? Famous? Said it was an honor to meet him?

The laughter curdled. With an expression caught somewhere between laughing and crying, Kyle pulled the thorns from his forearm one by one.

Bright red blood spread through the warm water.

It hurt. It stung. Getting used to something didn't mean you stopped feeling it. It only meant you learned to endure.

"Coward. Traitor. A runaway who couldn't protect even one person he cared about..."

He murmured it to himself, then sank deeper into the tub. The warm water rose to just below his eyes. The faint lamplight blurred the world above into something soft and distant.

Tired. He wanted to close his eyes and drift. That would make for a good sleep. A long, long sleep from which he might never wake.

Kyle closed his eyes slowly and let himself sink beneath the surface. He had fallen into this world at twenty. Somewhere along the way he had turned thirty. Tonight, more than most nights, the faces from his memories felt unbearably far away.

All the people he had once loved.

His parents, whom he would never see again.

Join our discord at https://dsc.gg/wetried