WeTried Translations

Translator/Editor: Chen

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◈ The Genius Knight of a Fallen Race ◈

Chapter 51: The Calm Before the Storm

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After the battle, the subjugation force dealt with the casualties and sorted the spoils before immediately returning to Sedil City.

The army, covered in wounds and blood, looked every bit like a defeated force.

Yet the pride on the subjugation force members’ faces, along with the enormous head resting on a cart in the middle of their formation, showed that they were victors, not losers.

On the way back, Shan wiped the blood from his face with a damp cloth when Roden reported that two of the thirty Alto mercenaries recruited for the campaign had died.

“They were unlucky. One had their throat cleanly cut by a harpy’s claws, and the other was struck in the head by a rock thrown by a troll.”

With ordinary injuries, they could have retreated into the defensive formation and received treatment from a priest. But humans attacked by monsters were likely to die instantly unless they wore exceptionally good equipment.

Shan committed the names of the two Alto mercenaries buried in the valley where the battle had taken place to memory.

They were the first people to die fighting under his command.

“Roden.”

“Yes?”

“If they have families, I want you to look after them to some extent. At least make sure they don’t go hungry right away.”

Roden did not tell Shan that no knight took responsibility for a mercenary’s family.

Instead, he simply smiled warmly and nodded.

“They’ll be glad too.”

“I just hope they’ll be a little less sad.”

Naturally, the Alto mercenaries following behind them heard every word.

Feeling the weight of their stares on the back of his head, Shan quietly slipped away and headed toward one of the makeshift carts made from nearby trees.

On one of them lay a tall knight over two meters in height, resting on a cart half again as large as the others.

“How is he?”

“They say he’s improved greatly. He still hasn’t regained consciousness, but if he continues resting, he should recover soon...”

The squire tending to Lugh answered Shan’s question with tears in their eyes.

“Thank you so much, Sir Shan! I’ll make sure Sir Lugh hears about this when he wakes up! I don’t know how we could ever repay you.”

The story that Shan had used a special elixir to save Lugh had already spread throughout the subjugation force.

Someone who could have died at any moment had suddenly survived, so it was bound to become a topic of conversation.

A few people sneered that Shan had done something foolish, but most respected his willingness to use his own treasure to save a fellow knight.

Knights could not help being moved by words like trust, loyalty, and friendship.

Still, with so many wounded already, it was exhausting to explain to everyone begging him to sell them medicine that he had none left.

After marching southwest for several hours, they finally saw the walls of Sedil City after night had fallen.

Several people at the front raised their voices toward those gathered atop the walls.

“We killed the ogre!”

“The hunt was a success!”

Once the news spread, cheers soon rose from within the city as well.

The subjugation force entered through the open gates and received praise from all sides as victorious heroes.

“Haha, I knew it. I knew it! You actually did it!”

Count Sedil, who had come to welcome them in person, laughed heartily as he patted Shan, the other knights, and several surviving nobles on the shoulders.

The burden weighing on his shoulders had been lifted, making him look ten years younger in an instant.

Later, the lords and knights of the subjugation force washed themselves clean and gathered in the meeting room of the count’s castle.

Everyone looked tired enough to collapse on the spot, but there was still work to do.

They had to assess each person’s contribution and decide the rewards.

In truth, that was the greatest difficulty of hunting monsters.

No one could put an exact measure on how much each person had contributed in battle.

At least there was an old system of rules that assigned points based on the number and strength of monsters hunted, and, in the case of large monsters, the severity of injuries suffered.

After lengthy discussion, they reached a rough conclusion. Then a surviving baron from the vanguard force shouted indignantly.

“This is unacceptable! My house fought at the front and lost more than half its army! We must at least receive blood money!”

A viscount who had fought hard on the right wing answered with an indifferent expression.

“The vanguard did nothing but charge into a trap and become ogre food. If Sir Shan and the left wing hadn’t come to support you, you would have been wiped out. Your lives were saved, yet you still have no shame.”

“Y-You dare...!”

The baron fumed in outrage, but unfortunately for him, few people supported his complaint.

Most western Old Faith lords and knights like him had been flattened beneath the ogre’s fists.

They had claimed the vanguard position through their superior numbers, so once their numbers dwindled, their influence naturally weakened as well.

After crushing the remnants of the vanguard force, they moved on to deciding how to distribute the ogre’s head and other spoils, the greatest rewards from the battle.

“Looking at it now, an ogre really doesn’t have a single part that goes to waste.”

“True...”

The lords and knights chatted as they looked over the list of materials harvested from the monster.

From its head to its brain, fangs, bones, and organs, many parts of an ogre could be used as powerful magical materials.

It was also a rare specimen that appeared only once every few decades, so supply fell far short of demand. Its price was enormous even compared to its actual usefulness.

The head and Magic stone, naturally the most valuable items, went to Shan, who had fought the ogre most fiercely and dealt the final blow.

Many people wanted the head because it was proof of the honor of the hunt, but the difference in their achievements was too clear for anyone to object.

“Hmm...”

“Well, that makes sense.”

The lords and knights nodded despite their disappointment.

They knew that trying to argue for their own contributions here would only make them look ugly.

The problem came with the very next spoils.

Everyone stared eagerly at the two large, round objects while cautiously watching one another.

“Hmm, next are the ogre’s... testicles...”

Ogre testicles were famous as an extremely potent virility tonic.

People openly said that even a seventy-year-old man could father three children.

Some of them were more interested in these than the head or the Magic stone.

Roden leaned toward Shan, who stood silently beside him.

“What should we do?”

“Hm? Those? I’m good.”

Since Shan did not even understand why someone would need such vigor, Roden confidently declared,

“I see. House Barendil will not bid on the testicles!”

There was no need to crudely state that they would claim an advantage in bidding on other items.

Everyone understood such things without saying them aloud.

“Oh!”

With a threatening rival gone, the older men eagerly competed to claim the items.

After much arguing, an elderly lord with a faded white beard and a middle-aged knight each obtained one testicle.

Around then, Shan began to feel his eyes closing.

He had repeatedly squeezed every last bit of Spirit from himself, and his battered body demanded sleep to recover.

Watching him nod off, Roden whispered.

“Should I handle the rest?”

“Is that okay?”

“As Sir Shan’s squire, I should handle things like this myself.”

“Then I’m going to rest...”

Shan rose, yawned, greeted several nearby knights, and left.

Fortunately, the count had offered him a room in the castle, so he did not have to go down to an inn beneath it.

* * *

Without even changing clothes, Shan lay down on the bed and fell into a deep, dreamless sleep.

It was a heavy sleep, as though his entire body had sunk into mud.

After sleeping for a time that felt both as brief as an instant and as long as eternity, Shan awoke refreshed and stretched.

Morning sunlight shone through the window.

“Mm...”

Shan had not been in good condition before falling asleep.

His side, where he had been struck by a troll’s rock, was badly bruised. He had sprained his ankle and scraped his knee when he fell, while the ribs squeezed by the ogre’s grip had cracked.

Yet for some reason, he felt no lingering effects from any of those injuries now.

Even if he had received a priest’s healing miracle while asleep, it was an unusually fast recovery.

“Oh, you’re awake?”

Roden, who had been writing something at a desk across from him, looked delighted to see Shan rise.

“You’re finally awake. If you hadn’t woken up today, I was going to grab the priests by the collar and tell them to wake you.”

“Why?”

“You slept for nearly four days. Aren’t you thirsty?”

“That long?”

Startled by the unexpected news, Shan realized that his throat was painfully dry.

He really had slept for a long time. Hunger and thirst came crashing over him with frightening force.

“How do you feel?”

“Hungry and thirsty.”

“I’ll have them bring food and water. Other than that, how are your injuries?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good in my life.”

“That’s a relief. I was worried something might be wrong. Of course, the priests said you were fine, but...”

When Roden called outside, simple food such as porridge, cheese, and water arrived shortly afterward.

For some reason, though, the maid who brought it kept peeking at Shan with wide eyes.

When their eyes met, she jolted and cried out.

“E-Excuse me!”

There was a great difference in status between a knight and a servant, but even a count’s servant normally would not act that subservient.

Shan was puzzled for only a moment before stuffing himself with the food in front of him to soothe his hunger and thirst.

While eating, he unexpectedly realized that the porridge and cheese tasted quite good.

The food he had eaten before the subjugation and even on the morning it began had all been awful from sitting around too long. This seemed to have been made with fresh ingredients.

“This is good.”

“Count Paless’s food wagons arrived just yesterday. Thanks to that, we don’t have to worry about starving to death after going through the trouble of hunting an ogre.”

Roden grumbled that it was fortunate they had at least killed the ogre. With food so scarce, the mood had been truly grim.

“Count Paless... the princess’s maternal uncle?”

“Yeah. Though he didn’t bring them himself.”

Come to think of it, the princess had never mentioned her maternal uncle either.

Shan wondered what sort of person he was as he shoved the rest of the food into his mouth.

After letting out a small burp, he brought up something else he had been wondering about.

“How is Sir Lugh?”

“He woke up. They say he’ll still need to rest for a few weeks. Well, he would’ve died without the princess’s elixir, so he can put up with that much.”

“I see...”

“Aren’t you going to ask how the rewards were divided?”

“I figured you’d handle it well, Roden.”

Roden looked dumbfounded at the shamelessly irresponsible answer, then snorted with laughter.

“I want to tell you that’s not true, but yeah. Things turned out pretty well.”

“I trusted you.”

“You really know how to talk. Here, take a look.”

Roden handed Shan the paper he had been holding.

As Shan read it, he let out an amazed gasp.

Starting with the ogre’s head and Magic stone, the list of rewards went on and on, including tendons, parts of its bones, troll bones, and banshee essence. There was so much that it was difficult to read through it all.

“This much?”

“You practically led the battle on the left wing, and you were the biggest contributor in the ogre hunt. We had to yield a few things since we weren’t the only ones fighting, though.”

Roden went on to explain that they had accepted fewer of the relatively cheap materials because an oversupply would lower their prices.

“Oh, and it isn’t written there, but the ogre heart belongs to us too. Sir Lugh received it as the second-ranked contributor, but he decided to give it to us. It has a big hole in it, but they say it’s still usable.”

“Huh? Why?”

“Obviously, it’s the price of his life. He survived because of the medicine you gave him.”

“I only gave it to him because he was a comrade who fought with us.”

Shan smiled awkwardly, but Roden shook his head.

“Well, we can take our time deciding whether to make medicine from the ogre’s heart or do something else with it... Shall we visit him? He’s in the building next door.”

Following Roden’s suggestion, Shan got up, changed clothes, and left the room.

Not long afterward, he realized that everyone in Count Sedil’s castle looked at him with admiration.

“Oh, is that him?”

“The cockatrice slayer and now the ogre slayer... They say he isn’t even fifteen yet?”

“It feels like seeing someone from a legend or myth with my own eyes.”

“They say he ripped out the ogre’s heart with his bare hands.”

Four days after the ogre subjugation, tales of Shan’s transcendent martial prowess had spread through Sedil City, growing several times larger along the way.

They said he had flown through the sky on horseback and pierced dozens of monsters at once with his spear. They said he had swung his sword once and cut off the ogre’s head in a single blow.

There was a reason the maid had overreacted earlier.

Feeling himself swell with pride at the attention, Shan smiled proudly, knocked on the door, and entered the room where Lugh was resting.

“Oh, Sir Shan! You’ve come!”

Lugh’s naturally guileless horse-like face, along with the rest of his body, was wrapped in bandages.

He had been recovering through regular healing miracles, but apparently too many of his bones had broken for him to recover quickly.

“I heard what happened. They said you used a precious elixir to save me.”

“We’re comrades. And you risked your life to save me too, Sir Lugh.”

Shan still remembered Lugh limping over on his broken leg and cutting off the ogre’s finger.

Without that, Shan would have suffocated to death during the monster’s final struggle.

Tears welled in Lugh’s honest eyes at Shan’s words.

He wiped his eyes with one of his long, bandaged arms and spoke solemnly.

“I will never forget this kindness. I swear to the goddess, if I ever raise my spear or sword against Sir Shan, then I am not a man, but the son of a beast.”

“You don’t have to say that much. Giving us the ogre’s heart is a bit much too...”

Shan felt burdened by those words since he knew that Serin, with whom he had a friendly relationship, was not on good terms with Prince Elvin, Lugh’s lord.

But Lugh shook his head fiercely.

In the process, he aggravated his injuries and let out a pained groan.

“It isn’t too much at all!”

“Please calm down.”

Lugh was getting worked up and moving too much despite being injured, so Shan and Roden decided it would be harmful to stay any longer.

They told Lugh to get more rest before leaving the room.

Looking back at the door, Shan let out a soft groan.

“Mm.”

“What is it?”

“Nothing. It’s just somehow tiring.”

Lugh was not a bad person, Shan admitted, but it was uncomfortable having someone constantly look at him with boundless admiration or praise him excessively.

Roden chuckled and patted Shan on the shoulder.

“Then become someone who deserves that treatment. No, honestly, you already are. You’re Sir Shan, who killed an ogre by ripping out its heart with his bare hands.”

“I didn’t rip it out with my bare hands.”

“The rumor is already everywhere, so you might as well give up trying to explain.”

It seemed that, from a distance, pulling out the sword he had stabbed into the heart had looked like that.

Besides, did the exact method of killing it really matter?

After inspecting the important monster materials stored in the vault, including the ogre’s head, Magic stone, and heart, Shan visited the stable where Awin was staying.

Then he received an invitation from Count Sedil.

It seemed that the count had heard Shan was awake.

When Shan entered the study under a servant’s guidance, he unfastened the sword at his waist, Guardian of the East, intending to hand it to the nearby servant.

The count waved a hand.

“No need. I gave it to you, so keep it with you. It’s not as though you’re suddenly going to swing it and cut me down, are you?”

Allowing someone to carry a weapon before a noble was a symbol of limitless trust.

Slightly surprised by the unexpected attitude, Shan sat across from him. Count Sedil smiled warmly and asked,

“I heard you slept very deeply. Are you feeling all right?”

“Thanks to your consideration, I’m completely recovered.”

Shan had heard that the count had assigned priests to continuously use healing miracles on him for four days, so he dipped his head slightly in thanks.

In truth, his body was more than simply recovered.

He was so full of energy that he wanted to run around and let it out at once.

Come to think of it, though he had not intended it, he had been drenched in the ogre’s blood while hunting it. It might have something to do with the phenomenon Serin had mentioned before.

Once he returned to the capital, he felt that he should find an opportunity to be examined again.

As Shan considered that, Count Sedil took a sip of tea and began talking.

The things he brought up were all trivial matters.

He asked whether Shan had any intention of selling the ogre’s Magic stone, apparently deeply impressed by how Shan had endured with the cockatrice’s Magic stone. He also asked whether there were any wandering knights of decent skill in the subjugation force.

Of course, Shan had no intention of selling the Magic stone to the count.

Since he had acquired such a top-tier Magic stone, he wanted to ask Serin to make him an incredible magic device.

He already had a sword and spear, so perhaps armor or a shield would be better.

As the count made small talk to lighten the mood, his expression suddenly turned serious.

“Have you heard that everyone who came with the subjugation force has returned home?”

“Yes. I heard everyone except those too badly injured to move has been dismissed.”

Unless they were hired long-term, every extra day of keeping mercenaries cost money. The lords and knights whose business was finished needed to return and end their contracts as soon as possible.

As a result, Shan’s group and a very small number of others were the only subjugation force members still staying in Sedil City.

“You’ll return to the capital as well.”

“I’ll probably leave within a day or two.”

Shan was also paying the mercenaries’ wages, so it would be costly to remain here for the weeks Lugh needed to recover.

He wanted to make something useful from the ogre materials as soon as possible. More than anything, he could not stop thinking about Serin’s warning that the situation in the capital was grim.

At Shan’s answer, the count hesitated for a moment. Then he let out a low hum and spoke.

“I’ve considered how to phrase this indirectly, but no good way comes to mind. I’ll say it plainly. Why not stay here in Sedil for the time being, as though you’re recuperating?”

“Pardon?”

“Just in case you’re wondering, I’m not talking about something silly like entering a vassal contract with me. You have become far too great a person for me to take you in now.”

The count waved a hand as though telling Shan not to misunderstand, then revealed something surprising.

“This news arrived only yesterday, but it seems something serious is happening in Hasra. I don’t know the exact circumstances, but I heard that traffic through the city gates has been restricted for days.”

“It might be best to stay away until we know what is happening,” the count added quietly.

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