WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried
◈ The Wandering Knight and the Moving Castle ◈
Chapter 16: Bonyard City (3)
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The subject of their conversation, Eugene, stood before a shop with his heart pounding. Its sign read, “Undine Tavern.”
Gulp.
Having spent so long drinking nothing but swamp-water-like beverages in that backwater village, he craved proper beer.
“In Bonyard City, they cool beer barrels in the cold water flowing through the canals. It tastes incredible too. You must try it when you arrive. I recommend the Undine Tavern.”
It was the tavern Beard had recommended before they parted ways.
“Undine? Why is it called that?”
“Because it’s by the canal, that place has the coldest beer.”
“Ah! Good information. Thanks.”
He opened the door with eager anticipation, revealing a spacious hall.
Unlike Kingdom's End, which seemed to hold nothing but the weariness of a hard day, this place overflowed with conversation and laughter.
Merchants on one side seriously discussed their wares, while mercenaries on the other cursed their former employers. An adventurer stared intently at a map that looked little better than a scribble, deep in thought.
Drrring.
The sound of a hooded female bard tuning the strings of her lyre added to the atmosphere.
‘Is this what adventure is like?’
As Eugene admired the place and ordered, two tankards of clear, frothy beer arrived.
“Wondering why the foam here is white? That’s how beer is supposed to be. What we’ve been drinking was the strange stuff.”
“...!”
Surprise and anticipation made Homi’s tail, resting on her lap, flop like a mullet.
“Cheers!”
Thunk.
The knight and Squire clinked their wooden tankards, then drank together.
“!!!”
Eugene blinked.
It was bitter yet rich, the foam was soft, and it was cold! This was the first proper beer he had tasted since coming here.
“This is nice. It tastes much better than I thought...”
Gulp, gulp, gulp, gulp!
Beside him, Homi’s eyes widened as she gripped her tankard with both hands and drank.
As she tilted her head back, the toes in her sandals curled tightly, and her long tail went stiff and straight.
“Pahh!”
After drinking about a third in one go, she let out a satisfied cheer.
“It’s good that even if you can’t speak, you can still express your amazement the same way.”
Unlike Eugene, who had memories of better drinks, this was the first time Homi had ever tasted real beer.
Homi smiled happily. The beer was delicious, but she was even happier to be adventuring with her lord and experiencing all kinds of new things.
Unfortunately, the pleasant mood did not last long.
“Hey, miss!”
A booming male voice came from behind them.
Two men in chainmail with swords at their waists stopped before the bard, who had been handling her lyre.
“Play us a song.”
One of them flicked his thumb, dropping two copper coins onto the table.
“Thank you, sir.”
The bard swept her hand across the table, and the coins vanished without a trace.
“What would you like me to sing?”
“Why don’t you guess? What do you think we’d want from you?”
Long fangs protruded from between the smiling man’s lips. His ears were shaped like a human’s, so he was likely a Dhampir.
When he pulled aside his cloak, a family crest appeared. At the top was a rose dripping blood from its petals, while beneath it, a thorn-covered stem wrapped around a naked man as though squeezing him.
“You’re knights of House Piranian. Understood.”
The bard recognized the house from its crest alone. Due to her profession, she needed to know noble crests as well as songs and miscellaneous skills.
Bards often became entangled with nobles while performing, and singing a song about a particular house’s glory could earn them extra tips.
On the other hand, singing about a house’s shame or enemies could get their hands chopped off.
Drring.
The bard gripped her lyre tensely.
House Piranian was a Barsian noble family. As its crest suggested, everyone from the lord to the retainers was known for cruelty.
“A pregnant woman said.”
The bard began to sing.
“Please do not kill me, my lord.
There is a child in my belly.”
The lyrics were unsettling from the start.
“Then the Piranian lord laughed.
Why would I bite you now?
When your child has not yet ripened?”
At the disturbing lyrics and gloomy tune, everyone in the tavern frowned.
This was a song celebrating House Piranian’s destruction of House Nightfall, their sworn enemies.
The pregnant woman in the lyrics had been the wife of the Nightfall lord and the family’s final survivor.
No one knew what had happened to her afterward. House Piranian claimed they had sent her to a distant monastery, but no one believed them.
“Excellent.”
“For a bard from the frontier, you’re not bad. It’s admirable that you know this song too.”
The Dhampir knights applauded after the song ended.
“Thank you, knights.”
The bard bowed so deeply that her head nearly touched the table.
“Th-Then I’ll be going.”
As she tried to leave quickly, someone grabbed her wrist.
“Hey! Sing another one.”
Clink.
More copper coins fell onto the table.
“Sir, my throat hurts, so I need to rest...”
The bard spoke cautiously.
“What? Your throat is itchy?”
“Want us to scratch it for you? I guarantee it. It’ll sting for a moment, then you’ll feel good soon enough.”
When the Dhampirs bared their fangs, the tavern’s mood sank so low it nearly froze.
“I’ll sing!”
The bard quickly sat down and gripped her lyre with trembling hands. Snickering laughter rained down on her.
No one wanted to listen, but they were too afraid of the knights’ swords to speak up.
Eugene stroked Homi’s head and sighed.
“Then I’ll have to step in.”
Yet as he started to rise, Eugene had to awkwardly sit back down. Someone was already standing before the Dhampir knights.
The man had an unusual appearance, seeming to be of mixed Latin and Asian descent. His black, seaweed-like hair and deep dark circles somehow gave the handsome man a strange charm.
He wore dark leather armor, with a rapier and main-gauche at his waist. A tankard of beer was in his hand.
“Want to request a song too? We were first, so go somewhere else.”
One of the Dhampir knights spoke.
“I came to cancel your request.”
“What?”
“The song was so terrible. This place has good beer, but listening to a song that sounds like shit makes the beer taste like shit too.”
The Dhampir knight looked dumbfounded.
“I can’t stand seeing good beer wasted on a Samurian monkey either. Put that beer down and get lost.”
His companion mocked him, imitating a monkey.
Samur was a southern nation, a harsh land where deserts and jungles existed side by side.
Still, it had the eastern and southern seas, as well as desert trade routes extending southwest, so trade flourished there.
The dates traded in Bonyard City came from Samur, where palm trees and bananas were also cultivated.
“It’s just as strange that Barsian bastards came all the way down here. You’re unwelcome guests wherever you go, so what did you come crawling here to scavenge?”
Instead of answering, the Dhampirs looked the Samurian man over.
Unlike themselves, who wore metal armor, he had nothing but leather armor. They looked at him with contempt.
“What did you ride all the way here? A beggar like you won’t have a horse, so was it a donkey?”
“Donkeys are nice. We ride horses, and when we get lonely, we have to visit brothels. You Samurian bastards can take care of it right where you stand.”
The Samurian walked toward the sneering Dhampirs.
The relaxed air around him vanished as if it had been a lie. He now carried the sharp tension of someone who could draw his sword at any moment. Even if they were thugs, knights were still knights.
Still, they were two against one, and perhaps because of their pride, they did not rise from their seats.
“Your ears are short.”
“...”
“...”
Mentioning ears was one of the things one should never do before a Dhampir. The fact that they were not pure-blooded vampires was their greatest insecurity.
“Do you know why I came all the way to Bonyard City on an expensive horse?”
The Samurian drained his beer. As the wooden tankard tipped upward, their gazes met beside it.
‘If it were me, I’d be too worried about being attacked while drinking to swallow properly.’
Eugene admired his nerve.
“I came to make money. I was promised a fortune if I swung my sword a few times here.”
He set his empty tankard on the table.
“But when I arrived, I found something else I liked. I heard there were Barsian bloodsuckers in this city who came for the same reason as me. I already wanted to beat them senseless, so isn’t it great that they came all the way from the northwest to get beaten here?”
“You insolent bastard!”
Both Dhampir knights drew their swords at once.
The Samurian was faster. He kicked the armrest of the chair occupied by the farther Dhampir.
Crash!
The chair tipped over, sending its occupant sprawling across the floor.
The Dhampir directly before him rose, but he was too close to swing his sword. He hurriedly stepped back, only for a foot that had somehow wedged itself beneath his ankle like a rock to trip him.
Thud.
“Urgh!”
As the Dhampir lost his balance and fell, the Samurian grabbed the arm holding his sword.
Slash!
“Arrgh!”
The main-gauche flashed past, and blood poured from the Dhampir’s wrist as his longsword fell to the ground.
“You bastard!”
The Dhampir knight who had fallen with the chair sprang up, but he had to stop.
“Careful.”
The blade of the main-gauche rested against his friend’s slashed wrist.
“I cut shallowly just now. But if I make a proper cut one more time, this guy might die. Even if he somehow survives, he’ll be crippled for life.”
“Grrr...”
The Dhampir knight could not rush in while his friend writhed in pain. The bard and the other patrons had long since fled, and even the owner was nowhere to be seen.
“I’d like to kill you outright, but I was invited here too, so I should hold back. It’d be troublesome if a guest committed murder on the first day. Though I don’t know whether killing mosquitoes counts as murder.”
The Samurian shoved the Dhampir he had been holding away as if throwing him.
“Ian!”
The uninjured knight hurriedly caught his friend.
“Take him and get lost.”
“You’ll regret this!”
Wanting to treat his friend before he lost more blood, the Dhampir knight quickly disappeared.
“We didn’t even get a chance to step in, did we?”
Homi nodded.
“Hey, swordsman.”
The situation was not over yet.
“Me?”
“Yeah, you. The cowardly knight who got scared and couldn’t live up to his size.”
Eugene stopped Homi as she angrily tried to rise.
“You aren’t wearing armor, but it’s obvious at a glance that you’re a knight. And you can put up with that? Are you even a knight?”
“I wasn’t trying to endure it. I was about to step in, but you beat me to it.”
“You can say anything you want.”
Eugene looked the Samurian in the face.
“Are you still angry because you couldn’t kill that guy earlier?”
“As expected of a coward, you’re quick to catch on.”
“What would make you feel better, then?”
“Let’s see. I’ve seen enough blood today.”
The Samurian wiped the blood from his sword on a piece of bread on the table, then sheathed it. He clenched his fist at Eugene.
“Let me hit you just once.”
“This isn’t Samur.”
The procedures for becoming a knight differed by region, but some places included being beaten as part of the initiation.
Samur, along with the Kingdom of Gord, was especially famous for being harsh, and some knights even fainted during their investiture.
“This is the best way to remind a knight of the chivalry they’ve forgotten. As far as I’m concerned, the knights up north aren’t knightly because they haven’t been hit enough.”
The Samurian grinned as he rotated his fist.
“Will one punch end it?”
Eugene asked.
“Yeah. One punch, and I’ll forget it all cleanly.”
“Fine.”
Bang!
Eugene kicked off the floor.
“What?”
Even though there had been a fair distance between them, his incredible leg strength closed it in an instant.
The Samurian reflexively threw a punch, but Eugene easily caught it. Then came a single shoulder throw driven by monstrous strength.
Whoosh!
The Samurian felt the world spin once before he was slammed into the ground.
Bam!
“Ghk!”
The impact was overwhelming! His breath caught, and all the air in his lungs was forced out. As his vision turned yellow, his consciousness rapidly sank.
Eugene watched Homi leave the beer money on the bar, then headed for the exit.
The Samurian flailed on the floor, trying to grab Eugene, but he could not even control his body.
Thump.
In the end, he collapsed without getting out a single word and lost consciousness. Homi, who had followed with quick little steps, picked him up and tossed him into a corner.
Crash!
“Hmph!”
Homi dusted off her hands and left.
For a righteous knight who had looked so overwhelming just moments ago, it was a pitiful ending.
* * *
Two days later, Solin came to the inn.
“Sir! The city has finished preparing to receive you. Would you come with me?”
“I’ve been waiting. Let’s get going.”
Eugene was led to the mansion where the city’s distinguished guests stayed. The inn he was currently staying in was not bad, but this place was on another level.
The maids passing through the halls were all beautiful women dressed in fine clothes, and expensive works of art lined the corridors.
In the garden, a man with an impressive mustache trimmed the shrubs with pruning shears. Every guest room was more than fit for a noble.
“You will be meeting Chief Constable Fannis.”
“He’s the one who invited me?”
“Yes.”
A large brown door with visible wood grain came into view. A nameplate reading “Chief Constable Fannis” hung on it.
“Here we are.”
Just as Solin was about to knock, a desperate voice came from beyond the door.
“Sir Karas! They were knights I had gone to great trouble to recruit!”
It was Fannis’s voice.
“Their character was trash, and their skill was trash too. They’d only take up space, and they wouldn’t have been any help even if deployed. Their rampaging would only trouble the innocent residents of the city.”
The voice sounded familiar. Judging by the conversation, its owner seemed to be Karas.
Footnotes:
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