WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
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◈ The Wandering Knight and the Moving Castle ◈
Chapter 33: First Subjugation Campaign (4)
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Once they reached the campsite, preparations began for a banquet at the tent of Galia, the wealthy knight.
“Sir Osram! We would be delighted if you attended and honored us with your presence.”
“Sir Cain! My master asks that you join my master for a drink.”
Galia's servants hurried about, inviting the knights. The other knights also sent servants to exchange greetings.
Yet no one sent a servant to Eugene, who was likely the most renowned person there.
“Do you find it strange that no one has come?”
Varda asked as Might rested comfortably while she massaged the horse's leg.
Perhaps elven eyes and hands were different somehow. Might lay at ease, enjoying her touch.
“I expected them to at least exchange greetings, so it is a little surprising.”
“The knights who remain in the city are desperately hungry for fame. Of course they would avoid you. It would be like holding a candle before a brazier. No matter what they did, no one would notice them.”
“A brazier is too much praise.”
“There is no need for modesty. Those who lead others need a certain degree of arrogance. At times, that arrogance keeps needless blood from being spilled.”
“Even so, would knights really be so petty?”
“There are fewer generous knights than one might think, regardless of their courage. Those like them, who have failed to catch the eye of a decent noble, especially lack emotional composure.”
Just then, a knight who had emerged from a tent to stretch happened to meet Eugene's gaze. When Eugene started to raise a hand, the knight abruptly turned away.
“...”
“Even if you approach them first, it will only make both sides uncomfortable.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
Eugene was a knight himself, but he did not particularly like other knights.
‘I already miss Karas.’
The kind of person he got along with was an oddball like Karas.
* * *
The subjugation force received supplies from residents and merchants as it passed through villages and along the roads.
“How dare you try to overcharge us? Do you need a little blood drawn before you come to your senses?”
“You weren't actually going to stab me, were you? Don't buy it if you don't want it. There are plenty of people who do.”
“Y-You bastard, are you insane?!”
The people who usually groveled before them were all acting bold. Other high-ranking mercenary companies, a guard captain, and knights were nearby. They knew violence could not be used with so many important people watching.
“You there! Come here. We'll buy it.”
“Sir Mercenary, you saw that, didn't you?”
The peddler grinned and walked away. The mercenary captain wanted to kick that irritating bastard in the rear, but he had to hold himself back.
Starting trouble before a major battle could put a target on his back. Making an example of someone to enforce discipline was something he often did himself.
“Hold it in, Captain. You know the story of One-Armed Jackson.”
Jackson was a mercenary who had beaten up a farmer who came to camp to sell apples. The farmer had hidden five rotten apples beneath the good ones in a basket containing twenty apples.
The noble lord commanding them at the time had Jackson's arm cut off. The charge was causing needless trouble and making merchants reluctant to visit.
It was a story the guard captain always told whenever drunk, one the captain greatly envied.
“Hey, idiot. That was because the commander was a noble. This time, he's someone who used to do mercenary work like us.”
“There are five knights nearby. What are you going to do if they come over growling at you?”
Thunk!
The mercenary captain rapped the subordinate on the head with his knuckles.
“Ah, why did you hit me?”
“You said something sensible, so you had to be hit.”
“Ha... Making a living as a mercenary is hard.”
“Then become captain if you don't like it.”
After taking his anger out for no reason, the mercenary captain spat on the ground. It was clear that keeping his temper in check was the wise choice on this mission.
Nobles camped extravagantly. The wealthy spent their wealth, while the poor borrowed money if they had to.
The greatest number of merchants gathered at Eugene's camp. It was the largest, both in reputation and in the number of subordinates he led.
“All of it?!”
“Yes, hand over all the chicken you have. Give us two bottles each of salt and spices as well.”
Eugene spent generously, but only on merchants who brought meat.
“You may bill the city later for supply expenses. We will reimburse all of it.”
Fannis had promised that before their departure.
“You're taking such good care of us that I almost feel sorry.”
“Are we strangers? Just keep this secret from the other knights.”
Thanks to that, Eugene could let his subordinates eat as much meat as they wanted.
“Put away the rations and jerky. Let's fill our stomachs with fresh meat.”
“Thank you, Sir Eugene!”
The dark elves beamed as they gathered firewood and prepared the roast. Eugene was just as pleased. Was there anything more enjoyable than buying meat with someone else's money and taking credit for it?
“This scented oil came from Roman. With your valor, Sir Knight, you'll likely bathe in the blood of your enemies. Wouldn't you need scented oil?”
“I don't need it.”
“Sir Knight! Look at these candles from our merchant company. We commissioned them from the Alchemists' Guild, and they even have a pleasant scent. It seems you're burning hardened animal fat, but these are far more refined...”
“I don't need them. Go see the other knights.”
Eugene had the decency not to indulge in luxury with someone else's money.
The merchants left grumbling, then happily ran off at the summons of servants sent by other knights.
“If you see a merchant with meat, don't let them get away. Bring them here.”
“Leave it to us, Sir Eugene. No one takes meat more seriously than we do.”
Rex replied with a smile.
Unlike his cold first impression, he had quickly grown close to Eugene.
There was no value more noble than strength.
That was the shared motto of the dark elves. As a people born to be warriors, the dark elves naturally held Eugene's martial prowess in high regard.
His practical nature, so unlike that of a knight, his easygoing personality, and his concern for his subordinates' meals made it inevitable that they would grow close.
Most mercenaries rested comfortably after eating. Some played cards or dice, while others chatted with camp followers seated on their laps.
“Oh?”
Eugene had taken a walk around the area, then returned to find an interesting sight in his own camp.
The dark elves, changed into casual clothes, were loosening up in strange poses. Some focused on working specific muscles.
‘They know stretching and weight training?’
Aside from himself and Homi, they were the first people Eugene had seen in this world who did such things.
Rex clicked his tongue inwardly as Eugene observed them from different angles. He was used to people looking at their tribal training methods as though they were ridiculous clownish acts.
“Sir Eugene. Do our methods look strange to you?”
His pride was still wounded, and Rex's voice came out somewhat sharp.
“No. I was glad to see people who knew how to train properly. That's right. Mindlessly swinging weapons isn't enough. You need to work and tune your muscles like you do.”
“???”
Rex's eyes widened. Just as the Chief Constable had said, this knight seemed a little strange.
Ten minutes later.
“There were movements like this too?”
“Should I bend my arms this far?”
The dark elves surrounded Eugene in a circle. They had never seen a knight who understood their tribe's traditional training methods.
On top of that, the muscle-training techniques Eugene demonstrated were by no means inferior to the methods they had refined through generations.
“You called this a plank? It is so simple, yet the muscles throughout my entire body are tensed. What a remarkable secret technique.”
Rex lay prone beside Eugene and could not hide his admiration. It was a humiliating pose for proud warriors, but since Eugene demonstrated it himself, everyone accepted it easily.
“As expected of an assassination tribe with a tradition. You recognized how good this is right away.”
“Sir Eugene, today is the first time I learned that ‘tradition’ and ‘assassination tribe’ could be used together as praise.”
The dark elves laughed.
Rather than cutting through hundreds of enemies to kill a commander, it was easier to create a one-on-one situation somewhere unexpected.
To achieve that, the Black Hand Tribe had researched methods of bending their bodies into unnatural shapes or stripping away fat until only muscle remained.
The tribe's traditional training methods developed in the process resembled Earth's stretching, yoga, and weight training. It was a kind of convergent evolution.
“Do other assassin groups have similar things?”
“Assassins rarely form groups. Especially groups like ours, where the entire tribe came together and made it their livelihood, do not exist.”
Assassination was work taken up by people whose lives had gone completely off the rails, even among wanted criminals, robbers, and bandits.
It was strange for a tribe such as the Black Hand Tribe to study and hone its techniques to the extreme as a martial art.
“That is a relief. It would be troublesome if everyone knew such excellent training methods. Good things should be kept among friends, shouldn't they?”
“Friends... Being called that is an honor.”
More than ten dark elves were now doing planks beside the delighted Rex.
“This is really good.”
“It takes up little space and makes no noise.”
The dark elves who tried it were astonished by the efficiency of a static exercise that stimulated muscles throughout the body at once.
“I've only shown you one thing so far. It's too early to be surprised.”
“Please show us more!”
“I am truly looking forward to it, Sir Eugene.”
In a single day, Eugene was laughing and talking comfortably with all twenty dark elves. He held their legs, shoulders, and forearms, correcting their posture.
“Do this part like this. Be careful not to let your shoulder blades rise.”
“Ah, that's the feeling.”
Dark elves did not merely dislike humans touching their bodies, they despised it. Yet they all accepted Eugene's touch with smiles, as though it were only natural.
* * *
After several days of smooth marching, the subjugation force was lucky enough to capture one of the bandits' scouts.
“There will be a fork in the road with a large boulder! I-If you go left there, there's a large encampment. If you go right, th-there's a smaller encampment and a bandit knight.”
“How many are at each?”
“Uh, well... the bigger one has around sixty people?! About sixty, I think. The smaller one has around twenty.”
“Where are the rest of them?”
The lieutenants asked, holding their swords out.
The bandits' total numbers should have been seven or eight times that.
“Eek! That's all I know! Please! Please spare my life!”
“Take them away and keep interrogating them.”
After giving a large reward to the mercenaries who had captured the scout, the guard captain sent messengers.
“Inform the knights. Tell the mercenaries to clear the way.”
Their policy for engaging the enemy had already been agreed upon. The heavily armed knights and their followers charged unhesitatingly through the ranks of mercenaries.
“Crush those bandit bastards with ease!”
“Honor to the knights!”
The mercenaries cheered at the right moment, and some knights responded by raising their weapons.
The mercenaries were grateful that the knights would slaughter enemies in their place, while the knights could claim all the glory. It worked well for both sides.
After the knights departed, the guard captain looked toward Eugene's camp and was startled.
“Did you inform Sir Eugene that the enemy encampments have been found?!”
“Yes! Sir Eugene said enough knights had already left, so he would remain in camp and observe the situation.”
“Whew!”
The guard captain let out a relieved sigh. If a subordinate had forgotten to report it and left Eugene behind alone, the guard captain would have to bear the Victor Knight's anger.
“Thank you for letting us earn easy money, noble knights!”
“Go work your asses off gloriously in our place!”
Once the knights were far enough away, the mercenaries' cheers turned impudent. Some lowered every finger of their waving hands except the middle one.
The guard captain, on the other hand, could not relax.
“I repeatedly asked them to refrain from using torches, but I don't know if they'll listen.”
The knights' victory was a given. What worried the guard captain was a forest fire.
The key to an ambush was causing chaos at the start, scattering enemies in every direction, then crushing them.
Throwing torches into tents could kill enemies and cause confusion in one stroke, so it was a common tactic in ambushes.
Yet when fighting in forests, overdoing it could cause a wildfire. This place was especially dangerous, with frequent winds and many trees that caught fire easily.
“I experienced it once when I joined a battle as a mercenary elsewhere. I had barely swung my sword a few times when more than half the enemy burned to death. It was quite a sight.”
One of the lieutenants, formerly a mercenary, shared an old story.
“Then didn't it work out well in the end? You defeated the enemy easily.”
“The subjugation force nearly burned to death too. Then the fire spread to a mountain in a neighboring territory. It completely burned down that lord's hunting grounds, and our employer went bankrupt paying compensation.”
“What kind of ending is that?!”
Everyone laughed at the absurd conclusion as the order to march was passed down through the subjugation force.
“What are you dawdling for? Move!”
“Did you think you were paid all that money to go for a walk?!”
The mercenary captains pressed their subordinates. It would look bad to freeload from too far behind the front, so they needed to at least show some eagerness.
“Sir, would it be all right if you continued moving with us?”
Following the marching order, Eugene had approached the guard captain's side.
“Since we don't know what might happen, at least one knight should remain with the main force. I've gained enough honor already, so I will focus only on making this subjugation a success.”
“Thank you!”
Following knights hungry for achievements would only tire Eugene out, and there was little to gain from it.
Not knowing that a knight like Eugene had such shallow thoughts, the guard captain could only feel touched.
As they all marched together, the faint sound of a horn came from beyond the forest.
“It seems the bandits' camp has been cleared out.”
“Isn't that obvious? There are four knights, not just one or two!”
“...”
While everyone laughed, only the guard captain and several sharp-eared lieutenants had stiff expressions.
“What is it?”
Eugene asked, sensing the strange mood.
“That is not a horn announcing victory. It is a horn calling for reinforcements.”
The guard captain spoke with an unbelieving expression.
“The knights are struggling against bandits from the very start?”
“I don't understand either. Sir Galia once cut down ten mercenaries alone, and Sir Cain is a knight who single-handedly subjugated a goblin den led by a hobgoblin.”
Eugene did not see those knights as ordinary rabble either.
“The Dhampir knight dying in the opening clash, and now this... This subjugation seems cursed.”
Eugene's mutter was cut off by another horn calling for reinforcements. It seemed he would have to give up his plan of earning easy money.
Footnotes:
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