WeTried Translations
Translator/Editor: HidingTurtle
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◈ The Wandering Knight and the Moving Castle ◈
Chapter 45: Monsters and Pirates (2)
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The following morning, Eugene and Homi stretched in the mansion’s front yard. The river, sprawling forest, and open horizon all lay spread out before them.
“The view’s wonderful. At Goldhill, all you could see were vineyards. A person’s heart must grow richer from seeing things like this.”
Homi liked this place as well, so full of nature’s scent. She preferred being surrounded by trees and grass to the smell of stone that filled everywhere else.
“Stand in line properly.”
“No cutting! There’s enough for everyone, thanks to the relief supplies sent by the lord.”
Priests were distributing food at the poorhouse. It was fish porridge made by boiling dried fish, edible greens, and flour together.
“Thank you!”
“May the gods bless the lord!”
Women carrying children on their backs and elderly people filled their bowls with porridge while praising Benjamin. Though he lacked the means to oversee the place himself, he had somehow kept the relief supplies coming.
The unit Eugene had brought with him was also busy that morning.
“Y-you want me to wash this? Why not just throw it away and buy a new one?”
A young woman held up a yellowed pair of underwear between her thumb and forefinger, her face twisted in disgust.
“Didn’t I tell you to fill the pot with water after you were done eating?”
Another young woman stood before a pot crusted with burnt scraps, hands on her hips and eyes blazing.
Along with sutlers, they were one of the two pillars that traveled with mercenary companies. They were prostitutes.
They did more than provide sexual services. They handled laundry, dishes, cooking, and even armor repairs, easing the mercenaries’ burdens.
Replacing the rotten stuffing or cloth in a gambeson and sewing torn sections did not require a blacksmith. Neither did replacing snapped cords in lamellar armor or lacing its plates back together.
“If you cut out the rotten parts of those apples, I’ll buy the lot for twenty percent of the price.”
“Forty percent! We need to make a living too!”
“Thirty. If you don’t like it, let them rot some more.”
“Oh, fine. We’ll do it.”
The village was filled with bargaining. With so many outsiders arriving, money and goods began to circulate, breathing life back into the place.
“Logging site! Gnolls have appeared at the logging site! Some people still haven’t escaped the forest!”
The peaceful morning ended with the report of a messenger who was nearly out of breath. Woodcutters working in one of the few outer areas with fewer monsters had been attacked.
“Those idiots! I told them it was only a matter of time before that place became dangerous too.”
“So we’re supposed to sit around and starve to death? We have to do something!”
The village elders grew angry, but the young men argued back without backing down. With their livelihoods disrupted for so long, their preparations for the coming winter were far too poor.
“I was planning to head out after breakfast, but they won’t even give us that much time.”
Eugene gathered the mercenaries and the two knights attached to the fief, then set out to intercept the monsters.
“Move aside!”
“The subjugation force is passing through!”
At the guards’ shouts, the villagers hurriedly cleared a path. Among them, young boys and girls sobbed as they clasped their tiny hands together in prayer.
“My lord! My father hasn’t come back!”
“My brother is still in the forest! Please save him!”
Eugene rode at the front with his black cloak fluttering behind him, looking so imposing that they seemed to have mistaken him for the lord.
“What are you doing?”
“Get up, now!”
Quite a few adults had dropped to one knee as well, and the guards hurried to pull them back up. Showing respect due to a lord to the wrong person could be considered a serious crime.
Benjamin was generous and liked Eugene, so he would probably laugh it off. The guards had no desire to gamble with their neighbors’ lives.
* * *
Richwood’s woodcutters ran as if their feet were on fire.
Their knowledge of the forest, their strong stamina, and the fact that the pursuing Gnolls had been threatened by stronger monsters all worked together to keep them alive.
But the terrified sweat of the woodcutters gradually began to stir the Gnolls’ wild instincts.
Grrrk?
Grrrk!
As their fear of the forest’s inner predators faded, their eyes gleamed with hunger for human flesh.
“Huff! Huff! I can’t... run anymore...”
A man who had come as a refugee from a neighboring village began to fall behind. He had only been a woodcutter for a week. He was unaccustomed to running through the forest and physically weak.
“Grit your teeth and run! Gnolls eat their prey’s entrails before they’re even dead!”
“Eek!”
The fear of a horrible death was great, but it could not create strength where there was none. The man forced himself onward, then stumbled and fell.
“Leave him!”
The leader of the woodcutters shouted.
“B-but!”
“It’s already too late. Try to save him, and you’ll die too. Think about your little sister, who’ll starve if you don’t return. He’s an outsider anyway, isn’t he?”
“Damn it! I’m sorry!”
This was a world where hostility and territorial behavior toward outsiders were the norm. It would have been stranger if they had felt enough loyalty to risk their lives for him.
Thanks to the fallen man, everyone else would be safe. When chased by a monster, there was no need to be faster than the monster. It was enough to be faster than one person.
“N-no! Please, take me with you!”
The man struggled to his feet and begged, but the woodcutters did not look back.
Bwooo!
Just before the man was pounced on, the sound of a charging horn echoed through the forest.
The Gnolls hesitated for an instant, and a knight of Richwood appeared, leaping over a fallen tree trunk.
Slash!
A sword swung from horseback cut through a Gnoll’s neck.
Grrrkkk!
The Gnolls behind it charged in anger at their kin’s death, only to run headlong into Eugene’s cavalry.
“Damn it! Gnolls?!”
“At least there aren’t many hyenas.”
Gnolls were nothing like goblins or Kobolds that even rookie mercenaries could kill alone.
Even experienced mercenaries struggled to defeat one without injury, and their ability to command hyenas was dangerous as well.
“Now that they’ve come this far, they’ll return if we let them live. The village could be in danger, so wipe them all out!”
When Eugene charged at the front, everyone shouted and followed. His presence on the battlefield alone swept away his subordinates’ hesitation.
“Watch out for the hyenas!”
“Don’t go near the bushes! One will jump out and bite your throat!”
Those experienced in fighting monsters warned the others, but it was hard to watch every corner in the chaos of battle.
In the end, one mercenary was caught in an ambush. A hyena leaped over a boulder and bit down on their arm.
Crack.
Fortunately, it had bitten their wrist guard, so they were unharmed. Still, they became tangled up with the hyena and fell from their horse.
“Die!”
Even with the hyena on top of them, the mercenary drew a dagger and stabbed wildly at its belly.
Yelp!
The blade struck a vital spot. The hyena’s bite weakened, and its head fell limp.
Grrrk!
But a Gnoll carrying a club was approaching behind them.
“Urgh!”
The mercenary tried to stand, but a sharp pain forced them back down. Perhaps they had sprained an ankle. The ugly, grinning Gnoll raised its club to smash their head.
“N-no!”
At that moment, Eugene burst out from the side and hit the Gnoll with a lance charge.
Boooom!!!
The impact made neither a thud nor a crash. It sounded as though flesh itself had exploded.
The lance had pierced in a straight line through the Gnoll’s thick right arm, armpit, chest, and left arm.
“Are you all right?”
The Gnoll, forced into a rigid attention stance, twitched.
Thump!
Thump.
Thum...
Th......
Through the palm gripping the lance shaft, Eugene felt the pierced heart’s beating fade away.
“You seem fine. We’re in battle, so get your wits about you.”
Eugene gave the mercenary, whose face looked as though their soul had fled their body, a faint smile.
Thud.
When the lance skewering the Gnoll fell to the ground, the mercenary crawled backward. Eugene charged ahead in the meantime and killed three more Gnolls.
Crash!
A hyena sprang from the grass, aiming for Eugene’s flank, but struck his shield and flew away.
Splat!
It slammed into a thick tree trunk, spat blood, and slid down.
“What are you doing? Get over there and protect the knight’s flank!”
At the mercenary captain’s command, their subordinates rushed to protect the employer who had charged ahead of them.
“For honor!”
“We’ll show them Richwood’s blades!”
The knights charged at the clustered Gnolls as well.
Yet once they saw Eugene arrive first and begin carving through the enemy with a sword and long-handled flail in either hand, they had no choice but to pull back.
“M-move away from Sir Eugene!”
“You’ll get caught in it!”
The knights and mercenaries recoiled in alarm.
Silver flashes flickered close to Eugene, while a black whirlwind raged farther away. Gnolls caught in it were cut apart, crushed, and swept away.
“Captain! If we try to guard the knight, we’re going to die too!”
“...Are you bastards just going to stand there and watch? Stay at a reasonable distance and fight!”
Grrroooar!
A terrified cry rang out, as though to erase the mercenary captain’s embarrassment.
Eugene had shattered the Gnolls’ battle formation, and knights and mercenaries poured through the gaps to slaughter them. The Gnolls began to flee.
“Don’t let a single one escape!”
Not one Gnoll succeeded in getting away. Every one of them fell with a spear or bolt lodged in its back.
“Whew! Is that all?”
“Help!”
“...”
The moment a mercenary caught their breath and spoke, a scream came from another part of the forest.
“It wasn’t my fault!”
Under the glares of their comrades, the mercenary began to sweat heavily.
‘Even if we have to distribute more relief supplies, we should ban entry into the forest until the subjugation is over.’
Eugene organized the troops as he settled on a policy.
“Keep moving! There are still enemies to fight and people to save!”
When they reached the source of the scream, they found an herbalist about to be attacked by a gray bear.
“This is the first time I’ve seen monsters and wild beasts causing this much trouble together.”
The mercenaries fired cavalry crossbows at the bear. Its hide was too thick, and the low-draw bolts could not inflict a fatal wound.
Enraged, the bear ignored the woodcutter and charged at the nearest knight.
“You beast, consider it an honor to die by my lance!”
This was the knight who had pushed to the front while fighting the Gnolls, hungry for military glory.
Neigh!
But the bear’s momentum frightened the horse, which reared and struggled. Naturally, the knight trying to thrust with their lance lost their balance as well.
“Hetape! You stupid horse!”
As their beloved mount fell, the knight rolled disgracefully across the ground. The bear charged at them as if to pounce.
Smack!
Just as the bear was about to tear the knight apart, its pot-lid-sized forepaw was struck by the long-handled flail and turned into a bloody pulp.
The bear let out a pained roar and glared at Eugene. Yet the iron head of the flail was already swinging up from beneath its muzzle.
After using the long-handled flail for so long, Eugene had picked up a knack for attacking from clever blind spots.
Crack!
The bear threw back its head like a howling wolf, then froze.
Sway. Sway.
The massive gray body teetered for about two seconds before crashing backward. The bear’s raised paw at the end looked oddly funny.
“Th-thank you for saving my life, Sir Eugene!”
“I’m glad you don’t seem to be injured.”
The dismounted knight looked up at Eugene with completely changed eyes.
‘A young outsider knight receives full authority over the subjugation force. I have my pride as a retainer too.’
‘We’re the ones who have served all this time. Why would the head of the house give authority to someone who hasn’t even sworn loyalty...?’
It was true that they had not liked seeing a newcomer issue orders as the acting commander of the subjugation force.
But after fighting alongside Eugene, they realized that Eugene was a monster wearing human skin. Eugene was not someone they could afford to show petty pride to.
‘They’re all saved.’
Eugene sent the survivors, who kept thanking him, back to the village.
“Those country bumpkins should’ve stayed quietly in their village. What a nuisance.”
“You truly are merciful, Sir Eugene!”
Having caught their breath, the mercenaries were irritated with the fleeing survivors but looked at Eugene with respect.
There was a slight misunderstanding, though. Eugene had not run around so hard out of compassion or knightly spirit.
It was because he still thought of himself as a soldier.
The country, the people, and the world had all changed, but the identity of a soldier remained engraved upon Eugene’s soul.
Eugene’s heart had been calm when he fought three outstanding knights in the Hall War and when he slew the Wendigo.
It was only when civilians under his responsibility begged to be saved that his heart broke its silence and began to race.
* * *
After rescuing the people, Eugene gathered the village leaders and gave several orders.
“As you instructed, we’ve forbidden people from entering the forest. But we won’t be able to endure it for long. It’s too great a blow to their livelihoods. More importantly, winter will arrive in a few months.”
The village chief spoke with a worried expression.
Benjamin was often absent, so the chief was a capable person who greatly assisted the clerk in running the village.
“No one will starve to death this winter. The main house has agreed to send additional food after considering the situation.”
“Oh! That is truly fortunate!”
At the clerk’s words, the village chief breathed a sigh of relief. The knights of the fief, on the other hand, grew excited.
“We cannot rely only on support from the main house.”
“On our honor as knights, we must subjugate the monsters disturbing the forest.”
Continuing to receive outside support was no different from announcing that they lacked the ability to protect the fief. For a knight, that was a shame as bad as death.
With a knight like Eugene and even a mage present, there would be no better chance for a subjugation campaign.
“Please lead us, sir! Whatever lurks in that forest will fall before our spears and blades!”
The knights struck their gauntleted fists against their chests. Their quiet dissatisfaction and rivalry had vanished completely. All that remained was the gaze they turned toward their commander.
Footnotes:
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