Chapter 47 :

Chapter 47 - Escort (2)

At the incident that occurred not even half a day after they promised to live quietly, Jing clutched his head.

When Jing and Ratel arrived at the temple, there was already a fairly long line of people who had gathered after seeing the good conditions.

—Applicants, please stand in line.

At the sight of an attendant walking around nearby and giving instructions, Jing was relieved.

No matter what region one went to, temples were stable.

With a system this well organized, as long as they did not get caught up in a commotion, they could quietly do their work and receive their money.

What an entirely peaceful thought that had been.

Jing’s peace was shattered by a man who subtly slipped his body in front of Jing.

It was not a particularly special situation.

It was merely that someone appeared before his eyes and practiced the truth that the simpler a rule was, the easier it was to break.

What Jing had intended to do here was nothing more than give a gentlemanly hint like, “Come now, young man. Is this really proper?”

—Hey, get to the back.

If not for the intrusion of that young personality defect who acted during the brief moment Jing was wondering whether to let it pass or say a word.

Regretting the situation that could have ended with, “It is not an urgent matter, so please step back”, Jing let out a sigh.

Shing.

While Jing was recalling the past, the man seemed to have decided on the direction of cutting Ratel down and drew a well-sharpened short sword.

“You arrogant bastard, today I’ll show you exactly what happens when you run your mouth wrong.”

Perhaps Ratel’s “short legs” remark had been quite humiliating, because the threatening man’s face was red enough to burst.

Concerned that this would truly become a major commotion, Jing stepped between the two.

“Wait, both of you, calm down. Do you not think this is not something that should grow this large?”

“No, it is something that will grow tremendously large.”

Unfortunately, the curly-haired man was not particularly broad-minded either.

Well, if he had a broad mind, he would not have done something petty like cutting in line.

“Now, do not get so agitated.......”

“It does seem hard to find anything on your side that is large.”

Ratel’s quiet sarcasm, which rendered Jing’s efforts to settle the situation futile, seemed to exhaust the man’s little remaining patience.

“You bastard, seriously!!!”

The sword tip stabbed toward Ratel.

Clang!

With a clear sound, the man’s short sword flew away and lodged itself in front of the people standing in line behind him.

Unable to understand what had happened, the man blankly looked back and forth between his empty hand and Ratel’s sword.

Even then, his hand, which had collided with overwhelming strength, merely trembled.

His skill was as worthless as his petty character.

“What the.......”

Judging by his stunned face, it seemed he had not even seen Ratel draw his sword.

It was not as if Ratel had used some special trick.

He had merely performed the most basic movement so quickly and smoothly that an unskilled opponent had failed to notice it.

“You bastard, what was that just now?”

“Nothing much. Other than you being an idiot.”

At Ratel’s answer, laughter burst out here and there.

“You bastard, seriously!”

Short Legs, who still had not come to his senses, seemed to still have the intention of charging at an overwhelmingly skilled opponent, and he took a dagger from his pocket and rushed at Ratel.

At the attack, which was slow for a surprise attack, Jing thought leisurely.

It will not even graze his collar.

Ratel struck away the knife the man swung and grabbed his arm just like that.

Short Legs’ eyes filled with shock, but that did not last long.

Because the man’s short legs soared into the air, drew an arc, and crashed to the ground.

“Urgh!”

With a thud, a choked groan burst from the man’s mouth.

“.......”

At the situation that ended far too quickly, silence came to the temple courtyard.

“You seemed to like quiet, so I handled it quickly.”

Ratel, who turned around without even catching his breath, raised his lips crookedly as if teasing Jing, who was looking at him in vain.

“Thank you very much. I thought you were not listening at all.”

They were selected without difficulty, but what made things harder for Jing was not the simple test, but the attention of the people.

* * *

“I am called Jing! What is your name?”

A voice difficult to distinguish as cheerful or frivolous echoed through the dining hall.

Ratel looked at Jing, who was tilting a cup of alcohol beside him.

“I was startled because I thought Jing had suddenly gone senile.”

“I was the same.”

Fortunately, Jing had not suddenly gone senile.

Jing looked at the brown-haired man, the owner of the cheerful voice.

Ratel was now focusing on the meat pie on his plate without even turning his head.

“You must be a shy friend.”

The man made an evaluation that suited himself despite that cold reaction.

The brown-haired man, whose mustache did not suit his youthful face and left an impression, was either sociable or shameless, and though no one had invited him, he pulled over a chair and occupied the seat beside them.

“Wow, brother! That was some amazing skill. That fellow already had no professional ethics, so everyone disliked him. You really taught him a lesson! You too, elder! I saw earlier that your sword handling was no ordinary thing.”

Listening to the praise that was almost exaggerated, Jing readily held out his hand.

Conversation with someone who knew the surrounding circumstances well was welcome.

“You flatter me. It is nice to meet someone with the same name in a place like this.”

“Ah, is your name Jing too, elder? Well, it is a rather common name. Sometimes I have even met three people with the same name in a single day! Thanks to that, people remember the name well.”

As Jing accepted his words, the excited man smiled brightly and began rambling on and on about things no one had asked.

“There are bad points too. Since it is such a common name, when bad people give fake names, they say Jing.......”

“Yes, I am truly glad to meet you too.”

It was far too much.

“Ah, I talk a little too much. People tell me to cut it down.”

Even though his words were suddenly cut off, the man laughed and scratched the back of his head.

“I am Jing, and this one is Ratel. From the look of it, you seem to have been in this village for quite some time?”

“It has not been that long. I wandered from place to place and drifted here about a month ago. It is quite a nice village.”

Young Jing also stuck his head slightly toward Ratel, who was still focused on eating, then looked back at Jing and grinned.

“I was interested because you two have faces and skills I have not seen around here. I am the type who cannot stand being curious. You two seem to have come from quite far away?”

Jing studied the man’s face for a moment.

From what he had seen in the selection round a while ago, he was a young man whose skill was neither particularly outstanding nor too poor.

And it seemed to be pure curiosity, not probing to dig up information.

“I am not that different from you. I have merely swung a sword around for a little longer. After doing various things, I drifted and ended up here.”

There was much implied in “various things”, but it was not a lie.

Touching his ill-fitting mustache, the man nodded.

“Even at a glance, you seem to have unusual experience. Then what about that one......?”

The man’s eyes, filled with interest, turned toward Ratel.

Jing looked at Ratel with a rather uneasy expression.

They had agreed to say that they had simply ended up traveling together by chance, but even then, Ratel had been diligently eating bread, so Jing could not be certain whether he had heard properly.

Still, after Jing had repeated it until his mouth was worn out, surely he would match it to some extent.

“Jing knocked me unconscious and kidnapped me, so we ended up together like this.”

He did not.

Once again remembering that what this fellow matched with him on was at most mealtime, Jing held his head.

“That is......quite a special connection.”

Young Jing, though he looked somewhat frivolous, seemed to be a better fellow than expected, and responded awkwardly at least.

However, his wariness had grown stronger than his previous goodwill.

“No, no! Why do you say it like that? We simply met by chance and ended up moving together.”

“Hey, Jing!”

At the sound of someone calling Jing from far away, young Jing turned his head.

“Let’s go smoke one! Once it starts, it’ll be forced no-smoking!”

“I’ll be right there!”

After waving his hand, he dusted off his pants and stood up.

“It was nice meeting you. It will be a short time, but I look forward to working with you.”

He lightly waved his hand and disappeared outside the dining hall door.

“Have I grown so old that my memory comes and goes? I clearly thought the two of us agreed that we would say we met while coming and going.”

“You are not that old. We did agree to do that.”

At Jing’s expression asking why on earth he had done that then, Ratel lifted his spoon.

“It was too noisy while I was eating.”

“No, even so, how can you scare a person like that?”

At Jing’s troubled words, Ratel instead looked at him as if he were saying something strange.

“Is it not proper to be quiet while eating?”

“That is true.......”

Why does he always speak like someone who learned only half of etiquette?

Leaving Jing, who was wondering whether or not to say that scaring a noisy person into shutting up was also subtle, Ratel began focusing on his meal again.

“Still, in a place where everyone gathers and eats together like this, would it not be better to respond a little more flexibly? If you are going to live while mixing with people from now on, gathering information is important. At times like that, nothing is as easy and convenient as people.”

“Instead of going through such troublesome things, if we catch one person and beat them until they talk......”

“Stop making sounds that will make an old man’s heart drop and just eat your meal.”

At Jing’s words mixed with a sigh, Ratel merely shrugged.

“From now on, that problem-solving method of yours.......”

Jing, who had been continuing his nagging, stopped speaking at a gaze he felt from afar and turned his head in that direction.

He saw a child loitering at the entrance of the dining hall.

The child was dressed in worn but neat pants and a shirt.

One of the children gathered for the Tinas ritual.

Nobles invited priests directly to their mansions, but in the case of commoners, they gathered together at a nearby temple like this and held the ritual.

That child was surely one of them.

At the sight of the child, who reminded him of the young duke, he smiled as kindly as he could and waved his hand.

Seeing the child flinch and turn away, it seemed that from the child’s perspective, he had not come across as anything more than a scary old man.

“Considering you have a child, your skill at handling children is quite terrible.”

Ratel teased Jing, who was looking with complicated feelings at the small back of the child’s head as the child quickly ran away without even looking back.

“Be quiet. My son used to be so happy just from seeing my face.”

Come to think of it, he had been so busy that he had not spent much time face-to-face with the child until the child had grown to a certain extent.

At the belated realization that the child had been so happy at even small actions because he had spent so little time with him, Jing’s appetite turned bitter, and he put down his fork.

“That direction must be the lodging where the children stay.”

At Ratel’s murmur, Jing realized that he still had not taken his eyes off the door where the child had disappeared.

“That is right. I thought you were not focusing at all, but you did listen to the explanation.”

Remembering Ratel, who had been staring only at the prayer room even during the priest’s explanation, Jing offered words of praise.

“I must listen carefully to the important things.”

Jing wondered if that meant his words were not important, but he held his tongue.