Chapter 194 – Recruitment
People living along the Empire’s borders were never safe from attacks by monsters.
If a small number of the Imperial Family had not protected the borders, Abiran as it existed today might never have survived.
But what were the regions located far from the cities protected by the Imperial Family supposed to do?
Especially if monsters continued appearing for unexplained reasons year after year?
With a gaze as rigid as his posture, Mona surveyed everyone gathered in the room.
They were the people recruited to subjugate the Werewolves.
Since they were not knights, neither their families nor their bloodlines mattered.
If their origins were irrelevant, then, taken to the extreme, their values did not matter either.
They could be people who threw themselves into danger to add excitement to their lives, people who wanted to obtain the hides or fangs of monsters, or people with entirely different objectives.
None of that mattered.
As long as they possessed the necessary skill.
Receiving the sinister gazes focused upon him, Mona opened his mouth.
“I don’t care what kind of people have gathered here. Only one thing matters to me: how many monsters you can kill and how effectively you can kill them.”
At his declaration, some of those gathered in the room swallowed nervously, while others’ eyes gleamed.
Satisfied with their reactions, Mona continued.
“Anyone lacking confidence may open the door and leave right now. Well, I selected only those who reek of blood, so I trust you won’t disappoint me. We depart at dawn tomorrow. Inspect your weapons and prepare yourselves mentally.”
A minor commotion arose when he finished speaking, but it was nothing worth worrying about.
Before leaving the room, Mona once again examined everyone’s faces to see whether anyone intended to withdraw at the last moment.
People who shared the objective of defeating monsters generally displayed similar expressions.
Some were tense, some confident, some filled with anticipation, some brimming with venomous hatred and a desire for revenge, and some appeared bored.
Someone appeared bored?
While surveying the gathering, Mona fixed his eyes upon one person who had caught his attention.
It was a young man with black hair and black eyes.
He did not appear particularly old, but the calmness in his eyes made his age difficult to determine.
“Hey, what’s with that fellow?”
“Pardon? Who are you referring to?”
Enil, who stood beside Mona, looked toward the person he had indicated.
“Uh…… He’s merely an ordinary applicant. There wasn’t anything particularly unusual about him, and apart from being slightly stronger than he looks, nothing about him was especially memorable. His skills were exactly average too.”
“……”
Mona ignored that superficial assessment and continued staring at the black-haired applicant.
“We’ll learn the truth soon enough—whether he’s average, capable of performing above average, or merely a piece of garbage who only looks competent.”
Mona sometimes instinctively discovered things other people failed to notice, so Enil committed his words to memory.
* * *
He’s going to bore a hole through my face.
I stopped on my way out and inspected the unfamiliar sword while ignoring Mona, who stood there glaring at me.
However, no matter how long I waited, Mona—whose instincts had also been sharp in the novel—showed no intention of looking away.
Did he believe his staring wasn’t obvious, or did he simply not care if I noticed?
I once again thought that leaving Jing behind had been the correct decision.
Jing’s extraordinary abilities would have caught Mona’s attention immediately.
Even if he had concealed his skills, his powerful presence would have drawn attention by making people wonder why someone like him possessed only that degree of ability.
Struggling to ignore the gaze that seemed ready to pierce my face, I surveyed the room.
Burly men and people with vicious eyes were desperate to display their strength.
“It looks like weaklings like that intend to hunt Werewolves too.”
“That’s actually convenient. While that one is being eaten, we can kill at least one more.”
“How do you know he’ll be eaten instead of holding us back? Hey, brat. It won’t do you any good to beg us to save you later.”
That sort of display usually manifested as excessive interest in someone who appeared weaker than they were.
It was the easiest and most effective way to show off, as well as the easiest to justify.
I looked toward the target of their ridicule.
He appeared younger than me. Although he was not particularly small for his age, his physique was hardly imposing enough to stand out among people confident enough in their bodies to volunteer for a monster hunt.
“Looks like you think acting that way will hide how scared you are.”
However, it seemed his courage had grown faster than his body.
At the child’s remark, the expressions of the two men who had been snickering instantly turned vicious.
“You little bastard. What did you just say?”
Even when two men twice his size rose and approached him threateningly, the child showed little sign of being intimidated.
However, he did not respond to them any further.
That seemed to aggravate them even more, and one of the men reached out, seized the child by the collar, and lifted him into the air.
“You’ll die by my hands before any monster gets you. Do you even know what kind of people have gathered here, you insolent brat?”
Despite the man’s threat, the child glared fiercely at him.
“That man already said what kind of people gathered here. They’re people who have killed others.”
The man hesitated briefly at the sight of the child’s bloodshot eyes, then raised his fist.
Personally, I believed few things were as pathetic or unsightly as an adult striking a child.
I casually kicked a pebble lying near my foot.
Just before doing so, I slightly altered the muscles in my leg.
“Aaargh!!!”
The pebble struck the man’s shin, and he collapsed while clutching his leg.
Freed from his grasp, the child landed on the floor, immediately rose, and looked at me.
The moment our eyes met, he ran toward me.
Then he grabbed the hem of my clothes.
That meant I had become the men’s next target.
“Who are you? Were you the one who did that?”
Apparently, I also looked too small to pose a threat to them.
I looked back and forth between the two men approaching furiously and the child clutching my clothes.
Perhaps interpreting my movement as an answer to their question, the two came closer.
“You can’t even tell when to mind your own business, so it seems you don’t understand the value of your life. Or are you this brat’s older brother?”
Nonsense. I was an only child.
Oh, right. Ran had quite a few younger siblings.
Celos was the only one with whom I had ever held anything resembling a conversation.
“Think a little harder. If I were his older brother, wouldn’t I have done something the moment you grabbed him by the collar?”
Even though I had merely stated a simple fact, the men appeared infuriated.
“You both seem equally disrespectful. Today, I’ll teach you a little about the bitterness of life.”
I believed I already knew enough about life’s bitterness to leave my tongue aching, even without anyone teaching me.
I sighed and opened my mouth.
“If we fight among ourselves now, you’ll merely lose the bait you could have thrown to the monsters. Are you fine with that?”
It wasn’t as though I wanted to attract everyone’s attention.
I also had no desire to cause a disturbance before we had even encountered the Werewolf pack.
Of course, if they truly refused to listen, I would have no choice but to accept the resulting commotion.
“Don’t worry. I’ve heard that Werewolves are perfectly willing to eat rotting corpses.”
Apparently deciding that my attempt to avoid a fight made me an easy target, they approached with even greater confidence.
“Hey, you over there! What are you doing?”
The person who intervened before a fight could erupt was Enil, who had been standing beside Mona.
Being just a little slow to read the mood, he stopped the fight that Mona had deliberately pretended not to notice.
The two men glared at the child and me before slowly turning around and returning to their places.
They seemed to mutter something about settling this later, but characters who said such things in novels were highly likely to meet their end before getting the opportunity, so there was no need to worry.
Once the two men withdrew, the child released the hem of my clothes and stepped away.
“What? You were so eager to interfere that I thought you must be skilled, but you’re just an idiot.”
The child had an unusual way of expressing gratitude.
It occurred to me again that the Young Duke had been remarkably polite for a child of his age.
This child, who appeared one or two years older than him, rolled his eyes while studying my reaction.
When I merely looked down at him without saying anything, unlike those burly men, the brat clicked his tongue and tried to leave.
“Wouldn’t it be better to stay here for now? If you’re left alone, those men will try to harm you somehow.”
When I gestured with my eyes toward the two men who were still glaring in our direction, the brat frowned.
“Why have you been meddling with me this entire time?”
“You don’t need to thank me.”
“Who said I was grateful?”
“Then offer an empty courtesy.”
“……”
“If you’re embarrassed that you asked for help, there’s no need to be.”
He seemed to realize that I had no intention of listening to anything he said.
The most productive way to handle a child’s tantrum was to let whatever they said pass through one ear and out the other.
“……Who said I asked you for help?”
The young brat relaxed his tense body and settled about five handspans away from me.
When I said nothing, he became calmer instead. After staring at me for a while, he cautiously opened his mouth.
“Why aren’t you asking me anything?”
“Because there’s nothing I need to ask.”
I already knew everything necessary, from his name to his family circumstances.
I even knew how his fate would unfold during this subjugation.
* * *
Ratel, Jing, and Lia stood at the back of the queue with the hoods of their robes pulled over their heads.
Ahead of the line, the city gates surrounded by snow stood wide open to welcome visitors, but the frigid wind blowing from the city chilled the waiting people until their bodies ached.
While tightening her robe around her neck, Lia suddenly spoke.
“Will Ran truly be all right by himself?”
“He’ll be fine.”
Lia frowned at Ratel’s answer, which contained not a single hint of concern, and glared at the back of his head as he walked ahead.
However, since he wore a hooded robe just as she did, all she could see was the hood.
Lia agreed with his declaration that Ran would be fine, rather than merely saying that he probably would be.
Still, concern was not something one could control at will.
“Instead of worrying about a human capable of transforming into an orc, you would be better off worrying about yourself. And stop glaring at the back of my head.”
Jing sighed softly as he watched the startled Lia hastily avert her gaze.
“Ran will be fine. He may have a somewhat reckless side, but he is not thoughtless.”
“But this time he’s truly alone. He even left El with us.”
Lia stroked the head of the squirrel perched upon her shoulder.
Pretending not to understand anything, El looked elsewhere and lightly swatted Lia’s hand with his tail.
For Lia’s sake, since she would faint if she learned that the creature upon her shoulder was not merely a squirrel but a member of the Imperial Family, Jing tore his gaze away from El and answered.
“Then it seems he has something that he truly must accomplish alone.”
Even while saying that, Jing did not forget to observe Ratel, who appeared completely unconcerned by Ran’s absence.
Until very recently, Ratel had rebuked them for worrying about someone who had run away. Yet, for some reason, he had said nothing when Ran announced that he would separate from them and travel alone.
Jing could not tell whether some kind of agreement had been made between them or what conversation they had shared while he was unconscious.
“What in the world happened between them……?”
“Jing, I think it’s almost our turn.”
Jing had been muttering unconsciously, but Lia’s voice made him take his eyes off the back of Ratel’s head and look forward.
Seeing that the queue had already grown much shorter, Jing urgently opened his mouth.
“Ratel, you must not barge inside as you please this time. We have to follow the plan.”
“Do you realize that will make ten times if you say it once more?”
“If ten times are insufficient, I can say it more than a hundred times. Please do not act alone. Do you understand?”
The moment Jing finished repeating his warning—
“Hey, shut your mouth and answer my questions.”
The soldier guarding the gate interrupted their conversation and spoke harshly.
His displeasure was evident as he looked the three people in their worn robes up and down.
“What do you do, and how did you end up coming here?”
“How are we supposed to answer if we shut our mouths?”
Ratel’s crooked response transformed the soldier’s displeasure into anger.
“My apologies. He suffered a severe injury recently, so his mind occasionally becomes confused.”
Scolding Ratel with his eyes for forgetting his warning in less than a minute, Jing stepped forward.
“We are travelers. We happened to be passing nearby, but we could not simply pass by a city protected by a member of the Imperial Family. We wished to enter so we could pray a little closer to the castle and express our gratitude.”
The soldier’s expression softened slightly at Jing’s sensible answer.
Jing had been worried that wanted notices might have reached this far, so he felt relieved.
“Pay two silver coins and enter.”
The soldier extended his hand.
Jing narrowed his eyes in confusion.
“Wouldn’t that require three coins? There are three of us.”
A mocking smile appeared on the man’s lips.
“It’s two coins per person for you.”
“Two coins? Isn’t even one coin more than enough?”
Lia, who had remained silent, tried to step forward in outrage at his tyranny, but Jing stopped her.
“Understood. Then the total is six coins, correct?”
After surrendering six silver coins to the soldier and passing through the gates, the three were greeted by a snow-white castle in the distance.
It was beautiful, but after everything they had experienced, none of them had the composure to appreciate its beauty.
“Don’t worry. That place will be overflowing with things worth far more than six silver coins.”
Jing glared at Ratel, who spoke with complete sincerity.
Pretending not to notice, Ratel changed direction.
He headed toward the place that boasted the greatest splendor and height after the imperial castle.
The temple.
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