MTM 185

“Who are those guys?”

Allen glared at the hunters. There were three of them. Judging by the way they sat down at two tables without a care in the world for the stares around them, they were regulars at this inn. Rose wasn’t surprised to see them either; she took their order without a word and began preparing their meal.

As Allen’s gaze grew increasingly fierce, Ser stopped him.

“Don’t start any trouble. Just eat your meal quietly.”

Allen grumbled and picked up his spoon. He was annoyed at being interrupted at such a crucial moment, but he couldn’t let Ser see it.

As he forced himself to look away and shoveled stew into his mouth, the hunters’ coarse conversation pierced his ears.

“There’s no game worth hunting around here. I hear the orcs are running wild in the eastern part of the Regnovar Empire right now…”

“Orcs? You mean wild orcs? Those bastards are so ferocious and give us such a hard time, they’re a real headache. It’s not worth the effort to hunt them.”

“Tsk, tsk. There’s a way to catch them all.”

“A way? What is it?”

Intrigued by the story told by the man who was the smallest of the three and appeared to be from the south, the other two hunters leaned in.

“Well, you see… Recently, a very strange person crawled into the Land of Abundance.”

“A strange person?”

The moment the man began speaking, the hunters immediately lowered their voices.

“You know, that… mercenary group led by that half-demon.”

“Night Rage? I thought they’d been completely wiped out after a warrant was issued for them ages ago?”

He flinched. At the mention of Night Rage, the mercenary group he had once belonged to, Allen’s hand stopped mid-scoop. Ser also noticed that slight change, set down his spoon, and listened to the hunters’ conversation.

“You mean that half-demon bastard came here?”

“No, no. That leader did come to the Land of Abundance, but the one I’m talking about is someone else. I heard that weirdo sold some kind of powerful potion to the half-demon.”

“A potion? What kind?”

“Something that lets you control orcs like puppets, or something like that…”

Thud.

“That half-demon leader you’re talking about, is his name ‘Walter’?”

Unable to hold back any longer, Allen interrupted their conversation.

“Allen…!”

Sensing that a commotion was about to break out, Ser jumped to his feet. But by then, the hunters’ fierce gazes had already locked onto Allen. That said, it didn’t seem like they intended to start a commotion. Their faces simply betrayed wariness. They had sensed that Allen was a skilled swordswoman. They exchanged glances and held their ground.

“Well… if that’s the case, what are you going to do about it? Are you suggesting we fight, sir?”

Allen hadn’t stepped forward to pick a fight on a whim either. However, if the matter involved Night Rage – the group with he had shared life and death for a time – and their captain, Walter, the story was entirely different. In particular, he still couldn’t forget the tragedy that had unfolded in Belnok.

A heavy silence hung in the air.

Thud!

Allen roughly tossed the money pouch they had collected over the past two days onto the hunters’ table. It was the travel money he and Ser had saved up to leave for the Eastern Kingdom tomorrow.

“I’m buying information. Spill everything you know about that person who made a deal with Walter.”

As if to imply that he wouldn’t guarantee their lives if they didn’t speak properly, Allen radiated a menacing aura.

***

As night fell, the Land of Abundance, which had been brimming with vitality during the day, was now shrouded in a chilly atmosphere. Only the cold moonlight illuminated the footsteps of Allen and Ser as they hurried along. After obtaining information about the “strange person” from the hunters at the inn, they were heading deep into the deserted forest.

“Allen… Allen!”

Ser, who had been following behind Allen as he walked ahead with a stern expression in the silence, called out to him again. When Allen reluctantly stopped, Ser walked forward and blocked his path.

“Talk to me.”

Allen gave him a look that suggested he didn’t have time for this, but he nodded briefly.

“I still don’t understand. What is the reason you’re acting like this all of a sudden?”

Ser’s face, bathed in moonlight, glowed with a beauty so poignant it was almost sad. As he met his vivid gaze fixed directly on him, Allen bit his lip instead of answering. He recalled the memories from Belnok.

The Bellancia cathedral burning down, the red-haired merchant noble laughing greedily, and even Lidel’s final moments as she died right before his eyes…

In the end, Walter was the root cause of all that tragedy.

Allen recalled what Zed had calmly confided in him during their journey. No matter how much Walter claimed he never intended to betray the members from the start, it was still him who had joined forces with the Crown Prince to drive Zed into a deadly trap. The fact that he had abandoned the mercenary group and intended to handpick only those he approved of filled him with a sense of betrayal that made him shudder. Thinking that he had served under that man without knowing his true, vile intentions made him despair.

He had known about that side of Walter for a long time. Walter had always wanted only greater power and stronger individuals. That was why, within the mercenary group, he had never treated the members properly, with the exception of Zed, Rozain, and Leon.

Some of the members who knew this went to great lengths to catch Walter’s eye, but Allen did not. The decisive reason he walked out of the mercenary group on his own two feet was his aversion to the cold-blooded Walter and the members loyal to him.

After all, he didn’t possess the blessed power or genius-level talent that Leon or Zed had, and Walter had never once acknowledged him, a failure, as a comrade.

He had heard that this time, even Zed and Leon had seen through Walter’s ugly [stolen content]true nature and left the mercenary group.

‘But has Walter… really given up?’

The Walter he knew was not the type to back down. After all, the cruelty of the demon race was on a completely different level from that of ordinary humans. Even for a half-demon, the sinister blood flowing beneath the surface was something that could never be ignored.

If, as the hunters’ intelligence suggested, Walter was on the move again in the Land of Abundance, this time he wanted to duel that arrogant bastard himself. It was the only way to appease the spirits of Lidel and the former mercenaries who had died unjustly, and it was his last shred of pride.

“Is this matter really that important?”

Ser, unaware of the deeper circumstances, had no idea about the past enmity involving Night Rage or Walter. Faced with the urgent situation of having to leave for the Eastern Kingdom tomorrow, he was simply frustrated, wondering what had come over Allen to make his veer off onto such a perilous side path.

“It’s important. As important as my life.”

Allen answered Ser’s question bluntly, then pushed his way roughly through the dense forest.

Perhaps sensing something in Allen’s resolute demeanor, Ser said no more and silently followed behind him.

They had been walking for a while when the sound of a babbling brook broke the stillness of the forest. Feeling that the place the hunters had mentioned was not far off, Allen stopped and slowly looked around.

‘They definitely said it was around here…’

Just as he was scanning the area with a furrowed brow, he spotted an old hut not far away. The moment Allen was about to move, Ser, who was behind him, urgently grabbed his arm.

Immediately afterward, he heard the sound of someone walking through the darkness. The unidentified figure, wrapped head to toe in filthy rags, glanced around warily around, then quickly disappeared inside the hut.

Allen signaled to Ser to wait with a glance, then approached the hut.

“Ugh, what is that smell….”

A foul, pungent stench filled the air. The area around the hut was littered with the carcasses of wild animals that had been brutally butchered. This wasn’t simply a hunt to secure a meal. It looked as though the killer had stripped the animals of their hides and hung them grotesquely on every pillar to flaunt their cruelty.

Allen steadied his breathing and drew his sword from his waist. A thought flashed through his mind: it was a stroke of luck that he’d paid to have the blade sharpened at the market.

As soon as he saw that the hut’s old wooden door was slightly ajar, he leaped inside in a single bound.

“W-who’s there!”

In the pitch-black darkness, illuminated only by a single candle on the wall, the man let out a scream. Allen struck him on the head with the hilt of his sword to prevent him from making any sudden moves, then threw him to the floor, climbed on top of him, and pinned him down.

“Stay still! Move, and I’ll stab you!”

“Aaah! Get off me! I said get away!”

The man put up a fierce fight. Objects inside the cramped hut shattered as a struggle ensued for some time. Ser, who had been waiting anxiously outside, finally couldn’t stand it any longer and stepped inside.

“Allen!”

“Ser! Hurry up and find some rope or something to tie this bastard up!”

Ser hurriedly searched the interior of the hut. He picked up a candlestick hanging on the wall and looked around. He accidentally nudged a shelf precariously piled with odds and ends.

Thud! Clang!

With a dull sound, something fell to the floor and rolled. Reflecting the moonlight streaming through the window crack, a silver mask shaped like a bird’s beak glinted.

“No way…!”

The moment Allen recognized the object, he roughly pulled the rags covering the man’s head. And the instant he saw the face revealed by the candlelight, Allen’s breath caught in his throat.

“This can’t be….”

The man’s face, revealed in the bright moonlight, was a sight of horror. Half of his face was covered in burn scars, and one eye had a white, unfocused pupil that glowed.

It was Bernak, the illusionist who used to be Crown Prince Magnus’s right-hand man in the Regnovar Empire.