༺ 𓆩 Chapter 25 𓆪 ༻
「Translator — Creator」
᠃ ⚘᠂ ⚘ ˚ ⚘ ᠂ ⚘ ᠃
It was as though the shadow of some gigantic beast had taken on substance and was raking across the earth; that was because the dense, pitch-black fur covering them seemed to swallow the light itself.
From afar, they had looked no more than ordinary wolves, but once they came rushing up close, there was no choice but to be overwhelmed by their size.
Even on all fours, they stood taller than a grown man, and their body length rivaled that of a carriage.
The only part of them that caught the light and gleamed was their red eyes.
“Hell wolves! Form ranks!”
The commander at the head of the supply convoy shouted.
The reaction split in two.
There were soldiers who panicked and floundered in terror, and soldiers who had faced this before and moved to their places at once.
Grrrrr.
The hell wolves circled the convoy as though performing some grotesque dance.
There were only five or six of them, but their growling and the heavy thud of their paws against the ground were more than enough to stir fear.
“P-please, save us.”
The laborers brought along for unloading either screamed or repeated pleas for their lives.
“D-don’t, don’t come out of the carriage.”
Hans spoke in a trembling voice.
“You should be the one getting inside. What do you think you can do in that state?”
“I-I, I’ll pro-protect you, young ma…….”
In that instant.
A black shadow flashed past.
One of the soldiers in the front row was seized in a hell wolf’s jaws and dragged away.
“Aaaagh! Save meee!”
Crunch—!!!
Crunch—!!!
The dragged-off soldier did not die cleanly - several hell wolves pounced on him at once, biting into his arms and legs and tearing him to pieces; it was no different from watching a man be quartered alive right before their eyes.
Blood and shredded flesh coated the wolves’ muzzles.
‘They really are intelligent, just as I heard.’
Isaac endured the drowsiness creeping over him and called up what he had read in books.
There was nothing he could do in this situation.
He could hardly swing a clumsy sword at demonic beasts that troublesome to face.
He could not use magic, and even if he could, to cast magic recklessly in a place crawling with demonic beasts was suicide.
Demonic beasts craved mana.
To use magic and raise the density of mana was little different from laying bait before them.
“It’s psychological warfare! Don’t let yourselves be drawn in! Hold the formation!”
Carlson rode back and forth on horseback, bellowing at the top of his lungs.
“Everyone hold the line! Hold the line!”
The convoy’s commander roared himself hoarse.
“They’re coming!”
“They’re charging!”
“Raise your spears!”
This time it was not a single beast. Five or six hell wolves came surging in at once.
‘They go first for the weakest one, or the one most afraid. In that case…….’
Before Isaac’s thought could reach its conclusion, the hell wolf charging toward Carlson abruptly changed direction and ran toward the carriage.
More precisely, it was not aiming for the carriage itself.
“Hans, Hans!”
“Y-young ma-master, m-my legs…….”
In that fleeting instant, Hans, who had been staring at the hell wolf rushing toward him, turned his head toward Isaac.
It was the face of a man who had sensed death and let go of everything.
Both Isaac and Schiller moved before thought could intervene; they flung open the carriage door, trying to seize Hans and drag him inside.
But the hell wolf looked far faster than they were.
It was already almost upon them.
Kugugung—!!!
Hiiiihing!!!
With a heavy crash, the horse let out a shrill cry.
The carriage overturned onto its side and Isaac and Schiller were thrown tumbling inside it.
“Hans!” Isaac shouted.
It felt as though his heart dropped straight through him.
When had he sworn never to repeat the same regret again?
When had he watched Randolph die?
Was he truly so foolish as to repeat the same mistake once more?
“Ugh. Young master…….”
There was one more person inside the overturned carriage besides Isaac and Schiller.
Hans.
“I-I’m here.”
“Hah.”
Isaac let out a breath that was almost a laugh.
Hans was bleeding from the head, but it did not look as though the black wolf had bitten him.
“Young master, thanks to you and Sir Schiller, I li…….”
Before Hans could finish, his head snapped to the side; Isaac had punched him square in the face.
“Ha ha, your fists are fiercer than I expected.”
“You…….”
“I’m sorry.”
Hans gave a foolish little laugh, but his expression soon darkened.
Far from being useful, he had only caused trouble.
With anger still on his face, Isaac climbed out of the carriage.
“At least you lived.”
Schiller patted Hans on the slumped shoulder.
His hair, always so neatly kept, had fallen utterly disheveled.
“Are you all right?”
Carlson asked Isaac as he shook the blood from his blade.
At the very moment the black wolf had been about to tear into Hans, Carlson, riding behind on horseback, had leapt from the saddle and driven his longsword into the back of the hell wolf’s neck.
The beast, its vital point pierced through, had managed only to slam into the carriage and overturn it before dying on the spot.
“Thanks to you.”
Isaac’s answer was brief.
“It seems to be over.”
Three of the hell wolves were fleeing from the supply convoy.
Near the convoy lay the sprawled corpses of soldiers, and the bodies of two hell wolves pinned to spears like hedgehogs.
“And over there…….”
Isaac turned his gaze toward the military camp.
“It looks like some lunatic has things under control.”
Carlson was right.
At the entrance of the camp, where the wooden palisade stood, a huge man was swinging an axe in each hand; the soldiers around him stayed at the palisade’s boundary, thrusting out only their longspears, but that giant was facing the hell wolves in the open, with no cover at all.
“But that…….”
“Yes.”
“He’s naked.”
“He is naked.”
“He’s laughing.”
“His mouth might split open at this rate.”
“He’s insane.”
“He is insane.”
The ridge where the supply convoy stood was not far from the military camp.
It was close enough to make out with the naked eye.
But not so close that a shout should have carried.
And yet.
Kwahahaha—!!!
That mad laughter echoed faintly but distinctly across the wasteland.
“How long had he been doing that?”
“I don’t know. By the time things on our side were nearly settled, he was already like that. It rather destroyed any sense of tension.”
“It’s Bessemer.”
Schiller cut into Isaac and Carlson’s exchange.
“You know him?”
“He’s from one of the battle tribes. In effect, he is much the same as the commander of this camp. Most of the soldiers in Vinfeldt are from tribal people.”
Schiller answered.
“And a battle tribe would be?”
“A tribe that was warlike, better at raiding than at self-sufficiency. Most of those tribes have broken apart now, so it is a thing of the past.”
“He still seems to enjoy fighting.”
“A man unlike that would not survive long here.”
Of the nearly fifty soldiers in the supply column, eight had died and twelve were wounded.
Unfortunately, the commander at the head of the convoy had also been killed, and Schiller led what remained onward to the camp.
Even by then, Bessemer was still walking outside the palisade without so much as a thread on him, his body smeared all over with the blood of demonic beasts.
The bulging veins on his shaved head were covered in dark brown blood, and the thick beard covering his jaw had clotted and stuck together so badly it was a mess.
“Bessemer!”
“Oh, well now, if it isn’t big brother.”
“Not big brother. Chamberlain.”
“Sure, sure. Wait just a bit.”
Bessemer was dismantling a hell wolf with a dagger.
Its black, heavy hide peeled apart like parchment.
“La tu balaka sanctum. La tu balaka sanctum.”
Even while his hands never stopped working, Bessemer kept muttering in an incomprehensible tribal tongue.
“These bastards’ hides are so heavy they don’t fetch much, but once you wear them, they keep you warm.”
“Bessemer. Did you receive the letter?”
“Hold on. This is an important moment.”
Bessemer raised a hand slick with beast’s blood and cut Schiller off.
No one in the territory, save the Margrave, ought to have treated the chamberlain that way, but Schiller only sighed as though accustomed to it.
“Well now, look at this one. Built sturdy, ain’t he? Clear and clean inside too.”
Bessemer slit open the belly of the skinned hell wolf, rummaged around within, and pulled out a bright red organ.
It had not been dead long, and steam was still rising from it.
“This here’s wolf liver. Eat this, and you get the wolves’ strength and courage. And that’s not all. There ain’t much better for a man, neither.”
“Bessemer.”
“You want some too, little brother? A man like you, still showing old-man vigor like big brother there, must still put a lot of importance on his nights.”
“Bessemer.”
Bessemer ignored Schiller entirely, buried his face in the wolf liver, and bit down.
Drip—!!!
Wolf’s blood ran thick over Bessemer’s face.
“Oh, that’s good. Have a bite, all of you. Nice and warm, just right.”
Bessemer handed the remaining liver to the soldiers.
“Bessemer, the young master has come.”
“Young master? Ah, you mean big brother’s brat.”
“Not big brother. His Excellency.”
“Sure, sure. Long as I know big brother’s the head of this land, what more’s there to it?”
Bessemer said this as he smacked his lips over the half-eaten wolf liver.
“You are, haah. Never mind.”
Schiller shook his aching head.
“So you’re Bessemer.”
“Mm?”
Bessemer, scratching at his scalp where the dried blood must have begun to itch, turned toward the voice.
“Who’s that brat?”
He looked at Isaac, then asked Schiller.
“Did you hear nothing I said? It is the young master.”
“Huh? The young master? You’re telling me that little runt who used to look ready to bawl at any moment is that boy?”
“Mind your insolence.”
“Ah, and what’s going to happen if I’m rude to big brother’s son?”
Passing by Schiller, whose face had tightened in displeasure, Bessemer strode up to Isaac.
“Well, damn, time flies. When’d you get this big? Your eyes’ve turned manlier, and you look taller too. Your hair color changed some as well. When you were a tiny thing you were the spitting image of little brother, but now you’re starting to take after your sister-in-law.”
Bessemer circled once around Isaac as he spoke.
Each time he walked, something swung into sight.
Isaac found it deeply irritating.
“You.”
Isaac pointed between Bessemer’s legs.
“Ah, this? Surprised, were you? Let me tell you, this great root’s a Blessing handed down by my ancestors. My treasure.”
Bessemer placed his hands on his hips and proudly displayed himself.
“That wasn’t what I asked. Cover it.”
“Ah, right. Your family’s always been stiff about things like that.”
Bessemer grinned and wrapped the freshly stripped wolf hide around himself.
“But where’d my little brother get off to?”
“Little brother?”
“Pick, I mean.”
“Pick?”
Isaac tilted his head.
“Does he mean Pyke?”
Schiller, somehow managing to understand him, asked back.
“Ah, right, right. That’s what it was. Every time I called him Pick, he’d get mad.”
“You really did not read the letter?”
“Letter, letter, letter. Did one come?”
Bessemer asked the soldiers beside him.
“Anyone see it?”
“……Uh, that, well, brother, you used it as kindling when you were drunk. Said it was cold before dawn.”
One of the soldiers answered carefully.
“You fucking bastards. Why didn’t you stop me!?”
“We did. Three men rushed in, and all three were bedridden the next day.”
“Ah……. So that’s how it went, then.”
Bessemer scratched his cheek, looking awkward.
“Hah. Fine. I wasn’t expecting much. Listen properly from now on.”
After another deep sigh, Schiller explained everything that had happened so far.
How Pyke had engaged in human trafficking and then tried to kill Isaac, and how he had been executed and his head displayed.
And then how Isaac had rendered service to the house and been granted Vinfeldt.
“Huh. Well now. He went like himself, all right.”
Bessemer did not seem especially grieved by Pyke’s death.
He merely clicked his tongue a few times and gave a hollow laugh.
“So now, Isaac, young master, has become the master of this land.”
“Well, do as you please. Writing names on parchment with ink is little brother’s business. But becoming the true master of Vinfeldt is another matter. Even a man like my little brother never became this land’s real master in the end.”
“Do not trouble yourself. The young master will return to the manor soon enough.”
Schiller lowered his voice as he spoke.
“For now, all you need do is see to his comfort while he remains here.”
“Eh, wait, wait, Isaac?”
“……That’s right.”
“I’m getting mixed up here. I heard big brother’s family had two children. Heard one of them got cursed and turned crippled. Which one is it?”
“Bessemer.”
“Answer me.”
Bessemer’s expression hardened.
“A cripple, or not?”
“Bessemer, this is…….”
“As you said, I am a cripple.”
Isaac answered in place of the hesitating Schiller.
“Hah. Seems big brother’s head’s gone wrong somehow.”
Bessemer was laughing, but his eyes were alive with contempt.
Isaac’s height barely reached the man’s waist, yet Isaac met that gaze calmly.
“Brat, I’m only saying this out of regard for big brother’s face, so listen well. While I’m still being polite, go back home. This is a battlefield, and we’ve got no time here to worry about some cursed cripple.”
As Bessemer growled, the mood among the soldiers with him turned ugly as well.
It looked as though they might raise their weapons at any moment.
And yet, in that situation, Isaac only gave a faint little laugh.
“If you drive out this cursed cripple, the lot in this camp will be wiped out before long.”
“Brother, what the fuck’s this little shit saying? He’s acting up because he’s got brother backing him, is that it…….”
“It won’t be my father who wipes you out. It’ll be the hell wolves.”
At Isaac’s words, the atmosphere froze in an instant.
END σϝ CHAPTER