* * *

The stench was foul enough to make one wonder if the vegetables for sale were rotten.

“Who? The headman? I don't know. I don't. I really don't. If you're not buying vegetables, move along.”

The vegetable seller was clearly reluctant to say anything.

Valeri and his companions asked no more questions there. They left the market and went to a cloth shop to ask about the headman.

The person cutting fabric on a table with the aid of a ruler gave them an awkward smile and shook his head.

“Well, I just work here. I don't know much about what goes on in the world. Hahaha...”

They had no choice but to leave. That made five places.

“You'd think we were in Gringen,” Knut said.

The people of Gringen lived as though they saw and heard nothing, never breathing a word about any crime. This reminded him of them.

Unlike that city of crime, however, Benholm did maintain a measure of order and public safety.

“Isn't ‘headman’ a strange title to begin with? This hardly looks like a farming village.”

Yorik had a point. A headman belonged in a rural community, not a town.

But Benholm itself was difficult to classify. It wasn't populous enough to be a town, yet the people didn't farm or raise livestock either.

Valeri felt eyes watching him from the market. Even at this distance, he could sense people keeping track of them while pretending to shop.

“Were we too obvious about asking around?”

“They might have thought we were digging into him.”

“Shall we just leave?”

“No. Let's try one last place.”

Valeri headed toward the source of a ringing hammer. It was a smithy.

Five or six people worked at Benholm's smithy, and it was plain that weapons and battle gear were not their trade. They mainly made pots and farming tools.

Heat poured from the furnace. One worker pumped the bellows diligently while another hammered iron into shape.

Rather than immediately launching into questions, Valeri stood and watched them work.

Though they knew he and his companions were watching, they remained absorbed in their tasks. Only after some time, when there was a lull, did the man hammering iron set down his hammer and ask,

“Looking for something?”

“No. I have a question. In return, I'll show you something rare.”

At Valeri's words, the smith pulled off the cloth wrapped around his head and wiped his face. He looked at Valeri as though wondering what he was talking about.

“If you've got a question, ask it. As you can see, I'm not a man with time to spare.”

“Do you know the headman here? Oder?”

The smith gave a short laugh and sat down. Shaking his head, he answered.

“What do people like you call yourselves, walking around with swords at your hips? Knights? Mercenaries? Swordsmen? Adventurers? I can't tell the difference between people like that and thugs. Same goes for the headman. He says he's the headman, so that's what he is. That isn't what matters. What matters is that he comes here, writes something or other on paper, and the next day someone's dead or some village has been laid waste. I don't care where that worthless bastard came from or what he used to do. He's hardly the first of his kind. About a year ago, I think, we had a mayor. Before that, there were three men on some committee or whatever they called it. I suppose it's his turn now.”

“...”

From what the smith said, Benholm seemed to be a body that stayed the same while its head was replaced from time to time.

And whether they called themselves headmen or mayors, the people in charge seemed more interested in drawing up commissions and handling business elsewhere than governing this place.

It was less a village or town than a garrison. More precisely, a command tent.

“I heard thugs have occupied a nearby farming village.”

“And?”

“What do you mean, ‘and’? Isn't thugs occupying a village a serious problem?”

“Isn't that what the headman does?”

“?”

“Sending thugs to occupy villages and demand money. That's what all those so-called headmen and mayors do, isn't it?”

“...”

“Let's visit this farming village first,” Knut said.

Valeri nodded.

“So what's this rare sight you promised?” the smith asked.

Valeri nudged Knut.

“What?”

“Show him your dagger. The one you named Freedom.”

“Why mine?”

“Yours is small and simple.”

“I haven't even used it yet.”

Left with no choice, Valeri drew the sword at his own waist. The smith leaned back slightly as it slid free.

Then his eyes widened at the blade's condition. Its flat gleamed like a mirror, while its edge was so flawlessly honed that it scarcely seemed real.

Despite all the weapons, armor, shields, and people Valeri had cut through with it, there wasn't a single nick.

Even someone who knew nothing of swords could tell at a glance that this was no ordinary weapon.

“Dwarven steel. I thought a smith might like to see it at least once.”

“... What? Dwarven steel?”

Valeri smiled faintly as he sheathed the sword.

“Not every swordsman carries the same kind of sword.”

With that, he left the smithy with his companions.

They fetched their horses from the stable, mounted, and left Benholm, taking the road west toward the farming village.

Having set off that morning, they came upon the sight before noon: a long stake driven into the roadside, with a corpse impaled on it. Nor was it the only one. Four or five stood along the road.

Maggots swarmed in the rotting corpses, and flies buzzed around them. The dreadful stench carried far.

What it felt like to pass between those things on either side was impossible to understand without experiencing it.

An ordinary person would never even have considered passing through. It was truly horrifying, inspiring fear all on its own.

“Ugh...”

Yorik covered his face and hunched his shoulders. Perhaps nobles were different, or perhaps they were simply born that way, but neither Valeri nor Knut showed much change in expression.

“A warning,” Knut said.

“Yeah.”

Not long after they passed that stretch, they caught sight of the farming village in the distance along the hilly road, beside a river.

A palisade surrounded it, but the broad fields nearby looked ravaged rather than properly tended and harvested. A few patches had barely been harvested; others appeared trampled or burned.

From a distance, they could see several collapsed sections of the palisade. Broken carts and whatever else was at hand had been piled into the gaps as makeshift defenses.

There was no proper gate, only a barricade of sharpened stakes lashed together. A man stood atop the watchtower, his head turned toward them.

Both sides had noticed the other.

Valeri examined the surroundings more carefully in case of an ambush.

One might wonder where anyone could hide in such open country, but the ground rose and fell in subtle waves. The deceptive contours concealed things until one drew close, making it all the more dangerous.

Even so, he urged his horse forward. He judged that the force there could number only a few dozen at most. That many men could not deal with two mounted fighters in an open field like this.

Valeri approached until he was almost within bowshot, then shouted toward the village.

“Is someone in charge? I'd like to talk!”

A few people emerged shortly afterward. They did not come all the way out, but stood behind the barricade and shouted back.

“Who are you?”

“I heard thugs had occupied this village and came to investigate!”

“That's nonsense!”

The other man shouted indignantly. Valeri drew closer at a slow pace and studied them. They were armed, but did not look like professional mercenaries or swordsmen.

“My companions and I are travelers from Eldeira. We stopped at Benholm to find a baggage wagon, but they said there weren't any. They told us we'd have to get one here, only thugs had occupied the place.”

“Who the hell told you that?”

“The headman. Oder.”

“Ha!”

The man looked incredulous, then glared at Valeri.

“Listen carefully, handsome knight. I don't care what that bastard calls himself. He's the one who sends thugs to occupy villages and terrorize people. They were looting the village over that hill just recently. We took in the people who fled and decided to fight. You call that an occupation?”

“... Let's say you're telling the truth. Who is he to get away with this? What's the earl doing?”

“The right to collect taxes. The earl sold the right to collect taxes in this area. Pay him a certain amount, and the rest is your business.”

It was a shocking revelation. None other than the Earl of Westlanding had sold off the right to collect taxes here.

No, on reflection, it wasn't all that shocking. Valeri had seen something similar before, while touring Eldeira as a Patrol Officer.

Back then, a man far out of his depth had bought the right to collect taxes and met a miserable end. This seemed different.

“I doubt he could do this alone.”

“He's got mercenary companies, merchant companies, things like that behind him. It's always the same. That Oder fellow is just their lackey.”

The real problem was that when the earl sold someone the right to collect taxes, the buyer sold it on to someone else. And each buyer wanted to recoup the investment.

Put simply, Headman Oder—or the organization he belonged to—had taken a subcontract from the earl, then subcontracted the work again to swordsmen and mercenaries.

Nominally, they were collecting taxes. In practice, they were squeezing out money by any means necessary.

What made it an even bigger shitshow was that the right to collect taxes did not have to be bought in a legitimate transaction. One could murder its holder and take it, or drive out the existing power and seize it.

The earl didn't care whether they bought the rights from one another or stole them, so long as a fixed amount of revenue reached him.

“Has life here always been like this?”

“It never used to be this bad. Just a bit of wrangling. Sometimes we'd give in as though we had no choice; sometimes we'd make concessions. That's how things went. But this time, they suddenly started killing people. They've made up their minds. So what are we supposed to do? Make up ours too.”

Valeri now had a rough idea of how things worked. He reached a decision.

“Then let's do this. You hire us. Our payment will be a baggage wagon. Provide equipment for a few tents and whatever other tools we need for camping. I'd also like to hire some people for odd jobs. In return, we'll drive out the men occupying the village over that hill.”

“...”

The villagers looked skeptical, but also rather tempted by his proposal. They conferred in hushed voices before replying.

“That's a price well worth paying for someone capable of solving our problem. If you can drive those bastards out of the village, we'll gladly pay it. We won't be able to use the baggage wagon anyway if this keeps up.”

“Good. Then we'll go take a look.”

Valeri turned his horse and set off with his friends toward the place the villager had indicated.

“That Oder bastard lied to us,” Knut said.

The supposed thugs occupying the village were merely locals. In truth, Oder had hired thugs himself, then hired Valeri when they failed to get the job done. No wonder he'd smelled like trash.

But though they'd been told the village lay over the hill, there was no village on the other side. The terrain made it difficult to distinguish hill from plain in the first place.

Thinking like a local, perhaps a somewhat higher rise counted as a hill.

After about half an hour at an easy pace, they spotted another village on a slope. What looked like a livestock shed stood well outside it, suggesting that the inhabitants raised sheep.

A large tree stood beside the road leading to the village, with corpses dangling from its branches by their necks. There were six or seven by their count, rotting and giving off a foul stench.

“What a charmingly brutal neighborhood...” said Yorik, riding behind Knut.

In Gringen, the dead were generally disposed of in the marshes. Open displays like this were rare.

“What now?” Knut asked.

Valeri thought for a moment before answering.

“I've got an idea. Let's say Oder sent us and get inside first. We're on horseback, so they won't suspect us.”

Valeri rode straight up the slope. Here too, broken carts and stakes obstructed the entrance.

The man guarding it was sitting on something like an empty crate rather than a chair, joking with his companions. He didn't even rise at the sight of Valeri.

One glance was enough to tell locals from outsiders. Unlike the people in the farming village, these men had clearly come from elsewhere.

“Who're you?”

“Oder sent me.”

Valeri lied without a flicker of shame. He disliked lying, but could do it as much as necessary. War was deception, after all.

Sure enough, the seated man finally rose at the mention of Oder.

“... Please wait a moment.”

He went into the village and soon returned with a man who appeared to be the captain. The captain studied Valeri, his horse, and the friends accompanying him.

He looked rather young, but his striking appearance, neat clothing, and excellent horse marked him as more than an ordinary sword for hire.

Perhaps a noble family's second son who had entered the mercenary trade? That was the captain's guess.

“What brings you here?”

“How long do you intend to sit around here? Do you mean to waste time without even taking a single farming village?”

“Ah, well, we have a quota to fill. We've already lost a few men. If you could send reinforcements...”

“Shut your mouth, you incompetent fool! The longer you drag this out, the more food you'll eat up! Which will only delay filling your quota further! Do you think you'll get paid more for staying longer?”

The man flinched at Valeri's savage rebuke and lowered his head, not daring even to meet his eyes.

Seeing this, Valeri quietly offered him a way out.

“How much have you collected so far?”

At the question, a thought flashed through the man's mind. He thought Valeri wanted a bribe. Better to pay one now.

“Please, come inside first. They're shepherds, so they haven't much money to speak of. They have to shear their sheep and sell the wool before there's any money in it, you see... Still, I've worked hard and found a few things of value. The cheese is excellent, for a start. Allow me to entertain you.”

“Hmm. I'll take a look.”

Encouraged by Valeri's response, he rounded on his subordinates.

“What are you doing? Clear this away! Have you no sense? Must I spell out every little thing?”

At their leader's order—whether he was a boss or a captain—the men cleared away the debris blocking the entrance.

At last Valeri entered, and a bleak hellscape unfolded before him.

Corpses lay scattered carelessly about, apparently beaten to death rather than killed with blades. The vegetable gardens were ravaged, and in the livestock shed, instead of animals, stood women whose bodies were barely covered by rags.

Why look elsewhere for hell? Life was hell. Those who prattled about the end of the world clearly hadn't truly lived. Wasn't the end right here?

When strangers descended on people living peaceful lives, killed the men, and treated the women like this, that was hell. That was the end of the world. Ragnarok, great floods—it was all bullshit.

“Ah, those bitches over there are the low-grade ones. I've kept the really good ones separate. You can have a look later.”

As the man spewed his revolting words, Valeri coolly assessed the thugs' numbers, equipment, and positions.

They were certainly more than mere thugs, but as mercenaries they were bottom-tier. Every trade had its levels.

There were a little over twenty of them. After locating the crossbowmen, Valeri immediately cast a glance at Knut.

Knut understood the look alone and nodded. He would take the crossbowmen; Valeri would handle the rest.

Valeri dismounted first. As he followed the mercenary commander, he saw a small child sitting beside a building, clutching something.

At first glance, it looked like a large yellow ball. But it was a human head. Long blond hair covered it, giving it that rounded appearance.

“Whose head is that?”

Valeri paused to ask. The child holding the head looked up at him. The blue eyes were lifeless.

“Mom's.”

“And your father?”

“In the tree.”

“Do you want revenge?”

“... I just don't want to live.”

“No. I'll take your revenge upon myself. You go on living your own life.”

Even if the whole world collapsed and life was hell, what choice was there but to live while breath remained? Whether one became a devil in that hellish life or still yearned for heaven.

Valeri followed the leader into a nearby building. The door shut with a sharp clack.

It did not stay closed for long. When it opened again, something like a ball was flung outside and rolled across the ground, leaving a trail of blood.

It was the mercenary captain's head.

Only then did life begin to return to the girl's dead eyes.