When Shan borrowed the dead knight’s warhorse, it had been decidedly difficult, as though it resented having him on its back. Perhaps its bond with its former master had been especially strong. Or perhaps the weight on its back was simply too light to inspire confidence.

Shan had asked the other expedition members for their understanding and taken some time to bring the warhorse to heel. Following Roden’s instructions, he had picked a fight by yanking hard on the reins and kicking its belly, then stayed on its back for a long while as it bucked and thrashed to throw him off.

The ordeal had left the knight’s warhorse somewhat drained, but Shan was satisfied nonetheless. Now that it ran obediently at his command, its speed was beyond anything he had expected.

‘It’s incredibly fast...!’

The black horse he had brought on this expedition was quite good compared with his old gray one, but it was nothing beside this animal. Despite the muggy summer weather, the wind striking his face felt cool whenever its four hooves drove against the ground.

It even possessed a sensitivity and intelligence the black horse lacked. Without touching the reins, he could make it accelerate, slow down, or turn with precision through subtle pressure from his feet. It truly felt as though he had acquired four strong legs of his own.

‘I want an even better horse!’

A desire he had never felt while riding either of his previous horses sprouted within him.

Come to think of it, the horse Feonil Alten had ridden had been faster still. For a man of his stature, perhaps it had been one of those much-talked-about Horace warhorses. What would it feel like to ride such an animal at tremendous speed and thrust out a lance...?

That brief thought passed, and Shan’s excited mind returned to reality. He was currently charging straight toward a troll that was rushing at him. With his life hanging by a thread, he needed to concentrate on the matter at hand.

Of course, Shan did not feel the slightest danger to his life. In what seemed a fleeting instant to others, he could see and think far more.

First, he needed to assess the troll now that it was close. Last night, it had been so far away that he could make out little more than its silhouette. Now sunlight revealed it in full.

‘It’s lost a lot of weight.’

Unlike its plump appearance when they first met, the troll now had a narrow waist and muscles standing out all over its body. Apparently, it had not eaten to replenish the flesh it had consumed in their last battle. Come to think of it, hadn’t it simply abandoned Sir Soros’s corpse without feeding on it?

That had probably been meant to frighten or provoke them. Looked at another way, however, it could mean the creature had felt no particular need to eat. Judging by its quicker movements, it seemed to have chosen agility at the expense of some of the superior strength its weight afforded it, along with its defenses, endurance, and regenerative ability.

‘It still won’t help you.’

At the moment of impact, Shan raised the knight’s lance he had borrowed along with the horse in one hand and drove it downward. The thrust traced the same ideal trajectory Feonil the Black Lance had once demonstrated, wasting not a fraction of its force.

It lacked the destructive spirit of Feonil’s strike, but the power of proper form was not to be dismissed. Combined with the speed and weight of an excellent warhorse and a well-made knight’s lance, it was several times more powerful than his attacks the previous day. As the lance sank in, the horse veered slightly at its rider’s command and neatly evaded the club.

[□□■□!]

Had he struck its eye as he had yesterday, he could have shredded its brain and pierced its skull. But the creature raised a thick hand to shield its face, forcing him to settle for a slight change of target and stab its neck instead. Though the wound was not fatal, the troll seemed to struggle for breath as it gagged and pulled the lance out of its neck. Blood poured out, then the wound visibly began to close.

"That’s one hit..."

He had lost his longest weapon, but the lance had served its purpose by halting the creature’s charge and robbing it of momentum. Next, Shan drew one of the harpoons he had bought at the shop.

Just as he had demonstrated for Poivre outside the city, Shan circled on horseback, picked up speed, and drove the harpoon home. This time, he targeted the tendon at the heel—a relatively poorly protected spot with less hair and thinner hide, where a strike would also impair his opponent’s mobility.

"Good! That’s it!"

"Reinforcements are coming! Hold on just a little longer!"

As he busily carved into the creature, Kov and the squire shouted encouragement from the distance they had agreed to keep.

It might have seemed useless, but their efforts were surprisingly helpful. Apparently bothered by the mounted humans shouting incomprehensible things, the troll kept glancing behind it. Whenever it looked away, Shan attacked again to draw its attention back.

The creature blocked another arrow that nearly struck its eye with the back of its hand, then lunged savagely and swung its club. At Shan’s direction, however, the warhorse deftly drew away. It was a display of horse and rider moving as one.

"Look this way. I’m the one you’re fighting."

At his quiet murmur, the troll let out a furious roar.

Unlike when it had fought the two knights and shown fear, it now seemed merely enraged. Probably because it could sense no spirit in Shan’s attacks—no power capable of taking its life in a single blow. To the creature, he was not a dangerous opponent, merely an annoyingly elusive insect, like a mayfly.

Considering that Shan’s job was to serve as bait, that was fortunate. Yet it still left a bitter taste in his mouth.

‘I wish I could learn to use spirit soon.’

If he could, he would have ended the fight in that first clash, driving his lance through its hand and head and tearing through its brain. Unfortunately, the problem was that spirit would not simply come bursting out whenever he wanted it to.

After several more clashes, Shan embedded his last two harpoons in the creature’s tendons, crippling its mobility, then glanced down. He could feel his mount’s heart pounding violently and its breathing growing labored.

‘You’re tired.’

Facing a terrifying troll must have been exhausting in itself, but the greater problem seemed to be the horse’s wild struggle that morning, when he had established his dominance. Without that ordeal, he could never have controlled it so perfectly in the first place. It was a cost he had to accept.

Just as he began wondering whether he should dismount and fight on foot, he heard hooves pounding the earth in the distance.

"I’m here!"

Sir Katra, who had withdrawn far enough to be barely visible in order to lure the troll out, charged with his lance raised and a thunderous shout.

For the first time, fear appeared in the troll’s eyes. It had learned the knight’s appearance and voice in their fight the previous day. It tried to flee at once, but with harpoons bristling from its heels, it could no longer move as nimbly as before.

Unlike Shan’s earlier thrust, which had left only a small hole in its neck, Sir Katra’s lance struck at a full gallop and gouged a hole larger than a human head in its back. Even a monster as seemingly immortal as a troll could not remain standing with its spine blown apart. As it collapsed, Sir Katra drew his longsword and leaped from his horse. After sprinting more than a kilometer at full speed, his mount was already foaming at the mouth.

"Let’s finish it!"

"Yes!"

After a moment’s hesitation, Shan likewise leaped from his horse, taking up the knight’s longsword.

He had never used a two-handed longsword before, but the two knights had shown him how it was done the previous day, so it was not difficult. Catching the troll’s club on his blade as they had done was probably beyond him, though.

While Sir Katra grappled with the troll, which could resist using only its upper body, Shan circled behind it. He plunged his sword into its slowly regenerating spine and twisted the blade, tearing it apart. With a knight’s sharp, sturdy longsword, he had little difficulty digging into a wound unprotected by hair or hide.

Seeing this from the other side, Sir Katra laughed heartily and shouted, "Good! Keep doing that!"

For the troll, it was enough to drive it mad. In front, one foe swung a sword menacingly, ready to take its head the moment its guard slipped. Behind it, another—less powerful but far quicker and more troublesome—dug into its wounds like an insect burrowing into a corpse...

Its extraordinary regeneration had been constantly consuming its bodily reserves in an effort to repair its shattered spine, and its fat was already gone. Soon, it would begin consuming its powerful muscles as well. Then it would be finished.

The troll wrung every last drop from its cunning, glanced to either side, and made its final decision. First, it ignored the knight and swung its club wildly at the boy, baiting the knight into approaching. Then, just as Sir Katra moved to sever its neck from behind, it pinpointed his position by his shadow, threw away even its club, toppled over, and rolled sideways. In effect, it had staked everything on a bodily charge.

"Ghk...!?"

Unable to use either leg, the creature used its hands to roll itself sideways in an unprecedented attack. Sir Katra had unconsciously let his guard down in his advantageous position. Caught helplessly, he tumbled across the ground with the troll. Severing one arm as it reached for him at the last moment was all the resistance he could offer.

Though all its fat was gone, its bones and muscles alone still weighed hundreds of kilograms. A groan escaped him at the agony of his arm snapping and his ribs being crushed. Had the creature possessed the ample fat reserves it had at their first encounter, that alone would probably have killed him.

"Gah, hah..."

He had barely let out a pained breath when he realized that the troll was straddling him, drool dripping from its mouth. His eyes widened. Driven to extreme starvation, it gripped Sir Katra’s helmet in its remaining hand and opened its jaws wide, as though intending to devour him whole.

‘No!’

He saw the blackness beyond its sharp teeth approaching to swallow him. He had only just been knighted. His rise was supposed to begin now. Was the future that should have unfolded from this troll hunt really going to end in a place like this? With a disgraceful record of two knights joining forces only to be slain by a troll?

Just as his memories began flashing before his eyes, something glittering in the sunlight swept across his vision and plunged into the troll’s mouth. With the sound of tearing flesh, the jaws descending toward Sir Katra stopped dead.

"Ah..."

Only then did Sir Katra realize that Shan had swiftly circled around from behind and thrust his arm into the troll’s open mouth. When he withdrew his hand, it held the longsword that had pierced the roof of the monster’s mouth and torn through its brain.

"Are you all right?"

"Th-this thing..."

Understanding his plea to remove the troll crushing him, Shan threw aside the longsword and strained to push the corpse away. Its enormous bulk did not budge. Only when Kov and Sir Soros’s squire realized the troll was dead and hurried over to help did they manage to roll it halfway over and pull Sir Katra free.

* * *

A little later, the other expedition members came rushing up from afar and cheered at the sight of the troll sprawled on the ground.

"We got it!"

"Hurrah for Sir Katra!"

"Wait, are you all right, sir? You look..."

"You fought until you were in this state?"

Sir Katra’s squire, who had been leading the second group, rushed over to attend his master. There was not much left to do, however, since Sir Soros’s squire had already removed his armor, set his bones, and administered the other first aid he needed. The veteran hunter assessed the knight’s condition.

"Fortunately, since he hasn’t coughed up blood, it seems his internal organs haven’t been injured."

"Phew..."

While Sir Katra’s squire sighed with relief, the expedition members who had arrived later found themselves facing a question. They could see no external wound that might have killed the troll.

"Did it bleed to death?"

"Maybe. Look how thin it is. Almost looks like someone grabbed it and wrung it dry..."

"A sword through the roof of its mouth pierced its brain."

Everyone turned toward the speaker, Kov, the Altoan swordsman. With a triumphant expression, he pointed at Shan.

"That boy over there—the Altoan you all looked down on—finished the troll off. I saw it with my own eyes."

Uninterested in whatever they were saying, Shan was absorbed in his own task: stabbing and slashing various parts of the troll’s body with every weapon he possessed to identify its weak points. If he ever fought another one, what he learned here would help.

‘I can’t reach the brain through the ears. Unlike a human, it has bone under its jaw protecting its head too... And why is there bone inside its nose? Are the eyes and the inside of the mouth really the only options?’

Perhaps because its head was its only weakness, the troll’s skull enclosed its brain far more thoroughly than a human’s. Its neck bones were also thick and difficult to cut through.

Meanwhile, the argument among the expedition members ended when Sir Soros’s squire, standing nearby, confirmed the story. Had they not seen Shan take the troll’s eye the day before, they would probably never have believed it.

Their next task was collecting the spoils. What they could harvest from a troll was its bones. These were extraordinarily valuable medicinal ingredients. The medicine Roden had used to treat Shan’s chest wound had also been made by boiling down troll bones.

While Shan, who had fought in the battle, and the badly injured Sir Katra rested to one side, the expedition members used everything from enormous razors to saws, chisels, and hammers to strip away the troll’s hair and hide, extract its bones, and sort them. Before long, only tattered hair and hide, flesh, and entrails remained where the gaunt giant had lain.

"Oof, this is heavy."

"Stop slacking and carry more!"

The troll’s exceptionally dense bones weighed over two hundred kilograms. Even dividing the load among several people was not enough; they had to pile some onto the horses’ saddles as well.

The two squires carried Sir Katra on a makeshift stretcher. Despite the others’ protests, Shan also dismounted and carried as many bones as he could. Fortunately, no monsters attacked on their return to the city. Even stripped of flesh, the bones still reeked of troll blood, spreading the scent in every direction.

As the sun began to sink, the city guards stared in astonishment at the expedition returning laden with troll bones. Shan waved at Roden, who had rushed over as soon as he heard the news.

"I’m back!"

"You’re not hurt this time?"

"I’m fine!"

In truth, he had scraped his forearm against the troll’s teeth when he thrust his hand into its mouth. By Shan’s standards, however, that hardly counted as an injury.

A little later, Roden joined the discussion over the division of the spoils as Shan’s representative. Shan did not follow the details, but they seemed to be asking for a larger bounty because the creature they had killed had been exceptionally clever. Finding the complicated discussion tiresome, he withdrew to clean his sword. Before long, Roden approached and held something out to him.

"Here."

"What’s this?"

"Your reward, of course."

Shan accepted the heavy pouch of gold coins set before him with a dazed expression.

But hadn’t Mr. Poivre said he would not receive much money because he was going as a scout? When he said so, Roden gave an incredulous snort.

"I hear you lured the troll out, fought it by yourself, and even finished it off at the end. Paying you a night scout’s share after all that would be robbery. Half the city’s bounty and the money from selling the troll’s bones is yours."

He went on to explain that the remaining half had been divided among the dead knight, the hunter, and the warriors. Listening quietly, Shan realized no share had been allotted to the surviving knight.

"Then what about that knight?"

"Sir Katra? He gave you his share. He said you saved him when he was as good as dead. Otherwise, we probably would have spent a week arguing over the division alone."

"Oh."

Perhaps sensing Shan’s gaze, the pale-faced Sir Katra approached with a faint smile.

"I’m late in thanking you, young hero. I was rather out of sorts on the way back."

He had spent the entire return journey groaning on a stretcher, but apparently a priest’s miracle of healing had since improved his condition. Even so, he still looked far from well.

"It’s all right. But I heard you didn’t get any money. Are you okay with that?"

"It hurts, but I intend to accept it. Considering I learned my shortcomings without paying with my life, it was a small price indeed."

In his composed reply, there was no trace of the young knight’s arrogance Shan had seen on the first day. Perhaps enduring countless hardships like this, tempering oneself and growing, was how one became someone like Feonil. Or one died fighting somewhere before getting that far.

"I do not consider the debt I owe you for saving my life settled with mere money. I swear that, at any gathering of honor, I will never hesitate to say that Shan, an Altoan boy, saved my life."

Even after his conversation with Sir Katra, several more people came to speak with Shan. There was Kov, delighted that helping lure the troll had earned him a generous share, and several expedition members whose names Shan did not know, who said they hoped to fight alongside him again someday.

Once everything was settled, Shan let out an involuntary sigh of regret on the way back to the mansion.

"Haa..."

"What is it?"

"That warhorse and those weapons were really good."

The dead knight Sir Soros’s warhorse and equipment had been collected by his squire to be returned to his family. Sir Katra, who had known him reasonably well even if they had not quite been friends, had agreed to escort them. Roden patted the disappointed Shan’s shoulder encouragingly.

"I’d like you to have them too, but we can’t just take a dead man’s belongings. Well, we’ll be heading to the capital soon. Let’s find you something even better while we’re there. You have plenty of money now, don’t you?"

"Money... Right. It’s my money."

"Yes. Yours. Nobody else’s."

Shan jostled the pouch of gold coins tucked against his chest a few times, making it jingle. Real money, unlike the lumps of melted gold and silver he had picked up when leaving Willow Village. Unlike the money Roden had given him to spend, this was the first payment he had ever earned through his own work.

"I want to keep this money without spending it."

"Wouldn’t it be better to buy a good weapon or a horse?"

"Oh."

At the suggestion that this money could fulfill the desire he had felt just a short while ago, Shan began to understand why people were so desperate to earn it. In itself, it was nothing more than lumps of metal, yet simply handing it over in payment could get him all manner of things he needed.

Having already learned to desire strength and power, the boy was now gradually learning to desire wealth. Given that desire was the force that drove people forward, one might say his ship had gained another sail.

* * *

On the third day after returning from the troll hunt, Shan experienced popularity for the first time in his life. Was it because a boy in his early teens wearing a sword like a mercenary was an unusual sight? Whenever he walked down the street, people looked at him and whispered, asking whether that was the Altoan boy who had done the most to bring down the troll.

He was used to being a subject of conversation, but this was the first time it had been positive rather than filled with contempt and hatred. Bewildered, he hid behind Roden as they walked together. At such moments, he looked like a child his own age, and Roden would chuckle.

"What are you so embarrassed about?"

"Nothing, it just... feels strange."

"You’ll have to get used to it. To become a knight, you need to be much more famous than you are now."

His ability already made him more than qualified for knighthood. Considering his age, nobles should have been lining up for him. But Shan was, after all, an Altoan. He needed far greater achievements before anyone would be willing to endure other nobles sneering, “Have you lost your mind, making an Altoan a knight?” or openly criticizing the decision. He had to reach the point where, when some noble eventually knighted him, everyone would say, “Ah, that Shan. Even if he is an Altoan, he deserves to be a knight.”

"Remember this. For a knight, fame is a resource every bit as important as money. In the end, reputation is all kings and nobles have to judge a knight’s ability by."

Nobles did not try to examine each warrior individually to discover how strong or fast they were, how precisely they handled their weapons, or how clever they were. To prove oneself to them, all that mattered was the strength of the monsters and knights one had defeated and the deeds one had accomplished.

Meeting the influential figures of the city of Ovilos through Poivre’s introductions over the past three days had been an extension of that. In truth, Shan had merely watched blankly from the background while Roden stepped forward to build those connections. Bringing this up, Roden added another lecture.

"It’s all right for now, since they’re all commoners and you’re still young, but you need to learn proper etiquette. I can’t do this for you forever."

"It’s too hard..."

Learning how to hold utensils, how to speak, and other things that did nothing whatsoever to help him fight made him yawn. Memorizing the names of people he had no interest in was tedious too. That was why he had made little progress in this area despite Roden teaching him throughout their travels.

‘He seems bright enough. Is the problem that he can’t concentrate and has no interest?’

While Roden entertained thoughts typical of a parent whose child struggled at school, one of Poivre’s servants came to find them and spoke cautiously.

"Um, young master."

"What is it?"

"People have arrived from your family home."

"Ah, they’re finally here."

Three days had passed since he sent word by post immediately after the hunt. The people Roden’s father had sent to bring his runaway son home had finally arrived.