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Ricardt, Ice, and Falen followed the senior adventurers and headed south again.

While Beringen was in the northeastern frontier, Torveil was on the eastern frontier, and the roads weren’t as well-maintained.

To the east, a majestic mountain range stretched from north to south, cutting across the continent, towering over the land as if looking down upon it.

A breeze that started from the high peaks, where eternal snow lay, blew toward Ricardt and his companions. It was refreshingly cool, to the point where one might wonder if summer would ever come.

“By the way, who’s the kid named Ricky?”

One of the four senior adventurers ahead spoke. He was a man with a distinctively large hooked nose.

“That’s me.”

Ricardt, wearing the hood of his red cloak, raised his hand.

“Huh… You’re quite different from what I expected. I heard you killed that wolf bastard, so I thought you’d be a big, arrogant guy.”

“You must be pretty tough, huh?”

“Not sure.”

“No, it’s just that… Look out for us a bit. We’re pretty weak, you know. Still, we’re from the same academy.”

Although the concept of seniors and juniors existed, the hierarchy between them wasn’t that strict. And in this field, there was a saying: The one who fights better is the senior.

Ricardt simply smiled faintly at the senior adventurers from the academy, who were talking so humbly. He could sense that they were actually quite strong.

“Well, that’s a relief. I was worried you might be a loose cannon. If you’re the one who killed the Wolf, we wouldn’t be able to handle you.”

“By the way, how old are you?”

“I’m 11.”

At the mention of 11, all four adventurers ahead turned sharply. Their eyes were wide open in surprise.

Ricardt had developed a bit faster than his peers, so even though he was still young, they hadn’t expected him to be just 11.

“…Is that even possible?”

“What is?”

“No, I mean… What was I doing at 11?”

“You were getting your ass kicked in the henhouse, remember?”

“That was before I even went into the henhouse. Oh right, I was just getting beaten the hell out of by my father. My brother would hit me, then I’d go outside and get hit again.”

“By the way, this kid’s really good-looking. What’s your name?”

“Ice.”

Perhaps because they were strangers, Ice responded coldly. The adventurers quickly sensed that they shouldn’t try to engage him in conversation. This one’s going to be trouble.

However, they didn’t take offense and smoothly shifted the topic.

“Ricky, if you’re 11 now, let’s see… By the time you turn 15 and reach adulthood, you might become one of the Empire’s Nine Swords.”

“Come on, that’s not possible.”

“You took down Wolf’s head at 11, didn’t you?”

“…I guess.”

“What’s that?”

Ricardt interrupted the conversation to ask.

“If you’re going to be an adventurer, you should know some basics about this field. The Nine Swords of the Empire are the nine best swordsmen in the Empire. It’s not an official title, but people just call them that. There are the four champions of the Emperor, Steiner, the leader of the Ernberg Five, the ‘Nameless’ X, ‘Iron Arm’ Randell… Let’s see, how many are left… one, two…”

“Anyway, two of them live in the west, so you don’t need to worry about them. You’ll probably never go that far in your lifetime.”

“Ah, shit, what were their names again…”

“Are those people Sword Masters?”

Falen, who was more curious than Ricardt, asked the question.

“The title is just Nine Swords. Not all of them use swords. The Emperor’s champions are definitely Sword Masters, but two of them are old and apparently on the verge of death. As for the rest, we don’t know. We’ve never seen them. The territories where the Nine Swords operate are places where adventurers can’t easily wander. It’s their territory, after all.”

The way they talked about “territory” made it sound like they were wild animals. Then again, there were many aspects of the human world that weren’t much different from the wild.

In the wild, enemies that posed a threat to survival were usually killed outright. Just as lions killed hyenas or other predators, if adventurers strayed into their territory, it wouldn’t simply end with a warning.

Perhaps the essence of justification in fighting is about eliminating competitors—whether it’s a power struggle, a war, or even a trivial knife fight.

“Anyway, that’s the gist of it. Hey, Ricky, if you’re born a man, shouldn’t you aim to be the best? Don’t you have that kind of ambition? The Empire’s 9 Swords, Golden Broccoli Ricky!”

Ricardt let out a small laugh. He thought all of that was just hollow fame.

Honestly, having been called all sorts of titles in his previous life, he wasn’t particularly impressed by such things anymore. Murderer of murderers, devil of devils, the Iron Reaper, and so on…

Come to think of it, though, all those names had struck fear into people, be they barbarians or imperial citizens. But unlike those titles, the Empire’s Nine Swords were revered. In that sense, it seemed a bit better…

“Well, I don’t know. If we could make it the Empire’s Ten Swords, the number would feel more complete and satisfying.”

“Ooooh!”

“As expected from the guy who killed Wolf, he thinks on another level.”

“Wow, fuck. So, we’re hanging out with the future 10th Sword of the Empire? If you become one of the Ten Swords, wouldn’t that make you a guild master? So save me a spot.”

“No, I brought up the Nine Swords first, so I get dibs.”

“First come, first served.”

“This bastard always acts so annoyingly like this.”

“Fuck off.”

“What’d you say?”

“Hey, hey, hey! You two, knock it off! Not again. There are kids here.”

For some reason, two of the adventurers were about to fight, so the other two quickly stepped in to stop them. It was kind of ridiculous, but these people still had a bit of immaturity about them, likely because they weren’t much older.

They were all in their early twenties, adventurers who had only recently finished their three-year active period after graduating from the academy. Fortunately, though, they weren’t bad people. But Ricardt couldn’t help but wonder, was there really anything to learn from them?

Luckily, there were things to learn. First of all, the reason the guild had requested support from academy students wasn’t due to any major issue; they simply needed to search a large area.

So they just needed more manpower, and therefore, the job itself wasn’t dangerous.

However, because they didn’t know what the desperate deserters might do, it couldn’t be considered completely safe either.

In any case, what Ricardt learned as a student from these veteran adventurers were skills like gathering information, tracking, and building communication networks.

After all, in his past life, he had always worked alone aside from his military experience, so he wasn’t very familiar with the organizational and managerial aspects.

Gathering information wasn’t too difficult. People in rural areas, unlike city folk, were usually born and raised in the same place and rarely left their hometown, so they tended to notice and remember strangers.

So, when asked if they’d seen anyone suspicious recently, they were almost always able to provide accurate answers.

After three days of tracking, they finally caught up to one of the deserters. However, there was a problem.

“Hey, you fucking bastards! Don’t come any closer!”

At the entrance of a dilapidated hut stood a man in tattered clothes, holding a young girl hostage. He had a crude knife pressed against the girl’s delicate neck, staging a hostage situation. That was the problem.

The villagers had gathered around in a crowd, watching the scene, and the girl’s mother had collapsed to the ground, sobbing uncontrollably.

“Oh, please! Please! Just take me instead!”

But the girl, oblivious to the situation she was in, was just staring blankly, not understanding what was happening.

“Ah, fuck…”

One of the adventurers leading Ricardt muttered a curse. Normally, he was playful and cheerful, but now his face was genuinely irritated. After a moment of swearing to himself, he shouted out loudly.

“Hey! Put the knife down! What are you gonna do, holding a kid hostage? You’re dead already! You bastard!”

“Yeah? Then it might as well be worth it to take this kid with me! Come on! Come at me!”

“Haa! Fucking… Shit. Ha…”

The adventurer cursed continuously, as if his blood pressure was about to make him drop dead. There were no good options. Either sacrifice the girl or let the deserter go.

In reality, sacrificing the girl wouldn’t cause much of an issue. It was an era where the death of a peasant girl living in a rural village wouldn’t stir much concern. Letting the deserter escape, however, could lead to bigger problems.

However, the adventurers knew it wasn’t the right thing to do as human beings, which was why it was such a headache.

“What the hell do we do?”

“I have no idea, fuck…”

Ricardt, Ice, and Falen stood some distance away, merely observing. If a fight were to break out, they would have helped, but right now, there didn’t seem to be a solution.

“Maybe we could shoot him with an arrow or something…”

Falen muttered. But there was neither a suitable bow nor a skilled archer nearby. And more importantly, the girl could get hurt.

At that moment, Ricardt, after quietly observing, approached the senior adventurer.

“Should I try talking to him?”

“Yeah… Well, do whatever you want.”

The adventurer didn’t say anything like “This isn’t your place.” He seemed so frustrated by the situation that he had practically given up. The only thing left was deciding whether to make a move or not.

With permission, Ricardt removed his hood and started walking towards the deserter with steady steps.

“Hey! Fuck! I said don’t come any closer! That sword on your shoulder! Drop it! I said drop it!”

After getting a bit closer, Ricardt calmly removed the sword from his shoulder and tossed it far away. He also threw his dagger aside. To show that he had nothing left, he opened his cloak wide for the deserter to see.

“What the hell, you little brat? What’s with that hair? Are you making fun of me? Huh?!”

Only after Ricardt had discarded his weapons did the deserter seem to really see him. That’s how tense the deserter was at the moment. One wrong move, and the girl could die in a split second.

“I’m not mocking you. I just want to talk.”

“Talk about what? I’ve got nothing to say! Just let me go! Let me go, damn it! I want to go home! I don’t even need the three months of overdue pay! I just want to go home! I want to see my mother!”

The deserter was almost crying as he shouted. Ricardt silently listened, waiting until he had vented all his frustration.

Once the deserter’s breath became ragged, and he was panting from exhaustion, Ricardt finally spoke.

“Where was your post?”

“What?”

“I’m asking where the battlefield was.”

“…Raeldorf. Why?”

“Was the winter cold?”

“Huh?”

“No matter how thick your boots were, didn’t your feet swell up from the dampness inside?”

“…How… how do you know that?”

“Sometimes you have a good day, but most of them are tough, right? A comrade you were joking with last night dies in the morning. Moldy bread, rotten fruit. You try to sleep it off with some alcohol, but the nightmares just won’t go away. Isn’t that right?”

“…”

The deserter’s eyes widened, and he blinked in disbelief.

Everyone else present thought of the deserter as just a crazy man. But Ricardt wasn’t like them. He understood. He understood the pain and sorrow that man must have felt.

Losing limbs or suffering physical injury was bearable. What was truly unbearable on the battlefield was the destruction of one’s mind. Ricardt knew this better than anyone. He had experienced it firsthand.

That’s why Ricardt felt a sense of shared pain with the deserter.

“The worst part is those shitty orders from higher-ups who don’t even know the situation on the ground, right? You follow orders knowing it’s a mistake, and people end up dead. Booze, gambling, women—there’s a limit to how much those can numb the pain. But it’s not because you’re weak. It’s because you’re a good person. You just didn’t belong on the battlefield.”

The deserter, as if hypnotized, fell into a daze. He blinked repeatedly, then shook his head, then went back to that dazed state. It was as if he were dreaming with his eyes wide open.

“So, you don’t need to do this. Let the girl go. Her mother over there is crying. She must be in so much pain right now. The girl has done nothing wrong. Don’t you agree?”

The deserter stared ahead. But his eyes were unfocused. It was as if he wasn’t looking at Ricardt, but at something beyond him.

He wasn’t looking at the people around him either. His gaze seemed to stretch far past the horizon, across time, into the past. Yet, he couldn’t fully escape the terrible memories of that past. There must have been a time when he was innocent too.

Finally, as if all the strength had left his body, the deserter’s arm, which had been holding the girl tightly, fell limp. He stood there in a daze for a moment before suddenly snapping to attention and shouting loudly.

“Raise your spears! Hup! Spears forward! Hup! 7th Infantry! Ready! Match your steps! One! Two! One! Two! Thrust! Huaa! Thrust! Huaa!”

He was no longer human. He was a broken machine.

And that broken machine, without a second of hesitation, drove his crude knife deep into his own neck. It was as if he were following orders.

“For God and the Empire! Glory to the Crown Mercenary Corps!”

Thud!

He collapsed, rigid, his head slamming against the ground. His eyes were wide open, his mouth agape, and blood spilled across the earth. His body trembled violently for a moment, then went limp.

A chilling silence descended upon the scene. The wind that swept through felt colder than ever. Ricardt approached the deserter, closing his eyes and shutting his gaping mouth.

He took the girl’s hand and walked her back. Everyone who had gathered—both children and adults—stared at Ricardt with expressions as if they had seen a ghost. Was it magic? Was it some kind of mental magic?

Ricardt led the girl back to her mother. Her mother, who had been crying earlier, was now staring wide-eyed at Ricardt, utterly speechless. The scene had been so shocking that she had forgotten her daughter had been close to death just moments ago.

Ricardt stepped away from the crowd and began walking.

“Ricky.”

Ice called out to him. But Ricardt didn’t respond, his eyes unfocused, his steps unsteady. He looked like a puppet with its strings cut.

The eerie atmosphere was so overwhelming that even the senior adventurers didn’t dare call out to or stop him. Falen hurriedly picked up Ricardt’s sword and dagger, which lay scattered on the ground.

Ricardt was completely dazed, a ringing sound echoing in his ears. Mentally, this was far more exhausting than the fight in the forest. It wasn’t even a comparison.

Right now, he just wanted to be alone. So he walked, aimlessly, further and further away.

And with that, the eventful deserter request was completed.