Chapter 23

Chapter 23

“A mere mercenary wielding an Imperial steel weapon? I’m starting to wonder who you are.”

Garcio readjusted his stance. He stretched his sword out to a medium distance to settle into a defensive stance. He was intending to parry every blow and not give away even the slimmest of chances to Urich.

‘I’m the one who wins by dragging this on, so I just have to buy time. However...’

Garcio took a quick glance to his side. One of his mercenaries who was a part of the fortress attack was running back toward him.

“I heard your bone snapping loud and clear just now. That hurt, didn’t it?” Urich said as he twirled his sword. Garcio maintained his concentration as he stared at Urich without a word.

‘His stance is solid now. He’s trying to buy himself time.’

Urich swung his blade at Garcio a couple of times, but it was impossible to penetrate his defense. Their weapons only clashed meaninglessly.

“Count Daggleton, my brother! Run for your life and don’t look back. It’s all over if they capture you!” Garcio signaled to Count Daggleton, who hesitated for a moment and then started to flee with a heavy limp.

“Hmm,” Urich’s eyes went back and forth between Garcio and Count Daggleton. He suddenly leaped backward, then launched himself toward Daggleton.

“G-get him! He’s going for the Count!”

Nobody could catch up to Urich. Even back in his tribe, there wasn’t a single warrior who could keep up with his speed. There was no chance for these mercenaries, let alone for those with heavy metal armor weighing them down. All they could do was just watch powerlessly.

“I got you,” Urich said as he grabbed Daggleton by the throat.

“Y-you bastard, this is for Allian!” Daggleton cried out as he fumbled for his sword. Urich grabbed his hand and snapped his wrist.

Crack.

“Argh! M-my arm!”

“Stay still. It must be nice to be a noble, huh? Even if you start a war, you can pay your way out of it. Now, tell your men to drop their weapons,” Urich threatened Daggleton as he held his sword against the noble’s pale throat.

“Y-you son of a bitch, you murdered A-Allian!” Daggleton raked his nails down Urich’s arm. Urich, irritated by his struggle, slapped Daggleton across his face. A few teeth popped out of his mouth onto the ground.

“K-kugh,” Daggleton’s desire for revenge was quickly extinguished and was replaced by trembling fear. He came to the realization that his life was in Urich’s hands.

‘The plan worked,’ Donovan thought as he backed off and looked at Urich. The war was over now that they had Daggleton in their captivity.

“Pull your troops back! Go on, tell the leader of the mercenaries, Count,” Urich said, looking back and forth between Count Daggleton and Garcio.

“B-brother Garcio,” Daggleton said, almost pleadingly, as he desperately looked at Garcio.

“Hmm, I guess that leaves me no choice,” Garcio muttered as he scratched his head. He walked toward Urich and his brother, holding the side with broken ribs.

Swipe.

“Count Daggleton has a young offspring, Garcio. He will be the one taking after his father, not you.”

“That won’t be an issue when I marry my brother’s wife and take him in as my adopted son. Their marriage was probably not in a good place, so she might even welcome my proposal,” words flowed out of Garcio’s mouth without a hiccup. It wasn’t hard to see how Garcio was going to gain his power without much fuss. He had already figured out a way to quell the dissatisfaction around him while legitimizing his succession.

“Hmm, if you want to succeed the Count, Garcio, you must hide the fact that you killed your own brother with your own hands.”

“I’ll have to keep the unnecessary rumors from spreading—at least until my authority is stabilized. In exchange for your silence, I’ll give up the rights to this land. We’ll write up the documents right now. Doesn’t this work out for both of us? We’ll forget my brother’s misdeeds and become good neighbors.”

Garcio’s offer sounded like music to Mollando’s ears.

“...the previous Count Daggleton fell to his death from his horse. I did hear that his horse-riding skills were quite poor a while ago,” Mollando said with a grin. His voice was soft and sweet as if he hadn’t criticized Garcio’s wrongdoings just a minute ago.

The negotiations went smoothly. A scribe drew up the agreement, and Garcio and Mollando stamped their seals on the document. Besides the dead Count, everyone was happy. Mollando was able to protect his territory and be free from the threat of Count Daggleton. Garcio was able to claim the countship of the Daggleton family as an illegitimate heir under the official process.

‘Perhaps, this is what Garcio had planned all along...’ Mollando thought to himself as he looked at the back of the soon-to-be new Count Daggleton.

“We just dueled with our lives on the line. We should at least know each other’s names,” Garcio stopped and turned to Urich.

“I am Urich the barbarian. So long.” Urich nodded lightly. He did not like Garcio one bit. More than once, he contemplated putting an axe through the back of his head.

‘If I only had myself to worry about, I would have cracked his skull open by now.’

Urich understood that he was now a part of the mercenary squad. He had to consider the best interest of the squad, not only for himself. If he were to kill Garcio on a whim, the rest of his gladiators wouldn’t have survived the Silver Lions.

“When the word spreads that you fought equally against the Silver Lion Mercenaries, your inquiries will be endless, Urich.”

Garcio had acknowledged Urich as a mercenary, who was staring at him with his arms crossed.

“You were planning on killing your own brother from the beginning, weren’t you? It would have made more sense to keep him by your side as we fought, but you told him to run—as if you were giving me a chance to catch him,” Urich said with a cold stare. Garcio had killed his own brother for his greed. It was an unacceptable deed for Urich.

To Urich, brotherhood meant living and dying for each other. It wasn’t meant to be used as a disposable tool for one’s own good.

‘He’s got sharp eyes. Unless he dies doing this mercenary gig, he’ll eventually become a big figure.’

Urich was the sole reason that his plan went awry. Garcio did not plan on killing Count Daggleton today. He wanted to wait until they had the territory under control before killing him and covering it up as an accident, but under the circumstances that he found himself in, he chose the next best alternative.

“You will never understand, barbarian. Everyone told me an abandoned son could never be the Count, and that it was the fate of an illegitimate son. Well, I came here today to overcome that fate. Kek kek, cough,” Garcio’s cackle was interrupted by the pain in his broken ribs, and he clutched his chest.

Urich in fact did not understand Garcio. Was being a Count so important that it was worth tricking and killing his own brother over? The disgusting taste in his mouth kept him from speaking.

“If we meet again, Garcio, you will die by my hands. Remember my name, Garcio Daggleton,” Urich threatened ferociously as he showed his teeth. Garcio flinched.

‘Barbarian. His people lost to us civilized people, but this one is making me nervous.’

The Empire stretched far into the north and south, and the barbarians in those lands were no longer a concern as they were slowly assimilating into civilization.

No one was able to see it coming—that beyond the Sky Mountains were people who roamed the grasslands and forests.

There were two worlds divided by the Sky Mountains, and only Urich knew of their existence.