CH 13

“T-that is my emergency fund! Give it back! What is this tyranny? Didn’t you say you were looking for a book?”

“No! You don’t know how and when the book will appear! Maybe this is it? Is it a magic book in the shape of a jewel?”

“You said it would be returned after examining it closely, and it clearly isn’t the book.”

The man said this, but there was no way the mercenaries would return the items they took.

‘Even robbing their underwear. Will they take this too?’

Azadine clicked his tongue as he thought of the copy of the book on him. He would definitely be caught.

What should he do? Should he reveal his identity and punish them?

If he did that, first it was Lord Kozel, and now these people, a future of him being pursued was obvious. As Azadine hesitated, the two children approached him.

“What do we do?”

“Fight?”

“Wait. Just wait for a moment.”

Azadine stopped the two children. It was because he could see a messenger approaching and talking to the mercenaries.

The mercenaries panicked and began to collect all of the loot.

“T-that is it for today.”

They allowed those who had been searched to pass through, and those who weren’t finding places to stay outside also began to move closer.

“What is happening?”

The merchants were shocked at this.

“I heard there’s an ogre nearby.”

Azadine told the merchants this.

“Uh? What do you mean?”

“I have good hearing, so I could hear what they said.”

“What?”

The merchants and travelers who had planned to stay outside suddenly looked scared.

“No… what is that though….”

“Uh?”

Once Azadine mentioned an ogre, the mercenaries clicked their tongues. They headed towards the gates while the merchants and travelers watched them closely.

“Wait!”

“Let us talk!”

The merchants moved closer, but the soldiers didn’t respond.

“What is this…”

“T-they are doing it for real.”

Looking at how the mercenaries were reacting, it was clear that an ogre had indeed appeared. Everyone outside fell into deep thought.

In the Eastern Hinterland, there was a high plain basin that was adjacent to the Anukai Desert. The area was known to be quite fertile due to the winds that blew the sand into the desert and the rains that fell during the rainy season.

However, people who lived there had no choice but to be driven away as ogres came down from the Black Tooth Mountains to take control of the lands and settle there.

Ogres were muscular giants twice as tall as men and weighed ten times more. They possessed superpowers that couldn’t be compared to humans. Despite lacking in intelligence, they were a ferocious race.

One of the primary duties of the Count of Casel was to serve as a bulwark to prevent ogres from entering human territory.

Fortunately, the monsters could not unify or organize enough to make long-distance marches. Additionally, ogres of the highlands also attacked and ate one another instead of humans. Fighting amongst themselves was the main priority.

Taking advantage of this, successive Margraves of Salasma had begun building villages beyond the Gateway to the East. However, due to the recent unending drought, even the ogres had started to suffer.

Although ogres were not the most intelligent monsters and could not make long distant journeys, the lack of water motivated them to put aside their infighting and search for better lands.

“Ogres? How many of them?”

Tarki, the illegitimate son of Count Casel, asked the scout who had come to report.

“We only identified one. However, it has hobgoblins and goblin soldiers under its command. The number of these is unknown, but according to what the scouts saw, there were more than 10…”

“That is bad. If there are more than 10 of them, isn’t that a full troop?”

Proper ogres would have goblins and hobgoblins as their subordinates. In other words, the one they had found this time wasn’t a runaway ogre but one that commanded its own troop.

An ogre alone was a formidable opponent, but with goblins under its lead, it would make it even tougher for humans to deal with.

Of course, this was a gateway path, so an ogre could do nothing if they used the fortress walls.

There was no reason for Tarki to fight and waste his men either. It didn’t make him money, and sending his men to battle would cost him more. There was a rule that the payment rate would double if a fight were to occur.

“It cannot be helped. Let’s head back with the loot.”

Tarki had decided to leave the place immediately. However, a man entered the town hall at that moment. It was the hunter who also served as the village chief.

“Sir Tarki, we have a problem.”

“Problem? What is it? Did the ogre arrive?”

“No, the people outside the gates are causing havoc. It seems like they had found out about the ogre.”

“What? What do you mean? What idiot let them know?”

Tarki was shocked. The ogres were heading south from the north, and the gate extended until the southeast. In other words, refugees and merchants outside the gates were also located in the southeast. This meant they could not see the ogre’s approach, so how would they know?

“No one told them.”

“Someone must have overheard the words of the messenger.”

“Urgh, stupid idiots….”

“What should we do?”

“What can you do? What can you people even do? Close the gate! Fucking cheeky idiots.”

“Uh?”

The hunter was dumbfounded at the order to lock the gate. Once the ogres approached, the people protesting outside would be defenseless in a fight. It was as if he was leaving those people to die.

“Now that we confirmed that none of them have a copy of the magic book, we can leave. Let those people stop the ogres and other beasts from getting close.”

“What is this…”

The hunter was embarrassed. From the moment the man had begun plundering, he knew that he was no real knight or even had the mindset of one. Yet he didn’t expect the man to be this shameless.

“Didn’t you enlist useful young people?”

“I will be leaving them behind. Well, since they are trained as soldiers, they should be of good enough use now.”

“…”

He had conscripted them as soldiers for a day and spoke as if they were trained. It was truly shameless, but the hunter could say nothing.

“Then let’s at least bring the people outside inside. I will be in command of defense here.”

As the hunter suggested this, Tarki snorted.

“What can you even do when you aren’t even a knight?”

Is this what this man, a knight, was saying while preparing to run away?

The hunter didn’t ask it out loud, though.

“Fine. I will entrust the defense to you!”

Tarki said this and called in his mercenaries. They proceeded to commandeer horses and oxen from the village and loaded their loot into carts.

The travelers and merchants outside were shocked by the word of an ogre’s approach.

“Oh my, everyone will die.”

“What? Shall we get out of the way and run to another place now?”

“But the sun will soon set….”

Crossing the mountain once the sun had set was no less than suicide. No one would know where beasts and monsters would approach on the roadside. Even stepping on a misplaced stone could lead to death or injury.

Traveling at night was only possible on a well-laid road. Alternatively, they would need to have great vision, like the dwarves and elves.

However, as the people began to panic, the gate in front of them suddenly opened. The villagers who opened the gate were aged, with nary a sight of the young among them.

“W-what is it?”

“Knights?”

“The knights and mercenaries left.”

“What now?”

“Come inside now.”

The man who looked like a hunter gave them permission to enter. Azadine pretended to be blind and walked with his cane and goat. The mood in the village was quite low.

It seemed like their young men had been conscripted, and the village had been looted. Those who had stayed behind were those who loved their lands, a handful of old men who were preparing to defend their homes.

“As you can see, we are in a tough spot now. Saying this, would you be fine with helping to defend the village?”

The hunter said this politely, but the spear-wielding people around him had scary expressions.

“Help? Of what kind?”

“Those who can fight will do so, while those who can’t fight will support the others.”

“Euk?!”

The merchants were shocked when they heard this.

“No, wait….”

“Usually, when we decide to help, it would be to become a battle merchant.”

When a merchant was drafted into war, they would become battle merchants. They played the role of one who would be able to buy or sell necessary goods along the battlefield, but they would not be expected to fight using their skills.

This was more advantageous rather than having them fight. In other words, the merchants would bring supplies to the soldiers who fought.

However, that only applied to a long-term war. Merchants were useless in a small conflict such as this, where they had to protect a gate from a dangerous enemy.

“What do we do then?”

A blind man asked this. He was a young man with a horizontal scar on his face.

Behind him were two children, a boy, and a girl, wearing dusty cloaks. Both seemed to be in their early teens. People of the south had a custom of early marriage, but even these children looked too young.

“The blind and children… please go with the weak and elderly.”

The hunter said this and began devising a strategy.

An ogre came while carrying the flag of the Broken Tooth Clan on its back and descended the mountain path.

The path through the Desert’s Backbone mountain range, which formed the border between the Kingdom of Korassar and the eastern lands, was quite rugged. Anyone who detoured to avoid the mountain peaks would inevitably arrive at the village gate.

The ogres were approaching through various paths and were able to capture humans whose eyes were removed and their feet broken.

“You, the portable rations. They belong to me.”

They captured the fleeing humans in large boxes of meat that they carried on their backs. The captured screamed as they fell into a large box filled with parts of human, goblin, and animal corpses.

“S-save me!”

“Damn it! Damn that Messenger Clan bastard.”

“AHHHH… Heavenly Kings! Please save me!”

Those trapped among the corpses screamed for help.