Chapter 123

Chapter 123

***

The ranger was a profession that suited the clothing of solitude and loneliness best.

As a kind of watchman, checking the movements in remote border regions was their original duty.

One, two years were nothing, and they often lived alone in the forest for 10 years, or their whole lives.

However, some rangers kept dogs, and to them, dogs were friends, comrades, and family.

The problem was that as time passed, the lord or king who assigned them the duty often died, and they frequently forgot that the rangers even existed.

Buried in solitary duties, solitary lives, and solitary time, they were forgotten.

That was the case for the rangers of the Griffin Forest. Whether the Emperor entrusted them with the duty, or someone else did longer ago, no one remembered.

Because they were lonely as immense time passed, they naturally formed a village, perhaps.

Whether 100 years or 200 years had passed since the day they received their first mission could not be known. Now there was no one left to give orders, or to say anything, but the rangers guarded the border.

What defined their identity was still their duty.

Rickart and the soldiers marched, carried out a surprise attack, exited the forest, and gathered near a peak. Though called gathering, everyone was exhausted and sprawled out spread-eagle everywhere.

While the soldiers didn't feel tired when actually fighting or running due to the massive adrenaline rush, when the situation ended, they became half corpses.

So Rickart personally counted the number of people and checked the personnel. Truly not a single one, there were no casualties.

The peak at the gathering point was truly peculiar. Among the gently connecting ridges, it protruded unusually with a broken and chipped appearance, resembling a cow's horn.

While fighting frantically, the sun was setting before they knew it. Rickart looked toward the lowlands to see if enemies were coming or not, then raised his head and looked far away, watching the western sky burn red. The wind blew and cooled their sweat.

However, it wasn't just Adelorn soldiers at the gathering point. Lester, whom they met by chance, and a dozen rangers following him were also there together.

Because the situation was so urgent they didn't have time to exchange separate greetings or anything, they just avoided the place for now and arrived here.

Turning his head from the sunset and looking at Lester, he was sitting and loosening the bowstring and maintaining his bow with skillful hand movements.

A bow was a sort of consumable, and a weapon requiring far more hands-on care than bladed weapons to be properly used for a long time.

Because if the wood warped, absorbed moisture, or the bowstring weakened, it easily caused trouble in actual battle.

So they carried several bowstrings and continuously maintained them whenever they had a chance, and when not in use, always placed them by the fire to keep them dry.

Even to someone who didn't know much about bows, Lester's hand movements were swift yet meticulous and precise.

Perhaps feeling Rickart's gaze, he briefly glanced at Rickart, then focused back on maintaining his bow.

When his busy hand movements ended and he was about to place the bow by the fire, Rickart spoke. He had waited for him.

"Is your grandfather doing well?"

"He passed away."

"Mm...... I'm sorry to hear that."

The very first words weren't very good. However, Lester didn't seem to particularly mind. Rather, he looked indifferent without a shred of sadness.

"What is there to be sorry about. Growing old and ending one's life is the same for anyone. Be it a king or a beggar, humans or beasts. And me, and you. So there is nothing to be sad about, or to be sorry for."

"......I agree."

"Because my grandfather passed away, now I am the Griffin. That's all."

"Griffin?"

"The captain of the rangers of Griffin Forest."

It seemed the one leading the rangers of Griffinswald, namely Griffin Forest, was called 'Griffin'. Though the word was like that, in reality, it was a concept similar to a village chief or head of a vigilante group.

It was a concept unfamiliar to Rickart, so it was hard to understand precisely.

"By the way, isn't it quite far from the Griffin Forest to here?"

"The forests are all connected. It's been about 3 years since we've been staying here. Since the civil war broke out in Adelorn, many remnants of defeated armies crossed over and caused trouble."

"Ah, did the Margrave summon you?"

"No."

"Hm?"

"No one's order is needed to protect the forest. Because my ancestors have done so for generations, I am simply doing the same."

In other words, no one ordered them to, but they voluntarily protected the border forest.

Not because of some noble ideology or honor, but because it had solidified as tradition over a long time, he naturally did the same.

Somewhat sleepy eyes, extremely indifferent expression, short hair and a quite bushy beard. He spoke little, merely silently fulfilling his duty through actions.

Although Rickart had never actually seen a Griffin, just like the famously known noble and stern Griffin, Lester looked like that too.

"But a large-scale troop appearing all at once like this time must have been troublesome?"

"That's right."

Groups of defeated remnants could perhaps be somehow blocked and chased away no matter how many they were, but properly organized 5,000 mercenaries seemed to be a burden even for them.

Having no energy to be cautious of strangers, Lester looked back at the soldiers sprawled here and there resting, then looked at Rickart again and spoke as it was without weighing this and that.

"They are brave people with good stamina. Although they are few in number, if they fight alongside us we might be able to drive the enemies out. At the very least, they won't be able to build a weird camp in the middle of the forest. Can you help us?"

Actually, the one who needed help was Rickart, but because Lester wasn't a negotiator, he just spoke honestly as it was.

If he was a negotiator, he would sharply gauge each other's situations, set conditions favorably for himself even a little, and pursue profits.

Lester had none of that. As he only lived stuck in the forest, was he ignorant of how the world worked.

But Rickart liked such purity the most. He despised those who clumsily used their heads. He possessed the discerning eye to distinguish that from birth.

However, Rickart didn't answer immediately and fell deep into thought. At first, he didn't remember who Lester was, but now he remembered that very moment as if it was alive.

The smell of wood and glue, his grandfather's wrinkled hands, Bolka and his friends, the pursuing enemies. Isn't the current situation similar to then?

So Rickart recalled his grandfather's crisp voice and asked like this.

"What can I trust to entrust the precious lives of my soldiers to you?"

Then Lester also pondered quietly, suddenly, a smile imbued with the red sunset spread across that stone-like blunt face.

"Try trusting your instincts. Look into my eyes and judge whether I am trustworthy or not."

It was exactly what Rickart had said to the grandfather. That was enough. Because it meant their memories connected. No handshake was necessary, a single smile was enough collateral.

Rickart let the soldiers rest sufficiently, and it was only the next day that he gathered everyone and spoke.

The surcoat drawn with a white cross on a red background was somewhat frayed by the enemy's spears, swords, and arrows, but that only proved he wasn't a coward but brave.

The border army of Adelorn and the rangers sat comfortably here and there or stood, looking up at Rickart standing on a rock. The cool morning air caressed the napes of their necks, feeling quite nice.

Although not intentional, because he was standing somewhat with his back to the morning sun, a jet-black shadow covered Rickart's face.

"I will speak clearly. I will kill all the enemies."

Rickart spoke firmly. Whether those words were logical or feasible wasn't important. If he said so, it was so.

Rickart's words felt like a heavy rock, and like a vivid red color. There was no room for objections or different opinions. Because power was loaded in his words. The source of that power was absolute belief.

"I have a plan. If you unite as one and follow, we will succeed, and if you doubt and act confused, we will miserably fail. This is clear. So I will ask. Will you follow me without an inch of doubt, or will you just pretend to linger around."

Then soldiers here and there said they would follow. Although they didn't shout boisterously, confidence dwelt in their eyes.

Because they had seen him penetrate the camp against 5,000 enemy troops with no one getting hurt, and previously, they had seen Rickart entering tens of thousands of enemy camps alone and capturing flags.

Since the soldiers themselves directly experienced and saw things that made no sense, trusting and following that commander was perhaps natural.

"Then I will explain the operation."

As Rickart began to explain the operation to the soldiers and rangers, simply summarizing it, the rangers would harass the enemies in the forest, and Rickart would ambush alone to lure them out.

Whether that would happen in a day, or take days, or months was unknown, but the important thing was after luring them out, the ambushing soldiers would drive the enemies into the canyon and push them off the cliff.

The concept itself was simple, but executing it required taking risks. And as expected, Rickart decided to step forward personally this time as well.

Rickart first had the soldiers familiarize themselves with the surrounding terrain for three days, then decided to execute the operation at night.

The enemies were still struggling to organize and clean up the heavily battered camp.

As a commander, he had to make a decision whether to abandon the forest or not, but it wasn't easy for him to make a decision. Because of sunk costs.

The fact that stone and wood entering the fortification, and construction equipment like cranes were committed proved that an unimaginably enormous amount of money had been spent.

Honestly, if they had built a camp in the open field, it would have been an easy task. But the reason they couldn't was precisely because they had to cut off Adelibari's food supply route at all costs.

So they couldn't just give up easily saying 'Ah fuck it's ruined', and above all, since it was an army similar to a coalition of mercenaries, halting the construction operation was something that could damage his command authority.

So the mercenaries roughly organized the camp and just stayed there. In a word, it was close to just killing time idly, unable to do this or that.

But taking it easy without anything particular to do wasn't comfortable either. Because they were performing an operation away from the main force, there were no prostitutes, and booze was scarce as well.

Honestly, living in the forest itself was hard from the start. Moreover, having been severely beaten by Rickart's surprise attack recently, they naturally began to question why they had to do this crap and harbor dissatisfaction toward the commander.

"Ah fuck, if we had just pounded stakes and pitched tents in the field, this would have been over already."

A dense forest where the starry night sky couldn't be seen, one of the two mercenaries sitting together by the fire vented his dissatisfaction.

"I didn't like giving the commander seat to the engineering guys from the start. I knew this shit would happen."

"Fuck, those bastards didn't even have that many guys, yet we got beaten like retards."

"If we just all go together and land a punch each we'd kill them all. Right?"

"Like a coward bastard would do that."

The current commander of the mercenaries was somewhat competent in his own right, but because his specialty was fortification, he was a bit passive regarding field battles.

The 'Invincible' Grantz had his reasons for choosing him as commander, because even if makeshift, planting a fortress there could perfectly cut off Adelibari's supply route.

The problem was that things went awry now.

"By the way, did you hear that?"

"What?"

"I heard Felt didn't receive his pay this time."

"Hey, no way. When we came here, I saw him bringing an enormous amount of chests. You're saying all of that runs out?"

"Hey, so did you personally see whether there's money inside those chests or not?"

"I didn't...... If you touch them your wrists fly off."

When handling mercenaries, you had to take care of their pay first. So they always carried things like chests fully packed with silver or gold coins.

"So look, originally they thought the construction would finish quickly so they didn't bring much money, but maybe they already spent it all?"

"Are you sure about that? That Felt didn't get paid. That makes no sense."

"If you want, go wake a sleeping guy and ask him right now."

It was a serious problem. Not getting paid. If the daily or weekly wage wasn't given properly, why on earth would they risk their lives doing this.

Of course, each mercenary company was different. In the case of harshly oppressing mercenary companies, pay was often delayed for months.

And for armies led by kings or high-ranking nobles, if unpaid wages occurred, they could momentarily suppress it with the commander's high status and authority.

But not now. The commander was a fellow mercenary, a commoner. Moreover, they weren't the same mercenary corps or company. Therefore, if wages were delayed for even a single day, there was no need to fight.

The moment wages were delayed, instead of him being a commander, they could argue asking 'Who are you to boss us around?'.

"So?"

"What do you mean so?"

"You wanna bail?"

"If wages are delayed, just leaving isn't desertion. Right?"

"That's true...... Let's ask Felt to make sure tomorrow."

"Good. If it's true we didn't get paid, there's no need to argue or anything. Let's just go. Fucking hell. Fuck, Gus even busted his back carrying stones. What kind of bullshit is this."

"I thought they would at least let us pillage a village after the construction ended."

"That's probably true? The Great King promised to let us loose once the construction is done."

The Great King referred to the 'Invincible' Grantz. He called himself Great King, and the mercenaries also called him that as a sort of nickname.

"Then can't we quickly wrap this up somehow?"

"Wanna just gather some guys and go by ourselves instead? The girls are pretty."

It meant to leave without permission. An idea they normally wouldn't even dare think of, but when the camp was chaotic like now, doing such crap quickly was the nature of mercenaries.

"Really?"

"Yeah. The kids in Beringen have lots of blondes right. Because it's the north. The water is clear too so their skin is soft."

At the mention of blonde hair and soft skin, the mercenary who first vented his dissatisfaction smirked foolishly. Since he had built up sexual frustration for a while, he quickly spread the wings of imagination.

"Wow...... How long has it been......"

But regrettably, his imagination couldn't be realized. Because suddenly out of nowhere, an arrow flew soundlessly and pierced his neck.

Whizz! Thwack!

"Urgh!"

Holding his neck, he collapsed to the side. Making only 'keok, keok' sounds, his throat was blocked so he couldn't speak or shout. Only fresh blood was spat out of his mouth.

The mercenary chatting with him had his eyes wide open. He had to instantly signal the danger, but he froze for about 1 second. That was his end.

Whizz! Puk!

This time, an arrow pierced right between his eyes, snapping his head sharply back. Unable to even cough up a breath, he merely wiggled his body briefly while his fingers curled grotesquely.

It didn't take long for the two mercenaries to die. A moment later, a crunch crunch sound could be heard from somewhere, and Rickart revealed himself near the fire.

The flickering flames peeled back the darkness and illuminated Rickart up to his jaw. The upper part was obscured in darkness, and his two eyes blazed golden like small will-o'-the-wisps.

His gaze wasn't directed at the two corpses, but at the enemy camp lit by bonfires and torches not far away.

Starlight couldn't reach inside the forest. Though not particularly needed right now.