Chapter 817 - The Burning Crow, The Promiser of Plenty, The Heat-Bearing Companion, The Pure White Destroyer, The Mistrustful Loner
"Kill them? Should we kill them? I'm telling you, they reek."
Dunbakel abruptly cut into Rem's words.
Her training in the East and the various experiences she had gained there had developed her sense of smell into a new form that surpassed the sixth sense.
She could smell the scent of malice.
It was similar to the sixth sense that felt presence, but she perceived it in the form of a smell.
The stench coming from the three of them was enough to give her a headache.
'How can they smell worse than the monsters of the East?'
Do they not wash?
Here, the meaning of washing was not literally drawing water and pouring it on the body.
"What's the use of just washing the body? You have to wash the mind."
There were many eccentrics in the East.
Among them was a man who had sworn to never kill a person in his life and only fight monsters.
He was said to be a priest who served a god of the Underworld.
He had always said that one must purify the mind to be truly washed and clean.
Though she didn't know the method, she knew one thing.
'It's bad.'
There was a smell coming from them that made her want to pinch her nose.
'Malice, twisted desire, a lust tangled beyond belief.'
There were many similar smells, and though they resembled each other, they did not mix. It smelled like half-brothers who share a father but have different mothers.
'Though this expression is a bit strange, too.'
Rather than trying to describe the smell she was sensing, Dunbakel expressed her will.
"We're not killing them?"
She asked again.
They were filth that needed to be cleaned up.
That was her judgment.
If this were the East, her hands would have moved long ago.
But this was the Border Guard.
There was someone who would move before she did.
More importantly, when she had unconsciously tried to make a move a moment ago, that bastard Rem had subtly blocked her.
And as he blocked her, hadn't Rem muttered?
"What, you want to earn a title like 'Hooligan of the East'?"
Control yourself.
Rem's gray eyes had conveyed those words.
Dunbakel had been scolded similarly by Anu before.
"Just because you've overcome fear doesn't mean it's all over. Beastkin, in a way, are even more obsessive than frogs.
If you don't cultivate self-control, you won't be able to climb any higher."
Anu had said that while trying to eat some steamed beast meat, chewing on it before spitting it out with a ptooey.
A few of his loyal retainers and escorts who were by his side had laughed heartily at him.
The Dunbakel of that time could not have cultivated self-control.
Life in the East was fundamentally hands-off.
They fought on their own, ate on their own, and did what they had to do on their own.
The eastern expedition team could not continue if it weren't for that.
Since they would wander off at the drop of a hat, saying they were going to explore a new place, there was no place that could be properly called a city except for the central camp.
Was the advantage that there were almost no monster attacks?
But it was just as barren a place.
The wilderness was full of places without a single blade of grass.
It wasn't a desert, yet it was an extreme environment where one could only live near a lake.
A child born in the East must pull their own weight from a young age.
They must find their own food, and it is difficult to live if they do not prove their value.
Anu sent such children to the continent in droves in the first place.
The fact that he had come to see Enkrid before and had continued to send him letters was also part of such work.
'His generosity is wide.'
Anu was like that.
He had paved a path for those who could not settle in his land.
In a sense, he had opened a way for them to make a living by heading to the Border Guard.
In any case, Dunbakel had reached her current state based on that laissez-faire principle, so she hadn't been able to cultivate self-control, but.
"What? Should I pop out one of your eyeballs? It's golden, so I think that Big-Eyes would buy it for a high price."
Here, there was the personification of self-control named Rem. This bastard was quick to pick a fight, was interested in all sorts of things, and had a sharp mind. Rem, who had restrained Dunbakel, turned his gaze to Enkrid.
Enkrid was silent.
Same as ever.
He just stared forward stoically.
Not that Rem's gaze was questioning.
'Why is he letting them be?'
Curiosity?
Probably.
It wasn't that he could smell things like Dunbakel, but Rem's senses also had an extraordinary side to them.
'Ominous and seditious.'
It wasn't because they had cast a curse.
In the western style of speaking, these people were like 'a day where the sun does not rise.'
They were like storm clouds that had filled the sky, black as pitch.
Today's sky was unusually clear and the sunlight was warm, but the atmosphere these people exuded was the opposite.
'And yet, I'm also curious.'
The opponents had pierced that point well.
The talk of eternal life and whatnot was one thing, but their very existence was grating.
And that grating feeling was unfamiliar.
'To speak in the style of the hooligan beast who returned from the East, they reek to high heaven.'
More than anything, it was a smell he had smelled before.
The stench of the Demon Realm, perhaps.
He had smelled a similar scent from the being called Beelrog.
However, while the main scent from Beelrog had been an acrid, burnt smell, this one had a stronger fishy smell, like rotten fish.
Of course, Rem had not smelled it directly.
It was just what his sixth sense, cultivated by shamanistic power, was telling him.
That those things were very vile.
It was as if one of the eight divine generals was saying it was its turn to step up.
The divine general who hated and detested the wicked and vile whispered that it would lend him its power.
Rem suppressed it, stood with his legs apart, and swayed his shoulders from side to side in a swaggering posture, resting his axe on his shoulder.
"They're interesting guys, huh? Very interesting."
Rem muttered.
As was common for those who saw Rem, the three—be they guests or uninvited intruders—felt a sense of foreboding.
That man was someone who would split their heads with his axe at any moment if left alone.
This bastard felt more dangerous than the man they had met on the way who had swung his sword out of the blue.
The magician in the black hat let his arms hang loose.
If things went south, he would have to prove his strength to them, even if it meant showering them with spells.
In that situation, an unexpected person made a sound.
"Anything!"
Was it because he felt the atmosphere changing strangely?
Or was it because he had judged that he couldn't be dragged along like this?
It was probably both.
The man with the portly belly shouted, his jowls trembling.
He was a merchant, a born tradesman who could not sell what he had for a cheap price just because he was swept up in the atmosphere.
He had achieved an outstanding record in his field.
If not, he would not have been chosen as the envoy to deliver the message.
His tradesman's sense had shouted that now was the time, so he opened his mouth again.
Enkrid's gaze turned in that direction.
It was a gaze that had turned because he had felt interest, though it looked impassive.
Though not as much as Krang, his voice, which had a prominent appeal, had the power to draw the surrounding gazes.
"There is no need to decide at once. When buying a valuable item, must one not weigh what is good and what benefits can be taken?"
Power was added to the words of the man who had been crumpled to one side, pushed by the atmosphere.
He did not go with the flow but created a new one.
Of course, this flow was the kind that would be split in two by a single swing of Rem's axe and turn into blood, brains, and shattered bone fragments.
Still, the tradesman showed courage.
If he were a man who couldn't even say what he had to say, there would have been no reason for him to come this far.
"Well, that's a very good point."
And the person to answer that remark also stepped into the training grounds.
A man with glossy brown hair, and next to him, his brown-skinned escort and lover, and right behind them, the man named Abnaier, who, though not having defected, worked better than his best.
The sunlight shone down on them.
Abnaier took in the three of them with his eyes and met each of their gazes one by one.
And he inwardly judged them to be formidable opponents.
It was a habit of his, of grasping the opponent's prestige.
Of course, compared to the man named Enkrid standing before them, the presence of those three was merely lacking.
'Beelrog Slayer.'
At the story he had heard through Krais, Avnaier's heart had been pounding for several days.
Suppress the Demon Realm, strengthen the nation's internal affairs, and build a foundation.
A nation with strong roots would gain the upper hand in the fight against the Demon Realm later, and would not be shaken by external forces, be it the Empire or whatever.
It was the nation Abnaier dreamed of.
And what was the most crucial part of his dream?
'Knights.'
Or magicians.
To be more precise, it was a military force that was beyond the standard.
A power composed of a small, elite group.
And not just any knights or magicians, but those who had to fight to the end and prove themselves.
That is to say, they had to be active energetically even after destroying a few colonies.
But to fight the demon of strife?
To win against it?
And to return?
It was something he had never even imagined.
And the person who had achieved that was before him.
That was why he was just stoic, even though the three before him were revealing a strange presence.
Was Krais similar?
Abnaier could not be sure.
What Krais had said upon hearing that he had killed Beelrog remained in his memory like a brand.
"Now, Ab, you have a large house. But a fire has broken out in the house right next door. Then wouldn't you be curious about who started the fire? If not, wouldn't you at least try to find out why the fire started? But let's say you happened to find the person who started the fire."
"If I did?"
"What would you do to that person?"
He might set my house on fire.
A person with that assumption was by his side.
Abnaier was a designer who laid all sorts of traps on the battlefield.
He possessed an intelligence that had reached the extraordinary rather than the ordinary.
"If it were me, I think I would order him to burn the enemy who threatens my house."
"Yes. That could be one way, or you could try to erase the variable. Right?"
It was difficult for Abnaier to predict how far Krais' imagination had reached.
'A house and a fire.'
In any case, he knew that the person who had started the fire was Enkrid, but after that, it was all a mystery.
Krais' voice broke through his thoughts and rang out.
"What a peculiar group of people. One of them is a magician, right?"
Krais was not at a knight's, or even a Junior Knight's level, but his wits far surpassed that of an ordinary person.
He grasped the opponents' identities just from their attire and atmosphere.
The gaze of the man in the wide-brimmed hat turned to Krais.
It was a look of 'what is this now'.
He had experienced many absurd things on his way here.
Still, he had noticed that the big-eyed man was the most rational and reasonable person to have a conversation with.
"That's right."
The answer came from Esther.
In the meantime, the man with the greatsword staggered to his feet.
He could no longer muster the courage to attack.
Having been broken in a single blow, he had nothing to say.
If they had fought properly, he would have had means of resistance left, but now he had come as an envoy.
It meant he must not go against his master's will.
'The shock remains.'
More than anything, the blow that had struck his stomach had torn some of his internal organs.
It was a blow that might have killed an ordinary person.
The blow that had struck his torso would have been transmitted to the master he served.
It was likely thanks to that.
His master's will, which had originally been cleverly riding the fence, had now tilted to one side.
The scales, on which removal and appeasement were placed, had tipped to one side.
The direction it tipped was not toward removal, but the opposite.
'Lure him in, no matter what.'
The other self within him intuitively conveyed his master's will.
It was as the man with the greatsword got up and quietly sheathed his sword.
The merchant opened his mouth.
"May I formally introduce myself?"
He spoke while looking around at the assembly, and his gestures and attitude were quite natural.
He was used to this kind of thing.
He was a man who had dealt with people a great deal, whether at a stall or as a peddler.
He was a man responsible for one of the branches of the Lengardis merchant guild.
Since he was a person who had proven himself not with military power, but in other ways.
"I am here at the call of the Master of Forbidden Word and the Believer in Gold."
He said, puffing out his chest, and at the same time, he observed everyone's reactions.
Not secretly, but by looking at everyone.
It meant he wanted to see if they knew the meaning of his words, and if they did, how they would react.
The beastkin still looked like she wanted to beat him up, and the barbarian had a look of 'what the fuck is that?'
The man named Enkrid was stoic, and the magician named Esther was muttering, repeating the words 'person, magic, person, magic'.
At least the man with the brown hair and the man with the green hair behind him seemed like they could be reasoned with.
A light curiosity arose in their eyes.
The merchant's gaze turned in that direction.
They say that to target a general, you must first shoot his horse.
'Target the people around him first.'
Especially that brown-haired man, one look was enough to tell he was of a similar feel to himself.
In other words, he was a man who could ignore common convention if there was a profit to be made.
If so, they could talk. At the very least, he would be able to convey his master's will.
Wasn't that the very reason he had come here himself?
"Do you know of the Demon Realm?"
The merchant asked.
Information is an invisible, intangible product.
And enticing an opponent by giving them a part of the product was a basic of business.
He raised his own value by bringing out information the opponent did not know.
The other two quietly became spectators.
In terms of speaking skills, that man was the best, so they were letting him be.
Of course, if he tried any tricks in the middle, they would immediately stop him.
The merchant had no military power, but the two did.
That gave them a relative sense of ease.
"In the Demon Realm, there are many of those whom you call demons."
A demon is not a derogatory term, but it is not a term of respect either.
The actual residents of the Demon Realm call themselves something different, but there was no need to mention that here.
The merchant knew how to choose his words.
"The Burning Crow, The Promiser of Plenty, The Heat-Bearing Companion, The Pure White Destroyer, The Mistrustful Loner."
The merchant paused appropriately and then continued.
"It seems you are all hearing these for the first time. These are all names that refer to what you call demons."
***
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