Chapter 45

Chapter 45: Meal

The sound of pigs having their throats cut echoed everywhere.

But it was only for a moment. Soon, the bandit camp went quiet as a graveyard.

Anagin walked up to one bandit, Beastcleaver in hand, dyed red.

The only bandit left alive in this place flinched.

"Hey."

"Y-yes? Yes?! Yes!!"

The bandit was trembling like mad, all trace of the confidence he'd shown that morning gone.

"You know where the other bandits are? The ones holed up with the boar's spawn."

"I—I know! I know! It's the truth!!"

The rookie bandit answered like he was having a seizure.

"Lucky you. If you didn't know, I was going to kill you too."

"Hiieeek…"

"You want to live?"

The rookie bandit nodded like a madman.

"Answer properly."

"I—I want to live!!"

"Good, I'll let you live. In exchange, go tell everything you saw here, exactly as it was. To every bandit you know. To the Forest Brotherhood. Don't leave out a single thing. Can you do it?"

"Yes, yes! I—I can do it! I can…!!"

"Good. Run."

The moment permission was given, the rookie bandit started running like a madman, tears and drool streaming down his face.

After confirming the rookie bandit had vanished into the distance, Anagin turned his head toward Sphinx.

"What are you doing?"

Anagin asked Sphinx, who was still covering the children's eyes.

Sphinx wore a somewhat angry expression.

"…It's not a scene kids should see, is it?"

Anagin looked around.

True enough, the torn-apart bandit corpses and the blood-soaked ground probably weren't good for children to see.

However…

"Uncover their eyes."

"Oppa."

"Please."

The moment the word "please" left Anagin's mouth, Sphinx, who'd been frowning, flinched and deliberated for a moment.

Anagin waited, and after a while, Sphinx relaxed her expression slightly and carefully released the children from her arms.

The freed children looked around. Checking what had happened. More precisely, checking what Anagin had done.

"……." "……."

Contrary to Sphinx's worry, the Old Man's grandson and granddaughter didn't cry at the sight of corpses strewn everywhere. They looked a little startled, but weren't greatly shaken.

Were they naturally fearless? Or had they steeled themselves?

Anagin decided to confirm that first.

"First, let's get one thing straight."

The grandson and granddaughter looked Anagin straight in the eye.

"This isn't because of you two, so don't hold any pointless hopes or guilt. I don't like that kind of thing getting tangled up in my business."

Anagin drew the line. The reason he'd taken down Paia and killed all but one of his underlings was simply because he'd felt like it—absolutely not because of them.

"I did it because I wanted to. Same as in Disis Polis. Answer."

"……Yes." "……Okay."

The Old Man's granddaughter and grandson answered, albeit halfheartedly.

Anagin decided to be satisfied with that for now.

"Good. Then stay there for a bit. Sit or stand, whatever. Are you hungry?"

The grandson and granddaughter shook their heads.

He couldn't tell whether they genuinely weren't hungry or just didn't want to eat, but Anagin decided not to care either way.

Like it or not, those kids now had to learn to feed themselves. A meal wasn't something someone else provided for you, or something that could be forced down your throat. Not unless it was family.

"Is this a magic tool?"

Leaving the children behind, Anagin kicked the boar-hide cloak draped over Paia and asked. It was split in half and unusable, but he wanted to know what it was.

Sphinx glanced once at the granddaughter and grandson, then walked over to Anagin and examined the boar hide.

"It's a magic tool, yes. They killed a boar just before it became a Monster, then put its Thought Residue back in and processed it. It draws on the dead boar's power and lets you command it as a summon. For now, let's take it."

Sphinx suggested they take the boar hide, split in two and smeared with blood.

"You can use it in that state?"

"Of course not. But it can be used another way. As material for crafting other magic tools, for instance. For now, it's best to take it."

"Oh, really? Impressive. You know a lot."

Anagin praised her and took the boar hide as instructed.

Sphinx wondered if she'd said too much. So she quickly changed the subject.

"…It's nothing. More importantly, are you planning to fight the Forest Brotherhood?"

"Yeah."

Anagin answered without hesitation.

Instead of being surprised, Sphinx reacted as if she'd expected it.

Well, of course—otherwise there'd have been no need to spare one man just to spread word of what happened here.

"Still, I asked just in case… like, declaring war on the Forest Brotherhood and then secretly running away."

She said that, but Sphinx already knew the odds of that were low.

If Anagin were the type to do that, he'd have left the region the moment the bounty was placed on him.

Somehow, things kept getting bigger.

They'd already made enemies of the Ascetic Family nearby. Now he was going to fight the Forest Brotherhood too. It was such a reckless course of action it made her wonder if he had a death wish.

"What are you muttering about?"

"Oppa."

"Don't call me that."

"At least you should've squeezed some information out before sending him off, don't you think? The rookie bandit. It would've made things easier."

Sphinx scolded him—he should've interrogated the rookie bandit instead of just letting him go.

Anagin ignored her.

"I can find that out myself. How much would that guy even know?"

That was true, so Sphinx couldn't argue.

The information a guy who was barely the youngest member of the camp would know was obvious. It'd be far more effective to find out through other means. The problem was…

"Do you have a way?"

"I'm asking you. How can we get information on the Forest Brotherhood?"

"…Are you serious?"

Sphinx asked back, utterly dumbfounded. To think he'd be this shameless and this unprepared!

"Why, don't you know? Well, I suppose you might not."

"…I do know."

"Good, then come along and let's talk."

Anagin packed the weapons scattered around and the boar hide into his subspace bag, then gestured for Sphinx to follow as he looked around the bandit camp.

Sphinx obediently followed behind and explained.

"First, two things come to mind right away, and one of them is the newspaper."

"Newspaper?"

"An incident big enough to found a nation—any bandit camp around here would've joined hands over that. The reporters might've taken interest."

"You're saying newspapers carry stuff like that?"

"There's a chance they don't, but it wouldn't be strange if they did. Talaria Weekly carries stories that stir up the world. It might be in a newly published issue."

"How do I get one? A newspaper."

"They're hard to find in Anapic. No newspaper stands have been set up here yet."

"Hard means there's still a way, right?"

Sphinx thought he was sharp, as expected.

"You meet a deliveryman."

"What's that?"

"Newspaper deliverymen belonging to Talaria Weekly. They mostly wander all over the world selling newspapers."

"Where do I go to meet one?"

"They show up on their own. To people who need newspapers."

"If this conversation goes on any longer, I'm going to get angry. Can't you say it in a way I can understand?"

Anagin voiced his complaint to Sphinx, who kept saying incomprehensible things. It wasn't even a riddle—he couldn't grasp what she meant.

"Haa… I'm already explaining this in as much detail as I can. Anyway, even while running away, they cleaned up well."

Sphinx marveled as she looked around the utterly emptied warehouse.

Seems the women Anagin had released had swept it clean in the meantime.

They must've been terrified, yet they'd grabbed things so neatly. Human greed truly was no ordinary thing.

"Ah, is it not greed but the will to survive? They'd have to grab something to live, after all."

"Whatever. As long as they spread word of what happened here… Is there nothing left to take?"

"Sniff, sniff. Look down there."

Sphinx pointed at the floor. Anagin struck it with his fist, and soon treasures hidden beneath a secret storeroom popped out.

Starting with lightning gold coins, olive silver coins, and barley copper coins, there were all kinds of jewels and ornaments, and an oddly shaped deer statue. It seemed they'd gathered the most valuable of the spoils taken from raiding the Ascetic Family in one place.

'This deer statue doesn't look particularly expensive, though.'

Anagin thought as he placed the wooden carved deer statue into his subspace bag. After gathering all the spoils, he asked Sphinx.

"Was that just now magic, or did you find it with pure smell?"

"Both. I've always had a good nose, but I used magic to make it smell certain scents even better. Treasures are deeply steeped in human greed… I just cast a spell that lets me smell that."

"Ho, interesting… Then let's go back to the original topic. What's the other way? Besides the newspaper?"

"You go find the Thieves' Guild."

"You ask thieves for information on bandits?"

Anagin looked puzzled. Different line of work aside, weren't bandits and thieves basically the same lot? A dog with shit on it and a dog with bran on it. In the end, they were all dogs, weren't they?

"I get why you'd think that, but that's not necessarily true. Being in similar trades, they actually fight each other quite often."

"Ah…"

"Besides, the Thieves' Guild doesn't only deal in stolen goods. They deal in information too. And they're fairly accurate. There's one problem, though."

"What?"

"I've never used the Thieves' Guild myself. I try to live virtuously."

"Then how do you know their information is accurate?"

"I heard it. Don't look at me like that, Oppa."

Sphinx warned Anagin, who was staring at her with eyes full of disappointment. She was going out of her way to explain—this wasn't right.

"Well, fine. I can accept that they deal in information. Where do I go to meet them?"

"The city."

"The city?"

"Yeah. It's one of the reasons they're on bad terms with the Forest Brotherhood. The Thieves' Guild nests inside cities, and the Forest Brotherhood hates those cities."

"Ah… so that's why."

At Sphinx's explanation, Anagin finally understood. The bandits' remark that if the Old Man's grandson and granddaughter had gone to the city, they couldn't have been chased any further.

"Then our destination is decided."

Having packed almost everything in the bandit camp while they talked, Anagin concluded.

"First, we go to the city."

"Do you know the way?"

"We can go back the way we came and ask at a nearby village. There seems to be a city around here."

With the next task decided, Anagin went straight to the Old Man's grandson and granddaughter.

The two children were standing exactly where they'd first been. As if waiting for Anagin.

"Here, take this."

Anagin handed over half the treasures he'd gathered from the bandit camp.

"This is for the towel I borrowed last time and the meal I mooched."

Anagin settled his past debts. The cost of the carriage ride and the damage he'd caused had already been paid, so he left those out of the reckoning.

"I'll take you as far as the city, so use that to find a way to live."

The granddaughter looked at the bundle of treasures, then back at Anagin. Then…

"Can't we come with you too?"

"Me?"

"Yes."

"Sorry, but I have no intention whatsoever of looking after children—"

"—You're going to fight the Forest Brotherhood, aren't you?"

"……."

"We'll help too. With anything. My brother feels the same."

The granddaughter made an unexpected proposal. She'd assumed the granddaughter, if not the grandson, would follow Anagin's words for her brother's sake—but instead she showed a fierce determination to go with him.

"If we do nothing like this, we'll regret it for the rest of our lives."

He understood what she meant. Even when family simply dies, the heart breaks down for a few months at the shortest, a few years at the longest. Anagin had experienced it too.

'Though it was a plague, not murder.'

But what would it feel like if they'd been murdered? Could you immediately start a new life? No matter how he thought about it, it was hard. At least, in Anagin's view.

So instead of spouting empty platitudes that wouldn't help, Anagin said what he had to say.

"I have no intention of risking my life to protect you two."

"We too—"

"I'm not done talking. Shut up."

Anagin cut off the granddaughter.

"While you're traveling with me, you'll follow my orders unconditionally. No matter how unreasonable. And you'll see plenty of ugly things. Even more than what you're seeing now."

The grandson and granddaughter looked again at their surroundings.

The ground looked as if it had been covered in red paint, and torn-apart corpses lay strewn everywhere.

"Lastly, I'm currently called an Ascetic killer. This is the most important part."

"……."

"A lot of people have put a bounty on my head, calling me a villain. If you get tangled up with me, it'll be hard to live peacefully even after this is over. And your grandfather wouldn't want that."

That last part he could say with certainty.

The man had sought out Anagin, taught him Yul and Pa, and even begged him not to come near.

No—before that, what kind of insane grandfather would tell his grandson and granddaughter to fight bandits to avenge him?

…Honestly, thinking about it, he should've turned these brats away no matter how much they begged. But Anagin hadn't.

Just sending them off didn't guarantee a safe and happy future, and above all, the Old Man himself, who should've been protecting the children, had done something foolish.

Still, as a final consideration for the Old Man, Anagin conveyed the Old Man's true feelings to the children.

"I guarantee it—your grandfather, revenge or whatever else aside, would just want you two to live safely and peacefully. And you'd still follow me? Giving up safety and peace?"

Perhaps because he'd mentioned the Old Man, the granddaughter and grandson couldn't answer readily this time. It was a good sign. It meant reason still remained in them.

The two siblings couldn't answer easily, and Anagin waited for them.

After quite some time passed, the granddaughter finally opened her mouth.

"Even so, we want to come with you."

"Against your grandfather's wishes?"

"If we don't, we won't be able to bear it."

The granddaughter held back tears as she revealed her reason for wanting to follow Anagin.

It wasn't for their grandfather. It was for themselves.

Well, that's how revenge always was.

For the living, not the dead…

"Then I'll give you my first order."

"Yes."

"Eat first. I don't travel with idiots who can't even feed themselves."