Chapter 33: 33

Barbarian Quest

Chapter 33 – Prince of the Sea (3)

Urich was seated on the hill, watching the city and the sea. Behind him, the mercenaries were pacing back and forth, preparing to depart.

‘The world’s edge.’

People believed that, at the end of the ocean, there was a cliff called the world’s edge.

Urich came back after going on a fishing boat this morning.

“It was really vast and wide. No matter how far we went, I couldn’t see the end.”

Urich just wanted to see the world’s edge with his own eyes. He requested the boatman to take him there, however…

“The world’s edge? There’s no way we can go there on a boat like this. Haha. Looks like you’re from quite inland, dear customer.”

…was what the boatman said. He laughed at Urich’s request. Urich thought to himself ten times or so whether to throw the boatman off the boat.

Urich returned to the mercenary camp before lunch and waited for their employer as promised. But his mind was still running after the horizon.

“They’re here. Everyone, get ready. Our employer is arriving!”

Urich spoke while looking at the large group leaving the city’s back entrance. He was able to discern people’s faces even if they were a long distance away.

“Sir Phillion, are you in your right mind? You want to go to the Empire’s capital with these filthy mercenaries?”

Fahel, who arrived at the mercenary camp, was unruly and scowled with his blue eyes. Next to him was Phillion and three guard knights.

“Please calm down, young master. The prepared ship did not arrive. If information about it was leaked, it would be dangerous to leave by sea. If we go there by land with these unanticipated mercenaries—”

“By land? What do you mean, ‘by land’?! Are you telling me to walk?!”

Fahel shouted with astonishment.

“Of course not. That would be ridiculous. We have prepared a horse. Sir Reupin should be arriving any time now with a bought horse.”

Phillion tried to comfort Fahel the best he could. Fahel, who didn’t like the knight trying to comfort him, crossed his arms and scowled.

“Sir Phillion, I am—”

“I know, young master. I know it well. Please endure this humiliation for only a while longer. Soon, we will be able to see light.”

Phillion was begging him. Fahel rubbed his head as if he had a migraine and nodded.

“Because I believe in you, Sir Phillion, I will follow you this time without saying a word.”

“Thank you, young master.”

Urich and the mercenaries watched as the two conversed.

“What are they doing?”

Urich sarcastically asked the mercenaries because he thought it looked too ridiculous.

“Just try to understand. He’s a young master of a noble house. He lives in a different world than us.”

Bakman shrugged out of habit.

“He wouldn’t even last a day in the forest if we threw him in there. Would women even embrace him? Even though he has balls, can he even be called a man?”

Urich smirked as he talked.

“Who knows? Maybe he’s into men. Careful, Urich.”

Bakman patted Urich’s butt with his spear as he spoke.

“ARGH! It’s disgusting just hearing it. Fuck off, bitch.”

Urich laughed while shoving Bakman’s chest.

The mercenaries finished gathering their supplies from the city. They prepared to leave by cleaning up their camp. Donovan opened the map and chose a direction.

Click, clack.

A guard knight then entered the mercenary camp, leading a brown horse. It was the horse Fahel was going to ride.

“This isn’t a white horse. Its mane is messy as well.”

Fahel complained the moment he saw it.

“I apologize, young master. I was in a rush to acquire a horse…”

The guard knight who brought the horse lowered his head in shame.

“I guess there’s nothing I can do about it.”

Fahel nimbly mounted it. His skills showed that it wasn’t his first or second time riding a horse. He skillfully tamed it and walked a lap around the camp.

“Let us hurry, mercenary leader.”

Phillion was hurrying the mercenaries. He wanted to quickly leave the Forlcana Kingdom even if it were just a moment faster.

The mercenaries were almost finished disassembling the campsite. They were checking their numbers while preparing to leave.

“Urich, the city guards are coming.”

Soldiers came from the city on horseback and approached the mercenary group. The soldiers spoke to them from afar.

“Are ‘Urich’s Brothers’ leaving now?”

The captain spoke in a clear tone.

“It didn’t seem like anything would happen even if we stayed here for longer, so we’re going to be leaving. I don’t think we caused any issues, though? In fact, we spent a lot of money,” answered Urich.

The captain chuckled and then counted their numbers.

“Hmm, mercenary leader Urich. Can I ask you just one thing?”

“Of course.”

“When you guys entered, there were 46 of you. Now, there are over 50.”

“We had some newcomers join while in the city. Why? Is there a problem?”

“I was just asking because it didn’t align with the register. It might be a hassle, but would it be alright if we check everyone’s identities?”

The captain spoke softly, but there was a hidden thorn inside his words. He was holding tight onto his reins, preparing to move.

“We can’t let them check our identities, Urich,” said Phillion who was right next to Urich. He was sweating buckets.

‘If the mercenaries sell out our young master, it’s over.’

Phillion was tense. He checked the mood of the mercenary group. The mercenaries all kept their mouths shut while waiting for Urich to speak.

“That’s a bit troublesome. Mercenaries are all like that, you know? There are a lot of mercenaries with uncertain identities, Captain. And while we are mercenaries, we are also brothers. The moment we took them in as brothers, we wouldn’t just leave them behind. No matter what.”

Urich furrowed his brows. The captain felt the tension, even from a distance.

“Is it really not possible?”

The captain asked for the final time.

“If you really want to do it, do it with force,” asserted Urich. There was no more room for conversation.

“I see. Have a pleasant trip, Urich’s Brothers.”

The captain turned the head of his horse around and returned to the city. Urich watched them disappear.

“He’ll probably follow us, right?”

He looked at the mercenaries while asking them.

“Did you look at his face? It was screaming that he was going to form a pursuit party because he was pissed. Without question.”

Donovan spoke while picking his teeth with a thin branch. The other mercenaries also nodded in agreement.

“Then we’ll give up moving on the road. Let’s go through the forests and mountains.”

The mercenaries left the road and headed towards a mountain path.

“We’re going to the mountains all of a sudden? Can’t we just go on the road? You guys are mercenaries that fight because I pay you to. Just kill the pursuit party as well.”

Fahel was complaining while on horseback. The flustered Phillion quickly tried to sweet talk his young master, as if his tongue was made of candy.

“Sir Phillion.”

The mercenary group started to move. Donovan, who stepped out of formation, came next to Phillion.

“What’s the matter?”

“If your young master doesn’t learn how to shut his mouth, I’m worried that one of our mercenaries will go visit him at night to cut off his tongue.”

“H-How impertinent!”

“It wasn’t about me being impertinent, Sir Phillion. I said it because it just also seemed like my business. You see, I was once a soldier, and I had a superior who talked a lot.”

“You were a soldier?”

“Yeah, an imperial soldier. I was dishonorably discharged, though.”

Donovan was the only former imperial soldier in the mercenary group. It was rare for imperial soldiers to become mercenaries.

“Dishonorably discharged? That’s a shame. If you were an imperial soldier, you would have been treated well even in the future. What happened?”

Donovan showed his yellow teeth after hearing Phillion’s question. He had a murderer’s smile.

“I killed that superior who wouldn’t stop talking with my own hands, Sir Phillion.”

The knight shut his mouth. He watched Donovan’s back with trembling eyes.

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His words were indisputably a threat.

‘Damned mercenaries. Bastards who don’t even have a lick of etiquette.’

Phillion only cursed inside his head. Mercenaries were vulgar, and there was even less to say about a mercenary group that had a barbarian as a leader.

* * *

* * *

It had been two days since they departed from the city. The road gradually became rougher.

“Hey, Phillion. I think it’s about time for your young master to throw away that horse. If you’re a man, you should courageously walk on your own two feet,” Urich shouted as he led the group from the front.

He and the mercenaries were climbing up the mountain. The roads had stopped, and they arrived on terrain that would be difficult for horses to tread. The mercenaries intentionally picked difficult terrain for horses because there was still the off chance that the pursuit party was following them.

“Young Master Fahel, it’s time to get off the horse.”

Phillion spoke carefully. Fahel, who was the only one on horseback, wrinkled his beautiful forehead.

“Sir Phillion, tell the mercenaries to find a different path. One where I can go on horseback!”

Fahel didn’t budge from the horse.

‘They want me to walk? On this mountain path?’

The young master blew air out of his nose because it was preposterous. He looked around at the mercenaries.

At a loss, Phillion asked the mercenary leader, “Urich, can we take a path that a horse could traverse?”

“If the pursuit party chases us, they will do so on horses. And if we go on a path that’s easy for horses to tread on, they will catch us. Then, we’d have to fight.”

“Ahem.”

Phillion returned to Fahel. He was sweating a lot trying to convince his young master.

“What amazing loyalty. If it were me, I would have already sliced his belly and ran away.”

Bakman spoke sarcastically from the back. The other mercenaries laughed to show that they agreed. They would half-jokingly tell each other that at least Phillion’s loyalty was admirable.

“Sir Phillion! You should know who I am. I have to walk on the same eye level as these mercenaries? How laughable. I’d rather go back and wait for the ship.”

“The ship won’t arrive, young master.”

“My elder sister clearly told me that the ship would arrive. Are you implying that my elder sister would lie? How dare you… Are you looking down on our blood ties?”

“No, it’s not that—”

“I shouldn’t have listened to you and followed some mercenaries.”

There was a small conflict of words between Phillion and Fahel. The young master adamantly refused to get off the horse.

“Bakman.”

Urich, who was watching their fight, looked at Bakman. Bakman, who had been joking around with the other mercenaries, raised his head.

“What?”

“Do you like horse meat?”

“I’ve never eaten it before.”

“Then let’s try it out for dinner.”

Urich tensed up his entire body. He took long strides and arrived in front of Fahel, who was still on horseback.

“Wh-What? I-I still didn’t forget you. You insulted me. One day, I will have you pay for your cri—”

Fahel raised his voice, terrified.

THUD.

There was a blunt sound.

Urich’s fist hit the horse’s temple.

Neeeeeeigh!

The horse cried as it fell over. Phillion grabbed the falling Fahel and pulled him close.

CRUSH!

Urich stomped on the fallen horse’s head and ground his foot on it. The horse’s eyes rolled over, and its massive tongue popped out of its mouth.

“My horse? How dare you kill my horse? What is this—”

Fahel started a fit but quickly stopped.

STAB! STAB!

Urich lifted his axe and swung at the horse’s neck multiple times with the blade of his axe. Blood splattered all around.

CRUSH.

He then used his fingers to dig out the horse’s eyeball. He took a big bite and chewed on it.

“A beast’s eye is quite the delicacy. Want to try it?”

Urich pulled out the other eye and tossed it to Fahel, who only shrieked and stepped back.

‘Now he’ll be a bit quiet.’

Urich purposely exposed Fahel to a violent situation. The trembling young master relied on Phillion.

“U-Urgh. As expected from a barbarian.”

Fahel kept his pride to the end.

“The young master was almost hurt. If you do something like that again…”

Phillion tried to reprimand Urich. Urich left the dismantling of the horse to the mercenaries and looked at Phillion.

“What are you going to do if ‘something like that happens again’?”

“…Please be careful.”

Phillion couldn’t say anything other than that. He was weak in this situation.

Slice. Slice.

The mercenaries took a short break, dragging the carcass to the side of the stream to dismantle it. They quickly pulled the blood and intestines out of the horse and shared the meat by cutting off slices. The blood and intestines went downstream with the water.

“It’s horse meat for dinner tonight. It’s a treat. A real treat.”

Horse meat wasn’t something that was eaten often. The mercenaries hummed as they looked forward to dinner. Some of them even sliced off pieces of the raw meat to eat it raw.

Chew.

Urich also cut off thin slices of the meat to eat raw. It was a considerable delicacy.

“That young master is amazing. In what kind of house do you need to grow up in to end up like that?”

“He has a lot of pride, but he’s just a child that doesn’t know how to do anything.”

The mercenaries gathered in twos and threes. Right now, the main conversation of the mercenary group obviously revolved around the young master. Just talking behind him wouldn’t have been enough.

“Exactly. He looks like he’s of similar age to Urich, but the difference between them is like the land and the sky. Kuku.”

Sven gave a husky laugh. The mercenaries all shut their mouths, silence filling the air.

“Sven, what are you saying? That childish young master and Urich are around the same age? The young master is at most in their mid to late teens.”

Bakman spoke as if it were ridiculous. Sven responded with clear, innocent eyes.

“Urich looks like he’s also in his teens no matter how much you look at him. No? Brothers?”

The Northerners nodded, agreeing with Sven’s words. Urich’s youthful aspects were clear in the Northerners’ eyes. They were simply respecting him as the leader because he was a skilled warrior.

“What do you mean, Urich is in his teens? There’s no way he could be in his teens with a face like that. You can tell just by looking at him. He’s at least older than twenty.”

“Then why don’t you ask him yourself, Bakman?”

Sven cooly laughed while chewing on a piece of horse meat. Bakman stood up.

“Urich, how old are you?”

Bakman went up to Urich and plainly asked him. The entire mercenary group focused on them. Phillion and Fahel also took a glance at Urich.

Urich thought for a second then slowly put his fingers down one by one.

“Ah, I’m around seventeen this year.”

Bakman’s legs wobbled. He was able to narrowly put strength back into his legs before falling over.

“Urich.”

Bakman placed his hands on Urich’s shoulders with a serious face.

“What?”

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“From now on, call me big brother Bakman.”

Bakman gave Urich a thumbs up.

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