บท 114: Rules of the Road

If… if we didn't have the intelligence gathered from those [Spygems] I would have zero reason to refuse.

"How… how do you even know about that?" I turned around and asked with a scowl.

"I SMELL MONEY!" Sacha retorted with a shining grin, exposing three gold teeth.

I nodded. "That sounds legit."

Wait, how about… "How interesting. We just so happened to have captured a bunch of adventurers along with the bandits. They belong to the Poison Snakes group. How convenient that another group of adventurers are close by just in time to assist."

"Ohh? That's alarming. Be careful about saying things like that, adventurers live and die by their reputation alone." The leader of the Steel Fangs looked thoughtful. "But that means bandits are going to claim anything just to avoid being executed.

"If they're really adventurers, then you should bring them in anyway to be tried by the Guild."

That also sounded fair. If Monika didn't track a messenger pigeon leaving the inn, this would also be convincing to me.

"Yeah sure. Come along then."

On the other hand, bringing along a whole troop of dudes who might backstab us was not exactly a problem. Because now the mayor and the town guard was a witness that the Steel Fangs had come along, so if we all died then someone would know who they should wreak harsh vengeance upon.

Unless they go back to kill the mayor and the guard captain and the innkeepers, but frankly killing all the people who notice you're killing people is the sort of silly plan that ends up with you losing your hat, and any plan which involves losing your hat was a bad plan.

So the leader of the Steel Fangs and the second-in-command had their own horses. The rest of the group, all ten of them, didn't have to walk but rode on three wagons. I noted they were armed mainly with short spears and war hammers. Upon reaching the site, the prisoners would be loaded onto the wagons. While it was cushier not to have to walk back to town, the extra time it would take to try and escape from a moving vehicle would make it easier to stop their attempt.

Only needing to walk half the way there was still pretty a sweet deal and the town provided use of their wagons for free. Adventurers were pretty good at not having to do any more work than they needed to.

It was still very dark, and the way ahead was long. The road was eerily silent and lit only by a hovering magic ball of light. The only thing to hear was the clop clop sound of our horse's hooves and their rasping breaths.

It was the perfect setup to just backstab someone. Sacha and I took the lead, while his second-in-command trailed right behind us on guard for any ambushes.

"So why are there even still bandits?" I had to ask. "If anyone that's reasonably fit with any real willingness to work hard can become an adventurer?"

"Well, you know how it is. You're an adventurer. You go take a request from the mission board. You go do that request. You come back with proof that you did it, and get paid. Monster beasts don't carry money. People carry money. It's a lot easier to just attack people and take their stuff, monster beasts fight back when they're wounded and can run away. Merchants just get scared."

"Ah. Greed and laziness. What a perfect combination."

"Did you know bandits look down on Adventurers? They think that just because they live out in the woods and fight monster beasts for their next meal, they're somehow better than people who have it their whole business to fight stronger and stronger monster beasts?"

"Ganging up on targets if they're even a little bit stronger than you, how is that much different to bandits?"

"Ganging up on things always works! How is that much different to how a kingdom does it?"

I laughed. "That's true. Cooperation is its own power. Though I suppose peasant mobs can't easily prevail against knights running them down."

And then a tense and uncomfortable silence returned.

After a while Sacha spoke up "Say… don't I know you from somewhere?"

"I don't know. Do you?"

"You're… Reflet's Red Chicken guy, aren't you?"

"Yiss." I pumped my fist in victory.

"… Why do you look so happy about that?" Sacha looked taken aback for a moment. "Last I heard, you're… what, Green Rank?"

"Purple."

"… Again, that doesn't sound like something to be so proud of…" Sacha murmured. "You're an adventurer too, don't you think you might be getting in way over your head here?

"Don't feel too proud about helping guards fight back against bandits. Killing monsters is different from killing men. Adventurers should not be fighting other people… if you want to do that, join the guards instead. Fighting monsters can feed you for a long time if you stay fast and smart… fighting men builds grudges and stains your soul, don't do it just to make money."

I blinked. "Should you actually be saying that to me?"

"I'm not even insulted you're so suspicious of me, boyo. That's a thing that'll keep you alive. Only staying alive matters."

I smiled thinly. "Then you should keep that in mind too."

We found the prisoners tied up and huddled in a circle between the V shape formed by the two carriages. The problem with taking prisoners is now no one except Arma and Olga and Yumina were allowed to sleep easy. All the rest had to be alert for any attempts at breakout or ambush. The guards surrounded the prisoners in two layers – the Belfast guards facing inwards with their swords drawn, the Mismede guards facing outwards. Elze and Linze and Yae sat on the carriage roof, ready to bombard or punchsplode or spinslash anything that looked at them funny.

I could feel their tangible relief when we came into sight.

"Sir Zah, are these the ones who will take over the prisoners?"

"All of us will be moving to the next town. Lion Blitz, son of the General of the Royal Army Lyon Blitz, may I introduce you to Sacha Bogue, leader of the Steel Fangs adventuring party. Sacha, inside that carriage sleeps Olga Strand, ambassador to Mismede. Some time back she was falsely accused of a regicide assassination plot that would have left Belfast embroiled in civil war and opened the way for an invasion by Regulus."

"Uh… milord, should you be saying that?" said Lyon

"What the heck even?" the adventurer leader muttered.

"People tell lies to protect themselves. The truth is a weapon. Deal with the new security formations, Sir Lyon. Mister Sacha, please come with me."

I slid off the horse and approached the sullen prisoners. The bandits glared up at me. "So who are these jokers?" I asked aloud.

"We're da Black Mountain Bandits! You're going to regret this, ya idjit! We'll burn da town ta da ground fer dis."

The four more well-dressed adventurers were tied up together in a separate huddle. "So do you recognize these yahoos?" I asked Sacha.

"Not really. The Poison Snakes are a lot larger than four men. But if they are… my little bro runs the poison snakes, so…" Suddenly his boot snapped out and kicked one of the adventurer mages in the chin. "Either these guys are a bunch'a TRAITORS, or they're too incompetent to give the Poison Snakes a bad name."

The adventurer fell back, moaning through his bloody mouth. Another spoke up with "It's all a mistake! We're just scouts, we're not a part of these bandits!"

"If you weren't fighting with them, you wouldn't have gotten your asses beat," Sacha snorted. He turned to me and said "Adventurers wouldn't normally be working with bandits. Bandits don't pay."

Then he asked the Poison Snakes again "Where's the rest of your group?"

"Tracking down the bandit's hideout to attack them when they're away."

"You bastards!" screamed the bandits. "They're lying! They're da ones that talked to us about attackin' dis caravan in da first place!"

Sacha snorted again. "We'll sort this out with the Guild when we get back to town."

So we set out in this formation:

Two Mismede horsemen rode up behind. In front of them was the first carriage, and on top of that carriage sat Elze and Linze. With the driver and the archer guard, that's a group of six to guard against things that struck from the back.

Then the three prisoner wagons surrounded by the walking Steel Fangs ahead of the first carriage. Four light cavalry riders trailed around them, ready to run down anyone that tried to escape.

Then the second carriage. On top of the carriage sat Yae and the other the Mismede archer, while Yumina sat beside the driver. Inside this carriage were Olga and Arma.

Sacha and I rode slightly ahead, the hovering ball of light above our heads lighting the way.

And I said "What could drive an adventurer to work with bandits? Obscene amounts of money? The promise of becoming house knight? I don't understand it – you said that adventurers live or die by their reputation. Why at all risk their status being nullified by the Guild?"

Sacha rubbed at his grizzled face. "Let me tell you something about being an adventurer. In the end, all you do is take up requests by people. All adventuring is about is making good money without sweating too much over it.

"Bandits are lazy and weak, but they make up for it in numbers. There are a lot of friends who party together to have fun becoming strong and having adventures… and they go home hungry because all the good quests are already taken.

"There's ranks of adventurers, and if you go too high you're not allowed to take the easy low-rank quests anymore. But if you have a good group, and remember that behind every request is someone who wants something done fast and cheap, then you can do a lot of quests really quickly and keep a whole lotta people fed. There are a lot of people who go all-out in being an adventurer just so they can stop being an adventurer."

It was still dark out. The only sounds were the night calls of insects and the rasping of wagon wheels and horse's hooves and the shuffling of feet on dirt. A bird call whistled out.

"The best adventurers aren't the strongest, but the ones who get patronage, right?" I asked. "Success is as much about who you know than what you can do."

Sacha moved his horse away a little bit and turned to face me. His beady black eyes bored into my opaque ones. "Adventurers betray each other all the time. So when you can find those you can trust as brothers, then nothing should be able to scare you from doing the best for them."

"… I should be more annoyed by that, except that's basic stockholder-centric profit management and I'm surprised a bunch of adventurers already operate as a cooperative." I stopped and raised my palm up. "I'll be honest with you – the reason I even allowed this to ask you to work for me instead. Whoever is paying you, are you sure you're going to survive to spend any of it?

"Bandits are a convenient excuse to kill anyone inconvenient. But those who try to complete the mission after the bandit attack fails might end up being eliminated themselves as inconvenient witnesses."

There was the clattering sound of an incoming carriage. In the middle of the night? I glanced to the side. There was little room in the road for two carriages to pass side by side without moving the horse riders on the left side.

Sacha shook his head. "For what it's worth, I'm sorry about this. But adventurers are more than just people who have Guild cards. An adventurer is free – and it's great to be rich in a completely different country."

From the forests, a spread of lit torches were tossed out, and showing the glint of arrowheads by archers hiding in the gloom. The Poison Fangs were known for of course the use of poisoned weapons. The flanks of light cavalry horses were unarmored.

I sagged in my saddle. "Are you really sure about this? I am sick of people thinking they can just f*ck with Belfast."

"Adventurers shouldn't be patriots," Sacha scoffed.

Behind the convoy, the rest of the Steel Fangs ran out from the tree cover. There were around twelve more of them. The Poison Fangs numbered sixteen archers. They were quite pretty big for an adventuring group.

"How about this? Why don't *you* surrender, and I'll spare the women? These guards and that noble son's gotta die, but they've got it all coming anyway. We're not monsters, we're not like bandits who r*pe and kill, and not even in that order sometimes. We kill for money, but it's quick and clean and not much pain."

/"The problem with putting yourself as bait for the trap is that you're willingly putting yourself in stabbing range of the enemy. Player, both of you... just like hearing yourself speak thinking you're all so clever, don't you? The plan that requires first being caught is a drastically overplayed trope."/

I sighed and rubbed at the bridge of my nose. "Oh you're good. You know what you want and you're not going to regret doing whatever it takes to get it, even if you die doing it. Steel Fangs for assault, Poison Snakes for ranged, you're basically a company in strength." I spread my arms out wide and shouted "But are you really good enough? To go against…. MY DIAMOND DOGS?!"

There was a sound like passing thunder, the distinctive sound of cavalry on full charge. The Steel Fangs blocking the back of the formation turned around to see a squadron of twenty light cavalry running at them with couched lances.

The Ortlinde Guards had been notified hours ago, [Boom Tubed], and been following just out of sight. A magic stone [Enscribed] with [Muffle Sound] gave them a modicum of stealth.

The incoming carriage accelerated, the horses whipped into a full gallop. The Poison Snake driver cut the straps holding the horses to the carriage and had them run off on their own, leaving the carriage still moving on its momentum to crash into the formation.

Sacha's spear swung at my face. My arms and body were still held arrogantly wide open.