The Weasel by profession
“older brother!!”
The weasel that had rushed in bowed its head deeply like a knight receiving an order.
“Why did it have to be this bad···.”
“Chief, I spoke outside.”
“Ah. I see. Why did this kind of trash come?”
I scratched my head at Berman’s remark.
“Haha! Brother! Aren’t we comrades who stood shoulder to shoulder and crossed the line of fire?”
The weasel rubbed his palms with his usual vulgar smile. If I were holding a bag of gold, I could not help but sigh at the sight of him looking like he would suddenly stab me with a dagger.
“I seem like a decent guy. The group next door just got a puppy that had just become an adult, but compared to that one···.”
At that time, unexpectedly, the grass came out in support of the weasel.
When I look at it that way, the two are strangely similar. Both have raised and torn corners of their eyes, a typical vulgar appearance. The grass has a slightly more poisonous feel to it, like a shot added to the weasel.
“Ohhh… Are you the legendary 4th Guardsmen who fought and won against the devil?! It’s truly an honor!”
Perhaps he saw this as an opportunity, as the weasel lowered its head and continued to mutter sweet words. As if it had practiced, it did not hesitate for even a moment.
“Haha… The rumor has already spread like that. You’re already popular, so for a rumor like that to spread like that is really troublesome.”
Kel muttered in a soft voice, running his hand through his bangs. Judging by the corners of his lips going up, it seemed like the weasel’s flattery had worked.
“Ahem, don’t worry. If you join us, we can write a legend.”
Brick muttered in a low, gravelly voice, his expression unbecoming of a man. Judging from his expression alone, he looked like a general who had caught a demon fever.
“You look really good.”
The grass nodded repeatedly, looking at the weasel.
‘···Simple guys.’
Once again, I was a little impressed by the sight of the weasel, who was smiling viciously and trying to please the guys. Even when I was lying among the zombies, I felt that it was a young one that would survive no matter where I threw it.
The story of the weasel who had been praising our rumors suddenly came out and told us. Everyone focused on it, and the weasel continued to tell the story as if it were his stage.
“···Thousands of zombies are scurrying from here to there, so everyone is running away! My brother and I are standing shoulder to shoulder! If we back off, the empire is in danger! We’re shouting···.”
‘Thousands of them… are sick.’
I couldn’t help but laugh out loud at the exaggeration that went beyond the level of a weasel.
The weasel added some realism to the story by swinging his fists in the air. At the end, the zombies all banded together to form a giant zombie, and he rode my horse and fought the zombie. It was a ridiculous story, but it was strangely funny and fun.
The other crew members laughed out loud at the absurd story, and the mood lightened up in an instant. Taking advantage of the opportunity, the weasel raised his hand and said he would buy beer, and everyone cheered.
A moment later, the weasel was hopping around, shoulder to shoulder with the grass. I’d say it was a northern dance, but it just looked like it had its feet on fire.
Looking at the weasel and the grass that were stuck together, their appearances were so similar that I wondered if their parents might have something in common.
“Aren’t you two parents from the same family?”
“···yes?”
“What are you talking about, Commander?”
At my question, Grass and the Weasel tilted their heads.
“You’re saying that they don’t have the same parents? Half-siblings, or maybe siblings lost when they were young. Something like that.”
“They look exactly the same. The beard only grows on the philtrum.”
Brick, whose face was red from drinking, quickly raised his hand and responded to my story.
The weasel and the grass looked at each other and then simultaneously scrunched their faces. Their expressions seemed to say, ‘Do I look like this fucking guy?’
“Just in case.”
“I am an orphan, brother!”
“Uh…um. Me too. Captain.”
Their faces became more and more wrinkled as their commonalities continued to surface.
‘Well, normal people wouldn’t eat rice with a knife.’
I sipped my beer while watching the two of them talk about where they were born and where they grew up, with awkward expressions on their faces.
“Oh, come to think of it, I forgot the tradition!”
At that moment, Kel suddenly squinted his eyes and said. It seemed like he was lacking some nutrients, but it seemed like he was winking.
“We had our own traditions. How dare you forget that? Are you drunk already?”
Brick responded awkwardly.
“Ahem… There was something like that.”
Berman nodded.
“Is it a traditional word?”
The weasel, who had been comparing the size of his nose to that of the grass, tilted its head.
At the weasel’s question, Grass smiled meaningfully and wiggled her fingers.
“Surely the outer wall guards are the men of the men who protect the castle, right? That’s why when we accept new recruits, we make them prove their qualifications.”
They skillfully manipulated the atmosphere as if they had planned it.
It was a mischievous prank fit for the uncivilized Middle Ages. It was a typical prank that drove the atmosphere and made the newbie do something reckless to prove his qualifications.
Brick had once emptied ten glasses of beer in a row, saying he would prove his qualifications, and then vomited on the floor. I still vividly remember Brick getting really drunk and yelling at me that I was all trash and a bunch of bad guys.
The next day, when I went to work at headquarters, Brick was there with his head on the ground.
Brick, who was like that, was the most excited and was driving. The weasel seemed to be thinking about it and stroked his chin.
“Are you proving your manhood?”
The serious voice of the weasel was terribly unsettling.
As the men nodded, the weasel immediately climbed up onto the table.
When everyone looks up at the weasel’s unexpected actions.
“This is what it means to be a man!! Isn’t this it!! Dylan from the 4th Division of the Outer City Guard! He is the man among men···!”
Suddenly, a weasel raised its right hand and screamed, and everyone’s eyes were focused on it.
And without giving me a chance to stop him, the guy confidently took down my pants.
‘Oh my god… Shit.’
The only good thing was that I was behind him. If I had been in front of him, I would have pulled out my sword and stabbed him.
Everyone was speechless and dumbfounded by the outrageous behavior of the weasel. As if it had provoked him, the weasel suddenly began to turn its waist.
When you can no longer bear the disgust and are about to draw your sword.
Hannah, who was bringing me a beer mug, stopped.
‘Okay, let’s stab it. Just ask for a new one.’
When I made up my mind and drew my sword halfway.
“···Put.”
Hannah let out a soft laugh.
The weasel froze in a strange pose, and Hannah, with a clear sneer on her face, nonchalantly placed her beer mug on the table and walked away. Hannah even joked with me playfully.
There was silence, and the weasel’s back, slowly pulling up his pants, looked strangely lonely.
“Ahem… I don’t think you’re qualified. Should I send you back?”
The weasel’s face turned pale at Kel’s playful muttering.
“That… that’s above average! Above average! Dylan, you’re more than a man! No, you’re a man among men!”
For some unknown reason, the grass warmly supported and praised the weasel.
However, no one responded to him.
Brick, his shoulders more tense than before, patted Weasel on the shoulder, and we continued drinking as if nothing had happened.
The weasel, who had become quieter than before, simply sipped his drink.
***
“···Brother. Was mine really that small? So small that it’s laughable?”
“I don’t know, you little punk.”
“No… clearly… the prostitutes are the best among men… the best I’ve ever seen….”
The weasel continued to mutter, “The whore…” in a weak voice, as if he had lost the man’s confidence.
‘So that’s why you were so confident.’
He laughed out loud. The weasel rolled his eyes, then relaxed his expression.
“Whew… Anyway, it’s a new feeling to be in the same guard unit as you, hyung.”
The weasel, who had returned to his smiling face, pounded his chest with his fist and said:
The guy seemed impressed by the fact that he had become a guard, and in a wet voice he kept talking about how tough his life as a mercenary had been.
I compared him to a mercenary and a guard. They walk around with swords, extort money, yell, and throw punches, and then leave work.
‘Similar?’
However, I swallowed my words because the weasel had such an expectant look on its face.
A week passed since that guy started doing that. The lord finally came to his senses, and the gates that had been locked for a while were opened again.
During that time, I had to be summoned to the inner palace several times. Fortunately, the red guy that the knights and heretic inquisitors were beating up was bigger than expected, and the lord, distracted by that, did not reprimand the guards.
‘In the first place, in the case of warlocks, they can’t be filtered out during inspection.’
Although we suffered here and there, we were not disadvantaged.
The survivors moved diligently to fill the void left by the Castle of Cassadic. As death was a familiar occurrence in the Middle Ages, with two out of four people dying, the pace at which the gaps were filled was fast.
Only a week had passed, and the castle was alive again.
I put my thoughts aside and knocked on the captain’s office door.
“Come in.”
I opened the door and went in, and there sat the captain, still wearing his tight armor, with a tired look on his face.
“This is a work report.”
“Oh, right. Captain Aaron, who I trust the most. Because of what happened last time, we’ll check more thoroughly than usual. And don’t dodge around just in case.”
The captain waved his hand without even looking at me, finished speaking briefly. He bowed his head and left, and the weasel followed him.
“Write this.”
After looking around for a moment, he handed the weasel a sword that was standing in a corner. It was Quarter’s sword.
The weasel, who was very excited, put his sword in his waistband and took various stances. Since he already had a sword on his waist, this made him have two swords, but he didn’t seem to care.
“Isn’t that what a sword is? It breaks at a crucial moment, and the blade becomes dull and unusable···.”
Anyone who saw it would think it was just a greedy face, but strangely enough, it was true, so I nodded.
After a quick check of our attire, we headed to the weasel and the gate.
A familiar face standing next to the gate noticed me and smiled brightly.
“Then, go fuck yourself.”
The guy waved his hand like I did sometime ago.
‘Hey, he’s a petty guy.’
I felt annoyed for no reason.
After a while, a carriage approached.
“Look carefully.”
“yep!”
I ignored the ferret’s answer, which was full of spirit, and headed towards the carriage driver.
“hello.”
A skinny man with bald spots took off his hat and greeted me. I nodded and checked the carriage. There was nothing special. Most of it was dried meat and other groceries. He was a carriage driver who had been there before, so his face looked familiar. I called him Anchovy John.
“I heard from rumors that there was some trouble at Castle Cassadic···.”
Anchovy John trailed off and handed over a silver coin.
“There has never been a riot like this.”
I nodded and put the silver coins in my pocket.
“For a demon to come out of such a remote place… You must have had a hard time. Of course, if the demons had known that Aaron was here, they wouldn’t have come here! Haha!”
Anchovy John, who had been speaking jokingly, smiled and put his hat back on.
‘Oh, I told you to make the security checks stricter.’
Since there was something going on, I thought I needed a more advanced and reliable method of inspection than usual. So I hit the back of the guy’s head. Bam! With a refreshing sound, Anchovy John fell forward.
Judging by the thud it made when it hit the ground, it didn’t seem to be a warlock or a demon or anything.
“No, it wasn’t. Pass!”
I shook the anchovy for a while because it didn’t wake up, and it woke up with a bewildered look on its face.
“···Huh? Why was I lying down?”
“I guess you haven’t been sleeping well lately. It’s been a bit scary lately, so don’t cause any trouble inside.”
When I lightly tapped his shoulder, Anchovy John smiled brightly and grabbed the reins. Anchovy John put his hat back on, bowed his head, and passed me and entered the castle.
“Did you see? It’s something like this.”
When I turned my head, the weasel was looking up at me with its eyes shining so brightly that it was burdensome.
“Can I really do what you just did, hyung?!”
At the question full of expectations, I nodded my head tremblingly. Then, the weasel opened its eyes wide again and breathed out hot breath.
After a while, a carriage driver approached.
This time, I sent a weasel, although it was a bit dubious.
A red-faced weasel ran towards the carriage driver and shouted something.
The coachman answered with a puzzled look, and the weasel raised his voice even higher and pointed at me.
At first glance, I heard the words, ‘Devil… My brother…’
The cartman’s face immediately turned sour, and the weasel shouted again. After a while, the cartman took out two silver coins from his bosom with a sour look on his face and handed them to the weasel.
‘···Two?’
The weasel waved and smiled brightly, then suddenly punched the carriage driver in the back of the head as he passed by. It was so funny that I couldn’t help but laugh.
As the coachman, whose face turned red, shouted, the weasel pointed at me again, and the coachman, with a disgusted look on his face, ran away into the castle.
“Brother!! Being a security guard is such a great thing! Being able to blackmail people legally like this!”
I held out my hand to the weasel, who was laughing even louder than before. The weasel tilted its head in response, and when I made a fist with my other hand, it placed a silver coin in my palm.
“But what did you say that made him take out two silver coins?”
“Oh, I didn’t say anything. I just scared you a little by telling you that you tore the devil apart with your own hands and ate him. Hehe… To believe such nonsense just because you look scary and fierce… Don’t you think you’re such an idiot?”
The weasel rubbed his palms and smiled his usual mean smile. However, the content made him feel a little guilty and he couldn’t laugh.
The weasel tilted its head at him, then ran away, making a noise as another carriage driver approached.
Even though it was only shown once, the weasel adapted with surprising speed.
Even the notorious cunning carriage driver was able to get the silver coin after being successfully persuaded, and I was secretly impressed.
Every time, I felt a little uncomfortable pointing a finger at myself, but I was able to let it slide when I had a silver coin in my hand. All I had to do was cross my arms and frown, and the silver coins would roll in on their own.
‘···Is this a calling?’
At that time, the weasel tried to get money from the woman who was giving food to the tenant farmer, and I quickly stopped him.
Accepting money was only for those who could afford it. The weasel nodded as if he realized that.
The sun was unusually bright, so I took a sip of alcohol in the shade for a moment.
“You dare to interrogate us now!!”
Suddenly, a shout was heard. He got up and went to see that a weasel was blocking the carriage with the seal of the Fener family.
A soldier got out of the carriage and was pointing at the weasel and shouting.
‘You crazy kid.’
The lethargy disappeared immediately.
“Oh, so I said I had my own circumstances···.”
The soldier looked ready to draw his sword at any moment, but the weasel refused to back down and listened with his characteristically mischievous expression.
First, I checked the carriage. It had the seal of the Fener family on it, but when I looked through the open door, I saw that there were only armed soldiers. I felt a little relieved by that.
If you were a soldier of the Fener family, you were implicitly in an ambiguous position between a semi-noble and a commoner, a semi-noble, but in the end, you were still a commoner.
“Brother!! Look at these guys! When I tried to check them, they just kept yelling at me to get out!”
“What… What? These guys? On the subject of the guards… You punks don’t even know this subject!”
The soldier’s face instantly turned red at the weasel’s words. Judging by the trembling of his hand holding the sword handle, it seemed as if he was enduring it with superhuman endurance. There was definitely something about the weasel that made people angry.
‘hmm···.’
I weighed the scales in my mind. Normally, if it had the seal of the Fener family, it would pass without inspection. It was a tacit agreement between the two parties. Strictly speaking, even if it had the seal, inspection was the procedure.
The intentions were impure, but the weasel followed the procedure anyway, and he was rejected by the other side. The scales were tipped in their favor.
‘This smells like money.’
I stretched out my hand and stopped the wild weasel. The weasel became quiet in an instant, as if it had never been angry.
“It’s a natural inspection by the foreign security forces. What’s the problem?”
“Checkpoint? Are you blind? Didn’t you see the Fener family seal hanging over there? If you checked after seeing that, you’re really stupid.”
The soldier pointing to the Fener family seal raised the corners of his mouth. His expression seemed to ask, ‘What are you going to do?’
I couldn’t help but laugh at the sight of a non-noble guy stretching out his seal. It was really funny how an ignorant and uncivilized medieval guy would challenge me to a tongue-fight.
The guy’s reaction was understandable. Since the Feners and Pulpouts were on good terms enough to have marriage proposals going around, anyone with the Feners’ seal would have been treated quite well at Castle Cassadic.
I might have been treated more lavishly at the Castle of Cassady than at my own castle. However, the timing was not right.
“Due to recent unfortunate events, this is a special order from the lord to thoroughly inspect everyone who passes through the gates, whether or not they have a seal. And yet you call us stupid for doing so… Hmm… You just called the lord stupid.”
As I was muttering the word ‘lord’, the soldier who had been sternly speaking until just now suddenly opened his mouth. It was an obvious leap of faith and exaggeration, but since it included the name of a nobleman, it had a different weight.
It didn’t matter whether the strict inspection was a special order from the lord or an irritated order from a captain who was busy with work these days. In any case, there was no way for a mere soldier to know the truth.
“Hmm… It’s a sensitive time these days.”
“I heard the executioner has muscle pain, and it’s a pain to call him again, brother.”
The weasel that had been hiding behind me poked its head out and quickly added to the conversation. The acting was so exquisite that the weasel seemed genuinely concerned about the executioner.
The soldier gritted his teeth at that.
However, the corners of his lips twitched as if he was forcing himself to relax his expression.
“···That’s not what I meant.”
The guy was still talking cockily, but his momentum was less intense than before.
“What are you talking about? How dare you call our lord ignorant and stupid…”
The weasel scratched the guy again in a very sly voice. Clearly, the soldier had only said that it was stupid, but now he had added the modifier of ignorance.
“···for a moment!”
The soldier, his face red as if it would burst, cut off the weasel’s words while his cheeks trembled with anger. He reached inside his armor, took out a pouch covered in dirt, and handed it to me.
The pocket was quite heavy, so I smiled without realizing it. The weasel also smiled mischievously, but the soldier, oblivious, did not smile and just glared at me with cold eyes.
“Ahem… Yeah. I know I make mistakes sometimes. Aren’t we all in similar situations?”
“Huh? What did he say? I couldn’t hear anything because it was so noisy.”
The weasel dug its ears and acted natural, and the soldier clicked his teeth and passed us by. Of course, there was still one more procedure left.
Bam!
I hit the back of the guy’s head and the soldier staggered as if he was going to fall. However, he didn’t fall over as if he was in a daze.
“Dare like this dog!”
“Ah, procedure. Special instructions from your lord.”
“What··· nonsense···.”
The soldier looked back at me with his eyes wide open as if he was going to stab me at any moment, and he grabbed the handle of his sword.
‘What are you going to do?’
I faced him and made the same expression he had on his face earlier.
I knew the guy wouldn’t be able to draw his sword. Even if he had the courage to draw his sword, which was beyond the level of a soldier, one more blow would be all it took.
The man who had been glaring at me for a moment quickly let go of his sword grip and climbed onto the carriage.
“Please use it often!”
The weasel waved his hand enthusiastically at the passing carriage, chattering in a manner that a tavern attendant might say.
After that, quite a few carriages passed by.
The weasel emptied people’s pockets so well that it was hard to believe it was the first day. Sometimes it went too far, so I stopped it a few times, and later on, it set its own appropriate standards, so I didn’t have to touch it.
“Being a guard is a much cooler job than I thought. It’s like following my brother…”
The weasel patted his full pockets and muttered in a moved voice.
‘There really is such a thing as a calling.’
I nodded my head as I looked at that sight.
My pockets were so full that I couldn’t help but smile.
***
“Chief, we are looking for a chief in the church.”
I ran into Berman at headquarters after he finished his patrol.
Behind them, Grass and the Weasel were chatting happily.
“platform?”
‘Are you trying to give me a reward?’
Suddenly, the corners of my mouth went up as I remembered the generous reward I received for helping Ben last time.
“yes.”
“Okay, I got it.”
I nodded to him and left the headquarters, heading to the synagogue.
Suddenly, standing in front of the synagogue, the tenant I had in my heart came to mind, and I thought for a moment, wondering if it was okay for me to be this happy.
‘No, how proudly I have lived.’
He shook his head and entered the synagogue.
The moment I pushed open the synagogue door and entered, I had to force myself to keep from closing it.
“···.”
A thick armor that glows white.
A giant sword the size of a person’s body.
An appearance that is devoid of any emotion, like a beautiful doll.
Inquisitor Joanna stared at me, one hand on the hilt of the mace hanging at her waist.
