red pocket
I somehow managed to get it into my mouth and swallow it, but I just couldn’t get the last bite.
To disinfect my tongue, which had been tortured by the bitter taste, I drank more than half of the moonshine that had been brought in a wooden flask.
“Wow, this stew is really good. I want to eat more… Ugh.”
The weasel licked the empty wooden bowl with his tongue. The stew must have been really delicious, because a hint of regret dripped from his voice.
I couldn’t bear to ignore the guy’s regret.
“Eat this.”
“···yes?”
The weasel blinked at the horrible bread I offered. When I made a face, it hesitated and took the bread.
“Are you eating this?”
Looking at the eyes of the weasel filled with suspicion, I felt a little relieved. It’s just that Brick’s mother can’t cook… no, she cooks strangely. It’s not like the Middle Ages caused people’s tastes to become this corrupt.
The weasel, who had been pondering over the bread for a moment, looked at me. When I clenched my fist and shook it, the weasel closed its eyes tightly and put the bread in its mouth. And then it stopped.
After a while, the weasel opened its eyes wide and hurriedly ran to throw up what it had eaten. Seeing that, I was relieved to see that my taste buds were not mistaken.
‘You’re joking because you just ate that one thing.’
I clicked my tongue as I watched the weasel get down on its knees and vomit. What a spineless guy.
“Ahem… Hello.”
A man with wrinkles around his eyes spoke to me from the side. He looked quite old, but he was small and thin, so I could tell he was a mercenary only after seeing the sword hanging from his waist and the dagger on his thigh.
The man was wearing a tattered leather armor with many scratches, and judging by the thickness of the armor, it seemed like he was wearing something inside. He didn’t look particularly strong, but seeing as he was a mercenary who had survived to that age, it was clear that he had something.
Because most mercenaries tend to have long wrinkles on their necks before they have wrinkles on their faces.
These guys were more difficult than the big, strong guys. When dealing with this type, you had to watch out for the back of their head. When you stab them from behind, they won’t shout ‘Die!’ as you have to.
“My name is John.”
The man held out a red pouch.
[Put 1 Cooper in. Then your misfortune will be contained here.]
Suddenly, I smiled slightly at the memory that came to mind. It was the first red pouch I had seen in a long time.
It was a tradition of mercenaries.
Whenever mercenaries who had just met each other would gather to work together, the oldest mercenary would walk around carrying a bag of blood.
Then the other mercenaries take out a copper coin, curse it with the most horrible curse they can think of, and put it in their pocket.
And when the work was over, they buried the coin in the ground. If something unpleasant happened during the ceremony and someone couldn’t be there, the curse they placed on the coin would be passed on to those who were left behind. It was an extremely unscientific and primitive tradition.
To put it simply, the story was that if you hit the back of the head before the job was done, that guy would be cursed for the rest of his life. How much would the back of the head itch for a guy who was used to eating rice with knives to be with guys he had never seen before? That was the tradition of mercenaries that arose from there.
It was a promise that had no legal effect and was the height of barbarism, but it was surprisingly effective. That was understandable, since this was the Middle Ages, when superstitions were rampant, and mercenaries who ate rice with swords were particularly sensitive to such things.
I looked in my pocket for a moment, then took out a coin.
“Ah! Brother! This is a long-standing tradition of mercenaries… Huh? You know about it?”
The weasel said, rubbing the area around his mouth with his arm.
“···I will go to this world.”
I muttered something softly to the coin and put it in my pocket.
“Thank you. You can put it in too.”
“Well, I’ll take it out soon.”
The weasel put his hand into his pants and frowned as if searching for something. When he came out, he was holding a particularly dark book of fairy tales.
‘Anyway, those mercenary bastards···.’
The foul smell made me frown. I couldn’t understand why he kept it in his underwear instead of his perfectly good pockets.
“If you dare hit me in the back of the head! You’ll eat that fucking bread until your stomach explodes!”
The weasel, with a very serious look on his face, poured terrible words on the coin and put it in his pocket.
“Then it’s fine. It’s only a short period of time, but I ask for your help in the future.”
The man smiled, revealing his yellow teeth.
***
It was a repetition of walking at a fast pace, taking a short break when someone fell, and then moving forward again.
The weasel’s eyes were already open, as if he was lazy about exercising. He stumbled a few times, but he didn’t fall down. Of course, he would just lie down on the floor when he was resting, but he seemed to have some tenacity.
This time, when one fell, four others fell as well, perhaps seeing this as an opportunity, and the soldier in front of them ordered a slightly longer rest.
“Would you like a sip?”
A man who introduced himself as John handed me a flask of wine. It was a fragrant wine.
Whenever John had a break, he would come to me and talk about this and that. Not only John, but other mercenaries would also gather in groups of three or five to get to know each other.
The mercenaries were desperate to foster camaraderie, as if they all felt that this was not as simple as it seemed. They seemed to want to become close with other mercenaries and have them sacrifice themselves for them in times of danger.
Of course, such noble mercenaries are so rare that the survivors may end up drinking with the dead man in a bar while calling his name.
I didn’t refuse, but accepted the canteen and drank it. It tasted more like grape juice than wine, as if it was mixed with water.
“Even though I mixed it with some water, it’s still a pretty expensive drink.”
“It was delicious. I enjoyed it.”
John nodded, took the water bottle and put it in his mouth.
The water here was so tasteless that most people carried around wine or cider mixed with water to quench their thirst. That’s probably why most people’s cheeks were red.
‘So it’s more uncivilized?’
Since being in a state of being horny is the default, I thought that if we just made eye contact, we might fight and end up shitting on the street.
“Are you also employed by the lord?”
“Yeah, that’s true.”
I nodded vaguely to John’s question, not wanting to explain it in detail.
“I thought you were going to fight a territory war when I saw the number of people and the amount of money you’ve collected. But it’s just a carriage escort… I feel uneasy. In my experience, things always go wrong in these cases.”
John muttered, carrying the water bottle in his arms.
“It is strange, isn’t it?”
I answered and looked up at the sky. The sky was full of dark clouds. It was April, so spring was definitely coming, but the sky didn’t seem to clear up at all.
“···I have a bad feeling.”
John muttered in a small voice. My fists clenched at the sight of John spouting out a bunch of cliches out of nowhere, but I couldn’t bring myself to hit John, who was older than me, so I hit the head of the weasel that was sleeping next to me.
“Ahhh!···.”
“Let’s go again! There’s a village a little further on, so let’s rest there!”
At that moment, the soldier on horseback shouted loudly. The weasel grumbled and got up from his seat.
‘If it’s a village in between…’
I knew where it was. I had been there before coming to Cassidy, and I had been there often since. It was a very small town with a population of less than 80.
In this uncivilized place, children are put to work as soon as they can walk, so the child’s skin is red from the sun. The child’s hands are so dirty that he is holding a worn-out book.
[Sir, I like reading books the best.]
No matter how many times I told him he wasn’t a knight, he wouldn’t budge. The kid followed me around and babbled about things I didn’t ask him.
To me, the child was a difficult opponent.
My single word would leave a mark on the drawing paper, and I was afraid that I would accidentally draw an unsightly stain, because I knew very well how dark that stain would be.
‘I guess you’ve grown up a bit now.’
It’s been half a year since I last saw him, so if he survived, he’d probably be quite grown up by now.
‘I didn’t prepare a gift this time···.’
The child’s hair must have grown quite thick by now, so it seemed okay to give him a silver coin.
The corners of my mouth went up as I thought I heard a babbling voice.
***
The village we arrived at was very quiet.
No, beyond quiet, the town was dead.
“There’s no one here. Did they run away as a group?”
“Oh, I heard that the peasants of the castle of Blant up there also fled in large numbers during the year of famine because of the high taxes.”
I scratched my beard while listening to John and the weasel talk. The two were getting along quite well as they shared drinks from their water bottle.
Of course, the Cassadic Castle also collected a lot of taxes, but it was still noble compared to other castles. I never heard of any famines there.
The soldier at the very front raised his fist. The carriage slowly stopped at the entrance to the village. The mercenaries each grabbed their weapons and looked around.
“Ah… Isn’t this the devil’s doing? I know the village chief here, and he’s not the type of person to run away like this!”
“Shh! Be quiet! Don’t you know that the devil appears when you speak?!”
‘···The devil.’
I scratched my head at the word ‘devil’ coming out of the mouths of the janitors. These guys were ignorant people who would throw a fit and call it a devil even if the wind blew and the dishes from the ceiling fell.
However, this time, I didn’t feel good.
One of the soldiers wearing a pointed helmet approached from behind. Another soldier was opening the carriage door and reporting. I focused on the soldier who was almost flat on his stomach facing the carriage.
‘Perhaps a lord’s wife or a young lady.’
Since there was no way he would react like that unless he was a noble, I could guess who was inside. If he was a lord, he would have deployed a larger force, so he wasn’t a lord.
And since the lord’s wife would not have gone out, there was a high probability that it was Yeong-ae. And the destination was Bolt Castle.
“Let’s disperse and check the village to see if there’s anything strange.”
The pointed helmet soldier sat on his horse and looked down and gave orders.
“Okay, we’ll split up and take a look.”
John stepped forward and answered, and the soldier turned the reins and turned away.
“Let’s all pair up and explore the village. It’s a small village, so it won’t take too long to explore. Let’s finish up quickly and have dinner. Isn’t there more of that delicious stew from earlier?”
The mercenaries nodded their heads at John’s gently soothing words. There was an uneasy look on their faces, but they did not particularly rebel.
He was quite skilled at handling mercenaries.
“Tongue… Brother. Is there really a devil?”
The weasel, who had already pulled out his axe, muttered in a trembling voice.
“It might be. It might not be.”
He answered, looking at the sky that had now become completely dark.
It looked like it was going to rain at any moment.
If I were the devil, it was a day I would be happy to go for a walk.
‘Was it over there?’
As I reminisced, I headed towards a house in a remote corner of the village.
“Let’s go together, hyung!”
A startled weasel followed him.
The houses in the village were all similar. They had roofs made of straw and wooden frames, similar to thatched houses. Although their sizes and heights were slightly different.
Because the town itself was small, even remote places could be reached quickly.
[Here it is!]
Even though it was a village of tenant farmers, they still had their own differences. One of those differences was the size of the houses, and the house the child stayed in was particularly small.
– Chris, Bella and Horn!
I touched the crooked letters engraved on the waist next to the entrance.
“Brother, isn’t it too creepy in here?”
I ignored the weasel’s whining and went inside the house.
There were crude tables and chairs, moldy dishes everywhere, and piles of straw piled up on one side. It was a place with a thick sense of poverty that would make it obvious that even if a thief broke in, they would curse and leave.
‘But still, a table was created.’
It was a crude table that looked like it would break if touched lightly, perhaps because it was made by someone with poor craftsmanship, but it wasn’t there last time I was here.
“It’s such a beggarly corner of the house that it reminds me of my old house.”
The weasel rummaged around expertly, muttering. He searched through the straw, as if he expected to find something in it.
I picked up the worn-out book that lay on the table. Beside it was a large inkwell and a worn-out quill.
[Wow! This is really a gift?!]
The watered-down ink had run dry, and the quill pen had lost all its feathers.
Beep!
Just then a whistle was heard from afar.
“I guess… it seems like it’s a dud.”
A weasel with bits of straw stuck all over its body grumbled.
I packed my books inside my armor and left the house.
People were gathered slightly away from the center.
“Devil… Ugh… We’re all going to die….”
“···It’s terrible.”
“I thought the commission was a lot, but damn it.”
The mercenaries were gathered in one place, shivering with pale faces, and the mercenaries were cursing while each had their weapons drawn.
Their eyes narrowed at the horrific sight of the interior beyond their shoulders. The interior was filled with red, four men were hanging on the wall, and the intestines were hanging out of the men’s stomachs in a sinister shape.
It was a great introduction to a horror movie. The problem is that I’m one of the characters.
“Get out of the way! Get out of the way!”
“Ugh… Ughhh!!”
“Hey… you little brat! Get out of here!”
A soldier wearing a pointed helmet approached. The soldier next to the door kept vomiting, and the soldier wearing a pointed helmet shouted and pushed him aside. The soldier fell over in his own vomit.
“···Oh my god.”
The pointed helmet muttered softly, resting his head on his right hand.
“What’s going on?”
A woman’s voice was heard.
It was a voice I had heard before.
A soft voice, like a fairy singing.
‘Young-ae was right.’
Vivian, wearing a bright dress unlike before, was so beautiful that it seemed as if she was pushing away the deep darkness surrounding her.
‘But doesn’t he wash once every two days?’
Next to him was the knight I had seen before. This time he was wearing a helmet that barely showed his eyes.
“···oh my god.”
Yeong-ae staggered after checking inside, and the woman in the light armor next to her caught her.
“How do I do it?”
The pointed helmet asked the knight. Everyone shut their mouths and focused on the knight.
‘I’ll probably spend the night in this town.’
As uncomfortable as it was to stay in a town with such a horrible thing, it was better than going out in the dark of night not knowing what might be there.
‘It may not have been aimed at this side.’
It could have just happened to be the moment when the devil passed by.
There were quite a few troops brought along, and there were also knights. The sword of humanity that fights against demons. If it weren’t for being attacked, it would be able to defeat most demons.
“It looks like it’s going to rain.”
The knight looked up at the sky and opened his mouth.
“I’m spending the night here.”
The knight gave the order in a cold voice, as if he would not tolerate any resistance.
It was the best choice under the circumstances.
Thud.
A small drop of water tapped my shoulder.
[I thought about it, and you are a knight!]
I pushed the book further inside to keep it from getting wet from the rain.
Tonight felt like it would be particularly long.
