The Warrior's Ballad

Chapter 117

Translator: WilliaEven though it was called a mountain base, all it had were wooden fences, a guard post, a warehouse building, and a small lodging for veteran soldiers. Ordinary soldiers lived inside huts within the base, like wandering beggars.

Though their living conditions were poor, the soldiers didn’t look too shabby. A stream flowed nearby, providing plenty of drinking water, and they washed frequently.

Proper military units were more hygienic than expected to prevent disease outbreaks.

Anyway, Ricardt's group was simply sitting on the ground receiving hospitality, and since it wasn’t inside any building, about a dozen soldiers gathered around them and stared.

So it felt like they had become some sort of spectacle.

“I don’t know the name of the mountain, but if you follow the forest’s edge over that ridge path, there’s a rocky mountain. That’s where the fight happened. But actually, it wasn’t our fight with them, it was the Rubens Clan’s fight, and the Rector Mercenary Corps had been hired by them.”

Bremen said this as he drank lukewarm ale. For something lukewarm, it was surprisingly refreshing. Adeloron had long been known for its clean water, maybe that was the reason.

In any case, everyone was listening closely, as if defeating the Rector Mercenary Corps was such an amazing and surprising feat.

“Then it wasn’t just the three of you who fought?”

“Just about. These three here did almost everything. I didn’t even swing my sword once, and this boy’s father was sacrificed.”

Bremen said, gently placing his hand on Roy’s shoulder.

Perhaps because death was an everyday occurrence, neither his old friends nor the soldiers showed any particular condolences.

“The Rector Mercenary Corps should have had quite a few members... and their gear is usually decent too...”

“That’s why we chose to fight in the mountains. The path up was narrow and rugged. This friend here made all the judgments and gave the orders. The young lady here protected us, and that fellow blocked the path.”

Bremen pointed to Ricardt, Marie, and Bori respectively as he spoke. The three of them still said nothing.

"You made such a judgment? You? You're just like Prince Caldebert."

“Huh?”

Hearing the name of an old friend so suddenly, Ricardt was a bit startled. Bori frowned and tilted his head, thinking it sounded familiar.

Regardless of Ricardt’s surprise, Bremen’s old friend, a man named Harbert, was staring quietly at Ricardt. Almost to the point of glaring.

He wasn’t picking a fight, it was more like he was scrutinizing Ricardt’s features carefully.

If it had been a provocation, Ricardt would have glared back. But since it wasn’t, that gaze made him quite uncomfortable. Do I look like someone?

“Oh, right. Ever heard of the Black Sword? It’s pretty famous among swordsmen. That guy over there is that very Black Sword Bori.”

“I’ve heard of it.”

“Me too.”

When Bremen said that, a few of the soldiers watching around them spoke up. But that was it. What they were really interested in was the battle, the outcome of the battle, and Ricardt. No one knew why.

Though the soldiers were mostly illiterate brutes, they had a lot of combat experience, so they could tell just by listening. Whether Bremen was bluffing or not.

It was like when someone who hasn’t been to the army tries to talk about military life, it’s obvious.

“Then after defeating the Rector Mercenary Corps, where are you headed? Adelivari?”

When Harbert asked, Bremen nodded and said,

“We plan to resupply there and then head toward Torveil.”

“But Adelivari is currently under siege.”

“...What siege?”

“It’s practically the only place left. The last one worth looting.”

The Adeloron Kingdom had been almost entirely pillaged, and there were hardly any intact cities left.

Adelivari had held out until now because it was near the border, but with nothing else left to loot, it seemed they had gone there to take the last juicy bite.

"By whom? Who's besieging it?"

“‘Invincible’ Grantz.”

What kind of nickname is ‘invincible’? It sounded overly grand. Was it just bravado, or was the person really that amazing?

“Who is that?”

For the first time, Ricardt opened his mouth to ask a question. As he did, the already present gazes focused on him even more. What’s with these people?

Bremen’s longtime comrade Harbert replied.

“He’s the head of the largest faction among the warlords that currently control the kingdom. I heard he’s from Laurentia, though I don’t know where that is. Originally, he was a member of the Second Sons Mercenary Corps, but during the war, he committed insubordination, killed the commander, and took control of the mercenary corps himself. The Rector Mercenary Corps is one of the units under his command. The ones you and your friends gave a beating to.”

“The ‘Second Sons’ Mercenary Corps?”

Perhaps because Ricardt had broken the silence, this time Bori asked. The name sounded a bit unusual.

“They used to be a mercenary corps made up entirely of nobles. Quite famous. Four years ago, when a peasant uprising began in the east and signs of civil war appeared, the king hired them. But taking advantage of the chaos, a prince killed the king, then the Second Sons killed the prince, and afterward, Grantz killed the commander of the mercenary corps. That’s when everything started going to hell, and it’s led to this situation.”

“So what is this Grantz person trying to do, then? If he wanted the throne, he should’ve claimed it long ago.”

“He calls himself king, but he’s the one who destroyed the capital Adelun. Who would serve him as king? I don’t know the full details myself. But the lords would never follow him. So it seems he decided to destroy the entire kingdom. And the mercenary corps, once composed only of nobles, is no longer that. He started accepting anyone and everyone, and now the total force is ten thousand strong, with another fifty thousand beggars trailing behind them. He probably can’t even control them anymore.”

Having a large force wasn’t automatically a good thing. It was only good if it could be managed effectively.

For example, even though the Rector Mercenary Corps was supposedly under his command, what were they doing in Pasina?

The lack of proper management let the subordinates run around doing whatever they wanted. The Rubens Clan was essentially an external force, and the fact that they had even entered a hiring contract made no sense.

The problem with such groups was that they would swarm a location and loot and destroy everything. Just like the demon king and his army in legends.

For the people living in the Adeloron Kingdom, this was nothing short of the end of the world.

They were no longer a mercenary corps, certainly not a regular army, and couldn’t even be called a proper military faction since they had no defined territory. They were more like a mob of bandits.

Why were they doing this? Because it was the only way to survive.

A proper military force divides combat and supply units, and these need to function smoothly. But when that breaks down, things naturally devolve into this.

Who would pay their salaries? Who would feed them? They just looted villages or towns and stuffed themselves with whatever they could get.

More importantly, it was already too late to go back. Once they got used to living that way, they couldn’t do anything else. They grew increasingly brutal as well.

“Then what are you all doing here?”

Ricardt asked. He wasn’t criticizing, he was genuinely curious.

“Well, we’re just... doing what we’ve always done. Guarding this peak. And, incidentally, collecting what you might call a toll from travelers.”

These men weren’t exactly bandits, but they weren’t regular soldiers either. Because there was no commander. The frontier lords had all died during the civil war.

“So... what now? Is there anywhere left to return to?”

Bremen asked. His old friend Harbert shook his head. Even if there were places to return to, all the towns and villages along the way had been devastated.

In such conditions, it wasn’t the bandits that were scary, it was the starving civilians. Rumors occasionally surfaced that people were resorting to cannibalism.

“Can’t we just slip through quietly? It’s not like the crowd is being properly controlled anyway.”

With sixty thousand people gathered, it was impossible to monitor and control every individual. If they just slipped by subtly, who would even notice?

The problem was that it wasn’t guaranteed. If anything went wrong, they could be crushed by that massive number.

“Can’t turn back after coming all this way, and we can’t just sit around wasting time either...”

Though he didn’t like it, Bremen had no other choice. They had overcome many hardships, but it now felt like an even greater mountain was blocking their path.

The group pitched their tents for the first time in a while and spent the night at the mountain base. Because of the rain the day before, they had eaten all the potatoes and vegetables, and now had very little food left.

If they were to resupply, it wouldn't be at Adelivari, they would have to blend into the crowd of sixty thousand and somehow buy food there.

But during the night, Harbert and his soldiers kept glancing toward Ricardt and whispering among themselves.

If they were plotting something bad, they would’ve done it in secret, but doing it so openly made Ricardt wonder what was going on. It bothered him so much that he couldn’t sleep properly.

The next morning, as the group packed up to leave, Harbert and his men also gathered their weapons and belongings and followed.

“Why are you following us?”

Bremen asked in disbelief.

“Just as you and your companions are going to the Eastern Frontier in search of your last hope, we’ve decided to head to Adelivari for our final battle.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Like you, I don’t have many days left. But what about the soldiers? What are they guarding this peak for, exactly? The kingdom is already in ruins.”

Indeed, what meaning was there in guarding the frontier of a fallen kingdom? When Ricardt looked at the soldiers, they didn’t wear determined expressions. They just looked... mentally exhausted.

It seemed like they just wanted to fight properly one last time before they vanished away. But to do that, they needed a real commander.

Ricardt had a bad feeling. No, it was more like a sense of discomfort than foreboding. He didn’t know why exactly, but something felt off.

However, when you thought about it, they were simply heading in the same direction. So he couldn’t tell them not to follow.

As they continued along the ridgeline, they passed by other mountain bases, and when the soldiers there heard that the Rector Mercenary Corps had been destroyed by just three people, they began to join too.

Each mountain base had anywhere from ten to twenty soldiers, and after passing five of them, nearly seventy people were following Ricardt’s group.

Like a marching column, the soldiers walked in a line along the ridgeline, resting long spears on their shoulders.

“This doesn’t feel right...”

“Blending in quietly doesn’t seem possible anymore, does it?”

Bori and Marie voiced their concern. With so many armed people, it was unlikely they’d pass unnoticed.

Ricardt also felt that this wasn’t right, but he couldn’t dictate their will.

There were seven mountain bases in total, and in the end, about 100 people ended up following. There used to be more, but now this was all that remained.

After noon, the ridgeline trail ended, and a descending mountain path appeared. It wound around the mountain like a snake, and as they kept going down, they saw what looked like a village.

But it wasn’t a village. These people were followers of, or those led by, the so-called Invincible Grantz.

With fifty thousand people, they couldn’t all gather in one place, so they were spread across a wide area, and these were some of them. They usually traveled in groups formed by region, village, or kin.

Of course, they weren’t an army or a mercenary force. They had simply lost their homes and followed him out of a desperate attempt to survive.

For example, they too had once been subjects of Adeloron, but after being pillaged, they had no choice but to follow Grantz in order to eat.

Then they, too, began to loot, to die, to barely survive. That was the reality.

Aside from the combat forces, the rest of the fifty thousand were mostly such people, like a swarm of locusts.

That’s what Ricardt was facing now. There were hardly any young men, mostly women, elderly, and children.

The children, unaware of anything, just ran around brightly, picking up and eating whatever they found.

When they saw Ricardt and his group, along with the soldiers following behind, they simply blinked at them.

Their lives were already broken. They didn’t even seem to feel fear about what might be done to them.

Having lost their husbands, sons, and fathers, everyone had. That was why the soldiers remained indifferent even after hearing Roy’s story. In a world where tragedy had become commonplace, tragedy no longer felt tragic.

What remained for them now seemed to be nothing but songs. Like folk songs a grandmother passed to her daughter, and the mother to her sons and daughters.

“When the apple blossoms bloom, I look up the mountain pass. When the lake holds the sun, I walk along the lakeshore. My heart has gone beyond that ridge. When the stars twinkle in the lake, the prince will come. When the prince comes, this misfortune will end.”

The melody was sorrowful, but the children, with untainted voices, sang the song cheerfully. Some soldiers hummed along with the children's singing.

It felt like that alone showed they were not enemies. That they were from the same country, the same people, even if the situation had come to this.

Of course, that didn’t mean anything could be done about it right now. Ricardt simply passed by them and continued down the mountain path.

“What kind of country maiden waits for a prince? Is it some hidden lover or something?”

“That’s just how stories go.”

When Bori made a comment that sounded like he was picking a fight, Marie responded as if to say, just understand it however you want.

“Caldebert.”

Harbert, who had been quietly following behind, suddenly spoke. Ricardt, Marie, and Bori turned to look at him.

“The prince in the song, I mean. Heroic knight, Breaker Caldebert. It’s a song that says the war will end when he returns. Adeloron has always suffered severe civil wars since long ago.”

Hearing the name of the old friend once again, Ricardt flinched for a moment. That uneasy feeling that had always clung to his chest? That discomfort? It seemed to swell up suddenly.

At that moment, Bori's eyes widened as he exclaimed loudly.

“Ah! I remember now! Ricky, wasn’t your house founded by that guy?”

“...He’s our mid-ancestor.”

“Still, he was the Fourth Prince of Adeloron, right?”

Ricardt’s Caldebern Family had been founded in honor of Caldebert’s name.

Caldebert was originally the fourth prince of Adeloron. He had earned military merit in the Eastern Expedition Territory and was granted a fief by the emperor, along with the right to establish a new noble house.

In terms of lineage, the Adeloron Royal Family was the main line, and the Caldebern Family was a kind of collateral branch.

By bloodline, that’s how it traced, but at this point, claiming royal authority or anything of the sort was unrealistic.

However, given the current situation...

“What are you saying?”

Harbert, who had been following behind, stepped closer and asked. His expression was serious no, maybe desperate.

“He’s actually a noble. From the Caldebern Family. He’s a descendant of that Breaker Caldebert.”

“Hey, don’t say things like that so carelessly. It’s fine among ourselves, but in front of others...”

As Bori pointed to Ricardt as if it were nothing, Marie frowned and cut him off.

Then Harbert suddenly grabbed Ricardt by the shoulders. He stared at him closely, examining each feature, eyes, nose, mouth, jawline, hair, even the wrinkles, as if inspecting every detail.

Ricardt wondered what this man was doing, and at the same time, his unease felt like it was taking a more solid shape.

“A-are you really the prince?”

“No, I’m just a country boy. Not a prince. It’s Marie, she’s the princess. I mean, the imperial princess.”

“Why are you dragging me into this?”

Marie widened her eyes in disbelief, but Harbert suddenly fell to his knees. Ricardt, Marie, and Bori were so startled they just stared at him.

“Ooh! Sob, sob!”

Harbert began to sob and then full-on cried. The three were so dumbfounded they couldn’t speak.

“Why are you acting like this?”

Even Bremen widened his eyes and asked his friend.

“...This is fate.”

“What is?”

“That the war will end!”

He had seemed like a stoic man, but that was only a shell. Once the shell cracked, the bitterness and sorrow that had built up inside poured out.

The soldiers in the back murmured, wondering what was going on, and the people from the village peeked out in curiosity.

“The prince has returned!”

Harbert shouted loudly. At that, everyone looked bewildered. But then, the women of the village suddenly burst into tears and knelt down.

The sound of sobbing echoed, and there was nothing more sorrowful than the sound of women crying together.

As the atmosphere suddenly shifted like that, one by one, some of the soldiers removed their helmets and knelt as well. Then, with wide, awestruck eyes, they all looked up at Ricardt. As if trying to etch him into their memories.

Was this the unease he had been feeling unknowingly since yesterday? Ricardt was at a loss for words.

But sometimes, while heroes create an era, there are also times when an era demands a hero.

What these people needed now was something, anything, they could believe in and follow. And whether by coincidence or fate, Ricardt had been chosen.

Was it a duty imposed by bloodline, or simply destiny? Would he turn his back on it, or deliver to them their final hope? A hope like a torch to light the darkness of their times.

The choice of what to do now rested solely with Ricardt.

****