408 - Leonardo's Perspective The Curious Journey of Bandit Jin
...How did it come to this.
The bandits I had borrowed from Marco should have numbered about twenty men, but the count started increasing around the time we passed through Leberan territory. By the time we reached the city of Andorf, just before the area where the fallen kingdom once stood, those twenty bandits had surpassed two hundred. At this point, it was already a scale worthy of being called a great bandit band. In the kingdom of Ivizia, they would probably have drawn up a large-scale operation and organized multiple squads to hunt them down by now.
...Was that the trigger after all, I wonder.
Right after leaving Leberan territory, on a mountain path, we encountered a boy being attacked by a bear. The bear fled, startled by the sudden appearance of a large group of people, but the boy had already stopped breathing. I felt sorry for him, his body cruelly mauled and half-eaten, so I buried him. That must have been a mistake. The bear mistook us for stealing its meal and attacked us from behind, so I struck back, figuring there was no need to hold back against a bear either. I had heard that if you hit them on the nose they flinch, so I drove my fist into it without hesitation.
...I never imagined I could pulverize a bear's snout.
I hit the bear with all my strength, but the intent was to sap its fighting spirit. If I could create even a moment's opening from the surprise attack, I could put distance between us and have time to ready my short sword. That was my thinking, but there is no mistake that the fight was decided with that single blow.
The bear, its snout crushed, writhed on the spot for a while, then eventually lost consciousness.
If it had not come after us, I could have let it go, but this bear had already acquired a taste for human flesh, and with that one blow, it would surely have developed a hatred for humans too. Letting it live would not do the people living in the surrounding area any good, so I finished off the still-unconscious bear and opened its belly. From its stomach came hair of a different color than the boy I had buried earlier, so the victims probably were not just that one boy. Since I could not very well sort out which was the boy and which was not, I buried the other victims alongside where I had buried the boy as well.
After that, I thought about how to make use of the bear meat. Since I had killed it, I figured I should use it without waste, so I drained the blood and prepared to carry it. Even if I were to process it for preservation, it was far too much meat for twenty people. In that case, I thought it would be better to stop by the boy's village, which was probably nearby, serve them bear meat, and deliver the news of the boy's death to his family.
...The villagers were happy about it, though.
The bear I had killed seemed to be one that had been terrorizing the villages in that area. The villagers had apparently been living in fear every day, wondering when they might be attacked, whether the bear might eventually come into the village itself. The territorial lord had apparently done nothing about the situation despite the state the village was in. The news of the boy's death was mourned, but they also thanked me, saying they could finally rest easy. They offered me a meal as a small token of gratitude, so I left the remaining bear pelt behind as thanks for their thanks.
And this is probably what led to my current situation.
...It seems the village chief or someone used that bear pelt to talk about me all over the place.
During our travels, outlaws and other bandits started calling out to me, chasing after me from behind. "You are 'Jin the Bear Killer,' are not you?" they would say. "Fight me." Or, "You are that strongman Jin who carried a bear with one hand, right? I will make you my underling."
I quickly granted the wishes of those who wanted to test their strength against me, and the outlaws I had beaten within an inch of their lives somehow wanted to join my ranks. The bandits who had said they would make me their underling I sent packing with words, but later they came at me with their underlings, so I defeated them in turn. When they begged for their lives, I listened to what they had to say, and they started bragging about their past plundering, saying they would be useful if I took them into my service. So I sent them to the death god Uaksu. Though I am acting as a bandit now, we are not bandits who plunder from the people. I cannot take in as underlings the sort of bandits who want to attach themselves to a stronger master and suck out the good parts.
When I had finished defeating all the proper bandits who came at me, before long even those calling themselves righteous thieves started gravitating toward me. Apparently, thanks to me decimating bandit gangs left and right, public order in the surrounding area had improved somewhat. I thought that was ridiculous, but according to the righteous thieves who came to thank me, it was not entirely idle talk. On a less amusing note, it seems I had even unwittingly eliminated bandit bands secretly controlled by the local lords. And with bandit plundering decreasing, the surrounding villages apparently had a little breathing room this winter.
...When they said, "We are grateful. Is there anything we can do?" and I asked for information, that might have been a mistake.
The fact that I was seeking information apparently spread in another strange way. All sorts of information, a mixed jumble of wheat and chaff, came in, but it was not just information that gathered. The information gathered by the righteous thieves, overflowing with obligation and human kindness, turned into sympathy and empathy for me, who was searching for my kidnapped little sister, and before I knew it, the number of bandits had grown, even if they were righteous thieves. By the time I noticed, we had become a great bandit band of two hundred, and if I did not hunt some bears, we would have a food problem on our end.
...Well, Bear Killer is only for now. Before long I will probably be called something like Wolf Killer.
Wolves should be less flashy as a topic than bears.
In order to shake off the grandiose moniker of Bear Killer, I decided to wear the pelt of a wolf I had hunted the other day.
Given the season, having more fur was honestly comfortable.
"Boss, that wolf pelt from the other day came out beautifully."
"Here you go," he said, and I dropped my gaze to the pelt he handed me right away. The black-silver fur was top-quality, the kind nobles loved to use. When I stroked it, the thick, springy hairs flowed smoothly.
...But I never thought I would encounter one again in such a form.
The wolf with the black-silver coat was an Erath Black Wolf, native to the south of the Great Erath Mountain Range. Each individual is extremely ferocious, difficult to take down even if you are lucky enough to spot one acting alone, and they basically hunt in packs. Naturally, they hunt in packs too, and it is hard to escape if attacked, not just for children but even for adults.
...You know, there was a time when I was the one being hunted.
I peered into the head of the pelt, its eyes made of glass, and thought deeply. Long ago, I was sold to a slave trader by my parents, packed into a wagon and taken across the border, then attacked by wolves under cover of night. I had no such knowledge back then, but considering the location, it was probably the same species. I remember being left behind as bait to draw the wolves' attention away from the wagon, and being swarmed. I fled desperately from the wolves that pounced on me, and by the time I came to, Saromon had saved me.
...When I was a child, they were only terrifying, but I guess things work out somehow.
I happened to be alone when I was attacked by five wolves, and I took them down with my fists. I deliberately let them bite my arm, protected by gauntlets sturdier than they looked, to stop their movement, then hit them around the base of the ear from the side to daze them. After that, it was the same as with the bear. While they were dazed, I finished them off and they ended up in everyone's bellies as dinner. With one of their comrades incapacitated by a single blow, the remaining four seemed to realize they had picked the wrong fight early on and fled.
...Or rather, it is strange that I managed to escape so well back then.
Even if it was for a short time, it is a bit odd to think I outran wolves on a child's legs. Maybe the wolves chasing me were the young ones in the pack, and they were using me as practice for hunting. If that were not the case, there is no way a human child could have escaped from wolves.
...Huh?
I remembered the darkness and the sound of wolf footsteps chasing me from behind, and there was a figure that flashed through my mind like lightning for just an instant. It was not Saromon. It was not the slave trader who had been leading me, either.
...Who was it? I feel like I met someone. That is strange. I had forgotten about it until now...
Was the reason this suddenly came to mind because tonight was the Divine King's Festival? It was said that on the night of the Divine King's Festival, the world where spirits lived and this world came closest together all year. Maybe some spirit, having wandered into this world, had played some kind of trick on me. I was influenced by Tina enough to think such groundless things. Because Tina was frequently spirited away by them, I could not dismiss the existence of spirits as mere superstition like ordinary people did. To me, spirits were troublesome neighbors I could not see but who certainly existed. I acknowledged their existence enough that I would not mind treating them to sweets if only they would stop suddenly taking Tina away.
...So Tina is not coming back this year either.
I settled by the hearth in the abandoned building being used as a bandits' den without even lighting a fire, and fiddled with the pelt as I waited for Tina's return. Last year, too, I had waited for Tina in front of the hearth on the night of the Divine King's Festival, but Tina never came back to me from the hearth. I was waiting, hoping this year would be different, but the empty hearth showed no sign of change. Come to think of it, the only time Tina had returned via the hearth was at the Mandez residence. Even after being spirited away many times since then, she had only returned to the Seat of Spirits. She had never once returned to right before my eyes.
After spending the Divine King's Festival by the hearth, I resumed my search for Tina.
Once we passed through the city of Andorf, I finally began touring the territories that had once been the lands of the fallen kingdom. Since we had split up anyway, I was supposed to tour the territories in the opposite direction from Cody. Cody, as a merchant, was supposed to travel the main highway leading to the Imperial capital, go through Augusta territory beside the Imperial capital, and then tour the lands of the fallen kingdom, but I was moving along narrow mountain paths as a bandit. The order of my tour was also from the west, and I was supposed to rendezvous with Cody and the others in some town or village along the way.
...That is strange. There is no sign that Cody and the others stopped anywhere.
I toured all of the western lands of the fallen kingdom over the winter, but I never met up with Cody. Even though Cody was using a loaded wagon, he was traveling on reasonably well-maintained main roads. Even if I was lighter on my feet, there was no way I was so much faster that I would overtake him.
Growing suspicious, I began investigating the eastern side of the fallen kingdom's lands while searching for traces of Cody and the others. The nobles and territorial lords in this country called the Zugall Empire were so disloyal to the Emperor that it made you wonder how the country managed to maintain its form as a state. The nobles and lords I investigated were all, without exception, unscrupulous characters, forcing unjust debts onto their people and selling them off as slaves to other territories, or extorting more than the established taxes. They seemed to have no intention whatsoever of enriching the people and the land. It was worrying that the country itself might die in the near future at this rate, but that was the work of the rulers. It was not something for a bandit or a knight from a neighboring country to worry about.
"I heard there is little documentation in Slaurum and Augun. Surely in Augun at least, there should be traces of Cody having stopped by, do you not think...?"
Augun was a territory right next to the Imperial capital. It was hard to believe Cody had not reached a territory adjacent to the Imperial capital while investigating the fallen kingdom.
...Did something happen to him along the way after all?
Jean-Jacques was with him, so I did not think there would be any problems, but not being able to trace his steps at all like this was unnatural. As I frowned, thinking something was off, a man who had joined our group near Andorf, wanting to help with the search for my sister, hesitantly opened his mouth.
"There is no need to investigate Augun territory, Boss Jin."
"What do you mean?"
"The lord of Augun territory is a good man. He is not the kind of person who would burden his people with debt and sell them off. In years of poor harvest, he buys food from elsewhere with his own money and gives it to the people."
Apparently, a man like that would not be involved in kidnapping. According to another man, when he was nearly caught by the lord's forces in a neighboring territory, he once fled into Augun territory and was sheltered there. Whether he was lenient to all bandits, it turned out he restricted it to righteous thieves specifically. It seemed the man had already earned a reputation as a righteous thief by the time he fled there, so he was sheltered.
...As an Imperial territorial lord, his reputation is too good. That makes me suspicious instead.
Whether he was big-hearted or had something to hide, just like Claudine had not been able to fully investigate, there was too little documentation to make a judgment. However, according to that sparse documentation, Augun territory was land ruled by a distant relative of the fallen kingdom's royal family. If any documentation remained, Augun territory was the most promising.
"...We are heading to Augun territory."
>I never imagined I could pulverize a bear's snout. Probably, ordinary people cannot.
Will fix typos and errors at a later date.