| Credits | |
| Translator | Champsy |
| Editor | Miraclegrass |
Day 231
When I got up in the morning, the first thing I did was to find out Avenger’s circumstances.
Avenger mentioned that he met 2 people listed in his Psalms 【Radiant Hero that leads Troops】 as sub-cast - 【Witch of the Bewitching Flame】 and 【Benevolent Maria】. So I wanted to know ins and outs of what happened.
According to the story he told me, Avenger was traveling around the Sternbild Kingdom with Rusty Iron Knight and Scarface in order to train himself and they stopped by a certain village that was located near the border between the Sternbild Kingdom and the Kirika Empire.
While they originally didn’t plan to stop by the village, they did because an energetic 【Peddler】 from the empire were carrying some famous tasty dairy products from the village.
Rusty Iron Knight, who wanted to eat it, mentioned 『Since it’s in the neighborhood, let’s get some souvenirs, okay? It’ll be fine』. Since it was an opportunity, they changed their plan.
With that, they should have gone back to their original destination after quickly buying the things they wanted to buy.
But, as they approached the village, Avenger spotted uneasiness and impatience on the faces of the villagers that was different from a normal person. A numerous amount of people were bandaged and you could see from a distance that the fence surrounding the houses and the village were destroyed recently.
Unexpectedly, they were able to easily enter the village. However, when they asked what happened, the villagers ran away in a hurry.
After a glance to look at each other, they could see that it was no good. And with that, Avenger's group noticed their blunder.
Avenger and Rusty Iron Knight are not ordinary citizens. They're people belonging to the military, and presumed dead during the expedition in the Kuuderun Great Forest.
But if the fact that they had survived has come to light, that would cause a lot of problems. Thus when they head out, they had to hide their identity with [Anger Masks].
For that reason, the Avengers (Avenger and co.) who dropped by the village naturally had the masks equipped. If looked at objectively, an armed, masked group was coming over. Even if there were no problems in the village, it’s normal to react like that.
While we were used to seeing the masks, the commoners were not and it surprised them. By the looks of it, it was already too late and the damage was done.
When I heard this, I instinctively thought they were stupid. But since it was a sloppy mistake that can be still recovered, as long as they make the best of it after this screw-up.
Therefore, I will not pursue it, and just give them a lecture.
After taking distance, people only looked at them from cover. Nobody seems to want to approach.
It’s not that much of a problem.
However, the countless amount of gazes that are coming from cover are filled with fear and anger for the majority. The particularly strong ones seemed to look like they were looking at their sworn enemies for many years.
Additionally, they’re equipped with hoes and clubs in the shade and are positioning themselves in the blind spot of the Avengers. Looks like there was a man who became too tense, and looked to physically attack them.
For a country village that was in an exclusive location, this does seem to be something abnormal indeed. The Avengers were convinced that there was something more.
The way things are going, the situation is not getting anywhere, but on top, since they might get attacked, troublesome things seem to accelerate. That’s why the Avengers dropped their weapons and removed their masks. On top of that, they told their surroundings that they didn’t intend to harm anyone.
He also mentioned he wanted to talk to the village chief in order to explain the situation and sat down on the ground.
After that, he talked with a villager with a lot of wrinkles on his forehead that approached fearfully. After listening to their story, they were able to get invited to the village chief’s house.
Thief troupe ≪ Violent Firestorm Bears ≫.
That’s the name of the group that became the current main worry of the village. Due to their sudden attack, the village was in a state of confusion.
War Bear, a redhead wielding a huge, double-edged battle axe was the leader of the ≪ Violent Firestorm Bears ≫. Several day ago, they attacked the village while he was riding a “Luminescent Horse” that emitted a red light from its hooves.
Despite the sudden confusion, the village was capable of some self-defense and marched out together against them. A lot of thieves were killed.
While this was quite something on its own, eventually the defense was breached and several people were able to invade further in. Several young village girls were kidnapped at that time.
Wouldn’t you say the reward for this brute force approach is worth the injuries they sustained? The thief troupe returned after that, leaving the message that if they want to have the village girls returned, they’ll have to give up ransom. They’ll be returned unhurt if they hand over the money. However, if they call in reinforcements, they won’t guarantee their safety.
After the band of thieves left the village, the dead were buried without distinguishing between bandits or villagers, in order not to cause any problems. They were talking about the cost of repairing a broken houses in the near future.
In a village as small as this, all the residents are family.
They’ve known each other since childhood and they spend their daily life working with one another.
Therefore they’ll pay if they can gather the ransom, in order to rescue the village girls. However, when taking into account to repair the houses on top of the demanded amount, it’s not something they can easily pay.
It might be cold-hearted, but having a 100 villagers becoming dirt-poor for a few village girls is troubling in its own right.
They were still looking for different ways to do something, but a solution didn’t present itself when the specified pay day came up.
The band of thieves mentioned a specified time in the evening, and that hour was approaching. As time passed by, the calmness of the villagers disappeared. The people were getting more and more anxious, and that’s when the Avengers visited the village.
Due to the timing, it was as if they were part of the thief troupe. That ultimately led to the reaction of the villagers that tried to force a stand-off and attack.
Wasn’t the mask a big reason as well? That thought crossed my mind.
Avenger, who loathes these kind of people, because they also annihilated his hometown, took on the bandit subjugation for almost no charge.
However, the other members didn’t participate in the subjugation. Considering this, Avenger still followed it through until the end, because it’s personal.
Besides, if Rusty Iron Knight and the others would participate as well, the reward wouldn’t cover it.
Not knowing his reasoning, the village chief and the villagers, cautious because of the unusual signs Avenger was wearing, bowed deeply.
With that, he started the subjugation request in the evening. Several dozen goons who nonchalantly came to the village to collect the money were murdered by Avenger without any way to flee.
However, they didn’t bring the village girls, so some were captured alive in order to find out the place where they are being held. With Parabellum's torture methods, everything was confessed.
After every piece of information was collected, they were disposed of. The corpse clean-up was left to Rusty Iron Knight and the others who stayed behind in the village.
The sun already set when he left. The moon and stars that are normally a source of light were hiding behind a countless amount of clouds, so he couldn’t be seen. Though there were lanterns, Avenger launched a surprise attack on the thief troupe. Since he became a hidden existence, even a light source like lanterns didn’t spot him.
Since Avenger was able to utilize his superior perception ability that he obtained through nighttime training, he was able to maneuver around.
With that, Avenger’s appearance was hiding under the cover of nighttime. It would help in assassinating the chief of the bear-men and the rest of the members of the thief troupe who were holding a feast in their base that is located in an open space in the forest.
With the safety of the village girls secured, and the band of thieves annihilated, the request would be completed.
But the place where the hideout of the thief troupe was located was burning so furiously, that he could be spot from a far off distance.
Wondering what it was, he erased every trace and rushed over as fast as he could; but it already seemed over before he arrived.
In the red glow during nighttime, Avenger saw, smelled and heard it all.
In the center of the ≪ Violent Firestorm Bears ≫’s base, a tempestuous wildfire was blazing. The bodies of the thieves and several luminescent horses wore an expression of agony.
When rolled over, the bodies had countless amount of bruises and looked as bloated as a frog being beaten time and time again.
Since they were holding a feast just a minute ago, many dishes were scattered around in the neighborhood. Crushed alcohol barrels lay here and there, their contents being soaked up by the ground. There were broken longswords and a lot of damaged armor, such as breastplates that were heavily dented.
The thick smell of blood filled the scene. Black smoke was rising from the burning, simple, wooden tents. *crackle crackle (sfx)* There was a stink of scattered entrails, feces and urine.
Some were still breathing. However, the thieves were burned so badly that they couldn’t move and were basically living their last moments with the flames crackling around them.
As anyone could see, he understood that these were the left-overs of someone completely annihilating the band of thieves.
After confirming what happened, he looked for the village girls. They were standing slightly further from the spot where the wildfire occurred. They were roughed up and their clothes were ragged. Aside for the, Avenger discovered 2 beautiful women that wore armor that was clearly expensive.
It was obvious that these 2 beautiful women helped the village girls in this situation, but when he called them out to hear the circumstances, Avenger was attacked by the two of them.
They were the sub-cast of Avenger. That’s how he encountered the 【Witch of the Bewitching Flame】 and 【Benevolent Maria】.
He did get suddenly attacked on his first time meeting them though. But the 【Witch of the Bewitching Flame】 and 【Benevolent Maria】 explained to Avenger afterwards that some thieves were sent out to collect the money and they mistook him for one of their companions.
They asked the village girls before attacking Avenger, but as they didn’t recognize him, they acted. After all, it’s said that he who strikes first, wins.
Because of that misunderstanding, they initiated the fight. Avenger was attacked by two people but won magnificently after a close fight.
If it was the Avenger of before, there might have been the possibility of him losing due to the natural but sophisticated cooperation between the two.
With only wearing common, mass produced armored, no magic items and with his strong Divine Protection and Arts prohibited in battle; he wasn’t able to brandish the power he could before. However, since he trained himself for these situations, he was able to manage.
In the end, it resulted in a victory for him.
Avenger went easy on them and was able to win with some margin. He stunned the two and took their equipment. After he constricted them with sturdy rope, he went on to explain the circumstances from before to the village girls.
After he managed to settle down the village girls, who started panicking after the two women were defeated. He told them to carry the two women who fainted and leave this place behind that basically looks like a slaughterhouse.
The village girls carried out the orders, while he went to pick up any loot that’s still usable from the thief troupe and to put out the fire that was still raging.
After everything was finished up, he forcefully woke up the two women and explained the situation to them along with the village girls.
The two noticed that they were restricted when they got up and started to writhe, but they stopped struggling after hearing the circumstances.
As said, there was the misunderstanding where they thought Avenger was part of the thief troupe. But now, they understood and due to the flow of things, they ended up working for Avenger for a while as compensation.
And with that, I got the rough picture. To be honest, it’s quite convenient that it went off without a hitch.
I reckoned it was probably destined through the Psalms. Like that, he could gain two people to work for him. But since the Avenger couldn’t agree to it without my consent, he put it on hold.
After hearing out the story, I entrusted them to him. Concerning damage, Avenger was hardly injured. And while that was a great thing on its own, the little damage he did have was healed up by magic potions made by Alchemist-san.
In other words, there wasn’t any damage.
Since the amount collected from the thief troupe isn’t insignificant either, you could say quite some profit came out of it. So there isn’t any reason to object.
The other thing about Avenger’s sub-cast is that they’ll likely be useful in the future as well.
There were some things I didn’t understand yet and I wanted to ask them about that.
While I did think the sub-cast topic will be all right, I couldn’t trust the information given by another person.
I interrogated both of them intensively, but since I didn’t see any problems with it, I gave him permission.
As temporary members for now, they will work under Avenger. Since they’re competent, I want them to do the best they can.
Aside from this exchange, I worked hard on gaining intelligence throughout the day.
However, since the alcohol in the Labyrinth City ≪Radha Lo Dara≫ is unrivaled, I can’t help but have some drinks carelessly while gathering intelligence.
Yep, there’s no helping it. It’s inevitable.
Translation Notes
| Writer | Note |
|---|---|
| Champsy | The fact that Avenger didn’t clear the camp took me by surprise. Nice! |
| Champsy | Called it a wildfire for poetic charm. |
| Champsy | I do hope the scene of carnage is depicted properly. I quite liked it. |
| Champsy | The way the story is being written would be perfect for an audiobook or a cartoon with a voice-over. Not having the same effect just written down though. Referring to the punchline ‘and that’s how he met his bitches’ |
| Champsy | Couldn’t find the metaphor for ‘He who strikes first, wins.’ So I took it from L Lawliet from Death Note. |