Incident

"Papa's kind of late, isn't he?" Theresia murmured next to Allen as the two of them were making dinner together.

It was indeed getting late.

On days when Rodin went hunting, he would normally be back home around this time. He had even said that today's hunt would be at a nearby spot.

"Mm. Papa's late."

The two of them had thought to prepare a slightly more sumptuous meal than usual to celebrate Rodin coming home from the successful hunt.

However, no matter how long they waited, he still did not come home.

Because Mash could not wait too long, the family had to start eating without Rodin.

***

CLANG! CLANG! CLANG!

Another hour passed, and the six o'clock bell rang.

"How much longer will he be?" Theresia was understandably starting to get worried.

When Allen came back out into the main room after tucking Mash into bed, she turned to him and said, "Allen, hun, you don't have to wait up. Papa's been back late from hunting before, hasn't he?"

"But he said he would be early today."

"...So he did. We're blessed to have a son who cares so deeply about us."

Theresia ruffled Allen's hair.

***

Another two hours had passed. It was now completely dark outside.

"Oh! He's finally back!"

They heard the voice of someone approaching the house, prompting Theresia and Allen to peek outside.

They spotted a dot of light against the dark, inky night. The light, which was likely a torch, was very tiny, indicating that it was still rather far away.

'This is quite late. But I'm glad papa made it home safe and sound.'

Slowly but surely, the light drew closer. As it did, it became apparent that it was not just one light, but two.

'Hm? He's not alone?'

The lights then split into three. Then four. As they got closer and closer, their numbers grew and grew, until eventually they had become ten distinct lights.

Shouts came over the wind. Allen's chest tightened with a sense of foreboding. When he looked to the side, he saw from her face that Theresia was feeling the same way.

When the procession was almost at the house, Gerda's voice shouted, "Rodin! It's your house! You're home!"

Theresia was off before she knew it, rushing toward the approaching torches. Allen was right on her heels.

When she got close enough, however, Theresia froze in her tracks.

She clapped her hands over her mouth in shock at the unbelievable sight before her eyes. Her body quivered violently.

"P-Papa...?"

Rodin had indeed come home, but on a stretcher being lifted by several men. The torches illuminated his figure with a harsh, flickering light. The hemp rags wrapped around his body were stained completely black and were hardened from an unbelievable amount of blood.

***

"H-Honey? This isn't happening, right? R-Rodin! N-NOOOOOOOO!!!"

Rodin had come home on a makeshift stretcher of mere sticks and cloth, completely covered with blood.

Theresia rushed over to his side, but his eyes were closed and he was not moving. He remained unresponsive no matter how much she screamed and cried.

"Theres— Theresia! Calm down!" Gerda shouted before adopting a softer tone. "It's all right. We used herbs on him."

"What? How can yo— Are y—" Theresia struggled to understand how Gerda could spout such empty consolations.

"I mean it. We used a Flower of Muellerze. His life isn't in danger anymore. But he does need to rest."

"There's no way th— How did you afford...?"

The price of the herb that Gerda had mentioned was far too high for serfs to afford. However, he repeatedly reassured Theresia that they had indeed bought and used one.

The other men carefully carried Rodin into the house and lowered him into his bed.

There were about twenty men here, which roughly matched the number of serfs that Allen knew was in the hunting party. This was probably everyone who had participated in today's hunt.

"Bes, Bodro, can you go grab some water?"

"Sure thing."

"'Kay."

Gerda was giving out instructions in place of Theresia, who was beside herself.

Understanding that Gerda meant to get some hot water going, Allen went to start a fire in the fireplace. Although he was also in a state of bewilderment, he tried to do what he could.

'How did this happen?!'

"Everyone else, you can go grab your meat and head on home. We're good here."

All the men exclaimed, "What?!" in unison, as if offended by the very idea. Mash, who had woken up due to the commotion, started crying from the shock of seeing so many strangers in the house.

Theresia picked him up and stroked his head, trying to calm him back down.

Gerda gave the men a look. "Now you know what I mean, right? This many people being here is just a bother. I'll take care of the rest, so you guys go home."

The men all mumbled their understanding.

"And I don't think I need to say this, but don't do anything rash, all right?"

Bes, who had just come back in with the water, gasped with furious indignation. "Wha—?! Things ended up like this because of those damned commoners! You think so too, don't you, Gerda?! We gotta make them pay!"

Everyone else raised their voices in agreement, causing the atmosphere to slowly take on a dangerous air. The light from the torches outside shone off of the spears currently propped against the wall, giving them an uncanny glint. Mash broke into a fresh bout of crying.

"Bes, I said I'll take care of this. Grab your meat and go home. You hear me? I want your word."

"F-Fine..."

Gerda's steely growl was filled with a different anger than Bes's. Just because he was holding the others back, it did not mean he was calm either.

The silent pressure that he was emanating overwhelmed Bes and the other serfs, causing them to back down obediently.

The men left final words of consolation before heading back out into the night. Soon, Gerda was the only person left.

Gerda helped as Theresia peeled away Rodin's bloodstained clothes.

When she saw the scar on her husband's abdomen, however, she gasped in shock. It was as if his belly had been torn apart and then forcefully fused back together.

"I told you, didn't I? The Flower of Muellerze really did its job. We were lucky that the herbalist happened to have one in stock," Gerda said softly as he helped wipe Rodin down with a rag soaked in warm water.

"But how did you afford such a precious herb?" Theresia asked. She seemed to have calmed down slightly from seeing Rodin's chest slowly rising and falling with a steady rhythm.

"Well...when the knights came that time, I received a few gold coins.

Turns out stashing them away'd been the right call after all."

Allen came out of the nursery after having tucked Mash—who had exhausted himself crying—back into bed.

In a hard, clear voice, he asked, "What happened? Was it really a commoner who did this?"

Both Theresia and Gerda looked over in surprise. No child ever spoke the way Allen was now speaking. The boy stared straight at Gerda, his eyes filled with anger at the fate that had befallen his father.

Gerda held his gaze for a short while, then sighed. "The story's kinda long. Can you get me some water to drink?"

Allen grabbed a wooden cup and filled it from the family jug. Gerda gulped it all down in one go, clearly having been feeling parched.

"The village chief's been asking us for several years now to let commoners into our hunting team."

The group had always been the same twenty or so men, and they were all serfs. Some of them did not think very kindly of commoners.

The reward for great boar hunting was meat—each participant would receive almost ten whole kilograms from each hunt. There were also roughly fifty people who helped with just the butchering, and they would receive a third of what the hunters got. All of these people were serfs too.

Serfs did the hunting, serfs did the butchering, and serfs ate the meat. The only way the commoners could get their hands on some of the meat was when a serf came to exchange it for other necessities such as firewood and salt.

Naturally, this was not much. Otherwise, commoners who wanted meat had to buy it from the village chief.

However, this was meat from a Rank C monster, and the price was accordingly prohibitive. As such, the majority of what came to the village chief would simply be processed and sent straight to the feudal lord's city.

"There's demand for meat among the commoners, and the village chief himself also wanted to expand the hunts to include them. The problem, however, is that none of them volunteered themselves."

Going hunting, of course, meant fighting directly with monsters. It was not as if this was easy for the serfs either; there had been casualties over the past ten years of hunting.

Even so, the serfs kept it up. The reason why they repeatedly exposed themselves to such danger was a no-brainer—it was all for the sake of their families.

"Then why were there volunteers all of a sudden?" Allen asked.

Gerda paused, then said, "Maybe because they're feeling overshadowed by us serfs."

A serf child had been proclaimed a Sword Lord. What's more, the person that the knight captain had praised in the presence of the most prominent members of the village—even going so far to use the feudal lord's name to do so—was not one of them, but Rodin.

Apparently, word of this had spread like wildfire among the commoners after the feast.

"At the start of this month, I was called to Deboji's place together with Rodin. He told us that there were five youngsters who wanted to join the hunts and asked us to bring them along. Well, more like commanded than asked, really."

And so the hunting party trained the newcomers. Starting roughly ten days prior, the entire group gathered several times to show them the ropes.

However, they apparently took offense to being under the instruction of serfs and did not take the training very seriously. Even so, Rodin remained patient with them, doing his best to help them learn what they needed to.

Then today came along. The hunt was going exactly according to plan and exactly according to training. Rodin had repeated the strategy to the new members time and time again. It was, put simply, a matter of luring the monster out, surrounding it, and having everyone stab it with spears until it died.

"Because both luring the beast and stabbing it while it flails around require experience, we gave the newcomers the role of surrounding the great boar."

This was supposedly the easiest job. And yet, they had messed it up. They were supposed to brace with shields in front of the charging boar, but they instead freaked out and froze. The shield wall collapsed, forcing the party to engage in pitched battle.

"The horn on the great boar's snout pierced Rodin's stomach, and here we are."

In the end, the situation devolved into one where all strategy was thrown out the window.

Although the group did manage to kill the monster in the end, Rodin had ended up being severely wounded.

After sharing the full account, Gerda left as well. He had his own wife and children who were worriedly awaiting his return.

With his exit, silence befell Allen's house. Theresia grasped her unconscious husband's hand tightly and told Allen to go to bed.

Seeing how there was nothing else that he could help with, Allen obediently did as he was told.