Chapter 8

Kill.

Randall's experience gave me a clear answer. If someone's about to turn you in, just get rid of them. No witness, no problem.

But that was Randall's answer. I couldn't care less about that kind of ruthless logic. Principles mattered more to me, and I wasn't about to start killing innocent people left and right.

Well, unless they were total scumbags. But murdering regular peasants? What for? That would only raise more suspicion.

My word against some peasant's... who do you think they'll believe?

Hopefully, me. I looked around and realized the Baronet was waiting for my answer.

"What do I think? Hmm... Obviously, we have to save them!" I said firmly, then added in the most sympathetic voice I could muster. "Unfortunately, I have to admit that what this man says is likely true. I didn't see it myself, but I have reasons to believe the Baron really is abducting people."

"Oh, of course, you weren't involved!" the second-in-command couldn't hold back and got a backhand from his commander.

"Silence! Viscount, are you suggesting we rob your own friend?"

"Baron Brute is hardly my friend. Circumstances forced me to accept his hospitality, nothing more. I give you my noble word I can resolve this if we take these people with us."

After all, didn't the Baron promise me blood and souls? I'd just be collecting what I was owed, in advance.

"Very well." The Baronet turned to the peasant, who looked like his jaw might hit the ground from sheer surprise. Definitely not what he expected to hear from me. "Congratulations, you're now part of the Steel Honor Company. Quartermaster! Get the recruit what he needs. And take his son to the medics' wagon. Let them check on the wounded."

The man collapsed to his knees and began sobbing: "Thank you, thank you, milord! You saved our lives, I swear I'll do whatever it takes!"

The peasant started crawling toward me, trying to kiss my boots.

"Disgusting," the commander's second muttered.

I was a bit taken aback. I hadn't expected that strong a reaction. Gratitude, sure, but groveling in the dirt?

Then again, memory reminded me Randall had seen scenes like this often and greatly enjoyed them. Me? I'll admit, I'm vain and I love to show off at tournaments. Take my last match, for example. When Samael ended his Light combo and crashed down, the smart move would've been to rush in and deal max damage. Instead, I casually sat on a corpse, fully aware the fans were going wild.

But this... I couldn't put my finger on it, but I didn't like what I was seeing.

"Get up at once and report to the quartermaster," the Baronet said sharply, his voice cutting through the man's sobs.

The peasant stood immediately, still mumbling praise. Sure, he was thankful now, but would he keep his mouth shut? Or should I pay him a visit later to suggest as much? Then again, the Baronet would find out immediately. Damn, things are so much harder without loyal subordinates...

Once the man, bowing with every step like a wind-up toy, finally left, the Baronet said quietly: "Self-abasement and hollow words mean nothing. Loyalty and true respect must be earned through action. And it only matters when it comes from someone who respects themselves, for one who doesn't cannot respect others. I hope our company will make a man out of him yet. Viscount!"

"Yes?" I replied, caught off guard by the weight of his words.

"I promised to tell you about our company's strength, but as you can see, we've lost precious time. The troops are about to break camp, and I still have duties to attend to." He gestured at a young man nearby. "This is my aide, Bert the Bold. He'll explain everything. Now if you'll excuse me, I must go."

"Just Bert," he said. "What does Your Grace want to know?"

The boy had a sharp, fox-like face and a voice to match. His Your Grace could've meant anything but respect.

Meanwhile, the gathering dispersed. A crossbowmen commander walked past, lugging an enormous mechanical monstrosity on his back. Holy hell, that was a compound crossbow! I turned to take a better look at the design.

It was a fascinating device: several pulleys, and what looked like a cranequin mechanism to draw the string. And the string itself... it looked weird. What was that material? My alchemist memory kicked in—goblin sinew.

"Viscount?" Bert prompted again.

"What's that weapon? Never seen one before."

"It's a wheelbow. That one we call the Piercer. Deadly thing, built for dropping enemy commanders. Costs a fortune and takes real strength to use. Only Dolan, the crossbow captain, can handle it. Might even replace the capital's boltthrowers soon."

Second time I'd heard that word. Boltthrowers. Still didn't ring a bell. Randall never cared much for weapons. All his energy had gone into ritualism and alchemy.

"What exactly is a boltthrower?"

Bert gave me a crooked grin.

"They're tubes. With a spring..." he began, speaking in that condescending tone people use when explaining things to children.

"Ah. Springers. They really do love coming up with names, don't they?"

Randall did know about springers. His castle had a few squads armed with those deadly contraptions.

Only... Crossbow arms, springs — all these weapons relied on muscle power to draw and the elasticity of metal to fire. And that alone wasn't enough to make a truly powerful weapon. There was a limit. You couldn't endlessly increase draw strength just by making bigger limbs. Sooner or later, you'd hit the same ceiling the crossbowmen of our world ran into.

Gunpowder — that's what could shift the balance here. Combined with my Gift, I could easily craft the weapons of a new age. All I needed was steel for muskets and the ingredients for black powder...

"To horse!" Sir Hornet's booming voice rang out over the caravan.

"So, that's all your questions, Your Grace?"

"No. What, no lunch?"

"Better get used to the road, Your Grace. We're rationing supplies. Any more questions?"

"Plenty. But let's take our positions first." I tossed back and headed to where I'd left my horse.

***

The clouds broke loose again, but this time it wasn't a light drizzle. It was a downpour. I pulled my soaked, heavy cloak tighter around me.

Water kept trickling down my neck, and the sudden drop in temperature wasn't helping my mood. Nor were Bert's booming monologues. If you squeezed out all the bragging and stuck to the facts, it looked more or less like this:

About a hundred men in plate. Normally they fought with long pikes, but in the forest, where we were headed, pikes were useless. Rank-wise, things weren't great. Most of the men in plate either had no Gift at all, or were stuck at the first warrior rank.

Then there was a separate unit of twenty—former cavalry, who'd lost their horses due to the company's financial troubles. Their ranks were a little better.

The archers were the main force—roughly 150 crossbowmen and about 50 bowmen, most of whom guarded the wagons. Added to that was a kind of militia: women, children, old folks who could hold a light crossbow or a spear. There were more than six hundred of those.

So in total, nearly a thousand people. A decent force at first glance, only more than half of them were barely fighters at all.

"So much for that. What should we expect in the wildlands? What kind of enemies are out there? Why doesn't anyone live in these lands?"

"The wildlands? Ha. You're already in 'em. Outcasts, cultists, killers, renegades. All the filth that wants to do their dirty business far from prying eyes. Scum like that loves..."

"Enough. What do you know about the Black Forest, specifically?"

"The Black Forest..." Bert scratched his stubbled chin with a filthy paw. "You'll want to ask the commander. I'm no help there. Just wait till our next stop. Don't interrupt his training. And if that's all, I need to get to my spot, rear of the column."

I watched him turn his horse and trot off, splashing mud in every direction.

I don't like that sneak, I thought. And it's not just the attitude. No way the second-in-command doesn't know where we're going. He knows, and he's keeping quiet.

The only reason his face hadn't met my fist yet was because I wasn't planning to turn into the same kind of noble trash as the rest of them. But if he kept it up, he just might push his luck. Whatever. Screw him.

I clicked my tongue and nudged the horse forward. The road had turned into a muddy hellhole, and while my possessed beast was holding up, the wagons weren't doing nearly as well.

A horn blast roared nearby. What the hell?

I spurred my horse and galloped toward the signal.

I made it just in time. Some disgusting, anthropomorphic creature was closing in on a crossbowman I knew.

He was trying to fend it off with an unloaded crossbow.

He hadn't missed; several bolts were buried in its chest, but they didn't slow the crazed monster down at all.

Tick.

The thing swung a clawed hand and knocked the weapon away. The crossbowman reached for his dagger, but he wouldn't make it. I sent my sword flying.

Tick.

The beast's paw, already poised to rip through chainmail, never struck. Instead, it hit the mail uselessly, spewing dark blood as it dropped to the ground.

Tick.

Obeying my will, the dagger tore itself free from the crossbowman's hand and slammed into the monster's skull.

That was close.

Several nearby crossbowmen took aim at the corpse. Men in armor rushed out from behind the wagon, Baronet followed them.

I jumped down onto the blood-slick mud and stepped up to the body.

Shredded rags for clothing. Skin covered in lesions. A face stretched out like a dog's muzzle. Looked like we'd just met the result of some chimerolog's experiment. Idiots still hadn't figured out that splicing a human with a dog wouldn't give you dog-like loyalty.

"There's your answer, Viscount."

I looked up at the Baronet.

"Why no one farms these lands," he clarified. "They don't want to become food. Or raw materials for garbage like this. Disgusting. Absolutely disgusting. What that Baron's done to his territory... People like him shouldn't rule anything but their own latrine."

"Commander, look at the hand—it's a woman!" one of the crossbowmen called out, pointing to the severed limb.

A thin silver bracelet glinted on the twisted, mutated wrist, biting deep into the flesh. I looked over the body again. Yeah. Now that I was paying attention, the rags did look like the remains of a dress.

"Wedding bracelet. She might have been the wife of a craftsman or a modest merchant," the Baronet said. "This was revenge. Or punishment. Regular cultists would've taken the silver."

I shuddered. I knew all too well how the chimera conversion procedures worked, and just how much pain they caused the subjects.

"May your path in the next world be light, and your soul—free. Bury the body. With the bracelet," the Baronet ordered, then rode off back to the front of the column.

As for me, I started searching for my sword. Without magical metal-sense, it wouldn't have been easy — I'd used more magical power than necessary, and the blade had driven itself into the ground up to the hilt.

A few soldiers switched out their axes for shovels and began digging a grave beside the road.

The Baronet was right. Brute's lands had turned into a giant cesspit. I hope that one day I'll be able to clean it out.

I sheathed my sword and swung back into the saddle. Time to return to the vanguard.

...

Hornet sat astride his monstrous steed like an unshakable steel cliff. Bert said he was "training," but where was the training? He was just sitting there, staring straight ahead...

Then the realization flared up in my mind again.

He really was training. If I activated magical sight right now, I'd probably see currents of power running through Hornet's body.

Rank advancement was a complicated and messy subject.

To go from Lesser to Greater, there were a few ways. The first, and slowest, was training. Physical, to stay in peak condition, and magical, using hereditary techniques. Of course, those techniques were highly secret and varied wildly from family to family. Some were only effective for specific Gift aspects.

The second method was for the rich. Using external power to push yourself forward—various concoctions made from ingredients that carried natural force.

In fact, creating new recipes and brewing such concoctions was one of the main jobs of alchemists. It was relatively safe, but demanded a fortune. Plus, there were compatibility issues between the type of Gift and the formula, and no shortage of nasty side effects.

The third was cruder, a variant of the second. Just slit another Gifted's throat and steal their power through forbidden rituals. Filthy, bloody, but a lot cheaper. Gifted peasants were far more common than century-old plants for potions. Sadly, plenty of nobles treated peasants like fields, ripe for the occasional "berry-picking."

But to cross the threshold from, say, Adept to Mage, there was only one way. A deadly battle. You had to brush up against death, break through your limits, and come back changed. Few survived, but those who did transformed their fates completely.

Of course, that path was insanely hard. Almost 99% of high-ranking Gifted didn't earn their rank through battle. They were born with it.

A child of two Adepts would almost always be an Adept themselves. Their strength might grow step by step, but from the moment they were born, their fate was to reach that level. That's the potential laid in at birth—the ceiling of growth.

Training, elixirs, and rituals could help them fully realize their potential, but only a battle at death's door gave a slim chance to go beyond and become a Mage.

I rubbed my aching temples. These flashes of insight were starting to piss me off. But until I fully processed Randal's memories, I had no choice but to bear with them. Damn it, not even a single painkiller around...

"Commander! The forge wagon's stuck—we need your help!" a soaked scout shouted over the downpour.

The Baronet shook off his trance and turned his horse. I had no choice but to follow him.

The massive wagon I'd admired earlier was now the source of the problem. The hooves of the oxen pulling it skidded uselessly in the mud. The wagon was completely bogged down.

"Sir!" a mud-caked man-at-arms called out cheerfully. A few of his companions were bracing themselves against the wagon's sides—they'd clearly tried to push it out, but with no success.

"Step aside, boys."

The steel mountain dismounted, sending a wave of muck splashing in all directions. The Baronet sank up to his knees in the sludge but charged forward undeterred, like a steamboat. Little clouds of steam rose from his helmet grill, making the resemblance even stronger. Hornet grabbed the edge of the wagon and heaved. The mud slurped loudly, refusing to let go.

"Spawn of Hardan!" the Baronet cursed as his first attempt failed.

I swung down from my horse and silently grabbed the wagon's edge. No surprise it got stuck—there was a deep pit here that had turned into a proper swampy trap.

Together, the Baronet and I shoved with all our strength. Up front, the oxen bellowed as soldiers urged them on. A few hard pushes, and the mobile forge finally lurched out of the mud.

I raised my palms to let the rain wash off the filth, only to notice the Baronet was watching me closely.

"What?"

Hornet turned away and barked at the soldiers.

"Where the hell were you looking, you lazy bastards? Shovels out! Dig us a detour! Carve us a detour through the field!"

Hmm. The road's shoulders were overgrown with dense brush, and the road itself had been so thoroughly packed down it had sunk into a kind of trench, which made it even less passable.

Some of the soldiers dashed toward the nearby wagons for shovels, while those carrying axes gathered to start cutting a path, but I stopped them. What was the point of magical power if not to use it?

My sword slid from its sheath at a mere thought and hovered before me. This shape wouldn't work. I reshaped it into something like a circular saw blade and tried to spin it up, but instead of gaining speed, it shot away from me and buried itself in the ground.

Figures. I summoned it back and transformed part of the metal into a central axle. Then I tried spinning it again. Success! It was a bit tricky to keep both the disc spinning and the axle balanced, but the thing more or less worked.

I sent the spinning saw toward the bushes, but instead of cutting clean through, it lost speed fast and got stuck. Too little mass. Plus, I noticed the metal was heating up from friction against the axle. I'd need lubrication and bearings. Screw it.

I reshaped the tool into a regular sharp hunk of metal and, waving my arms like a conductor, began hacking through the brush. That worked much better. In just a couple of minutes, the path was cleared.

"Man, wish you could do that with the earth too..." one of the soldiers with a shovel said hopefully.

"Get to work, you slacker," I snapped, resisting the urge to whip the brat That's what you get for helping people—they just want to climb on your back and get carried the rest of the way.