01.LITTLE GIRL SELLS HEADS
At that day, Harold knights of the Ruuin kingdom had spotted a strange sight.
In these past few months, the Harold knights had been following the Varuhallua bandit gang, which had been causing damage in the region. And then, a few days ago, they received information of their movements and was in a fast march towards the Rok village, which was where the bandits were headed towards.
However, when they arrived at the village, they noticed the shape of many dead bodies of the villagers exposed there in an atrocious state. It was to the point of one being possible to notice that the village was completely ravaged with a single glance. There were no survivors, and all that was possible to be heard was the cries of the few cattle that remained.
That bandit group was already one the knights had their eyes on. The bandits didn´t have a settled base, and even if they attacked the villagers, they didn´t have an intermediary to flow the slaves into the market. Despite that, they casually attacked them to get their hands on food and the few gold coins that village had saved up, and in order to not have any of the villagers to run and call for help, they killed all of them.
Originally, this was a scenery that wasn´t that rare to see. It was unpleasant to put it in that way, but the knights had seen this tragedy countless times when they would go after bandit groups. That was why this in itself wasn´t a problem to them.
What was the problem for them was how [the bandit group was annihilated].
As far as it could be seen by the situation, it seems that the bandit group had fought against a machiini and had been annihilated.
Machiinis were iron giants of three to four meters that people can pilot. One of the gang´s machiini was collapsed, reclining onto a house , and the other one was destroyed, lying at the center of the town square and surrounded by the corpses of its bandit companions.
By the time the knights had arrived at the village, they had already received reports that the Varuhalla gang had been in possession of three machiinis. However, there were only two machiinis remaining at the village. The knights had heard that the third machiini was a young one of about three meters. However, it was nowhere to be found at the village.
Therefore, they guessed that most likely the certain someone that exterminated the bandit gang at this village brought the young Machiini together with him to have it sold.
Either way, there was no doubt that the knights had arrived late and had their achievements stolen by someone. And now, the Harold knights became aware that their operation had ended up as fruitless effort.
—
This was at about the same moment the Harold knights were being perplexed at the state of the desolated village. At the Yarke town, which was to the west from Rok village, there was a bit of an uproar happening at the mercenary a.s.sociation.
“I see. You were the one to gather those.”
While putting his hand onto his head, the receptionist of the mercenary a.s.sociation, Miran Val, was filling the entries of a report file. The reason for that was the little girl unfitting to this place that was in front of his eyes.
“They became kind of messed up, you see. It is the first time I´ve been harvesting, so there might be a few that are damaged. Well, I picked up the ones that seemed good and brought them here.”
With the blonde haired brown skinned little girl saying that, Miran could only comply to what she said with a cramped face.
The so called [harvest] was a nickname very often used among the mercenaries. By summarizing what the little girl in front of his eyes said, it was as like she had harvested many tasty fruits that were ripen to the point of the branches of the trees bending, and now asking him to buy them. The way she was talking about it was just as if she was a little girl that came from her village to the city in order to sell their harvest, or so that would be if one wasn´t thinking about the real meaning behind it.
“”Ah, did she say she used to live in a village?””
She was Bela Heiroh, who was born at the village of Laila. Milan remembered that this was written on the registration doc.u.ments he had received a few moments ago. However, at the moment, Miran thought this was impossible. No matter how, there is no way to believe in a bulls.h.i.t such as this girl that was in front of his eyes having been normally raised in a village after thinking about all her irregularities.
This mercenary a.s.sociation Milan worked at was the term for the a.s.sociations that supervised over the mercenaries and existed throughout the whole continent; But even with that said, it wasn´t an organization that was united. This name was simply the general term for the organizations that intermediated between the job and rewards of mercenaries, and in majority, they were organizations that were like the local landlords of the territory they were located at, or possibly, they would even directly be governing a country.
In addition the mercenary a.s.sociations of towns of countries that were not at war were for the sake mediating between the subjugation requests of bandit groups and demon beasts and its rewards. It was not only famines and wars that made people suffer.
With that said, something such as a child joining the mercenary a.s.sociation was not something to be expected. However this was an organization that had the doctrine of prioritizing competency, and there was no such thing as age restriction established.
Besides, because of the “goods” that were laid in front of his eyes, Miran could not ignore the child´s registering application as some kind of joke. Moreover, there were no mistakes with the doc.u.ment that had been handed in to him a few moments ago. To begin with, even if she wasn´t capable of writing, the staff would still be able to write it for her. In other words, except for Miran´s discomfort coming from his general common sense, there were no problems with the little girl, Bela Heiroh, to be registered at the mercenary a.s.sociation.
“Well, fine. Was it Bela-san? For now, there are no problems with the forms. It will be possible for your registration in the a.s.sociation to be completed still today.”
Therefore, because of all this, Miran decided to pretend there were no problems with the situation and abandoned treating the girl in front of his eyes as a little girl. From Miran´s perspective, rather than a little girl, she felt more like a grandmother that had the stubbornness of the countryside. Even considering her exchange with the girl of a few moments ago, he couldn´t imagine that the other party was a child.
“Is that so? Now, can´t you give me my money already? I´m in hurry here. My stomach is already growling.”
She was tapping her belly in hunger, but even so, for a girl from the country-side, she had a physique good to the point to notice that her raising was more or less good. But the sound coming from her belly didn´t seem good in either case.
“Then, why is it that you are in hurry? I´ve heard that you came piloting a machiini.”
From what she had heard from a talk of a few moments ago, the little girl had stolen a machiini from the bandit gang, and then, annihilated them at the same place. Even if the girl in front of her eyes was an existence that didn´t look very much like a simple child, as to be expected, Miran hadn´t been able to believe in that until the girl showed him the dragon heart stone.
Compared to other dragon heart stones, hers was smaller and its red light was bright. By common sense, one could guess by the size of the dragon heart stone how much prana it had gathered and how young it was by the brightness of the color of the stone. Miran could understand that the machiini Bela had stolen was one that didn´t have much battle experience.
And the little girl that didn´t behave like a child gave him a “Ha…” to Miran´s question while showing an annoying smile.
“It´s because I heard that a knight group was coming.”
Miran nodded at Bela´s words.
Indeed, report informing that the knights of the Ruuin kingdom were pursing the Varuhalla gang had been received. From what it is popularly know of knight groups, they would be capable of doing something like killing someone and making the person´s achievements their own. Guessing Bela´s thoughts, Miran gave a faint smile.(TL note: What is this “それを->横からかっさらった
“The knight group of this country are honest, and I don´t think they had done something like stealing people´s achievements. In particular, the knights that were following after the bandit gang, the Harold knights, shouldn´t have a bad reputation about that.”
“Oya? Is that so?”
Bela asked back with a face that didn´t expect those words.
“If that is so, then I should have just scavenged things there without hurry back then.”
With her saying that, Bela now looked like a normal child being frustrated about something.
“But how did you know those things about that knight group? Could it be that you were tailing after them and attacked the bandits before they could?”
Bela shook her head at those words.
“Ah, that´s not it. Hmm, I´ve heard that from this guy, you see.”
And then, Bela pointed to one of the heads that had been laid there. It´s features were beautiful, but the face was twisted in pain.
“When I was peeking at them for a bit, I saw that they had killed those guys of the village right away. Well, I thought that it was weird for them to kill even the women without having some fun with them before, you see. After strangling him a bit, he said that a group of knights were coming and that they were planning on getting away from there quickly.”
“I see…”
Miran let out a sigh. Her appearance was of a little girl, but the way she spoke was exactly like an experienced mercenary. Having something like that should have been impossible unless the person was a great magician that renewed his body. But with that said, the girl in front of his eyes was too vulgar to be a great magician. In any case, his idea that that girl wasn´t something like a respectable existence didn´t change.
“Well, at any rate, there are always exceptions. I will be paying you with money now.”(TL note: I have no idea what this ->まあ、どのみちモノはあるんだ
“Hya, fine then. Now, the money. Money; hand it already.”
While extending her hand forward, Bela said. However, Miran shook his head with a wry smile.
“Sorry, it is necessary for the people of the a.s.signment to come verify the heads. Besides, it takes a bit of time for the registration to. Therefore,
However, with those words, Bela threw a tantrum.
“Hey, hey, don´t kid with me. Even though I´m in growth period, I didn´t eat properly since yesterday at night here.”
Miran thought she would say something like that. And so, while letting out a sigh, Miran took out his wallet. And then, while saying that it would be retracted from her reward later, he gave Bela some pocket money for her meal.
And so, while saying “Hyahya, you should have given it to me from the beginning”, she took the money and left the a.s.sociation building with relaxed steps.
“What was this? That from just now.”
Once the gate keeper man confirmed that Bela had left the place, he walked over to where Miran was and asked him this. Obviously, Miran didn´t have the answer for that.
“I don´t know. Let´s just say it was someone disguising herself as a brat. She didn´t seem to have a decent character, but she seemed to have the skills.”
“Heh, is it even possible for this to be a disguise?”
“I don´t know. She didn´t seem to be a Korobo, but rather than thinking that she was a child, it is better for my sanity to say that is a disguise. For now, think of her as someone to be careful about. It won´t be my fault if you go and cause unneeded trouble because you rubbed her in a wrong way.”(TL note: Apparently, Korobo is a race of small people. I guess you can think of them as those guys from the lord of rings I forgot their name… Because it was written with the little letters above normal letters thing, there was no way for me to add it to the text…)
The gate keeper nodded at Miran´s words.
“Fine but, aside from the people of the a.s.sociation, I didn´t tell the people from the outside about her. Her looks seemed to be nice. She would be attacked by someone right away, you know?”
“There is no way I want to be babysitting someone´s child. Rather than that, having people that are from other organizations killed is what would be convenient.”
“Understood.”
Saying that, the gate keeper turned right and went back to the entrance.
“Good grief.”
Saying that, Miran leaned his back at the chair, slowly leaning his body weight at it. And then, he let out a sigh.
To begin with, Miran didn´t care about the little girl imitation´s safety. Even if that little girl that seemed to be a pain in the a.s.s to deal with was killed, or perhaps sold away, he wouldn´t care, and just as he had said before, he thought it was convenient if troublesome things went away.
“”Well, she didn´t seem to be someone that would easily die, though.””
And then, by looking at the blood stains that were stuck at the war hammer, Miran thought that once the attacking side raised their hands against her, they would be the ones to be killed. As a matter of fact, she looked to be someone that was a troublesome to deal with after all.