Chapter 83: Poetic Justice (3)

Flicker, flicker──

Small sparks flew around the blazing campfire.

Moths, drawn by the light, were seen diving into the center of the campfire.

Before we officially entered the 「Bandits' Stronghold」, we set up camp to take a final rest.

Perhaps because it was the first camp where we knew a battle was imminent, a sense of tension hung over the campsite, more so than usual.

Usually, after dinner, everyone would relax to relieve the day's fatigue, but now everyone was preparing for the fight, each tending to their own affairs.

At that moment.

“Last time I checked.”

Toric, who was the most relaxed, perhaps like a veteran… or maybe just a drunkard, sipping his drink, suddenly spoke.

“Your reaction was unusual when you heard the name Don Paulo.”

At those words, Ibi's hand, which had been sharpening her dagger with a polishing belt, froze.

“What’s the relationship, can you explain it to us?”

“…Why?”

“In the upcoming battle, I’m worried you might hesitate.”

If so, it would be better for us to know beforehand, Toric argued logically.

Ibi, who seemed to have no valid counterargument, finally let out a hollow laugh.

“Hesitation, my ass. He's a guy I wouldn't mind stabbing as soon as I see him.”

Then she put the dagger she was sharpening back in its sheath and said.

“First of all, do you guys even know who Don Paulo is?”

The first to answer that question was Miki.

“…Yes. I’ve heard of him a few times.”

Of course, Miki had also grown up in Tiaria.

There was no way he hadn't heard of him.

“Isn’t he the cartel boss… who controls the underworld of Tiaria?”

“Yeah, there’s nowhere that bastard doesn’t control.”

To that, Toric also added.

“When I… was a Kaper, his name often came up.”

Likewise, the Kapers, who had their stronghold… or rather, their largest branch on the continent, in Tiaria, couldn't have not heard his name.

“But we've never clashed head-on.”

“Why didn't you just kill him? He's the boss of an evil organization. Isn't that what you guys did?”

“…It was a little, complicated in many ways.”

“Ah, I bet.”

It was understandable.

Don Paulo was a ‘businessman’ type of criminal, so to speak.

Even though he was the boss of a huge cartel so famous that even those who weren't in the underworld had heard of him at least once if they were even slightly interested, he seemed to dislike being in the spotlight.

He didn't commit evil acts openly, and even if he did, he never did anything reckless enough to draw attention to himself.

Thanks to that ‘businessman’ tendency, he even maintained good relationships with the upper class, such as the great nobles.

Still, as Ibi said, he was undoubtedly the boss of an ‘evil organization’, so the ‘righteous organization’, the Kapers, must have observed him as a person of interest.

However, since he wasn't the kind of madman who would suddenly try to destroy the world or sacrifice a city as a tribute.

“He was somewhat… a necessary evil.”

That was the long and short of it.

Because even if they brought him down, all the various crimes that took place in the underworld wouldn't disappear cleanly overnight.

If anything, they might become more rampant.

Just as when the king sitting on the throne of a great kingdom is beheaded, the kingdom doesn't disappear at once, but is divided into several kingdoms.

“We judged him to be a ‘hydra’.”

Or, like when you cut off one head of a hydra, two heads sprout from there.

“Ah, well. I can't deny that, for sure.”

If he, who had reigned as a big shot in the underworld for a long time, disappeared, would the streets become clean?

No.

Guys who wanted to take his place would just spring up like mushrooms and run rampant.

It meant that even greater chaos would come.

In that sense, Don Paulo, a businessman type who at least knew how to save face, was useful to some extent in maintaining the ‘order’ of the world.

“The Kapers were an organization that knew how to compromise with reality if necessary.”

To the extent that they could choose to let him manage it himself and keep an eye on him, rather than seeing one cartel they had to manage become ten.

“Such……”

Meanwhile, Miki, who had heard that the ‘heroes’ he had admired since he was a child had left the head of an evil organization alone for whatever reason, looked to be feeling some complicated emotions.

That's right.

In the heroic tales he had always heard, where there was a clear good to cheer for and evil to defeat, there would have been no room for such realistic compromises.

“Anyway, I don't think I need to explain who he is── I used to work for that bastard.”

Ibi began to confess her past, in a tone that was completely unconcerned, as if the fact that Miki, who seemed to have been greatly shocked, had his mouth agape was no big deal.

“An orphan who doesn't even know who her parents are, and a dark elf mongrel at that, had to do something to make a living on the streets. So, they said they'd feed me, so I went and did as I was told.”

Of course, I knew well that the ‘past’ Ibi was talking about now had a complicated plot that could never be summarized so simply.

“But when I got some sense in my head, I realized. That old geezer was a pretty, f*cking bastard.”

And of course, I also knew well that this was not the time for me to intervene.

“So, I robbed the safe where that bastard had stashed all his gold and treasures. F*ck, there wasn't even that much in it.”

So I will wait.

“But he still went completely nuts and sent people all over the continent to catch me. Crazy old geezer.”

For her to tell me about her past again, herself, someday.

Or, to show me.

“So, is this enough?”

Even if I had already known, the other companions, having watched Ibi's usual behavior, must have vaguely guessed that there was something more to her story than what she had just said.

Perhaps that's why they all seemed unable to react rashly.

Even Toric, who had brought up the story first, was stroking his beard with a somewhat troubled expression.

“So, what I’m saying is that if we go and rob that place, the chances of getting involved with that bastard will be very, very high. ──You guys, too.”

Therefore, Ibi continued even more nonchalantly.

“That old geezer pretends to be a decent businessman, but he's a bastard who never forgets a debt. He’ll send people even beyond the wall until the debt is paid.”

That among the complicated emotions she felt when she first heard Don Paulo's name, there was also concern for us, who would get involved with her.

It meant that she was trying to hide it, speaking in ‘Ibi-ese’.

“──In the first place, wasn’t that the reason you were with us?”

“What?”

So, I also answered in ‘Ibi-ese’.

“You were taking us along so you could throw us as bait and run away by yourself if something happened, right?”

As I’ve said before, I’m also quite proficient in ‘Ibi-ese’.

“So what's the problem?”

“──Ha.”

At that, Ibi let out a hollow laugh in disbelief.

“You know well. So just do your job as bait properly.”

Although I had brought a ‘smile’ back to Ibi's face, it seemed to be somewhat insufficient to relieve the tension that had hardened in the campsite.

“Can't be helped.”

In short, it was time for the bard to step up.

I stood up with my lute, and lightly plucked a string with a plink—.

There's nothing like a bard's song to relieve tension.

──Clip-clop, clip-clop!

The sound of horse hooves shook the earth.

“Yeehaw──!”

Then the band of thieves on horseback crossed the hill and began to rush down all at once.

Leaving a thick cloud of dust behind them, the torches they each held in one hand to light up their vision flickered in the wind, one after another, making it look as if a giant flame was flickering and gradually descending.

“Get them!”

At the head of the procession, the ‘boss’ shouted.

“Kiyee-ho!”

The band of thieves, who had picked up even more speed, soon completely surrounded the campsite.

Where a bard was singing next to a campfire, and a group of people were sitting on a cloth laid on the ground, enjoying the song.

“Drag them out!”

“The bard is mine!”

The bandits shouted in excited voices.

“Where’s that mongrel──”

──But,

“──Huh?”

Something was strange.

Even in this situation, where they had completely surrounded the campsite and were threatening them, the bard was still not stopping his song.

As if he couldn't see or hear his surroundings at all.

“Wh-What the…?”

Someone, seeing the scene before them, was very confused, as if they still couldn't grasp the situation properly.

And someone, felt a chill run down their spine.

“……!”

The boss was the latter.

Therefore, he was the first to dismount from his horse.

Then he slowly approached the ‘singing bard’ next to the campfire and cautiously reached out his hand.

At that moment.

“B-Boss!”

At his subordinate's bewildered shout, the boss, startled, turned his head.

And, he found out.

“This…!”

What he had thought were ‘companions’ sitting around the bard and enjoying the song were in fact not people wrapped in blankets to avoid the cold, but──

“Th-They’re not them…!?”

Just scarecrows, made to look like that.

“W-Wait! This guy is…!?”

But, among them, there really was a ‘companion’.

“──Mmph!”

Their ‘companion’.

He, who had been wrapped in a blanket just like the other scarecrows, struggled as soon as the bandit who approached him pulled off the blanket.

As if, he wanted to convey something somehow.

Seeing this, the surprised bandit hurriedly untied the gag that was covering his mouth, and as soon as he did.

“Th-There!”

The ‘companion’ shouted urgently.

Pointing somewhere.

At that, the gazes of the gathered bandits all turned to where his finger was pointing.

There, was an elf girl.

Hiding her presence with 「Presence Erasure」, she had been sitting quietly alone in the luggage compartment of the carriage.

Before long, a ring was on the finger of the girl who had stood up.

Emitting a bright light.

And at the end of that light──

『Time to』

Even though the boss's thick hand touched it and a part of its form scattered like smoke.

『Say goodbye』

There was a ‘bard’, still not stopping his song.

The boss looked down at his hand, which was ‘piercing’ the bard's body, with dazed eyes, and finally sensed it.

That something was wrong.

At that moment, the elf girl suddenly disappeared.

As if, like the ‘wind’.

She disappeared in the blink of an eye.

At that, a surprised bandit, as if in disbelief, got on the carriage where the girl had been standing until just a moment ago, and then.

“B-Boss? This……”

He opened the lid of the ‘wooden barrel’ where the girl had hidden her body, and after grabbing a handful of its contents and smelling it.

He was sure.

The ‘wooden barrel’ he had opened.

“……It’s gunpowder?”

Was a 「Gunpowder Barrel」.

At the same time.

Ibi, who had been watching the scene from a tree far from the campsite, soon pulled the string of the bow in her hand tight and muttered.

“──See you again in hell, you bastards.”

Flicker!

The flame on the arrowhead flickered.