205 – Kill Off (3)
Chester and Monia were tired and sleepy and thought they couldn’t move, so they moved after spending the morning sleeping.
“Whoaam.”
As Monia on her horse yawned drowsily, Chester pulled his horse close to hers, took the reins for Monia, and led her horse.
“Are you tired yet?”
“A little?”
“I will drive the horse, so get some sleep.”
At Chester’s words, Monia shook her head saying she was fine.
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“If you keep riding like this, you will wake up.”
As Monia said that, she looked at the road they were running on. The path on which they ran was neatly paved, paved with soft yellow stones polished into thin plates.
Of course, it wasn’t just a newly paved road, and the road that so many people, horses, and carriages had passed through couldn’t be perfectly clean. There were broken places here and there, and there were places where the stone plate was missing, and there were also places with a little curve.
However, except for those flaws that can only be revealed by looking closely, all of the stone slabs were surprisingly evenly polished.
How on earth can this be possible if you have excellent polishing skills?
“You look better than our kingdom… ….”
“Yes. When I heard people talk about it, it seemed that it was a country rich in money.”
“Oh, that’s right. When I asked how to get a boat, he said that there are many boats coming and going, so once you get to the port, you will be able to find the boat you want right away.”
“That’s nice. Oh, right. Just in case you don’t know, be careful not to become a slave.”
“A slave?”
“Yes. They say that this country is more active in the slave trade than other countries. Slaves were brought in from many countries. Since we are also foreigners, even if we are caught and become slaves, no one will care that we are captured slaves anyway.”
“You should be careful with that. Huh? Then, was that one of the mercenaries a slave?”
“Who?”
“That, you know, the oldest mercenary. He had a strange tattoo on the back of his neck.”
“Did he have a tattoo on the back of his neck? You look good like that what does he look like?”
Monia used a newly acquired notebook and a fountain pen to lightly draw a tattoo on the back of the old mercenary’s neck to show her merchants.
“Hmm. It was certainly not engraved for fashion or ceremony, but it looks like a seal or brand.”
“Isn’t he carving the family crest to let people know that he is a slave to his family?”
“Indeed. It could be. By the way, they don’t brand slaves, they tattoo them?”
“It’s a rich country. A lot of technicians will come in to make money.”
When Monia said it, Chester nodded his head in wonder.
“Still, it’s amazing. Tattoos are usually barbarian skills, so you probably hate them.”
Chester, since he was very young, a tattooed barbarian friend often visits his father, so he is familiar with tattoos, so he doesn’t think it strange. Usually, when he sees a tattoo, he is considered a barbarian at the moment and sees his opponent as dirty, unclean, and culturally inferior. .
“Wouldn’t that also differ from country to country? Why, one of our kingdom’s neighbors doesn’t dare touch the body their parents gave them, and they never cut a single hair.”
“They cut their nails for a living.”
“Originally, they put it on and take it off as they like.”
Monia shrugged her shoulders, saying, “What’s so special about that?”
“If we surprise the enemy, it becomes a strategy with the spirit of a falcon and the wisdom of a snake, but if the enemy surprises us, it turns out to be a bunch of ugly thieves who don’t dare to honor us?”
Chester grinned at Monia’s words.
“Yeah, that’s how it all is. Wasn’t Monia surprised when I first got a tattoo?”
Chester subtly lifted his spirits and created a blue tattoo.
Monia grinned at that.
“I was surprised, but at the time I was more than happy that Chester was alive.”
Chester grinned at Monia’s flowing words.
“There are places that appear and disappear, and there are so many strange things on the island that I felt like it was nothing special, and then…….”
Monia abruptly stuck her head out and kissed Chester on the cheek.
“Because it happened to Chester. I’m sure you’ll like everything, unless it’s something bad like a disease.”
Even while they were doing that, the horse ran steadily on the ground.
As she ran, she passed some people, made brief acquaintances with them, and stopped to eat, hunt, or observe a fruit she hadn’t seen before, a strange flower, or an animal.
After running and running like that, the Chester family finally arrived at the place where the second golden thrush peddler was located.
* * *
At the front of the wagon, which was moving while waving a flag representing the second threshing troupe of golden thrushes, a middle-aged man of the age of old man rode proudly on his horse and walked in the lead.
He has a sturdy body that shows the appearance of a knight rather than a merchant, and his face rises in an oblique line from the lower left jaw, distorting his lips and going further upward, and finally, a large wound that stops only after one eye is cut vertically is settled. There was.
The damaged eye was cloudy, as if to prove that he had lost sight, but the one eye that was intact was not closed even in front of the bright sun and was shining bright blue.
The hair that has turned black on top, gray in the middle, and white on the bottom with the growth of gray hair, and the beard that is clearly visible despite the shaggy beard that covers the entire face, this man is not walking around while working as a peddler. It made me feel like I should take a seat.
At least, his dependable appearance made him think about it a little, but if he lowered his eyes a little, the prosthetic leg on his right foot draped over the saddle and the cane tightly tied to the back of the horse made it pop out again.
“… ….”
And, Chester and Monia were watching such a scene from a distance through a telescope.
“Is that off?”
“Yes.”
Sitting on a nearby tree, camouflaged by sticking broken twigs all over their clothes, Chester and Monia have been chasing Off’s hawkers for about a day already, keeping an eye on the Off.
“He is a thorough man.”
And as a result of observation for a day, it was that the first planned assassination or assault seemed to be difficult.
Assassination first. At night, Off enters the carriage, claiming that her knees hurt, but instead, night escorts who have had enough sleep in the morning and during the day come out and thoroughly guard the carriage.
Next charge. This had no choice but to fail because of the skill of the exclusive escort who was close to him, as well as simply being off.
Off was a warlike mercenary who traveled all over the battlefield at a young age before becoming a merchant.
After losing his leg and quitting the mercenary, he made a comeback as a merchant, but he did not stop training his body and polishing his skills, so he had excellent skills, except for weakened by age.
In addition, Off’s exclusive escort was dangerous.
The reason why Chester and Monia, who were just trying to observe at first, are thoroughly camouflaged because Off’s escort almost noticed their surveillance.
No matter how disguised they were, they thoroughly hid their bodies, but they suspected the location of Chester and Monia with only a glance.
If Chester and Monia hadn’t run away without looking back, they would have been found out.
As can be seen from these incidents, Off’s exclusive escort was not a knight, warrior, or mercenary, but a hunter with a very good eye.
I don’t know what else, but I didn’t know if it was similar to Chester’s eyes.
In addition, as a result of continuous observation, the escort hunter has a unique and deadly weapon.
It was a weapon mounted on a long glove that came close to the wrist, and it was a weapon that could be easily loaded with a simple operation and quickly fired iron beads or arrowheads. I overheard it being called a handsling.
To put it simply, it is a slingshot attached to a glove. Like a bow, you can’t shoot a long distance that easily exceeds 100m, but you can shoot about 50m.
50 M. If it’s long it’s long and if it’s short it’s a short distance. If it was Chester, it was a distance that could be shortened in an instant, but at the same time, that hunter could fire two or three hand slings while narrowing 50m, so I had to be prepared.
A slingshot was an unquestioned hunting tool, and if handled well, it was a sufficient weapon to easily kill a person.
Perhaps that escort’s role is ‘containment’. While using the range, fire rate, and accuracy of the handsling to slow down the enemy, the other escorts create a thick wall to protect the off.
“Thorough.”
“Yes. Even now, you are always rolling your eyes and looking around. Aren’t you tired?”
“Chester is like that in the woods too.”
“Still, when I have to spare, I take it. It’s not like I’m always in a state of tension like that.”
“Yes. That’s right. It was Chester who told me that rest and hobbies were important.”
With that said, the two moved to a tree behind them, then jumped over a few trees to get ahead of the peddlers that had passed them.
Then, take a stance in a suitable place, camouflage, and look at the off again.
‘When and how can I kill it?’
Chester was thinking about that when, suddenly, Op’s exclusive escort, the hunter, held out his hand in their direction.
Right after that, an arrowhead came out of the hand sling and flew towards Monia.