Ch.661Headhunting

It was in the early dawn when knights stationed at the checkpoint spotted a suspicious man and woman approaching the border.

“What are those? Illegal immigrants?”

“What kind of illegal immigrant would approach so boldly?”

A blonde man wearing chain mail and a female knight supporting him as they walked. It was an odd combination.

The guard knights didn’t sound the alarm because there were only two people, and the man was clearly severely injured, looking incapable of fighting or even moving properly.

They thought they could easily subdue a single female knight burdened with baggage.

“Halt! Don’t come any closer!”

“What business do Danes have at this hour?”

So instead of ringing the alarm bell to wake their superiors, they approached the two Danes to verify their identities.

The two Danes seemed to have no intention of resisting or attacking, as they stood still until the imperial knights approached.

“…I’d like to request entry.”

With a calm yet somewhat urgent voice, stating only their purpose for approaching the border.

Up close, the female knight had a face without makeup and blood mixed with ash splattered on her cheeks, yet she was beautiful enough to surprise the knights.

Though her lifeless expression, as if exhausted by everything, diminished her charm somewhat.

‘That pig would have drooled all over her if he’d seen her.’

The knights thought of their previous administrator who would falsely accuse attractive women of being spies to make them his slaves, and thought this woman had good luck, if nothing else.

If she had come a few days earlier—before the pig baron’s head was displayed—she wouldn’t have been able to look at them with such a world-weary, indifferent face.

She would have been immediately subdued, molested under the pretext of inspection, then dragged to the baron’s mansion to warm his bed like a human furnace.

Of course, such evil practices had long been eradicated since the Margrave of Landenburg and the Empire’s First Sword had been stationed here.

Not in a figurative sense, but in a very literal one.

—-

After being rescued, the “life-sentenced spies” imprisoned in the baron’s mansion reported all the soldiers and knights who had violated them.

Thanks to consistent and clear testimonies, along with some physical evidence, it took less than five minutes for the summary trial to turn into an execution ground.

The sentence was originally to be beheading, but the Baroness of Median, who seemed irritated as if her training wasn’t going well, demonstrated a new execution method, which was ultimately adopted.

Not beheading, but head-plucking, one might say.

The Baroness of Median walked toward a criminal who was insisting that the spies were lying:

“This is all slander, slander! Let me explain—”

“Not interested.”

She grabbed both his arms and ripped them off like tearing bread,

“GWAAAAAK?!”

Then crushed his groin under her foot,

“GUAAAAAACK-!!”

And as the criminal howled like a demon crawling out of hell, she grabbed his head,

– Slurrrp!

And pulled it off as easily as uncorking a bottle.

Seeing the spine being pulled out with unidentifiable flesh clinging to it, several criminals rolled their eyes and collapsed, while screams erupted everywhere.

The Baroness of Median placed the dangling head on top of the sprawled body, smiled saying this is how it’s done, and recruited volunteers to join the execution.

Of course, no one volunteered readily, either thinking that pulling off someone’s head was too horrific an execution even for criminals, or lacking confidence in their ability to pull off a human head with bare hands.

“I’ll give it a try.”

Except for her countryman who looked like he might stab you by mistake during a melee, thinking you were an enemy.

Champion Jahan. The second Ka’har to seek asylum in the Empire after the Baroness of Median. And the first pure-blooded Ka’har.

“Hup!”

“GYAAAACK! GURRRRRRRK-!”

Jahan approached the execution ground and executed a crying, struggling criminal using the same method as the Baroness of Median.

Though his arms appeared twice as thick as the baroness’s, he seemed to lack a bit of strength as he pulled the head off more slowly than she did, but the slower pace only made the execution more cruel.

Lifting the extracted head, Jahan nodded slightly at the Baroness of Median, then looked at someone among the watching knights and grinned.

The one who met his gaze was Sir Nigel, the tenth sword of Landenburg.

“Punishing criminals is also a knight’s duty.”

When pleading proved ineffective and the criminal began spewing curses, Nigel grabbed him and drew a dagger from his waist.

Not to cut him down, but to make a shallow incision to make the extraction easier.

After slightly cutting the muscles with the dagger, the criminal’s head came off with a simple tug, and Sir Nigel held up the head with a bright smile.

The sight of a pretty female knight cheerfully waving a criminal’s spine was truly spine-chilling for the border guards.

“As expected of Sir Nigel!”

“Use your head for your head!”

The knights of Landenburg were cheering enthusiastically.

“Ahem. If it’s a knight’s duty…”

“…then it can’t be helped.”

Following them, several knights cleared their throats and headed toward the prisoners, cracking their wrists audibly or drawing daggers.

True to their nature as knights of Landenburg who fought barbarians daily, they seemed eager to relieve the boredom of marching and construction work through criminal executions.

“…Is it okay if I’m not a knight?”

After some hesitation, even the female victims joined in, and the execution ground was swept up in an impromptu head-pulling competition.

The knights competed over who could pull heads faster or who could elicit louder screams, their enthusiasm revealing the stress they had accumulated.

“Haha, I was faster!”

“No, we pulled them almost simultaneously!”

The executioner, suddenly unemployed, shook his head while watching them with an expression that suggested he was witnessing something indescribably bizarre.

“They say all knights are madmen…”

The executioner’s quiet mutter, too soft for anyone to hear, was drowned out by the knights’ cheers.

—-

‘Oh, I got distracted… Anyway, who is this man to have such a woman as his escort?’

The imperial knight who had been recalling the nightmare-inducing head-pulling festival while looking at the female knight turned his gaze to the Dane man she was supporting.

Even at a glance, he was in terrible shape.

His left arm was charred black like a wife’s poorly cooked meat dish, his chain mail was torn and twisted into little more than rags, and three arrows were embedded in his broad back.

Not only that, the man limped on his right leg, either from injury or some pre-existing condition, and wore an eye patch over his left eye, suggesting blindness.

Add to that a face dirty with blood and mud, unkempt hair and beard—he looked more like a deserter or slave than a warrior.

‘Surely this isn’t some “love escape.”‘

The knights inwardly smiled, imagining some pulp novel about “a slave soldier who seduced a female knight.”

“…Imperial army? No, imperial knights.”

At least until they met the man’s piercing blue eye as he raised his head.

The moment they made eye contact with the Dane, the knights instinctively stepped back half a pace and placed their hands on their sword hilts. It was an instinctive caution.

Though the man’s eye didn’t burn with blue nobility like the “Sword of the Starry Sky,” it contained enough fierce energy to make the knights feel as if they’d been thrown before a monster.

The knights lowered their stance slightly, debating whether to draw their swords, and looked directly at the Dane man who had raised his head.

Though partially hidden by his hair, eye patch, and beard, his face could be described as quite manly.

His eyes, steeped in deep fatigue, seemed momentarily filled with melancholy, and his gloomy face combined with the strange aura he emitted revealed a life full of hardships.

‘Hmm. He does deserve to have such a woman by his side.’

One imperial knight nodded slightly.

The prostitutes he occasionally visited had said that women tend to be easily captivated by “men with stories” or “wild beast-like men,” and right here was a beast-like man with stories.

For a knight who had been called just a beast rather than a beast-like man, it was quite an enviable appearance.

“What about those injuries? Doesn’t seem like the work of bandits. At this late hour, a Dane looking like a deserter requesting asylum… this is suspicious, too suspicious.”

Of course, the fact that the Dane before them had an appearance sufficient to captivate the female knight was enviable but not a factor that would influence the imperial knights’ inspection.

The imperial knights kept their hands on their sword hilts as they questioned the two about their identities.

“You said you’re requesting asylum in the Empire? State your detailed identity and purpose for asylum.”

“…Knut, son of Sven. Former vice-commander of the Crusader of Seals, ‘Einherjar’… though you probably haven’t heard that name.”

After coughing up some blood, the Dane man who identified himself as Knut continued:

“In your terms, I’d be something like the vice-commander of the Imperial Knights. My purpose for asylum is to deliver a warning to you… specifically to Aishan-Gioro Haschal who should be here. Is that explanation sufficient?”

The knights’ faces stiffened at the name that came from the man’s mouth.

The overall commander of the garrison, a high noble equal to the Margrave of Landenburg and his heir, and also the Empire’s strongest knight—this Dane was casually speaking her name as if she were his friend.

“…Perhaps, do you have an acquaintance with Her Excellency the Baroness of Median?”

“Hmm… we did cross swords while sweating together.”

Knut’s answer sounded to the knights like he was claiming to be one of the Empire’s First Sword’s close friends.

The rumor that the Baroness of Median’s hobby was to beat her friends with swords to train them was considered half-established fact within the Empire.