「……Eh?」

Not believing that both his arms had been cut off in a single breath, Renodis let out a voice or surprise.

However, the next moment, blood sprayed out from both his shoulders as pain that he had never experienced before began to set in.

「Aaaaaaaaaargh-! It hurts-, it hurts-, it huuurts-!」

It looked like Renodis was unable to bear the severe pain. He rolled around on the ground as the dirt was soaked with his blood.

「Rei-san……isn’t that a bit too much?」

The adventurer, who had walked up to Rei, spoke in a somewhat dazed tone. Even if Renodis had betrayed him, it seemed that he couldn’t bear to see both his arms cut off from the shoulders.

「You think so? ……So, I guess I can assume you’re not my enemy? So you were tricked by him.」

「That’s of course! There’s no way I can fight against Rei-san!」

The man shook his head vigorously, as if were a crazy idea that he would be hostile to Rei.

Rei stared at the man for several seconds as Renodis screamed in the background before giving a sigh.

It was true that the man had brought him here, but even he had almost been killed by Renodis. Thinking about that, he probably wasn’t Rei’s enemy.

「Let’s put you aside for now. Right now, this guy is more important.」

Flipping the shaft of the Death Scythe in his hand, Rei thrust its blade towards Renodis’ neck as he rolled around on the ground.

As expected, seeing the weapon of Death touching his neck, Renodis looked up towards Rei without moving any further as he suppressed his screams of pain.

He was the heir to a Marquis family and his life was worth overwhelmingly more than an adventurer. Even so, despite not understanding how he had ended up in this situation, he still realised that his life was in a dangerous position.

An ordinary person would have started begging for their lives in this situation. Others would have accepted their death in silencce. However, Renodis was a proud noble who could do no such thing. He couldn’t accept that he was in a situation where he was at the mercy of an adventurer. Because of that.

「You, you! This kind of insult against me, the heir to the Marquis Imarhen family……do you think you will be forgiven for this!? I will absolutely never forgive you! I’ll make sure you regret this! Your friends, acquaintances, lovers, all of them will be punished for this!」

Despite not having both his arms and being in severe pain, Renodis glared at Rei. His eyes weren’t filled with mockery but hatred and murder. Indeed, if Rei let him go here without doing anything, Renodis would definitely carry out his threats. But, Renodis’ biggest failure was to say it to Rei’s face.

Looking down back at the person who was glaring at him in hatred, Rei gave a laugh. At the same time, the blade of the Death Scythe started slowly moving towards Renodis’ neck. Slowly, slowly, the blade started to move towards his throat. The blade continued advancing without stopping.

It didn’t take long for Renodis to see the blade approaching his neck. Stopping his movements that were due to the pain of losing both his arms, he turned to look towards Rei with surprise.

「H-Hey! What do you think you’re doing! You want to kill me!? Keep that dirty weapon away from me!」

「Why should I do that? I have an opportunity to deal with someone who wants to kill me. So why don’t I just deal with you and be done with it?」

Deal with him and be done with it. Those words made Renodis think of something as he finally realised his situation. His face was filled with confusion.

「Don’t be stupid, you! You want to kill me? A noble?」

「Yes.」

Rei nodded with ease, as if he were just talking about today’s fine weather.

Renodis finally understood. The person in front of him was someone who held no respect for nobles. If they got in his way, he would clean them up as if they were garbage.

As for why it had taken him so long to realise……in the Mireana Kingdom, or rather the world of Elgin, nobles were considered to be special. Of course, some people didn’t care if if they were dealing with nobility or not, but fortunately or unfortunately, Renodis had never met such people.

「In the first place, I was given permission to deal with any nobles that tried to mess with me. And, it’s true that you did try to kill me. In that case, why should I hesitate to get rid of you here? Fortunately, no one will know if someone dies here.」

「Wai-……」

As Renodis tried to shout something, the blade of the Death Scythe cut into his neck, causing more blood to pour out than both his arms combined……that didn’t happen. The adventurer with Rei had used his long sword to hold back the shaft of the Death Scythe.

Normally, the weight of a long swords wouldn’t have been able to stop Rei from swinging the Death Scythe. But Rei still stopped as he wanted to know the reason for the adventurer’s actions.

At the same time, maybe due to his fear of death, Renodis had fallen onto the ground unconscious. The area around his groin was soaked and it went without saying where that liquid had come from.

Though he was unconscious, he was still bleeding from his shoulders and was sure to die of blood loss if left alone for much longer.

Rei turned towards the adventurer, wondering why he had tried to stop him from killing Renodis. However, while the man’s sword was still propped up against the shaft of the Death Scythe, his eyes were looking into the forest rather than at Rei.

(Come to think of it, no arrows have been shot at me.)

As Rei thought of that, a man suddenly appeared from the forest, pushing aside the bushes.

At first, Rei thought that it was one of Renodis’ knights, But the person who appeared was a familiar face to Rei.

His face was full of scars and he had a powerful presence like that of a bandit. He held a battle axe in his hand.

「Egg?」

It was Egg. The leader of the Prairie Wolves, who emerged from the forest.

「Oh, it looks like you’re safe.」

Egg raised the hand that didn’t hold his battle axe as he gave a casual greeting. Rei responded in puzzlement.

「No, that’s true……but why are you here?」

「What are you talking about? You’re the one who asked us to cooperate with the Rowlocks army.」

「……In other words, Daska-sama expected this to happen?」

「That’s basically it. It’s also why Verda is here.」

「Verda?」

Rei was puzzled at the name he hadn’t heard before.

Seeing Rei respond like that, Egg turned to look at the adventurer, who moved his long sword away from Rei’s Death Scythe..

「What? You didn’t even introduce yourself?」

「No, no, I didn’t have the time for that. ……Well, let me introduce myself again. I’m Verda, and old friend of Egg.」

「An adventurer has a bandit for an old friend?」

「That’s right. I was surprised when I saw Egg here. I never thought he’d become a bandit. And I definitely didn’t think he’d be working under Margrave Rowlocks.」

「Shut up. There’s a lot of circumstances surrounding this. ……Well, Margrave Rowlocks noticed this guy’s suspicious movements, so I was allowed to use Verda to catch them.」

It sounded like Egg didn’t like the adventurer. But the smile on his face indicated that he didn’t mean it seriously.

Seeing Egg’s smile, Rei realised the general flow of events.

「I see. So I was bait.」

「Well, that’s how it is. That said, nobles are scary. Even if you are only a temporary subordinate, they would use you as bait to cut down the power of opposing factions. This is despite the fact that they were all cooperating with each other during the war agains the Bestir Empire.」

Oh, how scary. Egg seemed to say as he hugged his shoulders and shivered. However, from Rei’s perspective, Egg’s shiver wasn’t due to him actually being scared but because he was trying to hide his laughter.

Maybe seeing Rei’s cheeks twitch under his hood, Verda spoke up hastily.

「Even though we used the term bait, Margrave Rowlocks only used you because he had peace of mind that you were actually the bigger fish. After all it’s Rei, who managed to earn a title in this war. Of course, he wouldn’t want to throw away someone like you. ……Rather than that, Egg, what will we do with this dying kid?」

Thinking that it was probably a bad idea for Rei to get angry any further, Verda turned to look at Renodis, who was lying on the ground unconscious.

The blood from his shoulders had already stopped for some reason, even though he had lost both his arms. There was also an ugly scar on his neck, which was from the wound made by the Death Scythe, but the bleeding had also already stopped.

「……Why are his wounds already sealed?」

「That’s true. ……Well, if this guy is a noble……」

Muttering, he went over to Renodis, where he immediatelly found a necklace around his neck.

「I guessed as much. I’ve seen this before. It’s a single use magic item that activates when the holder gets seriously injured in order to heal their wounds.」

「Even if you said it would heal his wounds, aren’t his arms still gone from the shoulders?」

「That’s right. It’s not that high level of a magic item. When we say heal, it’s only the minimum treatment to stop the holder from bleeding out and dying. It’s also a single use item.」

Even though it was a magic item, to Egg, the necklace just looked like a piece of rock. 　As it was a disposable magic item, it looked like it had lost its effect after stemming the bleeding from Renodis’s shoulders.

「Well, as for me, I don’t want him to die like this, so it’s a great help.」

Saying that, Egg took his hands off the necklace and smiled as he picked up the unconscious Renodis

「……So, what’s going to happen to him?」

「Well, that’s for Margrave Rowlocks to consider. At the very least, I’m pretty sure he won’t have a happy future. He tried to assassinate Rei, his ally. That alone would put him in disgrace. He’s also lost both his arms, so I’m pretty sure he won’t be able to take over his Marquis family? So, I would like Rei to hold back here as well if you can. You don’t have to kill him, do you?」

「I don’t have to kill him, but I also don’t care if I kill him.」

Saying that, Rei stored the Death Scythe into the Misty Ring.

Even though he had said that he didn’t care if he killed Renodis or not, it was honestly Egg’s words that had made him change his mind.

(Actually, it would probably be better for Renodis if he died here. From now on, he’ll be known as a noble who tried to assassinate an adventurer out of jealousy. He’s also lost both arms, so he’s as good as dead as a noble.)

Rei thought to himself. It was easy to guess that Renodis would never appear in public again as a noble, even if he survived now.

If he had still been in good physical shape, he might have been able to make a name for himself as an adventurer or a knight. However, it was impossible for hiim to do that without his arms.

(Well, there’s a possibility he’ll be able to get some sort of prosthetic arms since magic items exist in this world……but I’m pretty sure I’ll never have to deal with him again, so he can do whatever he wants.)

Rei looked at Renodis, who was being carried by Egg, before turning away as if losing interest.

「So, Egg, you’ll take him to Daska-sama and that will be the end of your work?」

「No, I promised that I would stick around until the end of this war……that said, Margrave Rowlocks is quite different from the noble I thought he would be. I’ll be sticking around a little longer.」

「A little longer?」

「Ah. I was asked to take charge of the Rowlocks army’s intelligence or something. More than half of the Prairie Wolves were hired alongside me.」

「Huh……」

Rei’s eyes widened slightly at those unexpected words.

Renodis had already completely left his mind.

「The guy who used to be a bandit now works for a noble. Can you hire me as well right now?」

Egg replied to Verda, who had mumbled to himself somewhat enviously.

「If you really want to……if you’re willing to quit being an adventurer, I’ll be glad to. Well, I’ll be leaving. I have to take this guy to Margrave Rowlocks.」

「Ahh, I’ll leave you to it. As for the others……I guess they might just become undead wandering around the Selemous Plains.」

Looking at the many corpses lined up on the ground, Egg and Verda both nodded in agreement at Rei’s words before they all returned to camp.

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