Madness

After Gevra gave that answer, silence blanketed the dense forest.

A moment later.

Romain spoke. "Witch, it seems I won."

Gevra had chosen neither Shasta nor him, but this outcome instead.

But to Romain, that was a victory.

Shasta did not know what to say either. She was deeply dissatisfied with this outcome.

But what could she do? It was Gevra's own choice.

If she insisted on forcing her own will through... leaving aside whether she could bring herself to do such a thing, even if she did, Romain and Dick would join forces to stop her.

Even she could not ignore everyone before her at once.

"Looks like I came here for nothing," Shasta muttered.

After working so hard for so long, she had ended up empty-handed. Her feelings were easy to imagine.

"I'm sorry, Lady Shasta." Gevra felt deeply guilty.

Shasta glanced at Gevra, then closed her black eyes. When she opened them again, she had already regained her calm.

"Romain, tell me. How will you treat Gevra from now on?"

Romain rubbed his chin, realizing that Shasta attached great importance to his answer. If she was dissatisfied in the slightest, she would still take Gevra away by force.

She might truly hold some standing in the Witch Forest. Even if she could not summon the entire Witch Forest, calling over a few companions would be perfectly normal.

These witches only wanted to take their companion away and would not harm him, a noble.

And he could not possibly report them to the Church.

The Church and witches were both idiots.

And he hated the Papal Knights even more than he hated witches.

But answering her was not difficult.

Besides, this was a promise he ought to make.

Gevra had not chosen to leave with Shasta, but to remain in Sigg Town. Romain believed he had an obligation to arrange her future.

So Romain said, "I will make a noble contract! In the name of Split Armor, I promise that Gevra will suffer no form of persecution within my territory. Even if the Church discovers her existence, I will make no compromises. I swear that, so long as she is loyal to me and does not betray me, I will protect her unconditionally for the rest of her life. I will not allow her to suffer any humiliation or betrayal!"

The moment those words were spoken, everyone present was moved.

A noble contract was an exceptionally special oath. A noble who wrote such a contract could not violate its terms, or the King would strip him of all rights, power, and status.

To the noble class, violating a noble contract was worse than death. At least in death, they could retain their honor; living on would only bring them scorn.

Shasta was also intensely shocked. This contract was far too generous and lenient for Gevra. It did not resemble an agreement a noble should make at all, and it even mentioned directly opposing the Church.

"If you had made this promise sooner, perhaps I wouldn't have fought you for Gevra's guardianship."

Romain snorted. How could being coerced and doing something willingly possibly be the same?

If he had truly drawn Gevra, then in his view, these were merely the most basic conditions—he had not even promised how much salary Gevra would receive each month.

Romain could not be bothered to answer. He merely said, "Do you want to work for me too?"

"You're thinking too highly of yourself."

Romain clicked his tongue. He truly hoped to recruit Shasta. "Witches have it rough, don't they? The Church's pursuers force you to hide everywhere. Why not stay here with me?"

"That won't be the case for much longer!" Shasta said coldly.

"Hm?!" Romain became alert.

Shasta knew she had misspoken. She pressed her lips together. "In any case, just take good care of Gevra. If I learn that she has suffered any injustice, I will never let you off."

Romain greatly admired this witch. She could go this far merely for someone of her own kind; no matter how one looked at it, she could be called loyal and righteous.

He quite liked dealing with people like that. He did not need to be wary of such people.

"Your name?"

"Shasta, the Nightmare Witch Shasta!"

Romain had never heard that name.

That was normal enough. The Witch Forest was an underground organization, like rats in the street. The more famous they became, the faster they died.

Romain smiled faintly. "If you ever have nowhere to go, come here. On the condition that you come secretly. I'm not ready to fight the Church yet."

Those words made Shasta look at Romain several more times, her expression quite strange.

Although nobles and the Church did not get along, they had not reached the point of trying to kill one another. Why did this fellow seem ready to go to war with the Church already?

Was there something seriously wrong with his head?

No matter what, having another potential allied force was a good thing for witches.

She had once thought that nobles and the Church were birds of a feather.

Now, it seemed that was not entirely true.

Of course, Shasta also knew that a noble like Romain was a freak even among all the nobles in the world.

She recalled that legendary figure from one hundred and fifty years ago, whose prestige had been unparalleled and whose glory had reached its height.

But she quickly dismissed the thought. Perhaps the two should not be linked together.

Their statuses were worlds apart, like clouds and mud. Never mind Romain—even Grand Duke Armor-Splitting would have to bow before him.

Aaron had nearly finished clearing up the battlefield.

He came to Romain's side and said quietly, "Three guards died, and eight were injured. Four of them are seriously wounded, and one may not be able to fight anymore."

Including the situation at Garin's cabin, over half the guards had become casualties.

Romain was extremely dissatisfied with the quality of these guards, but he could not be overly harsh with them.

Romain looked toward the distant mountains and forests.

"I wonder how Green is doing."

Meanwhile, Green was still pursuing Borg.

Around forty or fifty years ago.

On the northern coast of the Black Iron Kingdom, a coastal village called Reef Town was invaded by the North Ice Pirates.

And if one went back another hundred years from that point—one hundred and fifty years ago—the pirates had been equally rampant.

At that time, the man later known as The Conqueror stepped forward.

He pointed his sword at every nation, suppressed pirates, pacified barbarians, and beat every force on this land black and blue. He fought all the way to Igo, the homeland of the North Ice Pirates, conquered it, and ultimately founded the vast Black Iron Kingdom.

However, the era ruled by The Conqueror had eventually passed.

A hundred years later, the North Ice Pirates returned, but no second Conqueror emerged upon this land.

Reef Town was one of the places victimized by pirate raids. Unlike elsewhere, the pirates from the northern icy seas regarded it as an outpost and supply base, living there for a considerable period. During that time, the pirates also defiled many women.

One young girl suffered the same fate after her entire family was killed, and ten months later, she gave birth to a baby boy.

That child was called Borg.

Life was difficult in that era, and it was hard for a young girl with an infant to survive. So she had no choice but to use every means possible to support Borg and herself.

For reasons and thoughts unknown, she did not abort or strangle that bastard child. Instead, she raised him with all her heart.

That young girl kept her first child alive.

Perhaps because of the Northman pirate blood in his veins, Borg had possessed tenacious vitality since childhood and grew up strong.

When Borg was ten, that woman, still not yet twenty-five, finally died from overwork.

Her impoverished life had left the mother with no keepsakes for her child.

After his mother died, Borg lost everything as well, but he showed no obvious grief and simply accepted it as a matter of course.

In the years that followed, he found places to sleep, and whenever there was no food, he stole it. He himself was the sort who excelled at fighting and brawling. That pirate nature had shown itself even in childhood, and it had caused his mother no small amount of suffering.

Because he had a talent for combat, Borg later joined a band of mercenaries and began a life of wandering and fighting everywhere. His combat skills and physical condition steadily improved, and the number of people he killed grew ever greater.

For ten years without change, he carried out all kinds of mercenary assignments.

Strangely, though he had long grown accustomed to killing, he often began recalling memories from his childhood after reaching adulthood.

Borg found that unbelievable, because he had never missed his childhood before.

Just when he had come to believe that he had long forgotten everything from the past and would never be moved by anything,

that frail yet resilient figure began appearing in his mind more and more frequently.

Something hidden deep in his bones seemed to have been unearthed.

The experiences that had felt natural at the time and been cast aside during his growth now looked different when Borg looked back on them as an adult. He gradually came to understand many things: the hardship of life, the weight of burdens, and a mother's tender love.

As a child, he had undergone a tremendous change in fate without understanding anything. He had lost the person most important to him, the one who loved him most.

Yet at the time, he had felt no grief.

This seasoned mercenary, who killed without blinking and worked part-time as a pirate, realized it all only belatedly. Like an ox chewing its cud, he was suddenly flooded with an inescapable sorrow.

Whenever he recalled the past, the sorrow in his heart became more intense, like surging tides about to drown him.

Many times, after waking from dreams, he could feel the dried tear tracks on his face.

His comrades, however, mocked him as a coward who cried for his mother in the middle of the night.

Borg was a mature warrior. He knew he was no longer suited to fighting, because he had become weak, and the axe he used to kill was no longer sharp.

He left his former life behind, came to a place on the land, found a suitable plot, built a house, reclaimed wasteland, learned to farm, bought seeds, and settled down.

But things were far from over.

What he saw were numb and suffering people.

They were starving and freezing, poor and destitute.

That thin, frail figure often appeared before his eyes.

Borg began to wonder why his mother had struggled so hard to raise him when he was young, until her body had become like shriveled, dried firewood by the time she died.

Why did farmers labor until they were exhausted, yet still fail to eat their fill no matter what? Where did all the grain they grew go?

When he witnessed a farming family unable to pay their taxes, and their only daughter, just twelve years old, being seized by guards to become a slave at the manor,

Borg watched as the girl's figure seemed to overlap with the image of his mother from the past.

And he did nothing.

He merely returned to his dwelling, pulled the battle axe he had not used in a long time from a wooden chest, and used a stone to grind away its rust.

On that pitch-black night, he infiltrated the noble's castle and killed every guard as well as the viscount lying in bed.

He loaded all the wealth and grain onto carts, distributed them to every farming household on that land, and told them to hide them well. If anyone asked, they were to say that he, Bandit Borg, had taken everything.

But things went against his wishes. What he believed to be a flawless operation was still seen through by the sharp-eyed noble lord—several farming households that had received money and grain handed over the stolen goods and indignantly exposed the deeds of this bandit.

Thus, the noble executed every farming household that had not reported him.

A massive gallows held corpse after corpse, including the frail young girl whose figure had overlapped with that of his mother in his eyes.

The girl's unusually emaciated body hung there like an angel suspended in the air. Her feet and tattered clothes swayed in the breeze as she was displayed as a warning for three whole days.

It was from that time onward that Bandit Borg went mad.