At the first hint of dawn, Reyn got up. He even shaved with his long knife, whose edge was chipped in several places, and trimmed his hair.
It definitely wasn't because he cared about his appearance or wanted to seduce a few village girls.
He simply hoped to make himself look a little more pleasing, at least not so fierce and detestable.
Reyn still remembered how, in the two villages where he had once taken shelter, the villagers had been terrified by his strange appearance. They had practically treated him like a golden-haired, blue-eyed demon. As a result, even though the two village chiefs knew how powerful he was, they had not dared to make much use of him.
Later, he had simply grown a thick beard and let his hair grow long. Combined with the killing intent covering his body, that appearance had to be admitted: out in the dangerous wilderness, even monsters were afraid of him.
But this time, he wanted to change. Even though, five days ago, his beastlike appearance had scared the villagers half to death, and even the cook who had prepared their meals over the past five days had been trembling as if he might be eaten at any moment, the soldiers here were still filled with ten thousand points of wariness toward them.
If life outside in the wilderness hadn't been so arduous and dangerous, Reyn might well have left again in a fit of rage.
Yet yesterday's wild farce of revelry in the torrential rain had so abruptly melted the hardest and fiercest shell around him.
At that time, he had been just like everyone else, including the mysterious and powerful lord. No one had known that he was there too.
Everyone had been straining toward the same goal in the same