Rescuing people from danger was certainly righteous, but he had never said he wouldn't accept payment. So the stingy merchant was only released after paying a full twenty silver coins.
Renard handed eighteen of the silver coins to his lackeys, while the remaining two naturally went into his own pocket.
Ben held the silver coins and pondered for a long time, feeling that something wasn't quite right.
Tommy, however, paid none of this any mind. After wiping the blood from his hands with a rag, he casually tossed it by the roadside and asked, "Young master, should we head for the next target?"
"The next target? Do you think we even have another target?" Renard replied helplessly.
There were several thousand goblins robbing the merchant caravan. No local force nearby was that large. The only explanation was that they had joined forces.
The natives banding together was hardly good news. Ben sighed and said, "If possible, I hope to inform the Baron of what happened here as soon as we can."
Renard drew a deep breath, rubbed his forehead, and said, "All right! I..."
Before he could finish, a sharp arrow came whistling straight toward his face. "Fuck!"
Renard's hair stood on end. Ben reacted quickly and immediately raised his sword to block it. "Clang!"
"Someone fired a hidden arrow!" Tommy shouted as he charged toward the direction it had come from. Austin and Ken followed, while the others formed a tight ring around Renard.
It took Renard quite a while to recover from his fear. If Ben hadn't acted quickly, that arrow would have gone straight through his head.
He roared furiously, "It must've been someone from that merchant caravan!"
"Maybe not." Ben picked up the arrow from the ground, his brows knitting tightly. "This is a top-quality military arrow, supplied exclusively to the regular army of the Kingdom of Arthur."
At that, Renard slowly came out of his anger. "What do you mean? Is someone in the military trying to kill me? I've never offended them."
"Of course not." Ben shook the arrow in his hand. "I'm only saying it came from the regular army of the Kingdom of Arthur. But this sort of thing isn't rare on the market."
Smuggling military supplies was common. At least, Renard remembered that his cousin, who served in the army, often engaged in that sort of business—a crime punishable by death.
Soon, the three of them returned. Their faces were full of frustration. "That guy ran fast. We didn't find anything."
By then, Renard had gradually calmed down. He thought carefully about what had happened and felt that something was off. "If he was an assassin, he must have been following us for a long time."
"That's right. When we got there, we found the mugwort grass had been flattened and wouldn't spring back up. He must have been lying in wait for a long time, and there was only one person," Tommy said, nodding.
"Then why didn't he strike during the chaos just now?" Renard's thoughts were in disarray.
A flash of insight suddenly crossed Ben's eyes. "Perhaps his goal wasn't to assassinate you, young master, but to convey some kind of message to us."
"Was there really a need to do it like that?" The other man's reasoning made some sense, but Renard still couldn't accept it. There were plenty of ways to deliver a message. If Ben had missed just now, Renard might already be dead.
"This is a practice arrow. Its tip is very rough. At a distance of eighty meters, it has no killing power unless fired from a powerful crossbow," Ben explained again.
The group then gathered around the arrow and discussed it. They all reached the same conclusion: whoever had shot it hadn't been trying to kill anyone.
Renard's brow furrowed. "If the other person was trying to deliver a message, does that mean someone is plotting to kill me?"
At that, the others stopped discussing and all looked toward Saint Brieuc Fortress. If anyone wanted to kill Renard, the first person who came to mind was that bastard Gilbert.
A smile curled Renard's lips, sending a chill through those who saw it.
He took the arrow and examined it for a long while, then looked at Ben, the most skilled among them, and asked, "If you shot me with this arrow, could you wound me without killing me?"
Ben's hair stood on end at the question. The others drew in sharp breaths, their backs turning cold.
"Young master, you mean..." Ben was clever enough to understand his idea at once.
Renard nodded, holding the arrow against his chest and positioning it for a long time. "Shoot it in like this, but not too deep. It'd be best if it stayed in place. Let me bleed, but not too much."
The others felt a chill rise through them. And he wasn't done yet.
Renard ran his fingers over the arrowhead and said, "It'd be best to coat it with poison too. The kind that's easy to cure but extremely potent."
He looked at the others. "Do you understand what I mean?"
The lackeys all nodded at once. How could they not understand? Their young master was clearly planning to frame Gilbert.
If they really did this, Gilbert would be caught red-handed—or at least, everyone would think so.
A murderous glint flashed in Renard's eyes. He felt no goodwill toward the person who had warned him. If that person truly wanted to help, he could have simply told him. There was no need to resort to this.
The best way to put it was that the enemy of his enemy wasn't on his side, but didn't want his opponent to succeed either. Who could that person be?
Whoever it was, they had helped Renard tremendously.
Less than a kilometer from Saint Brieuc Fortress, Ben raised the poisoned arrow with trembling hands. His target was Renard, fifty meters away.
Renard was even more nervous than he was. His legs kept shaking. He might have sounded confident, but deep down, he wasn't sure at all. "I'm telling you, aim carefully."
Ben swallowed hard. Several times, he raised the bow, only to lower it again.
Renard was practically in tears. "Bro, can you stop scaring me? Just get it over with, will you?"
Ben took another deep breath, raised his hand, nocked the arrow, drew the bow, and fired—all in one smooth motion.
"Ah!" Renard cried out in pain and clutched his chest as he fell to the ground. If he hadn't been afraid of overacting, he would have shouted, "I'm dead!"
The arrow struck just right, directly over his heart. His leather armor stopped it from going in too deep; the arrowhead had pierced only about half a centimeter.
Just as planned, the moment Renard fell, the lackeys around him began shouting frantically, "An assassin! Catch the assassin! Someone's tried to kill young master Renard!"
Right afterward, they scrambled to apply medicine, blood-stopping agents, and wound salve to Renard. Most important of all was the painkiller.
Renard grabbed Tommy by the collar. His last instruction before passing out was, "Go to the apothecary to get the poison antidote first, then go find that old bastard Hamilton. Don't you fucking get the order mixed up."
The potent poison would take effect quickly, and if it wasn't treated in time, his life would be in danger. If things went wrong, he'd have nowhere to cry about it.
Tommy squeezed Renard's hand to show he understood. Then nine lackeys carried him at a run, shouting as they went, "Young master Renard has been assassinated!"
Before you continue