Today, Guts walked silently along a wilderness path, his face dark and his mood gloomy as he shouldered his massive Dragon-Slaying Sword. He looked thoroughly frustrated and full of self-reproach.
"..."
In fact, it wasn't just today. Yesterday, the day before that, and even the day before that, he'd been the same way, scowling at everyone as if the whole world owed him millions of gold coins.
"Mm-hmm~"
By comparison, Annie was in much better spirits.
She just bounced along behind him, carefree, humming some nameless tune. Every so often, she picked wildflowers by the roadside or chased a pretty butterfly. Sometimes she even drooled at the sight of a fat rabbit in the distance. She didn't care in the slightest how Guts was feeling up ahead.
Since Guts had set out on his journey again, there was no doubt that the earl's domain was all but doomed after Guts had killed him.
Since the earl had sunk so low as to consort with demons and slaughter the innocent, and his daughter Delicia was still too young to inherit his title or manage the domain, the Holy See had gladly dispatched a large number of knights and soldiers to take charge, placing the old priest in charge of its administration.
By now, the Holy See's army was surely occupying the city, with the old priest and his daughter, Clete, directing them as they hunted down the earl's former underlings and the members of the Heretic Inquisition, while working hard to maintain the new order.
Guts hadn't bothered himself with whether the old priest was a high-ranking member of the Holy See, or whether the Holy See intended to overstep its bounds and seize the domain from the earl's orphaned daughter.
He had spent only a dozen or so days in