The loyal knight did his best from across the river on a dark night.
He sent Vlad to add to the slightest possibility and mercilessly cut down his old companion who tried to tie him up.
"Kkuuh! Ugh!"
Afterward, he found out the one controlling the undead and ripped out their heart.
"······"
Seeing the man who controlled undead collapsed so easily, he felt that he too was just someone's puppet, but instead of worrying, Zayar chose to run for his lord.
He swam through the ice-broken river and ran back the way he came.
The low-hanging branches fiercely struck his face, but Zayar ran without blinking an eye.
"Sir Knight!"
He didn't know why, but on the way, he saw Gott who had come back, so he quickly picked up a horse and rode for several hours.
Zayar finally arrived at the base camp, and as expected, the base camp was in shambles due to an attack.
"You are here."
It was Josef sitting on a rock and looking at a distant mountain.
Zayar finally felt relieved after confirming that Josef was fine, and let out a deep breath that had been building up until now.
"Are you alright?"
Perhaps due to the ordeal, Josef's already dark eyes had sunk down to half of his face.
"I am better than dead."
Josef smiled at Zayar with a lack of energy and turned his head again toward the distant mountain.
The dawn was breaking.
"This subjugation has completely failed."
"······I am ashamed."
Zayar lowered his head and dropped the things he was holding in both hands on the floor.
The head of a stranger and the black wooden box he held.
"Is it him?"
"Most likely."
Though many questions and answers were omitted, it was enough conversation for Josef and Zayar, who understood each other deeply.
"We failed, but..."
Josef said, looking blankly at the distant mountains.
"Still, the steps while returning seem light."
"Was he useful?"
"Useful?"
Josef answered with a sly smile to Zayar's question.
"Perhaps I've found something."
"What do you mean?"
Zayar looked at Josef's smiling face.
That smile with the rising sun reminded him of Josef when he was young.
"Someone who can be a sword for me."
The young Josef, now with dark shadows under his eyes, looked at Zayar and spoke.
"That brat is a sword brighter than any other."
With those words, Josef smiled brightly, as if he had no worries.
Today's sun rose above his smiling face.
On that night when everything was burdensome, it was the long-awaited sun of tomorrow.
"It's cold. Let's go back now."
"Yes."
Zayar supported Josef, who was limping on one leg, and guided him to the tent.
Two men walked with their backs to the rising morning sun.
The subjugation had failed.
Nevertheless, Josef was smiling.
Even though today had ended in failure, he was confident that tomorrow would bring success.
※※※※
"Ugh."
Vlad had been lying down for a solid three days.
"My stomach still hurts."
[I'll have to be careful next time. I didn't even know the recoil would be this intense.]
The unqualified boy forcibly borrowed someone else's world and pulled him out of the world.
"It can't be helped. Oh well."
As the cost of that, he had to humbly accept the recoil.
If not, he would probably be lying on the ground by now, growing cold.
"I thought I'd be rolling around in a carriage, so I'm glad."
[It seems like Josef is quite concerned about you.]
Josef, for the sake of helping Vlad, stopped the mercenaries trying to leave and maintained the base camp.
Considering the challenging attack they had faced, it might have been right to leave as quickly as possible, but Josef didn't think so.
"If they are targeting us anyway, they might come back even during our return to Varna. In that case, it would be better to regroup here, make full preparations, and then move."
During these three days, Josef did his best to recover the base camp and completed a field investigation.
It was the appearance of someone who didn't give up despite the failure.
As a result, Josef could find several clues worth reporting to his father, Peter Bayezid.
Perhaps the report he was now carrying back to Varna had more value than the monster subjugation mission he had originally undertaken.
"It's cold."
Vlad went outside sniffling and looked around.
The reduced number of tents, the desolate base camp, and the strange silence among the mercenaries looked like the atmosphere of the defeated soldiers.
"Captain!"
Amidst the quiet base, there was a voice calling for Vlad.
A man with a long chin approaches from afar, waving his hand.
"The one who wants to run away sticks around the longest."
"Of course. They said about raising our rewards if we stayed until the return to Varna."
The cowardly swindler didn't flee that night.
Instead of running away from danger alone, he turned his horse around and headed in the direction where Zayar was.
"Do you know how much danger I went through to find the knight's location to save you, captain? You better repay me well later."
"······okay."
Gott was a crafty swindler.
The reason why Zayar hurriedly sent Vlad to the base camp was with the intention of buying time until he could go.
Gott, who had noticed this, realized that Zayar's quick return was needed to resolve the situation, and rode back to get him.
He did not go all the way to the river, which was full of undead, but he wandered along the middle road.
"Will you ignore my favor again this time? Even though there is no end to the bottom, it doesn't mean that your personality has been ruined to that extent, right?"
"I said okay."
It was true that he had already committed a crime and that Gott had worked hard for him, so it was difficult for even the shameless Vlad to openly ignore what he was saying.
"Let me at least say something. I don't know how effective it'll be, but."
After hearing that Vlad would tell the merits of Gott to the scion of the prestigious Bayezid family, Gott nodded as if satisfied.
"So, go and take care of your business."
"Huh. You're still as harsh as ever."
Goth was lost in thought as he watched Vlad leave.
'There's the smell of money.'
In Gott's eyes, Vlad was a person full of potential.
Young, capable, and someone who attracted the attention of those in power.
In other words, a promising individual.
'The one who seizes first is the owner.'
The most crucial skill for making money is recognizing value.
Gott had a gut feeling that the boy named Vlad wouldn't be the one to stop here.
"I've cleared the debt, too."
With those words, Gott turned away.
Because more pits needed to be dug to bury the bodies of the mercenaries made last night.
"Hmm?"
As Vlad walked away from Gott and wandered around the base, he saw someone gesturing towards him.
"Priest."
It was Priest Andrea.
"What's the matter, Priest?"
"I have something I'd like your help with."
Priest Andrea smiled awkwardly and pointed to the coffin behind him.
"No one seems willing to move the coffin."
"······."
There were quite a few dead, including Knight Rodrick, in the sudden attack last night.
Those who have someone to collect their body will be placed on a wagon and buried in the cemetery, but those unable to receive proper burials were left here, forgotten.
And here, there was another coffin that nobody sought.
"······I'll do it."
"Oh. I knew you would help."
The coffin pointed out by Priest Andrea contained the woman who had been like a terrible nightmare.
"It was an ominous curse. We need to take her to Varna for further investigation."
Perhaps because he felt sorry for asking Vlad to ask something that no one wanted to do, Priest Andrea's words were getting longer.
"And as you know, isn't it too pitiful?"
"Yes."
Vlad waved his hand at the young deacon who said he would help.
"A challenging task like this is best suited for someone with strength."
"Still······."
The young deacon, whose voice was cracking as if his throat had not yet healed, retreated after Vlad's objection.
"You've already done what needed to be done with the song you sang that night."
At Vlad's words, the young deacon smiled humbly and stepped back.
"Ugh!"
Although Vlad was not very fit, he pushed the coffin around on his own and lifted it onto the cart.
She was a pitiable woman.
No one knew who she was or how she had come to such a fate, but Vlad genuinely sympathized with her.
"Come this way. I'll offer my blessings just in case."
Andrea tried to hold his hand, worried about the remnants of the curse that might still remain. But Vlad spoke.
"Wait a moment, Priest."
His hands are dirty anyway. So, it wouldn't matter if he used it at least once more.
Vlad lifted the black wooden box that Andrea had neatly wrapped with a white cloth.
A box that everyone avoided looking at directly, appearing ominous and sinister.
That wooden box was the subject of a terrible curse and was what the woman had been desperately looking for last night.
"Vlad······."
"I think it's the right thing to do."
Creak-
The improperly sealed coffin lid opened with a feeble sound.
"If this can bring some comfort."
A woman's body split in half and her face full of black tear stains.
"Isn't this okay, Priest?"
"Indeed. You have the right to do so."
Vlad placed the black wooden box on the back of the woman's stiff hand.
The wooden box held by the person controlling death contained a small corpse.
"Here is your child."
A woman and her child were murdered for the sake of the curse.
Though dead, the woman was able to get her child back, whom she had been desperately looking for.
Perhaps because of this, the stiff expression on the woman's face seemed to relax a little.
"······Should I nail it shut completely for you?"
"Sure, I'd be grateful. I'll give you a proper blessing then."
Andrea looked at Vlad, who was trying to see off the poor woman for the last time, even though his whole body was in pain, and recited a prayer for him.
A faithful priest and a faithful boy were seeing off the woman whom everyone was ignoring.
Thud, thud.
As if tolling a funeral bell for the deceased.
The sound of Vlad's hammer striking rang quietly in the middle of the base camp.
※※※※
"I've come."
On the last night before leaving the camp, Josef quietly summoned Vlad.
"Have a seat."
Vlad smiled faintly as he faced Josef and took a seat.
"Do you know how to drink?"
"The place I used to work at was a restaurant and bar."
"So, you know your way around alcohol."
Josef poured a clear brown liquid into the glass in front of Vlad.
"Is it whiskey?"
"It's my favorite drink."
Vlad smelled the sweet vanilla scent emanating from the liquor and was convinced that it was not an ordinary expensive liquor.
"I want to express my gratitude first."
Josef sat down naturally and continued speaking.
"You could have run away."
"But we made a contract."
"Yeah, we made a contract for you to trust me instead of loyalty."
Josef spun his glass on the table, continuing, "Although it was a contract in words only."
"Even so."
Josef was impressed not only by Vlad's skills but also by his straightforward nature.
'He's a talent that cannot be overlooked.'
Although he had evaluated Vlad as a useful talent, Vlad's actions last night exceeded that assessment effortlessly.
Strangely, Vlad, who had recently picked up a sword, emitted an aura and wielded it for his sake against the cursed woman who seemed like death itself.
Vlad was not just a useful one but a must-have talent.
"..."
Vlad sat tensely, unable to even touch the precious drink in front of him.
Observing Vlad's tense demeanor, Josef took a sip of the seemingly expensive whiskey as if taking medicine.
"Now it's time for me to fulfill that contract."
The relationship between a king and nobility, or the loyalty between a lord and a knight, ultimately involved some form of give and take.
And Josef had received the gift of life from Vlad.
"I was taught that I must return what I received from my father, no matter what it is."
Josef tilted the glass towards Vlad as he spoke.
"I want to invite you to the Bayezid family. I want to pay you a fair reward for this incident."
"..."
Vlad silently thought while looking at the offered glass.
There was no reason to refuse, but he needed to brace himself for what lay ahead.
"It is an honor. Lord Josef."
"Drink it."
And the boy was always looking forward to making this decision.
Someday, I will venture out of the back alleys into a broader world.
With Josef's permission, Vlad held the glass with both hands and downed the whiskey.
I will not end my life with cheap rum sold in the back alleys.
There was a day in the past when he made that promise to himself, and that promise came true today.
"Tastes good."
"It's nobleman's liquor."
Properly aged whiskey with a rich aroma was the sweetest drink Vlad had ever tasted.
Vlad's world was expanding as much as the taste of whiskey he tasted for the first time.