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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 6
Chapter Title: Black-Haired Knight King 6
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Purruluk!
"Shh."
I'd been chasing them hard for a good while, tracking their trail.
And just as I'd suspected, the group—including two young foals—was heading straight for the clearing in the valley where Red Iron had gone into hiding.
This was a path no one could take unless they'd been here before or heard about it from someone.
I quietly dismounted, tying cloth around the deer's hooves to muffle the sound.
Then I spoke to the tense girl.
"Hold the reins tight."
"...Yes."
Deer are clever creatures.
If a fight broke out, it would flee the area faster than anything.
And the girl riding it showed no panic, focusing intently on the situation.
Sabak, sabak, sabak.
The snow from yesterday had hardened underfoot.
Footprints layered atop it.
About ten people, a mix of armed adult men and women.
No matter how I looked at it, they didn't seem to have good intentions toward the hideout.
Click.
I fastened the King's Sword to my side.
Checking my fingers' condition for a quick draw, I quickened my pace.
I'd hoped nothing like this would happen before I could teach her the sword.
I swallowed the bitter taste in my mouth and entered the basin leading deeper into the valley.
"- - - - - - -."
Unlike the barren valley, this green basin held lush greenery and a small ecosystem.
In its center stood a ramshackle wooden forge, where Red Iron's furnace burned 24 hours a day, melting the snow.
Sniff, sniff.
But today, instead of the comforting smell of the furnace, a nauseating drug stench assaulted my nose, clouding my mind.
Yes, a familiar scent.
The heretic barbarians, always steeped in drugs, killing and raping humans.
They were defiling the very last sanctuary they should never approach.
"Come out when I call you."
Something had definitely happened.
Thinking of Red Iron, whom I hadn't seen in a while, I hid the girl—flat against the deer's back—in the underbrush.
With a warning not to move, I slowly approached the forge.
"Oi mare! bie Qu!"
I could see them, hear them.
Heretic barbarian scum, deer hides and antlers flipped over their heads, spouting unknown words.
Eleven in number, as I'd guessed, loading something onto a cart.
The cargo was refined steel ingots.
"Bi Bi seh?"
"Oooo!!"
Where had the forge's owner gone, leaving these heretic barbarians to steal the ore?
A surge of disgust rose in me, but I quickly regained my composure.
Red Iron was nowhere to be seen.
I couldn't draw my sword and charge recklessly without confirming his safety.
Judging swiftly, I pushed through the familiar underbrush toward the back of the forge.
The barbarians were too busy hauling materials strewn across the forge yard to notice.
Thanks to that, no one spotted the intruder in the back yard with its other door.
Creeak.
I gripped the hinges and quietly opened the back door.
A chill hit my face, carrying the barbarians' drug stench.
The furnace had lost its warmth, dust piled on the anvil.
Red Iron, who had swung his hammer without fail for decades, was gone.
Vanished.
Shring—!
With a blank expression, I twisted my head, loosening the knotted muscles in my shoulders.
My boiling mind cooled as much as my chilled heart.
Dead?
Captured?
The swirling thoughts sank quietly beneath the surface.
I drew my sword silently.
Then crossed the center of the cold forge with steady steps and opened the front door.
Thud!
"- - - - - - -?"
They were deep in their work.
But my sudden appearance startled them, heads whipping toward me.
Grinning at the sight of me alone.
Wearing unprocessed beast hides, they were no different from beasts themselves.
"Que?"
Who are you? Or, is there another?
Incomprehensible words, but their meaning came through clear enough.
Ignoring it, I pointed to where Red Iron should be and asked.
"Where did you take him?"
The barbarians looked at each other.
Then, with unfocused eyes, they cackled and picked up their weapons from the ground.
They seemed to understand my words too.
But their answer was this.
"kuaaaaa - - - -!!"
The burly one who looked like a sub-leader charged first.
His weapon: a wooden club fitted with deer antlers.
The tips were caked with flesh and blood from countless crushed skulls.
But he'd overlooked something.
Ting!
Slash—!
I deflected the club with my blade.
Before it could fly away, I twisted and severed the fingers gripping the handle.
Four fingers floated in the air, as if fresh from a guillotine.
The leader's foolish face split into two pieces.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Purruluk!
"Shh..., easy now."
The deer, instinctively repulsed by the unfolding slaughter, tried to bolt.
But the girl pressed flat against the saddle stroked and soothed it.
I'd told her to wait far off in the brush, yet she'd sneaked closer.
In the forge's front yard, her master was already turning it into a bloodbath with a single sword.
"Aaaahk—!"
Blood and flesh flew everywhere.
No mercy in the strikes to their necks.
But the girl wasn't watching the brutality—she followed the blade's movements.
Light as the wind, yet fierce with its sharpened edge.
Parries that struck only the flat to preserve the blade felt like a textbook sword manual.
Not for orcs.
Made purely for humans.
Her pupils tracked the motions, heart pounding.
Blending with the sword bit by bit, the girl imprinted every technique into her mind from the deer's warm saddle.
It wasn't mere learning—it was an imprint that saved her soul.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
To me, Red Iron had always been the sole blacksmith forging my swords, my greatest ally over the past eight years.
No—now that I'd brought the final candidate, he was my last one.
But these heretic barbarians had popped up out of nowhere, dragging that ally to their filthy lair and stealing every ingot he'd amassed over a lifetime.
Unbelievable.
After all his contributions and devotion to humanity, to suffer at the hands of these vermin?
I suppressed the rising fury once more and turned to the rear.
"S-spare... m-me...!"
I'd killed all but one.
That one had all his tendons severed and bound to a rope for the deer to drag.
The barbarian groaned in agony as he was pulled over the rough ground.
This last one would guide us to the lair where Red Iron was held.
Clack, clack, clack.
Purruluk!
The base wasn't far.
I'd wondered how they'd found the hideout, but there was an old abandoned camp nearby.
While I was away, they'd swarmed like roaches hatching eggs, slowly building their numbers.
No predators hunting them nearby—they thought it was their world.
The moment we arrived, I spoke to the girl fidgeting on the saddle.
"Get down."
"......!"
She'd been quietly gauging my mood, reaching for the leader's club in the loot bag.
Seeking a weapon to help, even a little—innate guts and courage.
But I firmly took the club and advised the flushed girl.
"I'll handle this as quietly as possible, so wait here obediently."
The survivor said over fifty barbarians lived at the base.
Not a number I couldn't handle one by one, but without knowing Red Iron's condition, I couldn't risk a commotion.
"- - - - - - - -."
The sun was already setting.
Winter nights were long—once we moved, full darkness would fall.
I could secure Red Iron then and slip away quietly.
I grabbed a few crude daggers from the loot bag and told the dejected girl.
"Once the sword's ready, I'll teach you properly. Don't be disappointed."
"Ah...!"
Joy lit her face plain as day.
Still just a kid.
With a faint smile, I handed her the reins and melted into the shadows.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
The world drowned in darkness.
The sharp early winter chill drove even the barbarians into their huts early.
They used the abandoned camp as a base but were too lazy for proper palisades or guards.
Easy enough to slip inside the perimeter and scout the area.
The base interior was filthy.
Manure and stench everywhere, corpses left to rot.
The acrid smell suggested they'd cooked and eaten human flesh—their traditional custom.
If Red Iron was dead, I'd decapitate them all and burn the bodies.
With cold eyes, I scanned the camp and headed for a hut reeking less of drugs.
But then, a voice called from not far away.
"Wh-who is it?"
Not barbarian tongue.
Pure Northern speech.
Confirming no one around, I approached the source.
There, a crude iron cage dug deep into the dirt floor came into view.
"A-are you from outside? Please, get us out of here...!"
"Shh."
They'd dug a pit prison into the earth.
I warned him to keep quiet and eyed the man reaching through the bars.
Gaunt face, hair matted with filth.
The stench stabbed my nose; rotting corpses inside added to it.
They'd crammed captured settlers here like a warehouse.
I asked the tight-lipped man.
"A blacksmith was taken—one with red beard, height about this. Know where?"
The man wasn't in his right mind.
But survival instinct remained; he reacted, pupils trembling.
To get out, he needed to give info.
Understanding that, he pointed through the bars at a hut.
"I-I saw him go in this morning."
This morning.
High chance he's alive.
I noted the particularly large hut, then gave the anxious man a dagger.
"Stay put and wait."
Freeing them first could cause chaos in the camp.
Leaving without them might make him panic and act out.
But handing him that dagger prevented all that.
Arm him the same, make him feel included.
A trick I'd learned wrangling greenhorns.
I left the nodding man behind and slowly approached the hut.