Enkrid gathered the dead bodies in one place and waited for the patrol.
"This is some work."
He was muttering to himself as he handled the half-elf's corpse. As he fumbled to lift and move the assassin, his fingertips brushed against something strange. It was around the chest area.
When he traced it with his fingers, he felt a texture that continued to the side. He opened the man's coat and saw a throwing knife sheath meant to be worn on the body. Inside, he could also see the four remaining whistling throwing knives.
It was not a common item.
‘I almost forgot.’
It was an excellent weapon. And he had just happened to learn how to throw them. They would be useful to have.
Hadn't he experienced the power of a whistling throwing knife with his own body? He took the entire throwing knife sheath, and while he was at it, he thoroughly searched the others' clothes and took things like krona. Besides the whistling throwing knives, there was some kind of powder and a leather pouch containing something unknown.
It had a strange smell, and he felt he shouldn't touch it carelessly. If it was a poison that could take effect through mere contact, he wouldn't be able to find an antidote right away. Above all, he was reluctant to use poison in the first place, so it was an item that weighed on his mind in many ways.
Enkrid left the poison pouch as it was. Later, it was only natural that the patrolman who found Enkrid was startled enough to jump out of his skin. The troublemaker squad leader, who had vanished during his shift, had suddenly appeared with five corpses.
"What is this!"
At first, he was so surprised that he even aimed his spear.
"Spies," Enkrid explained briefly.
That was sufficient.
"I know that guy's face. He said he was a peddler's errand boy who came in four days ago."
One of the patrolmen, holding a crossbow, pointed at one of the dead men. A peddler was a merchant who traveled from place to place carrying a load he could sling over his shoulder. It was a suitable disguise.
"Didn't you check his identification tag?"
"We did. It was elaborate."
An elaborately forged identification tag. Was something like that easy to make?
Probably not.
Afterward, one of the soldiers who poked through the half-elf's clothes with the tip of his spear grimaced at the corpse with the split-open head. While Enkrid waited off to one side, the Fourth Company Commander, the Elf Company Commander, appeared. After examining the dead assassin's belongings, she spoke immediately.
"He was carrying poison. He's an assassin, all right."
It was a conclusion she reached after examining not just the poison, but his body type as well. Enkrid calmly explained the assassin's presence. That was the end of it.
The patrolmen had stared at him with suspicious eyes the entire time he waited, but the misunderstanding was short-lived.
"You took down five of them? One seems to have been quite skilled."
"These three are Jack, Bon, and Rotten."
One of the patrolmen chimed in as if he knew them. Jack was good with a spear, and Bon was agile. The general consensus among the ordinary soldiers was that Rotten was no pushover either.
Those three soldiers, plus a half-elf assassin and a soldier with a crossbow. He had faced them all, yet he wasn't seriously injured. A few scratches were all he had.
"... Alone?" the patrolman asked, forgetting the presence of the company commander next to him.
That was how shocked he was.
"It just happened that way."
Enkrid replied and looked at the company commander. The Elf Company Commander was silent. There was no change in her expression.
She simply stared at Enkrid with her jewel-like green eyes.
"Understood. Return to your post."
"Yes, sir."
He gave a military salute and turned around. As she watched him go, the Elf Company Commander spoke.
"You deserted your post, so you'll have to make up for it later."
Her words were as sharp as a knife. To bring up his desertion of duty in a situation like this. The three patrolmen glanced at each other.
Enkrid, however, just nodded his head silently.
"Yes, I understand."
The company commander was his superior. Arguing would only be a waste of breath. There were those in the unit who were fiercely strict about military law and regulations.
The Elf Company Commander didn't seem to be that type, but if she said so, wasn't it a subordinate's duty to listen? There was nothing to be gained from being stubborn.
"Then I'll be on my way."
Only then did Enkrid walk away from the scene. Two days later, two members of the frontier garrison came looking for Enkrid again. The on-site investigation within the city was the responsibility of the frontier garrison, so this was a move to investigate the scene.
Enkrid cooperated with everything in earnest.
"They attacked suddenly."
"Did you know something when you left your post?"
"That's not it. The two of them seemed awkward, but I just wanted to get some air."
"So, leaving your post just happened to lead to uncovering spies? These two seem to have been killed with a single strike."
"They tried to kill me out of the blue."
"And yet you subdued them without getting hurt?"
The two garrison members' questions were sharper than expected, but Enkrid was unfazed. Since he was the only one who had seen it happen and survived, it was only natural.
"Yes, I was lucky."
"If you're lucky a second time, you'll bring down the city walls. It means there was that much of a skill gap."
One of the two made a flat joke. Neither of them was saying it out of suspicion for Enkrid. Suspecting the target of a surprise attack was ridiculous.
Above all, it was also thanks to the frontier garrison having already done a thorough background check on Enkrid. An investigation that had been completed when they had tried to recruit him into their unit.
"You went through a lot."
"Heard you were promoted to high-rank? Congratulations."
"Yes, thank you."
Both of them outranked him. The ranks in the frontier garrison were just like that.
"Are you really sure you don't want to come here? It's a waste of your talent."
As the investigation ended and they were about to leave, the short-haired garrison member spoke.
"Yes."
The curt reply cut him off.
"Uh, right."
Enkrid returned to his quarters. As he opened the door, something suddenly swooped down from above his head on the right. Enkrid instinctively twisted his body to the side to dodge it.
After dodging, he lowered his stance completely and rolled. He had barely avoided it, and a part of his hair was cut off. He thought he had managed to dodge whatever flew at him, and when he looked to see what it was...
"Oh, you passed the ambush dodge test!"
He saw Rem speaking with a smirk. The culprit was the axe Rem had swung.
"Rem, you crazy bastard."
It was an act that deserved a curse. Enkrid's severed hair fluttered and fell through the air. If he had been a little slower, he would have had a tattoo left somewhere on his neck by the axe blade.
A tattoo that comes with gushing blood—a scar.
"Don't you worry. Even if you couldn't dodge, I was only planning on cutting a bit of your hair."
"Let's not even talk about it."
There were many crazy people in the world, but a few of the most viciously insane ones were in his squad. Enkrid had realized that fact long ago, so he didn't even get angry.
"Now that even assassins are coming after you, shouldn't you learn how to prepare for ambushes?"
"That's a fine excuse."
Enkrid shook his head.
"Looks like it's time for a haircut, isn't it?"
Rem said, swaggering. It was indeed time to trim his hair. His bangs would often subtly cover his eyes.
He hadn't noticed when facing the half-elf before, as he had been in a state of high concentration and preparing several moves to deceive his opponent, but it had become bothersome in daily life.
"I'd appreciate it," Enkrid said.
It wasn't Rem who stepped forward. Krais approached from behind.
"Alright."
Krais was surprisingly good with his hands. The other guys could handle weapons like swords and axes amazingly well, but if you asked them to cut someone's hair, they'd create a bizarre shape.
"I'll make the bangs a bit short and trim the rest appropriately."
A short dagger, scissors, and a comb made of horn were Krais's equipment.
"That'll be ten bronze coins."
"It's gotten more expensive."
"My skills have improved. If you don't like it, you can go to the city barbershop."
He didn't want that. The barbershops in the city were expensive, and their skills were even worse than Rem's. There was no reason to go and pay twice as many krona. Instead, the city barbershops had become places sought by the injured rather than those needing a haircut, as they had better means of treating wounds.
"Alright, let's begin."
Snip, snip.
The sound of hair being cut soon began to fill his ears. He was sitting on a chair pulled out right in front of the barracks entrance. White snowflakes had begun to fall from above.
Rem, who was watching Enkrid from the side, grumbled.
"Like the devil's shit powder."
When it snowed, they would be busy clearing the training yard and drainage ditches for a while. That was a task that was equal for everyone. Not Rem, not Ragna, could escape the labor.
If they didn't clear the snow, a mountain of troublesome things would pile up.
"I hate it."
Ragna, who had come out at some point, also spoke, wrapping a blanket around his shoulders.
"It is quite cold."
Jacksen next to him was the same.
"No matter how much you warm your body, this kind of cold is always hard to bear, my brother."
Audin came out too. Why were they all out here watching? It was usually less cold when it snowed, but today the temperature had dropped unusually.
Sitting outside, his lips turned blue.
"Oof, my hands are shaking. If I make a mistake, I might cut off an ear."
Krais, who was cutting his hair, said.
"I can hear you."
"That's how focused I am."
Krais warmed his hands with a moderately heated stone and concentrated on cutting the hair. Enkrid was watching the falling snow and thinking about the spies. 'How did they get in?'
The one who came in as a peddler had forged an identification tag. The half-elf had snuck in secretly. Border Guard was a city that was harder to infiltrate than one might think.
And forging an identification tag was a serious crime. Neither was something that could be done easily. Above all, it was also strange that Jack, Bon, and Rotten had turned into spies.
'Where were those three from again?' He felt like he had heard it somewhere.
"You know the three who died this time, right?"
Enkrid asked.
Krais nodded, then realized Enkrid couldn't see him from behind and answered.
"Yes, I know them."
"Do you know where they're from?"
"Jack was serving his sentence after being caught for pickpocketing, and Bon was for insulting a noble, I think."
"He was a good fellow."
At the mention of insulting a noble, Rem threw in a word.
"Yeah, right."
Enkrid scoffed at Rem. Rem pretended not to hear, and Krais continued.
"I heard Rotten was a guard for some merchant guild."
"What merchant guild?"
"He said it was a guild that went bankrupt a long time ago, what was it again?"
All three had arrived around the same time, within the last year. Krais, true to his role as an informant, knew a lot. 'If someone intentionally had them infiltrate...'
A place that could forge identification tags, was knowledgeable about the city's back alleys, and was familiar with crime. Was such a group common? Within Border Guard, there were a few obvious places.
If it was the largest among them...
'The Thieves' Guild.' They called it a guild, but it was a gathering of guys involved in all sorts of crimes. Moreover, hadn't there been a complete overhaul about a year ago? He had heard such a story somewhere. When he asked Krais, he said such a rumor had been going around, but even he couldn't dig into the details. Enkrid's gaze turned to Jacksen. "Do you know anything about the Thieves' Guild?"
It was a question out of the blue. Jacksen silently looked at Enkrid.
"Why are you asking me that?"
"Because I think you might know."
Why else?
From how to throw knives to how to train his senses. Enkrid knew how to use his head. No matter how unintentional it was, he could roughly guess Jacksen's background.
A thief, or a profession related to assassination. Or something similar. So he had to ask.
Jacksen was silent for a moment. Enkrid stopped Rem with a look before he could say anything. Ragna watched with his usual half-lidded eyes, and Audin stood quietly with his hands clasped, as if waiting for an answer.
Snip, snip.
Krais broke the silence as he finished cutting the hair.
"I'd like to know too. You think the assassination attempt on the Squad Leader started there, right?"
Krais was exceptionally quick-witted. In fact, for those who had directly taken in the unfolding situation, it was a reasonable suspicion. Even more so for those who knew how to use their heads.
Krais was quick on the uptake. Also, having rolled around in the lower class, he was bound to know things. Therefore, Krais thought Enkrid's suspicion was plausible.
Soon, Jacksen's mouth opened. He thought he would ask for something in return, but that wasn't it.
"There was an overhaul about a year ago. I don't know anything after that. All the strings I had were cut."
It was worth looking into. That was what Enkrid thought.
"Finished," Krais said soon after.
In the time it took to cut his hair, the snow had started to pour down heavily.
"Ah, I really hate this."
"I hate it too."
"I agree."
"My brother, it is a trial from the Lord."
"It's really coming down like crazy."
Rem, Ragna, Jacksen, Audin, and Krais, in that order, spoke towards the falling snow. Watching them, Enkrid said, "I'm thinking of establishing an operation under the Squad Leader's discretionary authority. Instead of shoveling snow, we'd head out immediately."
At those words, the five's ears perked up. Ten pairs of eyes stared at Enkrid like hungry wolves. It seemed they would do anything as long as they didn't have to shovel snow.
"First, I'll get the company commander's permission."
Enkrid said as he brushed the cut hair from his face.
"Get going."
"What are you still doing here?"
"This way, sir."
They all urged him to go quickly. Enkrid thought it was best to act while the idea was fresh. He also didn't want to go into the barracks and be tormented by the fierce glares of those five.
After melting the newly fallen snow to wash the hair off his face, Enkrid went straight to the company commander's barracks.
"You cut your hair. But why are you here? Were you ambushed again?"
Was the ambush part a joke? The company commander's words made Enkrid hesitate.
"That's not it."
"Then?"
"I suspect the Thieves' Guild. I want to investigate."
The Elf Company Commander had a private room. She stood with her hands behind her back, looking at the falling snow through the window, and spoke.
"What does that mean?"
"I'd like to undertake a discretionary operation."
"Hmm."
The Elf Company Commander continued to stare out the window with her hands behind her back and asked, "This isn't just because you don't want to shovel snow, is it?"
"That is not the reason."
Half of it was true, but the other half was also true. So there was nothing to trouble his conscience.
"Fine."
The Elf Company Commander's permission was granted.
"You'll have to be careful. The criminal guilds in the city are very good at dealing with those higher up."
As she spoke, she raised her right index finger and pointed at the ceiling. In a military city, there was a battalion commander instead of a mayor, but the battalion commander wasn't the only one. There were also a few nobles dispatched by the state to handle administrative affairs.
They were the key figures of power in Border Guard.
"It won't be good for you if you get on their bad side."
Politics coming from an elf's mouth. It was very awkward, but Enkrid accepted the advice.
"Yes, sir."
"When you leave, take a wide detour around the torch stand. This is my room. It would be troublesome if you started a fire."
There was a short torch stand in the company commander's quarters. Thanks to it, the air was warm.
"Yes, I'll be careful."
As he replied, Enkrid thought that he would never get used to the elf's jokes.