The Soldier and The Novelist

Night by the Roadside

Despite our expectations, the end of the vast grassland was still out of sight that day. After finishing the sandwiches that Hugh had prepared for lunch, we rode in silence throughout the afternoon. The novelist had dozed off on the back of the carriage, but when she woke up and saw the endless expanse of grassland once again, she let out a deep sigh.

As the sun began to set and the sky started to darken, I spotted a small grove by the roadside. The grass around it had been neatly trimmed, and the ground was marked by remnants of a campfire. It appeared that traveling merchants had used this spot as a resting place on their journeys. We decided to follow suit and spend the night there.

I quickly tied the horse to a nearby tree and started a fire to prepare dinner. I sautéed smoked beef, onions, and carrots in an iron pot, and placed them between slices of rye bread. I poured milk into another pot and boiled potatoes to make a soup that mercenaries often consumed for sustenance.

The novelist watched me with admiration from the back of the carriage as I worked.

“Do mercenaries also cook?”

“It’s a necessary skill on long journeys, but I can’t guarantee the taste.”

We sat around the fire on a fallen tree that served as a makeshift chair and began eating our dinner. As the novelist took a bite of the sandwich filled with meat and vegetables, she opened her eyes in surprise.

“It’s tastier than I thought.”

“That’s only at first. You’ll get tired of it after three days.”

After swallowing a mouthful of soup, I realized that it was the first time I had received a compliment from her.

After we finished dinner in silence, I brewed some coffee that Hugh had given us before our departure. The early spring night air was still chilly, so the novelist draped a blanket over her coat and sipped from a steaming cup. She looked up at the sky.

“Drinking coffee outside like this isn’t bad.”

I followed her gaze upward and saw a sky full of stars with no clouds to obstruct the view. It had been a long time since I had seen such a beautiful night sky.

“However,” the novelist suddenly said in a grumpy tone, “I can hardly say that today’s journey was comfortable.”

I felt a reproachful gaze from her over the campfire, but I ignored it and lit a cigarette.

It wasn’t my fault.

Seeing my nonchalant expression, she spoke irritably. “When will this grassland end? I hope we won’t have to see this same scenery all day tomorrow.”

“We’ll be out of it by tomorrow afternoon. But then you’ll be seeing the forest for the rest of the day, whether you like it or not.”

The novelist grimaced at my words. “Really, humanity’s means of transportation have been so stagnant for over a millennium, relying only on horses.”

“We’ve got the transcontinental railway now.”

“That’s not the point. It’s not a railway that goes from north to south.”

She always said such unreasonable things. Did she consider everything she didn’t like as inevitable evil?

“There’s no point in lamenting over what doesn’t exist.” I said in exasperation.

There was a railway line heading north from Ixlaha. However, it only went as far as the coastal city of Notsaw. You could reach it by horse-drawn carriage in about half a day, but from there, the route to our destination would be a roundabout one. Not very efficient.

The novelist pouted and vented her frustrations, “The Holy See should provide more funding to the railway companies to expand the railway network. They can’t afford to be filling up the ranks of the knights when they have bigger problems at hand.”

“I generally agree with your opinion,” I muttered to myself.

At present, the railway infrastructure in the eastern part of the country was relatively underdeveloped in comparison to the west. The west had enjoyed the initial spark of the railway business, which was fueled by the gold rush, but the trend took a while to catch on even on the other side of the continent. This was one of the biggest obstacles faced by the eastern states.

In order to safeguard the treasury, the government even went as far as to dismantle the mercenary union. I believed that it was only fair for the citizens to receive corresponding benefits.

The novelist shook her head with a sigh of exasperation.

“I’m sick of having to rely on such primitive means even now. Information can now be transmitted in an instant even across the seas,” she said gloomily.

“Information transmission?” I repeated. “Oh, you mean that transoceanic cable that’s been making headlines every day in the newspaper?”

I recalled an article that had been consistently making headlines in the newspaper. Though I wasn’t an avid newspaper reader, the size of the headlines made it difficult to forget.

The article was about the Pearl Sea Telegraph Company, a joint venture between the Papal States of Yunaria and the eastern kingdom of Belfast. They were constructing a telegraph network on the seabed of the Pearl Sea, which would allow for instantaneous transmission of information between continents. Essentially, they were bridging a distance of 2,500 miles across the sea, making communication possible in an instant.

“But haven’t they been having a lot of failures with that?” I asked, furrowing my brow.

To be honest, I was skeptical about the project. It seemed like such an unrealistic thing to bury a cable connecting continents at the bottom of that vast sea. In fact, according to the newspaper I skimmed, the project had already failed three times.

However, the novelist shook her head with a calm expression.

“There have already been successful examples of underwater cables in the east continent. In 1854, a cable was laid across the landlocked sea of Europe and is still in operation today. It’s only a matter of time before we can do it in our country as well.”

As the novelist spoke, she looked up at the northern sky.

“It’s been said that if the Aldanak Federation had cooperated, this project would have succeeded seven years ago. After all, the cable only needs to be 1,600 miles long.”

Hearing that, my suspicions began to dwindle. I found myself starting to be impressed.

“Well, it doesn’t sound like such a pipe dream after all.”

“At first, many people were critical and thought it was unrealistic. But you know, telegraph technology is advancing by leaps and bounds.”

The novelist then had a slightly proud expression on her face.

“A friend of mine who is a telegraph scientist has recently developed a new patented technology. His name is Lambell–yes, that’s his name–and he says that eventually we’ll be able to transmit even human voices through telegraphy.”

“Even human voices? Is that really true?”

“The advancement of technology is now trying to catch up with human imagination. It’s an age called ‘the breath of progress,’ so it’s not surprising that anything can be born from here on out.”

I could sense the novelist’s anticipation for the future in her gaze as she once again looked up at the sky. It was a gaze full of yearning, imagining a new era.

I too looked ahead, beyond the highway, to the far north. The land that spread beyond the darkness, the lights of the towns, and the mountains at the end of it. While imagining these things in my head, I began to think about the concept of distance.

Telegraph technology had already greatly spread within the country, and communication could now be made from one end of the Yunaria continent to the other. If you pass through the continental base stations, news of events that occurred on the west coast could now reach the east coast by the next day. And now, it might even reach other countries, even crossing the vast ocean.

And then, there was the transcontinental railway completed four years ago. Thanks to this, crossing the continent that used to take several months was shortened to just one week. I’ve even heard stories that the current fastest express train crosses it in just five days.

The local railroad network in the eastern part of the continent is still sparse for now, but it will surely become more complete eventually. It’s just a matter of time.

As time passes, distances all over the world are getting shorter and shorter.

The novelist looked up at the sky with eyes filled with longing and anticipation, but for some reason, I felt a faint sense of loneliness in the flow of that era.

For some reason, I felt like the world was getting smaller and smaller, as if distances were rapidly shrinking.

A self-deprecating smile crossed my lips. “When telegraph machines can carry people, mercenary escorts may soon become obsolete.”

In response to my words, the novelist laughed wickedly. “You say it like a joke, but it might actually happen someday. Perhaps a time may come where we can cross not only distances, but even time itself.”

“Haha, that seems like an absurd story if it goes that far.”

Feeling a bit foolish, I let out a dry laugh. However, the novelist looked up at the night sky again and said, as if lost in thought.

“Not yet, but who knows in light of the technological developments in the past decade or so. It doesn’t seem too far-fetched, does it?”

Is that really so?

I silently blew smoke from my cigarette. Perhaps it was because my imagination was poor, but I couldn’t even imagine such a future.

No, perhaps…

I may not be thinking about the future at all from now on.

Going with the flow, taking things as they come, as long as I can eat tonight’s meal, it’s all good… Maybe that’s how I’ve been living my life until now. That’s why I’ve hardly thought about what comes after eating, after slipping into bed, and after the morning comes. Let alone what will happen in the next few decades.

I stopped thinking and took a sip of coffee. The bitter taste washed away the many answers that were on hold.

Stop it.

This isn’t like me.

What I should be thinking about now is just how to protect this woman.

That’s right, I’m not a novelist or an engineer, I’m just a mercenary.

I reached for a cigarette in my pocket out of habit. It was then that I felt something strange.

The sound of grass rustling in the night breeze. In that moment, I heard it for sure.

I couldn’t help but click my tongue.

Perhaps I should have thought more carefully when I arrived at this campsite. The freshness of the burned fire pit. The footprints on the road that weren’t ruts.

…I see, so they’re waiting for us to fall asleep.

They’re a pretty admirable bunch.

“By the way, there’s another story. In the eastern continent, coal is being replaced as a fuel—”

“Barda, close your eyes.” My words reflexively interrupted her voice. The novelist’s eyes widened.

“Huh?”

“I said close your eyes.” I spoke calmly, trying to keep my voice steady. She looked confused.

“Eyes? Wait, before that, my name’s—”

“When I give the signal, open your eyes and hide behind the carriage.”

She must have felt the urgency in my tone. She closed her eyes without protest.

I cautiously reached for the bucket of water next to me, keeping an eye on our surroundings. I grabbed the handle and closed my own eyes, staying still for ten seconds.

In an instant, I poured the water from the bucket onto the fire in front of us while keeping my eyes closed.

“What the…?!”

With a loud sound of the water evaporating on the flames, I opened my eyes. Thanks to my adjustment in the darkness beforehand, my eyes could barely maintain my vision even in the descending darkness. The novelist was probably the same.

“Run!” Prompted by my voice, she stood up and headed towards the carriage.

“What the hell is going on!?”

As I put my hand on the hilt of my sword at my waist, a presence jumped out of the grass almost simultaneously.

“The woman first!” A young man’s angry shout echoed. There were three, no, four people in front of us.

Calmly assessing the situation, I sharpened my senses. I drew my sword from its sheath and assumed a fighting stance with my back against the carriage.

A small figure rushed toward us, disappearing beside me and speeding towards the carriage at a low angle. I unsheathed my sword and swung it towards the figure.

But the small man jumped over my attack by a hair’s breadth and my slash missed him. His profile, lit by the moonlight, seemed to be laughing smugly.

“Too slow…” I mumbled.

In an instant, the iron sheath of my left hand struck the man’s face.

“Aaah?!” The man cried out in a foolish voice as he was blown backwards.

The technique of using the two-sword stance with the sheath was something I had picked up from observing Gold’s fighting style. When it came to underhanded fighting techniques, that bastard’s combat skills were quite instructive.

I assessed the remaining three opponents. One was a tall, wiry man, the second was a massive, horizontally-built man, and the third was a middle-aged man with an eyepatch and an average physique. Their unique physical characteristics were unmistakable even in the dim light. I couldn’t help but smirk.

“Raaaaah!”

The lanky man, who had just clashed with the shorty I had blown away earlier, rushed at me with his long sword held high in the upper position, striking at the top of my head in the style of a bamboo splitter. However, my iron sword in my right hand met his attack from the lower position.

As sparks flew in the darkness, the lanky man’s astonished face was illuminated. His long sword was broken into two pieces from the middle of the blade and the edge spun around and disappeared into the darkness.

“You’re all amateurs, huh?”

“Ukh…”

The lanky man’s face twisted in fear at my words. I slammed the handle of my raised iron sword into his face and he fell to the ground, splattering blood from his nose.

Before the lanky man’s body hit the ground, I kicked his shoulder and leaped into the air. The target was the fat giant man. In his hand, under the moonlight, was a steel axe with an oak handle.

The giant man held his axe in the lower position and prepared to strike at me from above.

“Munn!”

In an instant, the giant man swung his axe up with all his might towards me. But I twisted my body in mid-air and narrowly avoided his strike. As I landed in his bosom, I held my iron sheath in my left hand.

With my body wide open, I swung both arms and noticed the unfolding situation. The giant man grimaced in agony.

“Bite your tongue, grit your teeth!”

With a smile, I thrust the tip of the iron sheath up towards his chin. He let out a groan like that of a pig being slaughtered, and his huge body sank into the ground.

“Well then…”

I sheathed my sword on my waist and pointed the tip of my iron sword at the man with the eyepatch.

“You’re the leader, right?”

“Ugh…”

The man with the eyepatch growled with resentment. It was he who gave the order to target the woman first.

“You dared to hurt my comrades…?!”

He drew his sword from its scabbard on his back. I sighed heavily in response to the hostility directed towards me.

“It was self-defense. Besides, I haven’t killed anyone.”

To be honest, the three I had already dispatched were quite amateurish. I wasn’t so deranged as to kill indiscriminately like some battle maniac. If I can avoid killing, that’s always the best option.

“You bastard ruined the Comanche Squad’s debut!”

The man with the eyepatch shouted in fury, and I looked at him with dead eyes.

Their debut? I see.

“You guys really are amateurs…”

With my cutting words, the eyepatch’s face, illuminated by the moonlight, turned red.

“Whether we’re amateurs or not…”

The enraged man sank deeply into the ground. He seemed intent on attacking with all the power in his body.

“…I’ll take down this Jean Gezatsky first and then—”

It wasn’t me who interrupted his words.

In front of me, surprised by the sudden turn of events, the eyepatch fell forward. Eventually, he either lost consciousness or stopped moving while lying face down.

In his place, my client, the novelist, appeared behind him. She was holding the frying pan I had used to cook earlier.

I see. She pretended to hide behind the carriage and had instead gone around and hidden in the grass.

She glanced at the fallen man and then turned to me with a nonchalant expression.

“Well, even to an amateur like me, he seemed full of holes, so I just…”

“Well, you certainly delivered an uncompromising blow.” I said with a twitching mouth, feeling a little sorry for the man.

“You really are top-notch no matter what you do,” she said, brushing her hair off her shoulder with pride.

Normally, it would be a problem if the escort target were moving around without permission, but well, given who we were dealing with, I’ll let it slide this time.

…But these guys are really pitiful too.

After surveying the people lying around me, I sheathed my sword.

“Are they bandits?” The novelist asked.

I nodded in response. “Yeah. They were probably here to target the traveling merchants who camp here.”

“I see. But why are they so weak?”

She looked genuinely puzzled. I wanted to say that it’s because I’m strong, but it was the novelist in front of me who had defeated the gang leader.

“How should I know?!” I clicked my tongue, feeling defeated.