120

On the second day after entering the Kingdom of Canaan’s territory.

I kept to stealth as a rule and moved along smoothly without being seen.

My destination was the same Canaan–Seizeria trade route as last time.

Using the same point over and over would surely cause problems later, but for now it was the only place I knew.

I slipped past the mercenary town and skulked east.

On the way I spotted a worrisome group—an armed column heading south with a mass of wagons—which could only look like they were concentrating troops in the town.

“Has Canaan finally come to blows with Seizeria?”

I muttered, tilting my head as I watched them go.

By the way, over half of their gear didn’t match, so the core was mercenaries, not soldiers.

There were also a fair number in uniform armor that looked like regulars, so perhaps it was a transport detachment or something similar.

In any case, after letting that grim procession pass, I reached the same spot as before without incident.

I hid my pack and began scouting to check the surroundings.

It was still high noon, so I couldn’t push it, but as long as I didn’t step out onto the open grassland it should be fine.

Threading slickly through the trees, I caught a smell that pricked my nose.

(…Blood. Probably human.)

I judged it different from an animal’s by the odor and the sound.

For blood to hang in the air and yet things to be this quiet—it even made me think the person was already dead.

The guess hit the mark: following the scent brought me to a man’s corpse lying in a pool of blood.

“Hm… no sign his belongings were taken…”

His shoulder bag was still on him; his throat had been cut.

There was blood on his legs too, so they likely slashed his legs first to stop him running, then cut his throat.

(A corpse left here with its belongings untouched, huh.)

By the look of things, it was a body with… circumstances.

Nothing had eaten it, so I figured it had been a day or so since death, but a body left all alone in a place like this was a mystery.

I decided to rummage the belongings and stepped closer.

One pocket was soaked in blood, so I didn’t touch it.

I found a few copper coins that looked Seizerian, some rations and water, a few daily items, and a letter.

Amusingly, the letter was written in the Canaan Kingdom language.

(Aha—so, a person who went back and forth between both countries and had ties in each would be…)

Either a spy, or a criminal doing smuggling and the like.

Given the times, it could also be a failed attempt at illegal entry.

Since the valuables were intact, that seemed the likelier read.

“In that case, there’s a route like that around here…”

I murmured and looked around.

For caution’s sake I focused my hearing, but picked up no human sounds.

Still, if there was a path people used nearby, leaving my pack close to it would carry some risk.

Forced to change my stash spot, I grudgingly headed back under my hidden pack.

I confirmed my rucksack was intact, took a breath, and read the letter I’d just taken.

Even if I wasn’t great at listening comprehension, reading text like this was no problem.

So I thought—but there were more unknown words than expected, and in the end all I grasped was that the dead man had tried to smuggle something and failed, which led to this.

He seemed to have hired a guide to slip out illegally; their exchange was in the letter, and the line “I don’t take payment after, but I might accept half of your sale price when you move the goods” suggested the cargo had been high-value.

“I see—so they didn’t bother with pocket change,” I nodded.

I didn’t have time to play detective, but I passed a while analyzing the scene like reading a short mystery.

Keeping alert, practicing magic, I reached the twist that “the culprit had been a con man after the contraband all along—not a guide!”—and then the sun went down.

Once dark, I could move boldly.

Campfires and the like made easy beacons, so finding targets got easier.

In other words, night was the time to act—and after lecturing myself with confidence, I achieved nothing.

“Yeah, there are days like that.”

At dawn I trudged back into the copse and, weaving through tree gaps too tight for this body, casually bagged a few wild birds.

It had been a while since I’d had bird meat.

In the forest they were mostly small birds and not easy to catch.

Canaan, though, had limited habitats for that wild bullet, the flying stakefish, so I could nab birds of decent size like this.

I’d love to find chickens again, but wild ones required very specific conditions.

For today, I’d be content with these.

Plucking—right, that was actually pretty hard—so after the sun was well up and breakfast finished: good morning.

And good night.

For a few days I’d be active mainly at night, so I’d likely sleep mornings.

So when I woke, noon had long passed.

All right—time to train with my recovered mana and hunt to make up for the modest breakfast.

I hunted through the grove, lighting alternating flames on my fingertips.

The close spacing of the trees made it a pain, but I managed to take two rabbits.

While grilling the cut meat, I felt a presence at a distance.

(…Human voices.)

The direction matched the corpse I’d found yesterday, so maybe someone had discovered it and shouted.

I hesitated over checking it out… but I was mid-lunch.

Hasty cleanup only leads to sloppy work.

“Tch, none of my business,” I decided, and kept grilling.

Rabbit was plain, so I preferred a heavy seasoning.

I was pondering whether I could get spices in the Council-State while focusing on the meat when I noticed one sound heading my way.

“Ugh, what a pain,” I swallowed the honest complaint, pinched the tongs between two fingers, and stared that way.

Then I heard a voice bawling like a scolding roar.

It was in the Canaan tongue, so I caught part of it; it was probably saying,

“Don’t you use fire out here, you idiot!”

A fair point, I had to admit.

But I didn’t stop the barbecue.

If I stopped just because a human said something, they’d realize I understood their words.

I had no intention of revealing information to this side’s people yet.

So I ignored him and kept grilling, and sensed the sound I’d been tracking drawing closer.

I stood once and used my telescopic sight; I saw a middle-aged hunter with a bow.

It would be inconvenient to have my presence exposed here.

I grabbed a handy stone from the ground, wound up big, and threw it so it wouldn’t hit the hunter.

The rock slammed into a tree trunk in front of him; seeing that, he panicked and ran, and I ignored him as I laid the last slice on the griddle.

It missed the mark by a lot, but since it didn’t hit him, fine by me.

I hadn’t expected things to go so perfectly to plan, but when they did, it felt good.

I even started hoping I might find a caravan tonight.

After lunch, I cleaned up and lay down in the grove again.

One more nap until night—once in a while, lazing around like this wasn’t bad.