Chapter 6

When people talk about orcs, they’ve been the go-to synonym for “villain” in adventure stories since forever. They’re a savage race that does whatever they want—raiding villages, kidnapping beautiful women, you name it. Depending on the work, they might have a cannibalistic culture or treat women like playthings. They possess a level of brutality that’s no joke, and whether or not you can take one down is usually what determines your status as a warrior.

They were several times worse than bandits; ugly monsters that were occasionally gifted with human-like cunning. When I first learned that being a knight who exterminated such creatures was an actual job, I let my childhood lack of foresight run wild and got all fired up.

After all, it was a knight’s job. I’d take down the bad guys, get thanked by the villagers, and surely get confessed to by the most beautiful girl in town. Since hero stories are basically built on that premise, I couldn’t suppress my surging admiration and sprinted down the path of the sword.

However, once I actually joined the order, a reality vastly different from my imagination was waiting for me.

Orcs had excellent muscle strength and reflexes; even with a weapon, a struggle was inevitable. In other words, fighting them head-on like in a heroic epic was the height of stupidity.

Knights usually fight fair and square, but the orc-hunting manuals were a parade of wretched, underhanded tricks—as if to say you’d be a fool to bring chivalry into a fight against animals. To be blunt, there wasn’t a scrap of glamour to be found; it was just the kind of dirty work no one wanted to do.

It was at this point that I finally caught a glimpse of the reason why the “Pig-Hunt Knights” were founded.

In short, the knights of a hundred years ago had faced these monsters head-on with their “chivalry” and suffered a crushing defeat.

They realized they had no chance of winning in a frontal assault, but they couldn’t exactly say that out loud. Yet, their peculiar brand of upper-class pride wouldn’t allow them to adopt petty tactics either. So, they undoubtedly started claiming, “This isn’t work fit for a knight.”

Those guys weighed the safety of the citizens against their own precious hides and chose the latter.

What’s more, they kept that a total secret and drilled only the official pretext into future generations.

I had a contact in the knighthood—someone I wasn’t particularly close with, unlike my two friends—secretly look into the list of those who died in the line of duty. I found that around the time orc damage began to surface, several knights had “died in accidental line-of-duty mishaps.” And the families of those deceased knights were all people who had drafted the proposal for the formation of the “Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights”… At this point, even without the details, it wasn’t hard to imagine what had happened.

Well, the past didn’t really matter. We, as an order, had to deal with the orcs right in front of us, and while it wasn’t glamorous, it was a fact that we were protecting the safety of the people living in orc habitats. That was the most important part of this job, too.

For this knighthood, which lacked both honor and a decent salary, our only pride was that we could protect people.

“So, the orcs are holed up in a cave this time… What’s the scale of it?”

Commander Luger—no, Vice Commander Rony, who always acted as the coordinator for the orc subjugation strategy meetings, glanced at the scout unit. The head of the scout unit gave a small nod and stood up to report.

“Sir! It appears this cave was formed by ancient volcanic activity. According to the locals, the interior has a very complex structure. There are countless holes large enough for a person to pass through, and if you include the ones too narrow to fit, there’s no telling how far it extends. Through our investigation, we’ve identified four holes being used as entrances and exits, but considering past witness accounts, there’s a possibility that more exist.”

“How troublesome. It would be simple if it were like an ant nest with only one entrance… With these things, if you miss even one hole when sealing them off, they’ll just escape perfectly through there… Haaaaa…”

As soon as he heard the report, Vice Commander Rony let out a sigh that seemed deeper than the cave itself.

Characterized by his sunken cheeks and high-quality glasses, the Vice Commander was the only person of noble birth in the Pig-Hunt Knights.

The reason a member of the privileged class was in a commoner’s order like the Pig-Hunt Knights was due to the “privileged executive slot” that always existed. It served as a way to monitor the commoners to ensure they didn’t do anything reckless, and functioned as a place of exile. In short, he wasn’t here by choice.

Supposedly, he was appointed to this order about ten years ago.

Because he was serious—far, far too serious—he had snapped at the Commander of the Holy Boot Knights, and he’d been drifted down here as an example to others.

He was probably someone who couldn’t stand the political corruption of the knighthoods. Since a man like that had to act as the Commander’s proxy and lead a pig hunt in a place like this, I truly felt sorry for him.

He had a family, but because our dispatch rate was overwhelmingly higher than other orders, he rarely got to see them. His private room was filled with nothing but letters and “photos” of his family—apparently the latest style of portraits utilizing magical science.

I had once been told by him in a drunken stupor, “You have a friendship with the Second Prince, don’t you?! If so, get me back into the Holy Boot Knights… No, actually, just give me a promotion to the Holy Shield Knights so I don’t have to live away from my family… Forget it, please forget everything I just said.” Having heard that, just looking at him made me feel pathetic.

However, as a practical matter, this mission was quite a pain.

This orc subjugation request came from a village in the mountain shadows of the eastern part of the country.

Apparently, sightings of orcs in the mountains had increased; the villagers couldn’t hunt, their wild vegetables were being ravaged, and they were at their wit’s end. Furthermore, this mountain was known as a producer of high-quality fragrant wood. If they couldn’t ship the trees they had painstakingly raised, they wouldn’t be able to make a living. They were in a truly desperate state.

And the result of the actual local investigation was the existence of that vast cave mentioned earlier.

It seemed the orcs were using this cave to appear all over the mountain, snatching up wild animals and any edible greenery they could find. Their range of activity was simply too wide.

There was no doubt they had a base of operations inside the cave, but with it being this large, even if we cornered them, they’d just escape through an opening we didn’t know about. No, to begin with, given the orcs’ footwork, it might be difficult even to locate the heart of the colony.

“Aah… even though this mission looks like it’ll take so much time, if we don’t finish this job within three days, we won’t make it in time to participate in the Autumn Imperial Matches… There’s a limit to how unreasonable this can get!”

“Yeah, our circumstances really put us at a disadvantage. Over there, the participants for the Imperial Matches can enter the Royal Capital early and practice thoroughly. But on our end, we can’t exactly go on an orc subjugation without the elite fighters who are capable of competing in those matches.”

Senior Garmon, the head of the commando unit, grumbled with an exhausted expression while leaning his elbows on the table.

Even though orc subjugation basically involved using underhanded tricks, there were plenty of cases where you had to crush them head-on depending on the situation. Therefore, within all the knight orders, only the Pig-Hunt Knights faced a high risk if they carried out a mission without their Imperial Match participants.

Ensuring we avoided this risk was a standing order from Commander Luger.

—Keep the possibility of casualties to an absolute minimum.

—We must never allow ourselves to become nothing more than the Kingdom’s consumables.

—That was the sole bit of stubborn pride held by the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights.

It was a shared consciousness throughout the entire order.

If we were forced into grueling labor just because we were lured in by the sweet nectar of being “commoner knights,” we’d end up as nothing more than convenient puppets for the privileged class. That was exactly why our order needed to dig in our heels and maintain our pride, no matter what people called us.

…However, a man like Commander Luger always had a punchline ready after dropping such cool-sounding words.

That punchline was as follows:

—Since we’re keeping up that pride, it’s a given that we’ll win the Imperial Matches, right?

—I mean, we’ve got the most actual combat experience out of all the knight orders.

—We absolutely cannot back down here. We’re going with our strongest lineup for the matches, no exceptions.

—Oh, and just so you know, you have to balance reducing risk with increasing returns.

In short: maximize our win rate at the Imperial Matches, but don’t you dare let the strength of the orc-hunting units drop because of it—so finish the job and be back in time for the matches. …That bearded geezer really talked a lot of nonsense.

“Last year was rough. We made it in time for the matches, but the members were all so exhausted they weren’t in any state to compete.”

“How did we even win the championship? My memory’s completely blanked out on that part.”

“Let’s see… Varna-kun, our vanguard, went on a rampage like a demon god and took down all five knight orders by himself, if I recall correctly.”

“You were in such a hurry to live fast in your first year, Varna-kun… What, do you just love making legends or something?”

“The path I walked just happened to become a legend on its own. It was a pain.”

Senior Rock and the others around me showered me with looks of awe, but it had been such a horrific battle that even I didn’t think I could win. It was a memory I dreaded recalling.

Who could have imagined that a first-year recruit would be selected as one of the five participants for the Imperial Matches, where the top tiers of the Five Great Knight Orders faced off? Especially while battered and on the verge of death. On top of that, it was a round-robin battle where all the matches finished in a single day, so I felt like I’d been shoved into an abyss when I learned the vanguard had to fight at least four times.

“Just so you know, back then, I went in there ready to massacre every single knight. I got words of praise from His Majesty the King, but my buddy and the Queen were actually looking a bit creeped out. I’m never doing it under those conditions again!”

I had honestly wanted to give up and just collapse, but the Imperial Matches were a high-profile event watched by everyone in the Royal Palace, every soldier in the Kingdom, every member of the privileged class, students from the officers’ academy, and even the knights’ families. Because I’d been scouted as a genius swordsman, the expectations from those around me were insane. More importantly, if I put up a pathetic showing, it would result in a “killer pass” to the seniors who were in even worse physical shape than I was. If I’d done that, I might have actually been killed later.

The moment the match started, I switched modes from “Orc-Slayer” to “Knight-Slayer”… and when I finally came to my senses, the Commander of the Kingdom’s strongest Holy Boot Knights was lying there with his eyes rolled back. I don’t remember it at all, but apparently, I took him down in a single blow.

Note that the people around me must have sensed the danger in my bloodshot eyes, because after the matches ended, the participants were granted a three-day vacation. I slept like a log on my cheap bed as if trying to forget everything.

I felt that experiencing that once was more than enough, but it was Vice Commander Rony’s duty to order it again if the worst came to the worst.

“I really put you through nothing but hardship… But, if it comes down to it, I’ll have to make you do it one more time!! I’m sorry, I’m sorry for being such a useless boss…!”

“C-Calm down, Vice Commander! Varna isn’t exactly blaming you or anything, right!?”

“Hey, Varna! You say something clever too!! Otherwise, this man is going to enter ‘Penance Time’ while muttering his wife and kids’ names again!!”

“I-I get it… Ahem. Vice Commander Rony!!”

Out of necessity, I raised my voice and called the Vice Commander’s name.

The Vice Commander, already shedding tears, snapped his head up and looked at me. He was probably the only knight who looked this haggard. Because the Commander was swamped with paperwork in the interior, the Vice Commander—the top official for the field units—was the busiest person in the order, with no time to even see his family.

A man struggling to protect his family even though his path to promotion was effectively severed, versus a youngster like myself who didn’t have any burdens yet.

If there was anything I could offer the Vice Commander, it was perhaps my youth.

Raising my sword and following the knight’s salute, I made my declaration.

“Knight Varna—if it is the Vice Commander’s order, then on the name of the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights! I shall create a legend or two with my own hands!!”

“Varnaaaa-kuuunnnn!!!!”

The Vice Commander lunged at me, spraying tears and snot as he clung to me, and continued to sob uncontrollably for the next ten minutes.

There wasn’t a single person there who laughed at him.

…Actually, since they were mostly the ones causing him trouble, they were probably just overcome with guilt.

If you flip over a moving story, it’s often just a comedy.

As for the orc-clearing operation, Nonoka-san proposed a plan, and we managed to succeed by placing as many of the newly developed “Anti-Monster Poison Dumplings” as possible throughout the mountain.

However, while this plan settled things in a short period, it would end up creating a major side effect and a heavy price… but I wouldn’t hear about that until after the Imperial Matches were over and I’d returned to headquarters.