Surviving as a Knight in a Trash Game

Chapter 171

The path I was taking alone made my heart pound for the first time in a while.

‘It really has been a long time.’

Back when I moved as a Free Knight, this kind of thing was routine, but now, I was in a situation where escorts always had to follow me.

"Everything is good, Sir Karl, but."

"That's enough."

Unlike my comfortable expression, Sancho, with a face full of dissatisfaction, clearly didn't like the current journey.

"I had a date scheduled with Rosalyn, I tell you."

"Why do I have to go with the dreary Lord to a kingdom of dreary dwarves?"

Since Sancho had recently been enjoying a semi-retired life, his complaints were greater than before.

"When we return, I'll arrange a house for you."

"...? Suddenly?"

"You've suffered enough, so you deserve at least that."

“…”

Sancho's first reaction to my generous offer was suspicion.

Sancho, his eyes narrowed to slits, carefully observed my eyes.

‘He’s serious.’

Others might not know, but Sancho, who had traveled with me for quite a long time, noticed the subtle changes in my expression.

"I will serve you with all my loyalty!"

Seeing Sancho, who had suddenly adopted a subservient posture, I chuckled and urged my horse on.

"By the way, why would the dwarves invite people to the mountains?"

"Could the Iron Castle, which only appears in stories, really exist inside the mountains?"

Things like the underground kingdom of dwarves I had read about in a book once also came to my mind and then disappeared.

Although this place had many technologies that were subtly more advanced than Earth's medieval period, an underground city still felt like too much.

"Catch him!"

After setting out, the two of us hadn't encountered even a common robber, but for the first time in a very long while, a loud noise reached our ears.

"Catch him!"

"That guy's a dwarf, a dwarf I tell you!"

Recently, slave traders had been staking everything on capturing non-humans.

"Uh… Look over there, will you?"

Following Sancho's pointing finger, my gaze shifted to a cute boy, whose height reached just above an average person's waist, diligently running away.

"Hmm, that's a dwarf?"

They were clearly hunters capturing non-humans, so that cute-looking boy they were targeting had to be a dwarf.

"Uwaaaaaah!"

"Go away!"

"Please, just go away!"

He didn't match the image of a dwarf I had in mind at all.

The dwarves I had seen in my previous world were beings with shaggy beards and thick torsos unfitting their short stature.

Here too, they were said to handle weapons and work with iron, so naturally, I had expected a similar image.

But the boy running towards us now simply resembled a human who was a bit short.

‘If I had to find something similar to what I know, he’s more like a Hobbit.’

As I thought this, I watched the fleeing dwarf and the slave hunters chasing him.

But strangely, the dwarf, who had been quite far away, was getting closer and closer to me.

‘Strange.’

The distance separating us was quite significant.

Moreover, they were somewhat hidden by the forest, making them hard to see.

Yet, the dwarf was running precisely towards us.

"My Lord, they're coming this way!"

"Should we bolt?"

"No."

"Then we'll get caught up in it, won't we?"

"I suppose so."

"...It's not 'I suppose so,' we're going to get caught up in the fight, I'm telling you!"

No reply.

Sancho let out a deep sigh beside me.

It was always like this.

I was always where fights broke out.

To be more precise, I was the type of person who seemed to attract fights.

"Uwaaaaaaaaah!"

"Stop following me!"

The dwarf boy, skillfully dodging arrows flying from behind, reached where I was, let out a loud scream, and naturally hid behind me.

"Hey, dwarf boy?"

"Dwarf lad?"

"Anyway, I don't know how old you are."

"Why are you so naturally hiding behind us?"

Unlike me, who said nothing, Sancho twitched his eyebrows, full of dissatisfaction, and looked at the dwarf boy.

"Pant… pant… Could you help me out a bit?"

"Why?"

At that absurdly shameless attitude, Sancho sighed in disbelief.

"Aren't you two human knights?"

"I read about it in a book."

"Aren't human knights beings who protect the weak and help the wronged?"

"Therefore, you must help me."

"Hey, dwarf boy."

"How do we know if you committed a crime or if those guys coming over there committed a crime?"

"And, knights are just people who swear loyalty to their lord and receive a salary, not the kind of people you think they are."

Sancho and the dwarf boy's eyes met and clashed.

Just as the two were growling at each other pathetically like neighborhood dogs, the men who looked like slave hunters arrived where the three of them were.

There were about 30 of them, not a small number.

The Trapal Mountains, located to the west where I was currently heading, boasted rugged terrain, so the fact that they made this place their operational base meant they were quite skilled or daring slave hunters.

"Great knights, could you not lend your swords for this young dwarf?"

Having seen something somewhere, the young dwarf boy knelt on one knee and bowed his head towards me with a solemn face.

"Dwarf boy, what are you doing?"

Just as Sancho was looking at the dwarf boy as if he were crazy, the one who appeared to be the leader of the hunters slung a greatsword over his shoulder and took a step forward.

"I don't know which order you knights belong to, but that dwarf borrowed money using collateral and then stole the collateral back and ran away."

"He's not someone noble knights like yourselves should bother with."

He had a rather sharp demeanor and a rigorously trained physique.

"I am Louis Garrel, a hunter from Rantzberg."

The man knew how to be somewhat polite and didn't show a rude attitude right away.

His subordinates standing behind him, though showing some swagger, didn't act high-handedly either.

"Hey, dwarf kid, looking at their attitude, they don't seem like simple slave hunters."

"What on earth did you do?"

"Ahem, great knights, I have not committed such a great wrong."

"As for myself, I am the prince of the great dwarf kingdom, Dertrungen."

"When I first came to the human world and encountered the new cultural marvel of card games, I found them so amusing that I indulged in pleasure using my wealth, and before I knew it, I had no money left, you see?"

"So?"

Sancho made an incredulous face at the kid who was rattling on like a flowing river and retorted.

"So, what choice did I have?"

"I entrusted them with this very bracelet, the most precious item I possess, and borrowed a very small sum of money."

"But alas...!"

"Card games are devilish things."

"Because they resorted to vile trickery, I ended up losing all my money."

"So, what choice did I have?"

"I couldn't let them take the precious treasure bestowed by the King."

"So, I retrieved it into my possession and came all this way."

"So, you're saying you borrowed money, gambled it all away, and then ran off with the item you gave as collateral!"

"This guy is complete trash."

"Such a young kid already, tsk, tsk."

Sancho clicked his tongue and looked at me.

"Sir Karl, surely you're not thinking of helping a guy like this?"

"Isn't this kid a complete scoundrel?"

"You saw right through him."

"As expected, I thought I could communicate with two well-mannered gentlemen like yourselves."

"Then, would it be alright if I take that fellow now?"

"Besides, if you hear the name of the person who commissioned me, you sirs will naturally understand."

It was when the hunter, Louis Garrel, was smiling and about to approach the dwarf boy.

"Wait."

“…”

Louis' gaze turned to the knight who hadn't said a word until now.

He, who looked like a superior by any measure, wore a surcoat with a black diagonal cross on his black hair and black eyes.

‘These days, every Tom, Dick, and Harry is imitating the Knight of the Lighthouse.’

Out of ten clumsy knights one saw on the road, five wore such attire and had that hair color.

The trend regarding the Knight of the Lighthouse, created by Lord Karl.

With the recent rumors that he had reached the Grand Master level, the atmosphere of imitating Karl had grown even stronger.

Thanks to this, funnily enough, the real Karl had reached a point where he was treated as a fake.

"How much is the debt that boy owes?"

"One hundred... gold coins."

It was not a small amount of money to spend at a gambling table at once.

"Do you know the value of the bracelet that boy has?"

"Well, since dwarves are craftsmen, I don't think that bracelet would be cheap either."

"But I don't know such things accurately."

"Hunter, you do not know what this bracelet is."

"This bracelet is."

Wooooong!

Before the boy could finish speaking, the bracelet he wore let out a cry, and a giant axe formed in the boy's hand.

“...!”

The boy held a giant axe, as large as his torso, in one hand, and the sight was both incredibly incongruous and natural.

"It is Parashu, the treasure of our Dertrungen Kingdom."

Power filled the boy's voice.

It was not the foolish boy seen until now, but a word filled with the spirit of a dwarven warrior.

"The nerve of a brat who incurred gambling debts and put that treasure up as collateral to strike a pose."

At Sancho's sharp retort, the boy's face turned red.

"My, my, Sir Knight."

"Even I did not know it was such a precious treasure, but that dwarf came on his own two feet, pledged the collateral with his own hands, and received the money with his own hands."

"According to continental law, since that dwarf failed to repay the money, wouldn't the collateral rightfully belong to the lender?"

"Furthermore, stealing collateralized goods is also a grave crime."

The hunter named Louis was certainly not a man who belonged in the gutter.

There were no major holes in his calmly and logically presented arguments.

"Is that so, even knowing that the value of the collateral is astronomically higher than the borrowed money?"

"...What do you mean by that?"

"You already knew the value of the item the boy possessed."

"That is speculation."

"Even if you didn't know, now that you do, it is right to discuss it again."

"Even setting aside the procedures, if that boy is truly the prince of Dertrungen, something you cannot handle will happen."

“…”

Louis looked at the knight who spoke calmly with an expressionless face.

No particular aura was felt.

Was he even a knight?

To say he wasn't, his trained body was sturdy.

And a strange sense of unease arose.

‘A hunter’s instinct tells me not to run, but…’

However, the person who had commissioned this task was who he was.

Duke Jacques Marin, the ruler of the West.

‘He can smooth over most things…!’

The moment Louis was having various thoughts, the black-haired man was already standing behind him.

Louis, realizing this a moment later, had sweat bead on his temples.

"For a hunter, you have decent skills."

"You seem to be trying to maintain politeness too."

"Not moving recklessly was a good choice."

"I've put in double the gold coins."

"So, return."

His body was trembling.

When and how did he get behind him?

And when and how did he put this heavy sum of gold coins into his pocket?

He hadn't felt a thing.

‘Black hair, black eyes, a surcoat with a black diagonal mark, a gray cloak.’

‘More importantly…’

Skills whose depths were impossible to fathom.

Goosebumps rose on his spine.

He felt he should offer thanks to God at this very moment.

"We're returning."

“…”

His subordinates were also veterans who had been with Louis for at least several years.

They too had failed to read Karl's movements.

They only saw the result belatedly.

Thus, unlike when the hunters arrived, they disappeared as if dead mice, and only two people and one dwarf remained there.

Gulp.

It wasn't that the dwarf had recognized something.

Volker, the prince of Dertrungen, despite being an outstanding dwarven warrior, couldn't read anything from Karl, who had just moved.

The moment his gaze turned to the prince, he felt his body tremble at those endlessly deep eyes.

"Shall I guide you on your way?"

Smile brightly.

Even if it's awkward, smile brightly.

He wouldn't swing a sword at a smiling face, would he?

Thus, Karl Meyer coincidentally formed a bond with the dwarven prince.