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Chapter 346: From Awakening To Capturing (1)

Loren did not know how long he had been unconscious for, but it had been night by the time he woke up.

Looking up, he saw that he was in what appeared to be a tent, with lanterns hanging from the framework illuminating the interior.

He seemed to be reclining in a chair, and as he looked around, he found Lapis and Gula sitting nearby, both of them staring at him. Looking further, he saw Yuri, with a smirk on his face.

“Not that it has been long, but you’ve worked hard.”

“It’s not that unusual, is it?”

In his days as a mercenary, it was quite common for him to lose consciousness after a battle and be carried off by his comrades.

Yuri seemed to have the same thought. But as he expressed his agreement, the smile disappeared from his face, and he bowed at Loren and the girls with a serious expression.

“I have already said this to the two girls, but let me say it again. Thank you.”

Yuri said that the Empire army, which was surrounded by golems, was in a very dangerous situation. If the siege had continued, they definitely would have been caught up in the mass and wiped out.

However, as Loren’s team had managed to break through a part of the encirclement, they were somehow able to break free and escape by concentrating their forces there.

Now, they had managed to shake off the slow-moving golems and formed a simple position at a spot where they thought they could take a breather, and Loren was laid out in the middle of it.

“Stop it, Commander. Feels bad.”

Trying to move his somewhat heavy body, Loren waved his hand in a fluster, urging Yuri to raise his head, but Yuri did not respond and only looked up after a while.

“It would have been fine when you still called me ‘Commander’. But I am not your commander anymore. If you help me, I will thank you properly.”

“To me, you are still my commander. Nothing more, nothing less.”

“Even when said commander destroyed the group so ruthlessly?”

“I guess winning or losing is just a matter of fortune.”

“…Even if it was the result of a calculation?”

Yuri was somewhat hesitant, but even so, his words were clear, and Loren looked puzzled.

Lapis and Gula, who normally were likely to interrupt at times like this, were silent and simply watched the exchange between Loren and Yuri, as if they had already been told in advance to some extent.

“What do you mean, Commander?”

“The destruction of the mercenary group happened exactly as I had planned. I intended to minimize the sacrifices as much as possible, and I think that I was able to accomplish that, but even so, there is no doubt that I made unnecessary sacrifices.”

Yuri spoke in a low, subdued voice without hesitation, and Loren stared at him sharply for a while. He then sat back down deep in his chair and asked Yuri, who was still staring at him, in a flat voice.

“Why are you suddenly bringing this up now?”

“I’ve been exchanging information with the young lady over there.”

Yuri pointed at Lapis.

“I’m just telling him how things have been going so far.”

Loren shook his head as if to say ‘Don’t worry about it’ to Lapis, who looked somewhat apologetic, perhaps feeling guilty about having leaked the information without permission.

Those was certainly not the kind of information he would want to blurt out to a complete stranger, but if it was Yuri, he thought it would not be a problem.

“I think you’ve ripped off our troops quite a bit though.”

“I think it was a fair price.”

Apparently, Lapis had slipped up a bit about where the goods left behind in the town were going when explaining about how they found the unoccupied Empire army’s base.

Loren turned his head away from Yuri, who was staring at him with half-lidded eyes, in a huff, but his voice did not falter as he answered. Instead, it was Gula, who was standing next to him, that laughed apologetically.

Thinking about this, Loren suddenly realized that if Lapis had told Yuri about the destination of the goods they had swindled, she must have also told Yuri about Gula’s true identity. As he was about to open his mouth, Gula, perhaps reading something from his expression, stopped him.

“It’s useless. This old man knew about us.”

“About the Evil Gods?”

It would not be surprising if Yuri knew something. After all, Loren’s team had already made some reports to the Guild; it would not be surprising for that information to be circulated, and Yuri was in a position to gather such information.

However, what Gula said next was something Loren did not expect.

“Yeah. It’s not the kind of information that you report to the Adventurers’ Guild though. I’m trying to figure out how he knew.”

This time it was Yuri who turned away from Gula, who was looking at him suspiciously.

Gula and other Evil Gods were originally created by engineers belonging to a great country called the Ancient Kingdom when it still existed.

When he was told that Yuri, who was originally simply the leader of a mercenary group, knew an astonishing amount about such existences, Loren felt compelled to question him, also about his earlier monologue.

“Please explain, Commander.”

“That lady asked me for an explanation before, but I thought it was too early to give one, so I just brushed it off and ran away. But after hearing this much, I just can’t leave you with no explanation, can I?”

“Why in the world did you destroy the group?”

Loren’s tone of voice was filled with killing intent; it clearly showed his determination to not let Yuri get away with it, depending on his answer.

Yuri’s eyes narrowed as he looked at Loren’s face, who was staring at him. There was no hint of hesitation in his expression.

Lapis wondered if Loren might pull out his sword at this point and naturally turned her gaze to his shoulder, but the usual greatsword was not there.

Looking around, she saw that the cloth-wrapped sword was propped up on one of the tent’s frames, probably because it had been in the way when Loren was put on the chair. Impressed by the fact that the framework was safe from such a massive sword, Lapis gently changed the position of her chair to put her body between Loren and the sword.

Lapis didn’t know what Yuri had in mind as he had said they would discuss the details once Loren regained consciousness, but whatever plan the man had, she believed that she had to prevent Loren from cutting him off.

“It’s because I was noticed by a rather troublesome person.”

In the beginning, Yuri was hired to fight on the battlefield.

As they became successful and established his reputation, adventurers and mercenaries who wanted to fight under Yuri gathered to form the mercenary company to which Loren belonged.

Yuri had been raising Loren since before he became a mercenary. He had chosen the mercenary profession because he thought it was the only thing he could do.

“It would have been great if I could continue as a mercenary, or stay in the mercenary business.”

An established mercenary group meant that its name was widely known. That meant information could reach someone who should not know it, and Yuri’s name became known to someone he didn’t want to know his name.

“‘He really is still alive’, I thought.”

“Who was it?”

When a person like Yuri said there was someone to whom he didn’t want to let his name be known, Loren’s attention was drawn to that person.

Yuri seemed to hesitate for a moment when Loren asked him about it, but then he seemed to regain his composure and speak that person’s name.

“You’ve already met Him. It was… Magna.”

Before he could question Yuri’s tone, which made him suspicious, Loren was startled by the name that came out of his mouth.

“That guy?”

He had never expected to hear the name of the black swordsman coming from Yuri’s mouth during this conversation.

Loren was surprised, but Yuri continued his story.

Magna, who had heard Yuri’s name spreading as the mercenary group grew, began to search for him in the mercenary groups little by little.

Yuri realized this and believed that if the mercenary group continued to exist, it would eventually be subject to Magna’s intervention. And so, he thought of destroying the group on the battlefield.

“Wait, just because he would intervene? You crushed the group just because of that reason, Commander?”

It was true that Magna was a very powerful person in Loren’s eyes. However, the fact that Yuri had destroyed the mercenary group simply because Magna was about to find out about his existence was something difficult to accept.

“Oh, yes. Only He could not know.”

“He?”

Loren’s eyebrows furrowed at the way Yuri addressed Magna, but as if oblivious to Loren’s reaction, Yuri continued in a mumbled voice.

“I didn’t think that He would still be alive… It should have been over. But He was still alive. How unfortunate…”

“Commander?”

“I thought, ‘He cannot know’. If I continued to work as a mercenary, He would surely find His way to me. It was because of this thought that I… decided to participate in that battle, which at first glance looked like a winning one, but in reality, I knew we would lose before we even started.”

“You sacrificed the guys in the group to save your own skin!”

Loren’s voice was, naturally, harsh.

He did not know what had happened between Magna and Yuri, but if Yuri had sacrificed the mercenaries just to keep Magna from knowing about it, Loren had no intention of forgiving him, no matter how much he owed to Yuri.

Loren reached for his shoulder, where the hilt of his greatsword had always been, and when Loren noticed that there was nothing there, Yuri said something unexpected.

“It would not have mattered if it were just me.”

“What?”

“If it were only my existence, it would not have mattered if it had been known. I am sure that He would have demanded that I work for Him, but I had no intention of submitting to His will again, and it would not have mattered much even if He had killed me for it.”

“Even if he killed you… So, what is it that you didn’t want him to know?”

Even though Loren had his doubts about why Yuri would be killed by Magna, he was overwhelmed when Yuri told him that it wouldn’t matter at all, and he could not help but ask.

What on earth did Yuri want to hide from Magna’s eyes that he was willing to abandon the comrades who had been fighting for him, even though his own death would not matter?

“It was you, Loren. It was you.”

At first, Loren had no idea what Yuri was talking about. However, as he slowly began to understand what Yuri was saying, the question of why arose, and Loren felt the blood that had been rushing to his head suddenly cool down.

“Me?”

“Ah, yes, Loren, you. Your existence is the only thing He must never know about. That’s why I planned and carried out my plan to destroy my mercenary group and make you disappear.”

Yuri’s gaze was filled with a strong will that said he did not care who would resent him for it.

Loren, who was at a loss for words after seeing that gaze, could only stare at his face, utterly dumbfounded.

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