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Luisen docilely watched, wondering what Carlton would do.
“D-Don’t come closer!” The highway robbers swung their weapons recklessly, but they weren’t threatening at all. Moreover, in front of Carlton, the men looked so diminutive; the weapons were like children’s toys.
“Hey.” Carlton made a show of flexing his muscles as he clenched his fist and turned his wrist around. “Give us all you have.”
Carlton rushed at the thieves; Luisen dropped his own head into his hands.
So, he was going to flip the script and rob the thieves?
‘Should I stop him? Do I need to stop him?’ While agonizing, Luisen stepped back to stay at a distance. This behavior wasn’t appropriate, but his feet hurt so much.
‘Honestly, that’s why they should have chosen their opponent with eyes wide open
’
Luisen sent a prayer for a peaceful afterlife for those clumsy robbers.
Carlton dealt with his opponents with only his fist. He avoided their knives and grabbed one of the robbers’ arms and twisted it. He batted away the bamboo spear flying at him with the robber’s axe, threw the robber away, and knocked down the foolish men, one after another.
For farmers, even if they were five well-built adult men, they were no match for Carlton. Carlton had no intention of going easy on them, and the robbers were flung around like toys.
“S-Save
Save us
”
“Shut up and go over there.” Carlton hit the robber again to quiet him. Then, he took the shoes off of one of those men and brought them back to Luisen. “Please wear them. Though they may not be good shoes, it’ll be better to wear them for the long journey.”
“Um
” The owner of those shoes dropped like a living corpse as he looked at his shoes.
‘At this point, who was the robber and who was the upstanding citizen?’ Luisen wondered.
“Honestly
Why did you even try to rob us
” Since he wasn’t in the position to show mercy for the highway robbers’ circumstances, Luisen tried his hardest to look away and change into the shoes. Moreover, the robber’s boots were much more comfortable than going barefoot. Because they were used by those living in the mountains, the soles were strong and thick–far better than the shoes of those that lived in the valleys.
Carlton looked satisfied. “It seems like those guys live in a village near here. We should spend the night there.”
When did he have time to find that out while beating up those thieves? Luisen gave the defeated men a sidelong glance. It felt a bit uncomfortable to go to the robbers’ village. “Will it be fine?”
“They’ve already seen our faces; we’ll need to silence their mouths. It’s easy enough to deal with the brigands.”
Deal with them? It sounds like the mercenary was going to bury them somewhere. It didn’t seem that Luisen was the only one to come to this conclusion–the robbers all flinched and trembled.
‘Well, if Carlton says so.’ Luisen nodded. The young lord knew that he was nearing his limits, so he decided to compromise.
Carlton approached the fallen robbers and lightly kicked them. “Lead us to your village.”
“V-Village? We can’t! If you go there, there will be trouble!” The robbers were frightened when they heard that they were headed towards their village.
“Why? Because it’s your stronghold? I guess the robber commander is there?”
“No. It’s not that, my lord. We were originally farmers from this mountain. In the village
 The village is really dangerous now
” The robbers’ faces were clearly full of fear. Rather than reluctance to take Luisen and Carlton to their residence, they seemed truly scared of something within the village. What could be so scary?
“What’s in your village?” Luisen asked, unable to resist his curiosity. The robbers hesitated; it looked as if they were talking to each other with their eyes.
“You’re not answering?” Carlton threatened.
The robbers immediately closed their eyes and cried out, “Monster–There’s a Monster there!”
“Monster?”
“Some guy dragged in a monster and took over our village! We can’t go back there!” The thieves shed tears.
What kind of story was this? Luisen and Carlton gave each other meaningful glances. The young lord felt that this wasn’t something that he could just ignore. Carlton nodded, as if he felt the same way.
“Slow down–tell me what happened.” Luisen soothed the men on the ground. The robbers wept and hurried to explain. Water bursting forth from their tear ducts as if floodgates had sprung open; they began to weave their story. It was all very confusing as each man was focused on his story, but to summarize below

These men weren’t originally highway robbers; they were slash-and-burn farmers living in the mountains. 1 They had lived in a small and provincial village that was common across the lands. However, ten days ago, a lone man appeared with a monster by his side. He had the monster attack the village for no apparent reason.
“A human controlling a monster? Do you think that’s believable?” Carlton deliberately lashed out at the thieves in an attempt to pry more information.
“W-We’re telling the truth. We couldn’t believe our own eyes; the man really did all that! He really ordered the monster to attack our village.”
These five men said they were lucky enough to escape with their lives. However, afterwards, they were too scared to return back home and they had nowhere else to go. Therefore, they had been circling familiar surroundings.
Then, as they ran out of things to eat and could only suck on the tips of their fingers, Luisen and Carlton appeared on the road. They had lost their sanity when they saw Luisen eating something and decided to become highway robbers.
“But why would you resort to robbery? You should have gone down to the nearest town, told them the truth, and brought help,” Luisen rebuked.
The men looked as if they were about to cry, “That’s
because we’re refugees
” the robbers said in a faint voice.
Hearing that, Luisen sighed. Refugees were people who did not belong to any land and wandered nomadically. They became migrants due to avoiding war or tyranny, running away after a crime, exile, or ruin of farmland.
There were many reasons to become a refugee, but most people shunned them. In this world, it was natural for most people to live and die in the village they were born in, so people were often suspicious of strangers with ambiguous statuses. Even if the refugees wanted to settle down somewhere, others wouldn’t accept them.
Therefore, many of them lived secretly in mountains or forests. Since this was clearly illegal, they were unable to go anywhere.
Luisen had also experienced a time when he had wandered through the kingdom; he said no more to the men because the young lord understood how they felt. Instead, he asked something else, “So some strange man brought a monster to your home?”
“Yes. After giving a command, the monsters swarmed the village.”
The robber’s story reminded him of Ruger. After all, it wasn’t common for people to order monsters around. Luisen looked into Carlton’s eyes and grabbed his sleeve.
‘Similar to Ruger, right?’
Carlton nodded with a rigid expression. Luisen continued his interrogation, “What kind of monsters?”
“We don’t really know their names, but
 They were as big as bulls but looked exactly like dogs.”
“Dogs? Do you mean that they looked like wolves?”
“Yes, yes. Similar to a wolf. Incredibly scary–and their teeth were so sharp
”
Listening to their descriptions, the young lord had the hunch that the monsters were Direwolves. “How long ago was this?”
“I think
it’s been about ten days.”
“ten days
”
Ten days was long before Luisen and his party were attacked by the Direwolves.
Luisen stood close to Carlton and whispered so that the robbers couldn’t hear, “Do you think they’re telling the truth?”
“
It doesn’t seem like they’re lying.”
Mmm. Luisen made a low rumbling sound. If what they said was truth, then it was highly likely their situation was related to Ruger. “It feels strange
to just pass this off as coincidence.”
“I feel the same way. Why don’t we go to their village?”
“What if there’s really monsters there?”
“I believe the monsters that attacked the village have already left. We haven’t heard any wolf howls on our way here.”
“Ah. That’s true.”
Direwolves would howl every night. Looking back, Luisen never heard anything resembling a wolf. Just in case, he asked the robbers and they said the same.
Luisen and Carlton decided to go to the robbers’ village. Using the five robbers as guides, they all headed for the village. On the way, Luisen inquired about various things. “The man who brought the monsters–did you see what he looked like?”
Though the robbers found Luisen difficult to deal with, they answered steadily. “We didn’t get a proper look
 That person wore pilgrim clothes, so we couldn’t see their face. They seemed small in stature though
”
“I remember the atmosphere felt somewhat unpleasant and gloomy. The monsters even grinned as they killed the villagers.”
The man in the descriptions was incredibly different from Ruger. Was it someone else?
“You had no idea the monsters were going to attack, and yet you still got a good look at him, huh?” Carlton said.
“It was so strangely foggy that day–I couldn’t even see the people standing next to me
 However, I could see that man very well. It was as if the fog was receding for him.”
“Fog?”
“Yes. This place isn’t usually very foggy, so I remember that
everyone thought it was weird.”
“Fog
” Luisen murmured.
Was that ill-begotten guest, fog, popping out again? The fog seen by the Vinard House delegation, the fog seen by Luisen when he was attacked by the direwolves
and the fog that appeared when the village was attacked.
Luisen felt disturbed–everything seemed to be related.
Their conversation eventually led them to the village the robbers had escaped from.
TL: Quick update before I drown in work again D:
Footnotes
Slash and burn agriculture is a widely used method of growing food in which wild or forested land is clear cut and any remaining vegetation burned. The resulting layer of ash provides the newly-cleared land with a nutrient-rich layer to help fertilize crops. Usually the farmers are rural and nomadic, changing locations once the nutrient in the burned soil has run dry.