The Immortal Had a Guardian Spirit Chapter 19

Under Raven’s tacit permission, the mercenary, having gagged the bandit leader and hidden him nearby, led Raven towards the bandits’ hideout, saying he could get some extra income if he followed.

Raven, who usually covered his expenses by selling the magic stones from monsters he caught on the fly, or by using his face when he had none, questioned this with a look of incomprehension.

[Do we have to?]

[Well, even if only to reduce civilian casualties, we need to clear out the remnants anyway, so why not kill two birds with one stone! We clear the remnants and earn money!]

[…]

[Technically, the request does include cleanly dealing with the remnants, but… that’s not the only reason. It’s not like I lack the ability. If I can do it, I’d rather act in a way that minimizes harm to innocent people.]

[…Right.]

At the mention of ‘morality,’ Raven fell silent and followed behind him.

It didn’t take long to reach the bandits’ lair.

“Who— urk!”

“Die quietly!”

“What the hell is this crazy bastard?!”

“Wahaha!!”

His gleeful rampage and extermination of the remnants—as expected, seeing it again, he really is like a dog. A mad dog.

Looks like he’ll have it cleaned up soon. No need to help. Making a quick judgment, Raven left the mercenary behind, covered Didi’s eyes, and began wandering around the hideout. There were a few idiots who attacked him along the way, but they weren’t particularly problematic.

“You would’ve lived if you used that time to run away instead of attacking. How stupid.”

“You bastard… You’ll regret this… There’s someone behind us… Guh!”

“Hmm… So, you do have a backer.”

Not that it has anything to do with me.

Who can catch a ghost that isn’t even remembered? Stepping on the back of the now-dead man, he passed by.

His leisurely footsteps led him to a certain warehouse.

What kind of honey did they hide in here to guard it so fiercely? With a crooked smile, Raven flung open the door of the warehouse they had been so determined to protect, and stopped in his tracks at what he found inside.

“That’s…”

“Did you find something?”

Looks like the cleanup is done.

Faster than I expected, though…? His casually rolling eyes glanced at the mercenary who suddenly poked his head in.

The mercenary, unable to catch the fleeting glance directed at him, followed Raven’s gaze and then widened his eyes. Whoa, holy shit. An exclamation mixed with admiration slipped out.

“No wonder they gave me such a trivial request.”

Sacks filled with white powder were piled high.

They wouldn’t store mere flour, sugar, or salt in bulk in such an inefficient place. The mercenary, instantly catching on, rolled his eyes.

Still, you never know. He crept inside, dabbed some of the spilled white powder, and tasted it.

His fleeting hope vanished in an instant.

“If these are bandits dealing drugs, they must have someone backing them… Am I screwed?”

“It seems they intentionally gave it to you, who has no lingering ties, to avoid getting their own hands dirty…”

Yeah, you’re screwed.

…He was about to say, but seeing the man’s complexion, he closed his mouth. After a moment’s hesitation, Raven replied with a light sigh.

“That would depend on who’s behind them, I suppose.”

“Hmm…”

“But is it really okay to taste that?”

“Ah, all descendants of Lopty are constitutionally immune to most drugs. We’ve been taking medicinal tonics since childhood. The recipe has been passed down for generations. If you join the company, I could even show you—”

“Not interested.”

“Tch.”

The mercenary, grumbling in disappointment but unable to take his eyes off the damn white powder, let out a deep sigh and scratched his head.

“Anyway, I should report this, right?”

“You can’t very well take it with you, so that’s probably best.”

“Ugh, this feels like getting tangled up in something troublesome…”

But since he couldn’t just leave it as is, the mercenary pulled a communicator from his pocket.

∞ ∞ ∞

“I’m gonna eat some meat when I get back. Since it might be my last meal, I’ll have the best meat. I’ll buy something insanely expensive. Maybe I’ll even go to a super fancy restaurant.”

“…”

The mercenary, having finished his report, grumbled as he headed down the mountain.

Raven, who had been following behind, suddenly stopped, then turned around and headed back towards where the sacks were.

“Sir Raven?”

“Shh.”

Covering the bewildered Didi’s mouth, Raven pushed aside the sack from which the white powder had spilled with his foot. The sack scraped along the floor, revealing a hidden door beneath it.

Lifting it slightly, he peeked inside.

‘…’

Seeing the ledgers stuffed inside, Raven cast a glance at the mercenary’s receding back.

The mercenary, belatedly noticing no one was following, turned around. From a slight distance, a questioning voice echoed.

“Are you not coming?”

“Have the best.”

“Pardon?”

“Your last meal.”

“Ah…?!”

Am I really going to die?!

∞ ∞ ∞

Leaving the hideout, the mercenary Eckhart, who had retrieved the hidden bandit leader—”Aren’t you going to untie his mouth?” “Do I have to? He’s noisy.” “Fair point.” —joined Raven’s group as naturally as if he’d been with them from the start, chattering away as they traveled.

Most of it was useless chatter, and Raven had begun treating him as if he didn’t exist, but the man kept smiling brightly and trying to strike up conversation. After a while, the mercenary suddenly brought up a different topic.

“By the way, your eyes are quite unique, sir.”

“…Unique?”

Thinking it was another useless remark, Raven was about to ignore him, but he answered a beat late.

“Yes. They’re pretty.”

“You have unique tastes.”

“If that was rude, I’ll take it back.”

“It’s not that…”

He touched his eye area and smirked. A mischievous smile appeared on his face.

“It’s just fascinating to hear someone call a ghost’s eyes pretty.”

“Eh…?”

“Are you afraid of ghosts, by any chance?”

“Ah, no, sir? I’m no—t really… B-But perhaps, Captain, are you a ghost?”

Yeah, right. I can see the earthquake in your pupils.

The green eyes, quietly staring at the mercenary who was subtly inching away, curved playfully.

“What do you think?”

“Oh, Cap—taaain… Please…”

The sight of him being scared was clear, and Raven wished he would just run away.

So, without giving a definite answer, Raven moved on. His steps felt lighter, as if his little prank had lifted his spirits a bit.

.

.

.

They say people usually talk less when they’re scared, but Eckhart was the opposite—he whined for a long time.

Didi covered his ears, and even Raven, having had enough, had to tell him to shut up and that he’d explain.

Only after getting the answer he wanted did the mercenary stop whining, and immediately demanded an explanation about the ‘ghost’s eyes.’

“Annoying bastard.”

“I feel like I just got cursed at out of nowhere?! Of course, that just means we’ve built up that much rapport, so I’m happy—”

“…Haah.”

Having already experienced the mercenary’s tenacity and noisiness once and being thoroughly sick of it, Raven, with a look of annoyance, rattled off the explanation.

Hearing about the non-functional eyes, his identity as a shaman, the existence of the Guardian Spirit, and his relationship with it, the mercenary opened his mouth dumbly.

“Wow…”

“That’s your reaction after I went to the trouble of explaining?”

“No, it’s just… I didn’t expect you to explain in such detail…”

“Ah, well…”

Since he’d forget everything after they parted anyway.

Without needing to consider how much to say, he’d spoken thoughtlessly, which resulted in a detailed explanation. Raven vaguely mumbled and turned his head away.

The mercenary, seeming not to want to pry further, simply sighed in relief that Raven wasn’t a ghost, marveled at the existence of the Guardian Spirit and its mysterious abilities, then looked up at the sky and suddenly let out an “Ah!”

“Captain, when do we rest? This looks like a perfect spot to take a break…”

“If you want to rest, don’t ask, just do it.”

“That hurts my feelings. If I stop to rest, you’ll just leave without me, won’t you?”

“Right.”

“Cap—taaain…”

Just more nonsense again?

Just as Raven was about to ignore him as usual, the mercenary, catching his mood, quickly shouted. This time, there was a reason he couldn’t just let it slide.

“You have to take care of the kid too!”

“I’m already carrying him. No need to rest particularly…”

“No, not that. I’m talking about meals.”

He pointed a finger at the sky.

“It’s mealtime right now. Are you going to let the kid starve?”

“Ah.”

Right, I forgot again.

It wasn’t exactly a new occurrence. He’d already missed mealtimes several times while traveling with Didi. But this guy, who’d silently gone along with it each time, is pretty tough too.

Despite being someone who needs to eat, unlike me, why does he keep his mouth shut?

Raven looked down at the child in his arms.

“Why didn’t you say anything.”

Caught off guard by the sudden question, Didi blinked for a moment before answering belatedly.

“I couldn’t possibly impose that much, given all the help I’ve already received…”

“I told you it’s fine. It’s not an imposition. If I miss a meal, you should speak up.”

It’s only natural to take care of your own meal. If you wait for others to prepare it, you’ll go hungry. I suppose being a noble’s child, he’s not familiar with that aspect.

The mercenary, looking back and forth between Raven and Didi with concern that Raven might be scolding the child, suddenly interjected.

“Whoa, so you were actually about to let the kid starve? That was bad of you, Captain!”

“What the—”

“See, we should rest here, right? Meals are important!”

Raven tried to say something, but as if not giving him an opening, the mercenary’s voice continued.

“I’ll go hunt something! I’ll be right back!”

“…”

“Ah, I’ll leave the bandit leader here, so please watch him! I’m counting on you!”

The sight of him rattling off his words and using hunting as an excuse to run away was quite amusing.

Raven, meeting the eyes of the bandit leader who had been dumped on the ground in the process, opened and closed his mouth silently before finally managing to squeeze out a voice from his throat, blocked by disbelief.

“Seriously… what is he trying to do…”

∞ ∞ ∞

“Uh…”

“Back already?”

“Uh, uh…?”

After running off to hunt like that, some time passed.

Returning with a hunted wild boar slung over one shoulder and some firewood tucked under the other arm, the mercenary Eckhart paused for a moment to process the scene before him.

A boy, practically a youth, was raising a blade to strike down at Raven’s vital spot. Raven was half-lying down, holding the opponent’s wrist to fend him off.

“Um, excuse me.”

“Speak.”

“Are you currently being attacked, by any chance?”

“Right.”

“What the—”

With a grunt, Raven kicked the opponent away as if shoving him off, grabbed hold of Dan’s one arm, and shifted positions to mount him in an instant. He placed Dan’s arm, now naturally bent backwards, onto his back, grabbed the other wrist, pinned them together with his knee, and only then did he have the leisure to glance at the mercenary with a look that said “ask away.”

Eckhart looked at Dan, perfectly subdued beneath Raven, with a subtle gaze before speaking.

“I’ve been wondering about this for a while, but what is that guy? At first I thought he was a companion, but he comes separately from a distance, so that doesn’t seem right. Seeing him attack like this makes me think he’s an enemy, but he seems to know you, so that doesn’t seem right either…”

“Stalker.”

“Stalk…er?”

“And an aspiring assassin.”

“Don’t use the pure word ‘aspiring’ for something like that! What kind of aspiring is so rotten? He’s pitch black and gloomy; his potential doesn’t look good at all.”

“Don’t be so harsh.”

After struggling for a while, Dan seemed to give up and went limp. Only then did Raven, chuckling and stepping back, fold his arms and deliver the rest of his sentence. In an utterly nonchalant tone, as if commenting on the weather.

“He’s my sworn enemy.”

“What did you do to make him want to kill you so badly? Did you kill his family or something?”

“Yeah.”

“…Really?”

“Just cook the meat.”

Instead of answering further, Raven chose to act shamelessly.

After a moment of awkward silence, the mercenary let out a deep sigh, grumbling as he put down the wild boar and began preparing to start a fire.

“You really didn’t prepare anything, did you? You could have at least started a fire.”

“I haven’t done that sort of thing in about ten years.”

“Oh… So you really are a high-class person, Captain!”

“…I can roughly guess what kind of thought process led to that conclusion, but… everything you said is wrong, and I don’t feel motivated to correct it…”

Just cook.

Cutting the conversation short, Raven sat down on the bandit leader and casually rolled his eyes to follow the fading footsteps. He saw Dan’s back disappearing behind a tree.

…Come to think of it, when he’d left Dan behind at the inn and run away, his instincts had warned him. That if he got caught, it would be nearly impossible to shake him off.

‘And that’s exactly what happened.’

Whether that incident made him more cautious, his surveillance was relentless, never once letting Raven out of his sight. Unlike Dan, who had disappeared to a place out of sight, a crow was still sitting in a tree, staring intently at him. Raven looked at it with a fed-up expression, then turned his gaze to the sky—

Fwoosh!

“!”

A flame rose in the corner of his vision.

The moment the crimson light entered his eyes, Raven flinched, his body jolting violently as he quickly stepped back. No, it would be more accurate to say he threw his body backward.

The bandit leader, trampled in the process, writhed in protest, but Raven didn’t even notice.

“…”

“…”

His startled green eyes shook mercilessly. It was perhaps a small mercy that he hadn’t let out an embarrassing sound.

Within his trembling eyes, as if struck by an earthquake, a faint trace of fear lingered.