The boy became a wanderer, roaming all across the continent, and learned one shocking fact.
The entirety of his fortune at the time—one hundred valis—was not considered much money in the marketplace.
Money worth five times his own price was being treated like pocket change!
To think that one hundred valis was not even enough to properly eat three meals a day was perhaps the most shocking event of the boy’s nineteen years of life.
To the boy, an empty stomach was a graver matter than having his body carved to pieces by a blade, and right now, he was hungry.
Thinking he might become a gladiator again, he asked various people to recommend a nearby arena, but regrettably, gladiatorial combat appeared to be illegal in this region.
Then, by chance, he was introduced to the profession of mercenary.
A profession where knowing how to use a sword was enough to earn favorable treatment.
Pay on an entirely different level from that of a gladiator.
There was no reason for the boy not to become a mercenary.
It was not just the boy, either. Wanderers who had held a sword in their younger days generally became mercenaries.
Especially if one had once been a gladiator, there was no reason not to enter the mercenary trade.
And so, the boy became a wandering mercenary.
Seeing that he did not belong to a mercenary company even after becoming a mercenary, people called him a nameless stray dog.
It was a kind of insult, but the boy rather liked the name.
The boy liked dogs.
That was the only reason.
The nameless boy began wandering across the continent once more.
The difference from before was that he was no longer simply a wanderer, but a wandering [Mercenary].
Most wandering mercenaries were classified either as riffraff unable to join a mercenary company or as capable individuals who had no particular reason to join one.
The boy was the latter.
If asked to drive out a band of bandits, he would storm their hideout and start cutting them down.
Anyone who tried to fight back lost their head, while the surviving bandits could only flee in utter panic.
The pay was fairly good, and he could also find all sorts of valuables during a job.
The boy decided not to think too much about the original owners of those items.
Unless he was desperately short on money, he did not accept errands and other petty jobs.
The boy was a swordsman by nature, so chasing after cats and the like did not suit his temperament.
Then one day, the boy was summoned to war.
The Kingdom of Israpan had hired the boy, who had become a renowned mercenary in the region.
He had just squandered all the money he had saved, and the advance payment was generous as well, so the boy headed for the battlefield with steps several times lighter than usual.
*
Even so, the war was not on the massive scale the boy had imagined.
At most, it was enough to ruin an arena like the one where the boy had lived.
The Kingdom of Israpan had run into trouble during trade negotiations with a border lord of the Empire, and perhaps because they could not easily reach an agreement, the discord had turned into war.
There were probably more reasons than that, but the boy did not care.
As long as he got paid, that was enough. And if he got to swing his sword a little, all the better.
If he had one complaint, it was that the barracks were rather noisy.
The Kingdom of Israpan had hired one mercenary company and a great many wandering mercenaries.
The war was too small to mobilize an army, yet one mercenary company alone was not enough to resolve it.
Sigh... The boy let out a long breath and looked up at the sky.
A tremendous racket was coming from the tent of Shark Tooth Mercenary Company, the company Israpan had hired.
The boy was annoyed.
It was not that he disliked a lively atmosphere, but this had gone too far.
As he considered drawing his sword and charging into the tent right then and there, a mercenary bumped shoulders with him.
It did not seem to have been an accident.
"Ah, my potion!"
"...?"
"You bastard! Do you have any idea how much that costs?!"
Perhaps the liquid in the glass vial he had dropped in the collision was extremely rare. The mercenary who had bumped shoulders with the boy began shouting at the top of his lungs as he shoved him.
Spittle sprayed across his face.
The boy found that extremely unpleasant.
"This was purchased all the way in Orario—!"
"Shut up, idiot!"
The boy swung at the man’s shin with all his strength.
The reason the boy was called a nameless stray dog was not because he was a wandering mercenary who roamed the land. It was because of his doglike vicious temperament.
The boy ruthlessly stomped on the mercenary as he fell, clutching his shin.
Already infuriated by Shark Tooth Mercenary Company’s noise and the sweltering weather, the boy’s patience had run dry. The mercenary being trampled on the ground as he cried for help was simply unlucky.
Mercenaries did not need much of a reason to fight.
Most of the time, it was provocation meant to establish dominance, and it was difficult to find any other kind of case.
"Why are those two fighting?"
"Who knows? It’s not like wandering mercenaries fighting each other is rare. Leave them alone."
Among the mercenaries gathered for the war, it was common for mercenaries unaffiliated with a company to get into fights with one another.
Unlike mercenary companies, they had no organization watching their backs.
Since the other mercenary was also a wandering mercenary, there was no one nearby who felt any need to stop the boy from venting his anger.
It was not as though mercenaries had the personalities of saints.
"I was bored anyway, so you picked the right time! You—"
"Everyone, assemble!"
A knight clad in plate armor barged into the crowd of mercenaries and shouted.
He did not seem to be trying to stop the boy in particular.
He had likely come to announce that the battle would begin shortly.
The boy stopped kicking the fallen mercenary.
If he continued, he would probably get reprimanded, and his anger had already subsided.
"The battle will begin shortly, so everyone inspect your equipment! That is all!"
The boy fingered the small knife at his waist.
His main weapon was now a longsword he had newly acquired from a forge, but the knife that had fought beside him since childhood was more than a mere weapon to the boy. It was like a comrade-in-arms who had overcome every hardship alongside him.
"...It’s quiet."
The boy stopped touching his knife and looked toward Shark Tooth Mercenary Company’s tent.
The boisterous mood from before had vanished. Now, every member of the company was tending to their favored weapon and preparing for battle.
As expected of combat professionals who made their living through war.
Overwhelmed by the atmosphere’s instantaneous change, the riffraff did not even dare approach Shark Tooth Mercenary Company.
There could be no more pathetic sight than loitering around a mercenary company only to get thoroughly beaten.
The boy, too, needed to start checking his equipment and preparing for battle.
The fight about to unfold would be nothing like a simple bandit extermination.
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