Black Badger

His first impression was the white hair.

When Gale opened his eyes after being certain he had died, the first thing he saw was a worn-out roof. There was the scent of straw in the air—not the stench of a rotting human body.

Gale blinked his heavy eyes several times.

Then he traced back his last memory. He had definitely been holding a sword, fighting. He must have made it as far down as the Kurtua region.

The commander had failed to realize that the battle, which seemed to be progressing too smoothly, was actually a trap.

Gale had felt uneasy, but he wasn’t in a position to speak up to the commander. And so they had been surrounded in the middle of the canyon.

He knew something had felt off from the moment they took the job.

I should’ve trusted my instincts and refused.

The others who fought with him... probably...

Something moved on his left.

Gale snapped his head toward it.

He saw hair as white as snow.

A young boy was looking at him.

“Are you alright?”

His skin was somewhat dark.

We didn’t go beyond the Empire’s borders, did we?

That was Gale’s immediate thought upon seeing the child standing beside him.

As a wandering mercenary, Gale possessed bits of knowledge that ordinary citizens of the Empire did not. He knew that if one crossed the rocky mountains at the southwestern edge of the Empire, there were people with bronze-colored skin like this child. It wasn’t impossible to find darker skin tones within the Empire, but the combination of dark skin and white hair could only be seen beyond those southwestern mountains.

Usually, darker skin came with dark hair.

...But didn’t this brat just speak the Imperial language?

Am I delirious from a fever?

Or have I come to that so-called afterlife people talk about, because of all the sins I’ve committed?

His body wouldn’t move properly, so Gale narrowed his eyes as best as he could, frowning with the little control he had.

The boy didn’t disappear. He kept watching him closely without blinking.

The child looked about seven or eight.

“Are you hungry?”

“What?”

Gale scratched his throat as he responded for the first time.

The boy’s face lit up instantly, as if he had been waiting for that.

“Or would you like some water? You were really thirsty yesterday.”

“Where is this?”

He rolled his eyes, trying to examine his surroundings, but all he could tell was that this place was likely a barn.

The old door behind the boy was closed. There were no windows.

Straw was piled everywhere.

Firewood stacked in one corner...

“It’s a barn!”

No.

Gale sighed without meaning to.

“I asked what region.”

“The region?”

Doesn’t know?

That was possible. Most children never left the place they were born and couldn’t read.

Though this child looked far cleaner than the ones Gale had seen during his mercenary work. Still, judging by his clothes and manner, he didn’t seem like a noble.

Not that Gale himself could read, either.

“Kurtua.”

So he hadn’t left it after all.

“The priest told me to let him know when you wake up.”

A priest?

At that unexpected word, Gale’s eyes widened.

At the same time, many things began to make sense. He was in a temple’s barn. This child must be a helper there, or one of the children living in the temple.

So I’m not dying anytime soon.

Once he understood the situation, sleep came over him like a wave.

Gale didn’t resist it.

If this really was a temple, it wouldn’t be dangerous.

And thinking about it... it wasn’t like he had anything he particularly wanted to live for.

“You’re sleeping again?”

Yeah, sleeping again.

Don’t bother me.

He answered inwardly as he closed his eyes.

***

The boy said his name was Hildebert Taleb.

“Taleb?”

That was Gale’s first reaction.

“You a noble?”

“No?”

The white-haired child tilted his head, confused.

“Why?”

Then why do you have a surname?

When Gale voiced that thought, the answer he received was something he had never imagined.

His mother had left him with a name—including a surname. The child, as Gale had guessed, wasn’t from the Empire. A woman, presumed to be his biological mother, had left behind the name Hildebert Taleb as she died. The priest who found the boy had simply given him that name as it was.

Carefree fools.

That was what Gale thought as he listened to the child’s cheerful explanation.

Have they been stuck in the temple so long they don’t know how the world works?

If it had been him—well, he wouldn’t have picked up a dying child in the first place—but even if he had, he would never have revealed a surname. It was best not to risk offending nobles.

At most, he would have kept the name to himself.

Of course, Gale wasn’t the type to go out of his way to tell the boy any of this.

In truth, Gale found the ❖ Nоvеl𝚒ght ❖ (Exclusive on Nоvеl𝚒ght) child who came to see him every day somewhat annoying.

Even though it was Hildebert who brought him water and food. Even though the boy, despite his age, never once showed the slightest sign of finding it bothersome. Gale still shamelessly found him irritating.

He knew full well that the child was far safer than the priest named Mar, who came to check on him.

‘This is one of the temples established by the Empire.’

When Gale opened his eyes again, a priest with long blue hair was standing beside him.

Dressed in the white ceremonial robes worn by Imperial priests, the man didn’t shrink under Gale’s sharp gaze. He simply smiled.

‘It’s fortunate that someone from the Grand Temple just came by. They won’t be returning for a while, so you can focus on recovering.’

‘Why did you pick me up?’

‘You should thank the child.’

Gale didn’t miss the slight sharpness in the priest’s voice.

‘He’s the one who carried you down from that canyon.’

‘That brat? Don’t be ridiculous. I was wearing armor.’

‘You’re a mercenary, aren’t you? We may take in abandoned infants, but we never bring mercenaries into the temple. We don’t know what kind of curses you might carry, or what enemies might come after you.’

That was true.

‘But the child cried so much that we had no choice but to treat you. I’m just telling you so you know.’

After learning this, the child had started to feel strangely burdensome to Gale.

He also felt a twisted sense of jealousy. The boy, who said he was eight or nine, was nothing like Gale had been at that age.

A child who could remain ignorant of the world’s harshness. Hildebert showed not the slightest doubt in others’ goodwill, and had no wariness at all.

“Hey, mister.”

Lucky bastard.

That was what Gale thought again today, watching Hildebert arrive with a full container of water.

“Are you thirsty?”

And would you stop asking that every time?

Why does every conversation start with that question?

Gale barely held back a sigh.

Instead, he rolled his eyes toward the ceiling and answered:

“No.”

“How about food?”

“No! ...Well, now that I think about it, I suppose I could eat breakfast.”

“There’s chicken this morning!”

The boy’s voice brightened immediately.

“Priest Worcestershire traded a bunch of wool for chickens and eggs yesterday.”

Hildebert raised sheep.

That was one of the things Gale had figured out during his ten days in the barn.

Hildebert had grown up loved. Unlike other common children out there, he wasn’t beaten, he didn’t go hungry, and he hadn’t been denied education. 𝒻𝑟ℯℯ𝑤𝑒𝑏𝑛𝘰𝓋𝑒𝓁.𝒸𝑜𝘮

Yet he wasn’t a noble either, so the boy was busy all day.

First of all, waking up at dawn to go pray was already unusual. Gale had once heard from a former priest that one had to pray diligently to accumulate divine power—but that man had been rotten to the core, constantly lying, so Gale had assumed that part was a lie as well.

But apparently, that at least had been true.

The boy would attend dawn prayers, then go to a nearby river to fetch water, and then go back to sleep. If a sheep gave birth, he had to give up that second sleep.

Afterward, he would wake again to the smell of breakfast, eat with the priests, and then take the flock up the mountain.

He used to go with a priest, but now he went up with just the sheep and a dog.

The mountain behind the temple—the same one that held the canyon where Gale had nearly died.

“This time... one of the sheep got eaten by a monster.”

The chicken tastes good.

“I tried putting out herbs that are supposed to drive monsters away, but it didn’t seem to work... It was still just a lamb...”

This mushroom porridge is incredible, as always. Whoever’s cooking this—if they ran an inn instead of a temple, they’d be making a fortune.

“I-I even helped it be born...”

“Didn’t you give it a name?”

Gale spat out a chicken bone and asked flatly.

The boy, whose eyes had been brimming with tears, lifted his head.

Hildebert stared at Gale, sitting on the bed, and said:

“Sheep don’t remember their names.”

That sounded oddly firm.

“But the dog has a name. It’s Toachi.”

Gale had only meant to tease the kid for nearly crying over a lamb, but the answer he got was far clearer than expected. He felt a bit awkward.

“Oh... is that so?”

He pretended it was nothing and reached under the bed to grab an apple.

“Now I’m thirsty.”

“Can you defeat monsters, mister?”

He had only muttered about wanting water, but the boy—still sitting on the straw with a bowl of porridge and a wooden spoon—said something completely off-topic.

“Priest Mar said you’re really scary.”

“Kid, I’m scared of monsters too.”

Gale pushed himself up awkwardly.

Damn leg.

The wound had festered, showing no signs of healing. Though, considering he hadn’t been hit with some sloppy curse, he supposed he was lucky.

With this leg, there was no way he could leave.

Damn it. Even getting a drink of water is exhausting.

“Monsters are terrifying. You raise sheep—don’t you eat lamb?”

“The priests even make monster boiled meat.”

“Not boiled meat. Subjugation.”

Gale corrected the word reflexively.

The small child, sitting with his legs stretched out, blinked.

“Subjugation.”

Then he stared at Gale before muttering gloomily again.

“But they said I’m not allowed to do sub... no, subjugation yet.”

“Big dreams for a runt.”

“But I can’t just let the sheep keep dying.”

The grumbling didn’t stop.

“I feel like it’ll come again tomorrow.”

Gale didn’t offer to help.

He wasn’t interested.

He’d already told the kid to run if something happened—he considered that enough. In truth, shepherding was a dangerous job to begin with, and yet these carefree believers were sending a child alone into a mountain crawling with monsters. Gale said nothing about it.

He would just take the food and water for now, and when the time came, he’d leave.

I’ll probably miss that mushroom porridge later. I saw that kid stringing mushrooms together around his neck the other day—maybe I should ask what kind they are.

Thinking that, he finished his meal.

Then Hildebert said:

“But the monster that ate the sheep... I think it had a red cloth tied to its ear. Do monsters like decorating themselves?”

A familiar under Shurd!

Gale snapped his head toward Hildebert.