Mercenary Wars

Chapter 89 Whipping the Child
"I really don't understand why a scent is so attractive to these magical beasts!" The group dragged the stone-tusked boar out of the trap and tied it with chains.

"Right now, we have a completely transformed level-two bird-like magical beast, a level-four python, and two live magical beasts: a level-three giant antler deer and a level-three stone-tusked boar." They tallied their spoils so far. "At this rate, we should be able to meet the requirements for shooting and beast taming specialization in just a few days!"

All five men wore smiles, and when the campfire was lit that night, there was naturally plenty of eating, drinking, and chatting.

However, Gaucano noticed that Calclo seemed to be in a bad mood; most of his smiles were either faint or somewhat stiff.

He hadn't paid much attention to it until late at night when he went to relieve himself and noticed that the light in Karklo's tent was still on, standing out conspicuously in the deep darkness.

"Aren't you asleep yet?" he couldn't help but ask.

After a brief silence, Karclo's sleepy voice came from inside the tent: "Awake."

He clearly didn't sleep well that night.

Gao Jiano paused for half a second: "You seemed to be in a bad mood during the day."

Calcro didn't respond to that question. Instead, he poked half his body out of the tent and asked abruptly, "Gaucano, has any of your friends died because of you?"

Scenes from the past flashed through his mind, making Gao Jiano aware of the Raymond necklace that he usually took for granted: "Hmm... I think so."

"Your friend at the church?" Calcro asked.

Gao Jiano nodded without saying anything more.

Calcrown: "John's ordeal today reminded me of my whipping boy."

“Whipped children?” Gaucano was unfamiliar with this concept.

Calcrow chuckled: "You can think of it as a 'study companion.' When I made a mistake, he would take the teacher's whip in my place. Some nobles who were extremely incompetent as parents—like my father—would set up such a special servant for each of their children."

Gao Jiano understood, then suddenly realized something: "Is your running away from home related to this?"

Calclo said, "There are two directly related incidents. The first time I ran away from home was to protest my father's punishment of my mistakes by whipping me."

He paused for a moment, then continued, “But it was no use. Because of my running away from home, my chaplain was beaten so badly that he had to be sent to the church for treatment. After that, I never dared to run away from home again. It wasn’t until he died to save me that I, who no longer cared about the authority of my father and teachers, started trying to run away from home again.”

Gao Jiano couldn't help but feel curious: "Could you tell me more about it?"

Calcrown: "You go first."

A moment of silence fell.

"Okay, goodnight." Gaucano obviously couldn't reveal Raymond's death to anyone, so he crawled into the tent and lay down again.

A few seconds later, Karklo's illumination spell went out, and the squad's camp was completely enveloped in darkness.

Listening to the chirping of insects deep in the valley, Gaucano rested his head on his arm, reminiscing about the past, and playing with Raymond's triangular necklace in his hand.

He still remembered the promise he had made to Raymond.

Wearing this necklace, I hope to visit the Garan Cathedral at least once in my lifetime.

In fact, this goal is quite similar to that of Karclo, because the Garan Cathedral is located at the foot of the highest mountain. If it weren't for the long distance, he might have gone there with Karclo two years ago.

Oh, right, and Amaro too. Gaucano then thought of another person who died because of him, and for whom he also had a promise—to deliver a message to Ax.

Compared to the Garan Cathedral, which can be visited anytime, this is obviously more urgent.

After all, who knows how old the recipient is? What if it's a middle-aged or elderly person? If he goes back decades later, the grass on their grave will probably be overgrown.

Gao Jiano had a headache. After a while, he sighed, activated the Feign Death spell, and fell into a deep sleep within seconds.

Before falling asleep, a vague thought suddenly arose in his mind... During the day, Calcro's ability to foresee danger seemed to be a little unreliable?
Gaucano didn't think about it in detail.

The swiftly effective hypnotic technique of feigning death dispelled his thoughts, putting him into a state of deep sleep comparable to Raymond's...

For the next few days, the five-person team repeated a similar routine, leaving early and returning late, hunting monsters.

Their exceptional strength, coupled with the abundance of magical beasts in the vicinity, allowed them to quickly gather prey.

By the time they had been in the valley for five days, they had gathered almost all of their prey.

To be precise, it's just missing one person—John.

John only came to the Level 3 Hunter assessment to accompany Karclo. As a Level 5 warrior, he didn't care about the Level 3 Hunter status, so he put his priority of assigning prey last.

Carrying four sets of prey needed for full specialization, the five of them set off in a grand procession toward the examiner's camp.

In order to transport their prey, they had to build a makeshift cart, which was pulled by four live magical beasts, while they themselves sat on the cart with several of the beast corpses.

The main hauler was a third-grade stag goat.

Just as its name suggests, the spurred goat's hooves are sharp and strong, making them formidable weapons, but also excellent "shoes with spikes."

Of course, the reason it was made the main hauler wasn't because of that, but because it was quite intelligent, and Karklo's spell "Animal Talk" worked successfully on it.

The persuaded goat realized this was its chance to survive, so it willingly became the main puller of the cart and, together with Calcro, pressured its three cattle and horse companions to ensure that the cart was generally moving in the right direction.

After several hours of transport, the five arrived at the third examiner's camp.

There were still a few hunters submitting their prey here, but they were clearly testing their shooting skills. Each person usually only had two dead level-two wild beasts, and their numbers were far less impressive than the five-person caravan pulling the cart.

"Mosa, why have they hunted so many magical beasts?" the hunters exclaimed in astonishment.

"These monsters either appear to be alive or only wounded by arrows. Are they planning to acquire three specializations? Or five people?"

"Wait, I know that guy. I remember he's a level 5 warrior. He's also here for the level 3 hunter assessment... Does that make sense?"

The camp examiners couldn't help but show surprise: "How did you do that?"

"This is a gift from afar—we've traveled the farthest!" said Calcro.

“Examiners, please examine our prey,” John said. “If we’re not mistaken, this prey should be enough to satisfy the dual-specialization requirements of four people.”

(End of this chapter)