Anagin Chronicles

Chapter 045. Food

The sound of pigs being slaughtered echoed through the air.

But only for a moment. Soon, the mountain hideout grew as silent as a grave.

Holding the blood-stained Beast Cleaver, Anagin walked toward one remaining bandit.

The only bandit left alive flinched violently.

“Hey.”

“Y-yes? Yes?! Yes!!”

The bandit, who had been full of confidence that very morning, now trembled like a madman.

"Do you know where the other bandits are? The ones who teamed up with that wild boar bastard."

“I–I do! I know! I swear I do!!”

The rookie bandit answered like he was having a seizure.

“Lucky you. If you didn’t, I was gonna kill you too.”

“Hiiiiiik….”

“You wanna live?”

The rookie bandit nodded so hard he looked deranged.

“Answer properly.”

“I–I want to live!!”

“Good. I’ll let you live. Instead, go and tell them exactly what you saw here. Every bandit you know. The Forest Brotherhood, too. Don’t leave out a single thing. Think you can do that?”

“Y-yes! Y-yes, I c-can! I can…!!”

“Good, run.”

The moment he was given permission, the rookie bandit sprinted like a mad animal, drooling and crying.

After confirming he was far away, Anagin turned his head toward Sphinx.

“What are you doing?”

He was asking Sphinx, who still had the children’s eyes covered.

Sphinx looked slightly angry.

“…It’s not something kids should see, right?”

Anagin glanced around.

The chopped-up corpses of the bandits and the blood-soaked ground probably weren’t pleasant for children to witness.

But……

“Let them look.”

“Mister.”

"I'm asking you."

When Anagin used the word "asking," Sphinx twitched, her scowl faltering as she hesitated.

Anagin waited, and eventually Sphinx relaxed her expression just a little and gently removed her hands from the children’s eyes.

The freed children looked around. They tried to understand what had happened, more precisely, what Anagin had done.

“…….”

“…….”

Contrary to Sphinx’s concern, the old man’s granddaughter and grandson did not cry even as they saw bodies scattered everywhere. They seemed somewhat startled, but nowhere near shaken.

Were they fearless by nature? Or had they steeled themselves already?

Anagin decided to confirm one thing before anything else.

“Let’s get one thing straight first.”

The grandchildren looked directly into Anagin’s eyes.

“None of this happened because of you, so don’t get any weird hopes or guilt about it. I don’t like people stuffing that kind of crap into my business.”

Anagin drew a clear line.

He defeated Paia and killed all of his underlings but one simply because he felt like it, not because of the kids. Not even a little.

“I did it because I wanted to. Like in Dysis Polis. Answer me.”

“……Yes.”

“……Okay.”

Though weak, the granddaughter and grandson replied.

Anagin decided that was enough.

“Good. Then stay there for a bit. Sit or stand, whatever. Are you hungry?”

The two shook their heads.

Whether they truly weren’t hungry or simply didn’t want to eat, Anagin didn’t care either way.

Whether they liked it or not, the kids had to learn to handle their own meals now. Food wasn’t something other people could forcibly provide, except for family.

“This thing a magic tool?”

With the kids behind him, Anagin nudged the boar hide Paia had worn—now split in half—with his foot and asked.

It was destroyed, but he still wanted to know what it was.

Sphinx glanced at the children, then approached and examined the boar hide.

“It’s a magic tool. Made by killing a boar right before it turns into a monster, then putting its sentience back in during processing. You can draw on the dead boar’s power and summon it as a familiar. Anyway, we should take it.”

She suggested they take the two blood-soaked halves.

“You can still use it in that state?”

"Of course not. But it can be used in other ways. Like as a material for making other magic tools. It's better to take it."

“Oh, really? Nice. You know a lot.”

Anagin praised her and gathered the boar hide as instructed.

Sphinx felt she might have said too much and quickly changed the subject.

"......It's nothing much. By the way, are you planning to fight the Forest Brotherhood?"

“Yeah.”

Anagin answered without hesitation.

Instead of being surprised, Sphinx reacted with a knowing, "as expected."

After all, if he didn’t intend to fight them, there was no reason to leave someone alive to spread the news.

“Still, I had to ask… what if you declared war on them and then decided to run away in secret or something.”

Though she said that, Sphinx already knew the possibility was near zero.

If Anagin were that kind of man, he would’ve left this region the moment a bounty was placed on him.

It seemed like things were escalating.

He had already made enemies of the local practitioner family. Now he intended to fight the Forest Brotherhood as well. His actions were reckless enough to make one wonder if he had a death wish.

“What are you mumbling about?”

“Mister.”

“Don’t call me that.”

"Couldn't you have at least extracted some information before sending the rookie bandit away? It would have been a bit easier, wouldn't it?"

Sphinx scolded him for letting the rookie bandit go without questioning him.

Anagin ignored her.

“I can figure that out on my own. What would a kid like him even know?”

Since it was true, Sphinx couldn’t argue back.

A mere errand boy of a mountain hideout wouldn’t know much anyway. It would be more effective to find out through other means. The problem is...

"Is there a way?"

“I’m asking you. How can we get information on the Forest Brotherhood?”

“……Are you serious?”

Sphinx stared, utterly dumbfounded. He was this shameless and this planless?!

“How do you not know? No, I guess it’s possible you wouldn’t.”

“…I do know.”

“Alright then, come along and explain.”

Anagin put the scattered weapons and the boar hide into the Interspatial Bag, then began inspecting the hideout. He gestured for Sphinx to follow.

Sphinx obediently followed behind him and explained.

“Well, two things come to mind immediately, and the first one is the newspaper.”

“Newspaper?”

“If it’s something big enough to practically start a country, most mountain hideouts around here probably joined hands. Reporters might’ve been interested.”

“That kind of stuff goes in a newspaper?”

“It might not, but it wouldn’t be strange if it did. Talaria Weekly covers stories big enough to shake the world. It might be in a recently published issue.”

“How do you get that? The newspaper.”

“It’s hard to get one in Anapik. There aren’t any newspaper stalls yet.”

“‘Hard’ means there is a way, though?”

Sphinx thought again—he really was sharp in weird places.

“You meet a courier.”

“What’s that?”

“The couriers who work for Talaria Weekly. They wander all over selling newspapers.”

“And where do you find them?”

“They show up on their own. To people who need a newspaper.”

“If this conversation gets any longer, I think I’m gonna get angry. Can you say something I can actually understand?”

Anagin complained at Sphinx’s cryptic rambling. It wasn’t even a riddle—he just couldn’t make sense of it.

“Haa…. That was my most detailed explanation. Anyway, even while running for their lives, they certainly snatched everything neatly.”

Sphinx looked around the now-empty storage room in admiration.

It seemed the women Anagin had released had cleaned the place out.

Even terrified, they still scavenged every item they could find. Human greed is truly extraordinary.

“Ah, maybe it’s not greed but the will to survive? They probably have to take something to be able to live."

"Whatever. As long as they spread the story about what happened here... Is there nothing left to take?"

“Sniff, sniff. Look down there.”

Sphinx pointed at the floor. Anagin struck it with his fist, and treasures burst out from a hidden chamber beneath.

Lightning gold coins, olive silver coins, barley copper coins, various gems and jewelry, and a strangely carved deer figurine.

Likely the most valuable plunder they’d taken from raiding practitioner families.

‘This deer carving doesn’t look particularly valuable, though.’

Anagin put the wooden deer figurine into the Interspatial Bag and thought to himself.

After gathering all the loot, he asked Sphinx:

“That just now, was it magic, or pure sense of smell?”

“Both. I naturally have a good nose, and with magic, I enhanced it to detect specific scents. Treasure absorbs a deep scent of human greed…. I just cast a spell that lets me smell that.”

“Hoooh, interesting…. Alright, back to the main topic. What’s the other way? Besides newspapers?”

“You go to the Thieves’ Guild.”

"Ask a thief for information about bandits?"

Anagin looked confused.

Different occupation, but bandits and thieves were basically the same kind of scum, weren’t they? One covered in shit, the other in chaff—both filthy all the same.

“I get why you think that, but it’s not always like that. Because their work is similar, they often end up fighting.”

“Ah….”

“And the Thieves’ Guild doesn’t only deal in stolen goods. They deal in information, too. And they’re surprisingly accurate. But there’s one problem.”

“What is it?”

“I’ve never used a Thieves’ Guild before. Because I try to live a decent life.”

“Then how do you know their information is accurate?”

“I heard it. And don’t look at me like that, Mister.”

Sphinx warned him, annoyed by his disappointed stare. She was trying to help—no need for that look.

“Well, fine. Not impossible that they handle information. So where do you meet them?”

“In a city.”

“A city?”

“Yes. That’s one of the reasons the Forest Brotherhood hates them. The Thieves’ Guild makes its nest inside cities, and the Forest Brotherhood hates such places.”

“Ah…. So that’s what that meant.”

Thanks to Sphinx’s explanation, Anagin finally understood.

That comment the bandits made—how if the old man’s grandchildren reached a city, they wouldn’t be able to chase them anymore.

“Then the destination is decided.”

While they talked, Anagin had nearly finished collecting everything from the hideout.

“So, we head for the city.”

“Do you know the way?”

“Just go back the way we came and ask at the nearest village. There should be a city somewhere around here.”

Now that the next step was clear, Anagin went straight to the old man’s grandchildren without hesitation.

The two children were standing exactly where they’d been, almost as if waiting for him.

“Here, take it.”

Anagin handed them half of the treasures he’d taken from the hideout.

“That’s for the towel I borrowed earlier, and for feeding me.”

Anagin settled an old debt.

He’d already paid for the ride on the carriage and the damages he caused, so those were not included.

“I’ll take you to the city, so use that to find a way to live.”

The granddaughter looked at the bundle of treasure, then back at Anagin. Then…….

“Can we go with you?”

“Follow me?”

“Yes.”

“Sorry, but I have absolutely no intention of babysitting kids—”

“—You’re going to fight the Forest Brotherhood, right?”

“…….”

"We'll help too. With anything. My brother feels the same way."

The granddaughter made an unexpected offer. He might not have known about the grandson, but he thought the granddaughter would at least follow his instructions for her brother’s sake, yet her will was unmistakably firm.

“If we do nothing now, we’ll regret it for the rest of our lives.”

He understood what they meant.

When a family member died, a person’s heart could collapse for months at the shortest, years at the longest. Anagin had gone through it himself.

'Though it was a plague, not murder.'

But what if they had been killed? Would anyone be able to immediately begin a new life? No matter how he thought about it, it seemed impossible. At least, that’s how Anagin saw it.

So instead of uttering some meaningless, comforting nonsense, Anagin told them what he needed to say.

“I’m not going to risk my life just to protect you.”

“We—”

“I’m not done. Shut it.”

Anagin cut off the granddaughter’s words.

“If you come with me, you’ll follow whatever I say. No matter how unreasonable the order is. And you’re going to see a lot of ugly things. Worse than what you’re looking at now.”

The grandchildren looked around again.

The ground was painted red like spilled dye, and dismembered corpses lay strewn everywhere.

“Lastly, I’m called the Practitioner Killer right now. That one’s the most important.”

“…….”

“A lot of people put a bounty on my head, calling me a villain. If you get involved with someone like me, even after all this is over, living a peaceful life will be difficult. And your grandfather wouldn’t want that for you.”

That last part, he could say with certainty.

The old man had come to him, taught him Yul and Pa, and even begged him not to get involved.

More than that, what kind of insane grandfather would tell his grandchildren to fight bandits for the sake of revenge?

……Honestly, if he thought about it, the right thing to do was to forcefully send these kids away.

But Anagin didn’t.

Sending them off wouldn’t guarantee a safe, happy future—especially considering the old man supposed to protect them had already made a foolish mistake.

Even so, as a final respect to the old man, Anagin conveyed his true feelings to the children.

“I guarantee that your grandfather didn’t care about revenge. He just wanted you to live safe and peaceful lives. But even so, do you still want to follow me? Even if it means giving up safety and peace?”

Maybe because he invoked their grandfather, the siblings didn’t answer immediately this time.

A good sign. It meant they still had reason left.

The two didn’t answer easily, and Anagin waited.

After quite some time, the granddaughter finally spoke.

“We still want to go with you.”

“You’d go against your grandfather’s wishes?”

“If we don’t, we won’t be able to endure it.”

Holding back tears, the granddaughter explained.

It wasn’t for their grandfather.

It was for themselves.

Of course—revenge was always that way.

Not for the dead, but for the living……

“Then here’s your first order.”

“Yes.”

“Eat first. I’m not traveling with idiots who can’t even feed themselves.”