Barbarian Quest

Chapter 79

Clop, clop.

The horses struggled to stride forward. They had barely escaped from Lungell's domain. Urich had led the group through waterways and mountain paths several times to prevent the chase parties from tailing them. After two days without any incident, he had concluded that they were safe from the pursuit.

‘The wound on his thigh is rotting.’

Urich examined Bachman's wound. Sticky pus was oozing from the bandage onto the scorched wound, which seemingly had only worsened the condition. The wound was too deep to burn shut in the first place.

‘I can’t even amputate his leg because the wound is on the upper part of the thigh.’

If it had been on the limb's distal ends, amputation could have been a solution. But Bachman’s wound was on the upper thigh. Cutting it off would require slicing close to the pelvis, which would surely be fatal for Bachman.

"Getz has died." One of the mercenaries reported to Urich.

Getz, who had gotten a deep chest wound from the battle with the cavalries, had died. With deep wounds, survival depended solely on luck. If the wound festered, it led to death; if it healed, they survived.

"Right."

Urich nodded quietly. The mercenaries wrapped Getz’s body in a cloak and tied it behind a horse. A proper funeral would involve cremation, but they opted not to do that to avoid attracting attention with the smoke. Cremation was going to produce tons.

"When we started, there were over ten of us. Now, we're half that," Urich said as he looked at the remaining mercenaries. The most somber among them was Pahell.

‘Those who were laughing and chattering until moments ago are now dead.’

The bodies of the people who seemed like they would live vibrantly forever had turned cold.

‘Was death something that was always this close?’

People often forget about death in their daily lives. If one were to constantly be wary of it, it would be unbearable. While everyone thinks death is far away from them, it is actually always lurking close by, breathing down their necks.

"Ugh."

Pahell covered his mouth. His eyes were bloodshot, with red veins stark against his blue irises, almost completely overtaking their blue color.

"You should eat something, Pahell. If you keep throwing everything up, your strength will be the first to go." Urich constantly tended to the mercenaries and Pahell. Normally, Bachman would handle such duties, but he was incapacitated.

‘Dammit.’

Urich also felt nauseated. Bachman's chances of survival seemed slim.

‘Bachman still doesn't believe he's dying.’

Despite his condition, Bachman stubbornly refused to give up. He was stuffing food in his mouth, forcing himself to eat, and insisting that he would get better.

"I'm going to be receiving my land soon. Then, I’ll finally become Bachman the Landowner. I'll build a mansion, employ tenant farmers, and live comfortably."

Agricultural land was the greatest reward a mercenary could achieve. Self-farmed land meant not having to rely on a lord's land, and if that land was big enough, it allowed its owner to live the life of a noble by hiring their own tenant farmers.

"Yeah, yeah."

Urich brought porridge to Bachman's side and responded to Bachman’s wishful words half-heartedly. It was clear that his replies were empty words, but Bachman, who was delirious, didn't notice.

‘Bachman's sharpness is gone. That was his greatest strength.’

Bachman was crucial in managing the mercenary group. He was the one who was always keeping tabs on the mood and opinion of the mercenaries, allowing Urich to not think about the feeble matters and only focus on more significant ones.

"Bachman is done for."

"Never thought the guy with the big mouth would die so soon, but I guess you never know with life."

The mercenaries commented as they slurped the porridge. They were used to accepting the death of comrades.

‘Thank Lou that I’m not the one dying.’

The mercenaries were primarily concerned with their own survival. Even with strong camaraderie, they maintained a distance in relationships. Unless they were very close, their reactions were mostly indifferent.

Even when Urich was bedridden, the mercenary squad was more worried about their next steps than their leader Urich. No matter how one looked at it, Urich’s Brotherhood had no true brotherhood.

‘But Bachman ran around trying to make things work even when I was down—though it was still for his own benefit.’

Urich drank his porridge beside Bachman. He picked out what little chunks it had with his fingers and chewed on them.

“My body definitely feels lighter than yesterday. I’m getting better, for sure,” Bachman said as he emptied his porridge bowl. He forced himself to finish his food despite wanting to throw it right back up. That’s what it took to get better. He couldn’t vomit.

‘Bachman never betrayed me once, nor did he act against my benefit. He was a loyal man.’

Urich knew that there was no replacement for Bachman. It left a bitter distaste in his mouth.

"Bachman, it was fun while it lasted," Urich said as he stood up.

"Put that bullshit away. I said I'm getting better," Bachman insisted weakly, squeezing out the little energy he had left.

"Let me know when you're ready to accept it."

"Urich, you can't treat me like this, you, out of all people. You know how much I've done for you!" Bachman shouted with his eyes glaring at Urich.

"I know. I'll do anything for you, anything that is within my power."

Bachman's scowling face crumpled into despair, his eyes tearing up. Urich left him alone to have some time to himself.

Night deepened. Pahell, the weakest in the group in terms of stamina, was the first to fall asleep. He dreamt of discovering the eastern continent. It was his mission to discover the world in the east, where the sun rose from—a mission bestowed by Lou. The deaths beneath that mission also seemed to be Lou's will.

‘Oh, Lou.’

Pahell wept. Was this truly Lou's will? Countless deaths on the way to the throne and discovering the eastern continent? For the first time, Pahell doubted his faith. Lou, the god of benevolence, had given him a cruel fate, nothing in resemblance to the love and peace that Lou apparently endorsed.

Pahell wanted to meet a priest to correct his twisted faith. A priest would have the advice he needed.

‘It's a trial and test. I must not doubt Lou.’

Pahell woke up to the sound of low groans.

"Hmm?" He rubbed his eyes and got up from his place. A few torches were visible in the distance.

‘An enemy?’

Pahell initially panicked but soon relaxed. He realized that if they were truly enemies, the mercenaries on guard would have reacted long ago.

‘Urich?’

He recognized a familiar figure. Urich and the mercenaries were still awake, gathered around doing something.

"Uuugh, ugh."

The groaning became clearer. Pahell's drowsy eyes rapidly widened, and the sleepiness was gone in a second.

"I said I was going to skin you alive, didn’t I? Oh, did you think I was joking? Huh?" Urich's voice, tinged with playfulness, was heard as he washed the dagger in a helmet filled with water. Blood and pieces of flesh washed off the blade.

"What in the world... Ugh." Pahell couldn't hold back his vomit. Unfortunately, he had seen it.

'They've hung a man from a tree... and they're skinning him alive.'

Gidwick the traitor, was dangling from a tree. His arms were tied above him to a branch to keep him in place. His sides were littered with spots where his skin was peeled off, revealing pinkish flesh underneath. Even with a gag in his mouth, horrendous groans of pain seeped out like ghostly wails. His veins seemed to burst all over his body from the agony.

"Pahell? Did we wake you? Sorry, sorry. I thought I had silenced the noise, but it seems to have gotten to you," Urich said to Pahell as he was rinsing the dagger with an innocent grin on his blood-splattered face.

"S-stop that, Urich. This isn't what a person should do!" Pahell cried out, looking at Gidwick. He wasn't the only one with such thoughts; even among the mercenaries, some frowned at the sight of a man, who was very much still alive, being skinned. However, unlike Pahell, they didn't voice their opposition.

'The traitor deserves this,' the mercenaries thought, none of them looking away from Gidwick's punishment.

They found solace in his suffering as they believed that a traitor must always pay a fitting price. If there were no punishment, who would uphold their trust?

"This is a mercenary matter, Pahell. I don't interfere in your affairs, do I? We all have our roles."

Urich lifted the cleaned dagger and whistled. Gidwick shook violently at the sound of Urich’s whistle.

"He's writhing, just like a salmon that’s trying to swim upstream. Serves you right, Gidwick." Bachman, who was leaning against a tree, weakly laughed. He felt no pity as he watched Gidwick face his punishment, as Gidwick was the sole reason that he was slowly dying.

"B-but this is..." Pahell faltered. His words made no difference. Urich was just doing his job.

'It's not my place to intervene.'

Pahell knew. He, too, despised Gidwick. Enough to kill him. If given the chance, he was sure he would have beheaded Gidwick himself without hesitation. The faces of the two loyal guard knights who followed him flickered in his mind.

'But they're skinning him alive.'

An instinctive revulsion surged within him.

"We've still got a long way to go. Listen to this," Urich said to Pahell as he undid the gag from Gidwick's mouth.

"P-please, leader, spare my life. I was a fool! Pleaaase, I'll do anything, become a slave, whatever you ask. Please, you know my story, you know that I have people to feed back home... ugh!"

Gidwick's pleas were cut short as Urich gagged him again.

Urich playfully spun the dagger in his hand. His fingers moved quickly, skillfully tossing the dagger in the air. Urich caught the dagger mid-air in front of Gidwick and looked at Pahell.

"You hear that, Pahell? This bastard is still begging for his life. I’m going to keep skinning him bit by bit until he begs me to kill him."

Pahell trembled at Urich's words. He knew of Urich's dual nature—the kind and jovial Urich and the cruel, violent one. But never had he seen the latter so pronounced as today. There was no hint of light-heartedness; the scale had completely tipped.

Ri—ip.

The sight of a man being skinned alive was a rare spectacle if one could endure its cruelty. The mercenaries circled around the traitor and watched intently as he was stripped of the outfit called his skin.

Splash!

Urich occasionally splashed cold water on the exposed flesh. Each time, Gidwick convulsed and soiled himself. A pile of excrement formed beneath him.

"I will dig out your eyes after I’m done peeling every last bit of your skin. I want you to see yourself getting stripped," Urich said to Gidwick as he flashed the dagger in front of Gidwick’s eyes.

'Is this how I’m supposed to do it? I've only seen it from over the shoulder, so I'm not exactly sure.'

Urich focused again and moved on to the next step. It was his first time skinning a human, so he treated it just like skinning an animal. Skinning a human was a task reserved for the eldest and most respected warriors in the tribe, usually performed by the chief himself. It served as both punishment and a warning to maintain order within the community. Hence, the more horrific the punishment, the better example it set because it was more likely to keep people in line using fear. Skinning a person alive was undoubtedly the most terrifying form of execution.

Urich's blade nicked one of Gidwick’s arteries, causing blood to spurt violently. His face was covered in blood.

Tssss.

Casually, Urich cauterized Gidwick's wounds with a torch to prevent him from dying from blood loss.

"You're quite resilient, aren't you? Still holding on, Gidwick. If you had used that tenacity in a good way, this wouldn't have happened... you betraying son of a bitch."

His last words were laced with rage. An occasional threat from Urich was more frightening than anyone’s frequent threats.

Gidwick writhed in agony. Each gust of wind caused excruciating pain over his exposed flesh.

"You'll roam as an evil spirit, unable to reincarnate after death.”

“Even the merciful god Lou won't accept a dog like you."

The mercenaries hurled curses at Gidwick, who was now a ragged figure with his skin in tatters.

Snap.

The pain was far from over. Urich inserted the dagger under each of Gidwick's fingernails, prying them up. The ripped-out nails fell to the ground.

"Ugh, uuauaagh!"

Gidwick's muffled groans seeped through the gag. Blood dripped from his face.

Urich paused momentarily before removing Gidwick's gag again.

"J-just kill me, please. I beg of you. End it now! You barbarian bastard, you’re no human. You’re worse than a beast." Gidwick finally relinquished his will to live. The pain was too unbearable to endure while alive. If death was inevitable, he longed for it to come sooner. Gidwick gazed at his own skin lying on the ground, with his pupils trembling uncontrollably.

"That's what I was waiting to hear." Urich nodded, re-gagging Gidwick.

"Uuugh!" Gidwick's eyes widened in realization of Urich's intent.

No mercy awaited Gidwick. Urich didn't kill him. Instead, he spent the rest of the night completely skinning him from head to toe. Then, he meticulously removed his eyes and tongue with the dagger. The mercenaries left Gidwick, now unable to move, see, or speak, as food for the wild animals.

After the mercenaries left, Gidwick sensed a group of unfamiliar presences approaching. The stench of wild dogs filled his nostrils. They had been drawn by the scent of blood.

"Growl.”

The barking of the dogs reached Gidwick's ears.

‘Oh, Lou...’ Gidwick prayed.

...All that remained was the leftovers left by the dogs.