CH 54

Carlton couldn’t help but to paw at Luisen’s hair. “It’s such a waste.”

“My hair will grow again.”

“That’s true, but…”

It’s true, cutting one’s hair wasn’t a big deal. However it didn’t sit right with Carlton that the young lord was cutting his hair for money. Cutting and selling their hair was a last resort for wives of poor families.

“Besides, there’s nothing better than this for quick money,” Luisen said.

The young lord’s words were correct. Because they had no coin on them currently, it would be hard to restore the pilgrim’s pass. The mercenary had been considering hiding Luisen up in a tree and breaking into the castle, alone, to steal the money. However, it was far better to sell hair than to steal. Still, Carlton couldn’t help but hesitate.

Luisen looked sullenly at Carlton before deciding to take care of it himself. “Give it to me.”

Luisen took the dagger from Carlton’s hand. Without a moment’s hesitation, the young lord grabbed his hair and cleanly cut it off. The dagger was incredibly sharp because Carlton had been grinding it against the whetstone this morning; before the mercenary could stop him, Luisen had cut his hair.

“Okay, that’s enough, right?” Luisen handed the bundle of hair to Carlton.

The mercenary looked down at the strands in his hand. It was beautiful–like a bushel of golden thread–but Carlton’s mind felt conflicted.

The mercenary tore his gaze away from the golden hair and looked at Luisen. Because the young lord had cut just below his ears, his hair began to spread out in all directions; it was as if a mouse had begun nibbling at its ends. Carlton couldn’t laugh at all–instead, his heart felt weighty at how bare the lord’s neck looked.

In the past, one of Carlton’s men once drunkenly said that he became a mercenary because his wife had sold her hair for money. He had chosen this tough job because of his self loathing–he hated himself for being so incompetent, causing his wife to sell her hair. Carlton didn’t understand at that time; it was just hair. It’ll grow again with time–how insignificant.

Luisen wasn’t Carlton’s wife, but now the mercenary understood his men’s feelings.

He’d never felt so powerless and incompetent before. Carlton was someone who took pride in his capabilities–it defined his identity.

“…Just this time. This won’t happen again. Whatever may happen, I’ll make sure we’re not short of money,” Carlton vowed. Whether through hunting or manual labor, this would never happen again.

“Well…do as you please?” Luisen said.

‘Does Sir Carlton really hate being in my debt?’ Contemplating on Carlton’s strange obsessions, Luisen drew the hood over his head once again.

***

The two re-entered the castle. As a city often frequented by a lot of tourists, Confosse’s back alleys were also quite bustling. It was a perfect place for fencing and laundering items secretly. 1

It wasn’t that hard to sell hair. Although hair was often sold at a bargain, Luisen’s hair was long and well-maintained–smooth, taut, and authentically blonde. That particular hair color was quite rare, so it made the strands more valuable than market price. On top of that, Carlton won a few more coins through some haggling and intimidation.

Looking at that, Luisen’s insides boiled. ‘Wow, when I first sold my hair, I got less than half this price.’

However skilled Carlton may have been at bargaining, the price difference was just too much! He must have given away his hair back then for way too cheap. At the time, Luisen knew wigs were made of human hair, but he had no concept of money or how much his hair was worth. Back then, he had just been happy that he could get money at all for something like that.

Carlton didn’t know how much hair was usually sold for either. Instead, Carlton knew how to bargain by observing his customer’s reaction.

‘I should have done that. What a shame…’ Luisen thought.

It was all in the past, but Luisen still felt wasteful. When he recalled how he had happily agreed after being offered a small amount of money, Luisen felt an urge to punch the air. Instead, the young lord clenched his fists.

Carlton noticed Luisen’s body language–the mercenary imagined that, no matter how at ease the noble seemed as he offered to sell his hair, no noble would be happy with resorting to an impoverished wife’s tactics. Though the other may have pretended this was a trivial matter, he was sure to feel slightly hurt.

Carlton felt sorry for Luisen, patted him on the shoulder, and offered him words of comfort. “Since we have money now, let’s eat a long-awaited decent meal for dinner.”

At Carlton’s consoling, Luisen smiled and nodded. One of Luisen’s strengths was his ability to move on without much regret. The two continued on, ignorant of the minor misunderstanding that passed between them.

Holding their money, Luisen and Carlton searched for a blacksmith. Located in the same alley, there was an old blacksmith that mainly handled stolen goods; he was a perfect candidate for keeping secrets because the man was illiterate and mute. The blacksmith worked robotically on the pilgrim’s pass without questioning them.

When the bronze attached to the surface was peeled off, the pilgrim’s pass’s original appearance was revealed. The silver plaque was engraved with the Church’s symbol–the sign for ‘light.’ The brilliant and chilling hue spread out in all directions in the form of rays. Even those that were ignorant of the symbol’s true meaning would recognize that this was not an ordinary object from its sophistication.

After exiting the alley, Luisen threaded a leather string through the pass and hung it around his neck.

Now that Luisen’s fake identity had been secured, it was Carlton’s turn next. They continued down the same road and entered the mercenary’s guild, and there they requested a mercenary plaque issued in the name of someone from Carlton’s company. The mercenary said that he had lost his plaque when he had encountered a robber on his way here.

At first, the guild staff looked at Carlton and Luisen with open suspicion and refused to issue the plaque. Honestly, how could they have entered the heavily fortified castle gate without proper identification or a mercenary’s plaque? In addition, Carlton looked far more like a bandit than a mercenary. It was reasonable for the staff to believe that Carlton may be the robber and not the robbed.

However, when Luisen stealthily showed the staff his pilgrim’s pass, all doubt was cleared. The employee gladly made a new plaque. “Why didn’t you say you were hired to escort an honored pilgrim earlier?”

These passes were issued and managed by the Church; it was a guarantee of one’s status and devotion. Therefore, those with pilgrim’s passes were protected and formally recognized by the Church. No other proof of identity was needed. Under that logic, a mercenary hired by such a pilgrim was also indirectly under the protection and employ of the Church, so no further proof was needed for them either.

“This really works!” Luisen was surprised. He had learned that the pilgrim’s pass was quite useful as he’d followed around the one-armed saint, but he didn’t know the extent of its influence.

“That is what I’ve said. With that, no matter what you look like, you can avoid inspections wherever you go.”

“Still, I thought they’d ask where we came from and what we intend to do here.”

“Most common folk are afraid to have their faith called into question. They may make the Church unhappy by uselessly interrogating pilgrims about this and that.”

Luisen nodded. That was true. This kingdom believed in one god, and the Church’s opinion was reflected in all of the kingdom’s greatest events. The clergy was never missing from official ceremonies, and these matters often followed religious procedures detailed by the Church. As a result, the Church’s influence was quite strong in the people’s daily lives. Priests often were local leaders in rural villages, where the Lord’s governmental influence was weak.

Luisen had previously lived a decadent life as a recognized noble trash–all his friends were the same. They had never been very religiously conscious. In his mind, he imagined the Church as a place where kind priests gave out food as charity.

In any case, after recognizing the power of the pilgrim’s pass, Luisen looked at Carlton with new eyes. “With something like this as a hidden ace, you could have travelled the world with no fear! Everyone would have believed you.”

“I must seem like a very temperamental man, but I’m not thoughtless,” Carlton spoke arrogantly.

Luisen was dumbfounded. ‘If you’re aware of your own temper, then shouldn’t you try to reign that in…?’ As he thought that, Luisen fiddled with his pass. Did Carlton really use this in the previous timeline? Now, though, there was no way to know for sure.

***

Going forward, the pilgrim’s pass proved very useful. The two left the shady alley and walked confidently on bright, sunlit streets. Because they had been wandering the mountains, they looked dirty and shabby; the two were unrivalled in ruggedness in Confosse’s streets.

The combination of Carlton’s unapproachable atmosphere and Luisen’s tightly covered body should have been quite suspicious. And yet, no one doubted them.

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When the two went shopping, the merchants were reluctant to sell at first but changed their behavior once they saw the pilgrim’s pass. Some weren’t completely friendly, but by and large the merchants treated the two well rather than ignoring them or chasing them away. Even the vigilant guards, who were questioning the passersby, smiled at the pass and walked by.

Thanks to that, Luisen and Carlton were able to safely buy what they needed and obtain a room in a clean and decent inn.

Footnotes

Fencing = selling stolen items. Laundering = turning dirty money into legal money.