I Planned a Su*cide Mission and Got Kicked Out of the Party

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Bernard had come to take a break but ended up experiencing quite a strange situation.

Unlike the other four companions who seemed completely devoted to their mission, Bernard liked to indulge in some worldly pleasures as long as it didn’t impede his work and his finances were in good shape.

Even if those pleasures seemed rather base in various ways, Bernard was not the type to feel overly moralistic about actions that were not prohibited by imperial law.

This was all before the Hero Walter shattered the brothels, claiming that they provided an easy infiltration route for succubi. One might think it excessive, but after revealing that soldiers and even knights of higher rank had leaked military secrets to succubi disguised as whores, nobody dared to oppose his actions.

Bernard even witnessed one soldier among those demolishing the brothel wearing a face that looked like he wanted to weep. While Bernard didn’t particularly feel like crying, he couldn’t shake off a sense of regret.

Not knowing when Walter would target the next tavern, Bernard always took the opportunity during his free time to enjoy an ample amount of drinking.

Indeed, it had become the only respite in a harsh life that was unbearable without a shred of sanity, and now even that precious break was threatened, which made Bernard extremely angry.

For some time now, at least three individuals had been keeping a watchful eye on him in a rather sneaky manner. Unable to contain his anger, Bernard committed the outrageous act of diluting his own wine with water.

In fact, the ratio was such that it would be more accurate to say he mixed his wine with water. The ingeniously inept stalkers seemed oblivious to the fact that Bernard had noticed their presence, but who knew how they would react if they sensed he was intentionally moderating his drinking?

“It’s not my first time being the one on the run.”

He wasn’t new at hunting humans, having a decent background in it before becoming Walter’s hammer. While he didn’t want to entangle himself in anything illegal because he didn’t want to cross paths with the mighty imperial army, he had accumulated a certain reputation in the underworld after taking too many assassination contracts.

At one point, the shadow guilds hunting him numbered more than four. He personally crushed two of them, while the others were dealt with by the imperial army or local lords who intervened. Regardless, because it was the shadow guild, Bernard was decimating assassins sent after him without even knowing what their guild was called.

Of course, he hadn’t even cared to ask. What did it matter what guild name a mere hunter broke?

Anyway, it was likely that all the hostile organizations that were after him had been dealt with by the time Walter recruited him. Even if the empire or nobility made a slight mistake, Walter had promised to clean up any mess when he brought him aboard, so the chances of any remaining remnants were slim.

Bernard chewed on the thought of whether he had made any new enemies since beginning to follow Walter.

As he thought about it, he realized there were none, aside from the Demon King’s Army. Having been pulled along to the battlefield so many times, he had never even thought about taking separate contracts on days when he didn’t work with Walter.

As he thought this over and glanced around the tavern again, the men watching Bernard reeked of something suspicious. Perhaps they were some kind of inhuman beings, he suspected.

He didn’t act like a typical drunk who pretended to be loud and boisterous to divert attention. Bernard was usually quiet, sipping his drinks discreetly, and when he felt dizzy, he simply returned home to collapse.

Anyone who knew Bernard’s behavior wouldn’t be foolish enough to create unnecessary noise that would heighten the other party’s vigilance.

For nearly twenty minutes, he merely sipped from his drink disguised as wine. The dried meat served as a side dish was awful: too salty and tasteless.

At least, the saltiness of the meat made him drink water continuously, allowing him to avoid suspicion that he wasn’t drinking alcohol, but the increasing irritation from the situation was getting to Bernard.

It hadn’t been long since he had come back from a battlefield where he had saved people after taking part in a defense battle. He didn’t even have time to celebrate victory before coming back. Just recently, he had trekked through mountains, walked, and then cleaned up some undead sorcerer who looked like a skull. Now that he finally thought he could catch a break, strange things were pricking at his temper, making him feel like he was working overtime during what should be a vacation.

Finally, Bernard resolved to get up with a “to hell with it” attitude and headed towards the bar counter where the female bartender was. He barely touched his wine and was about to settle the bill to get out.

After all, he knew they wouldn’t let him leave immediately.

“Hey, before I pay, I just want to say one thing to that guy over there.”

Without even looking to the side, Bernard spoke.

“It isn’t a good habit to put your hands in your pockets while timing an ambush, is it? Someone like me can predict what kind of weapon you’ll use just from that movement. For example, in this case…”

He easily dodged a knife that flew towards his face, bending backward. The knife sailed past him and embedded itself into the wall opposite him.

“I was right. You were aiming to strike first; what a pity.”

The female bartender in front of him remained frozen in disbelief at the sudden turn of events. Bernard flashed a wicked smile at her.

“Hide under the table, because I’m about to make a big move.”

The bartender promptly obeyed and collapsed to the ground. It seemed she had been in a tavern riot before.

Guests, sensing an impending bloodbath, began rising from their seats one by one. The overly drunk ones still chugged their drinks or babbled incoherently, but most people began to stealthily glance at each other, looking for an escape route from the bar.

With keen awareness, Bernard locked onto a man among them who, even amidst the chaos, exhibited no sign of panic, targeting him like a predator.

From sheer swagger alone, he seemed like a fighter with decent skill. Of course, only considered decent for an average person.

“He’s drunk! Let’s attack all at once!”

Having realized their identities were fully exposed to Bernard’s gaze, one man drew his longsword and charged him, followed closely by the other three.

The strongest blonde-haired hunter, with a bold face, threw the very drink he had just been drinking at the leading man.

“Drunk? You think I’m drunk? Check what I was downing until just now, you fool!”

Bernard’s glass hit the attacker right in the face, breaking through the crowd of fleeing patrons toward the tavern door. The assaulted man crashed onto the table, tasted the liquid on his face, and erupted in fury.

“It’s plain water! It’s not white wine!”

“It’s three percent wine, thank you very much. And red wine, at that.”

“I got tricked! Attack!”

Before Bernard knew it, an adversary had approached him, knuckles on, a punch aimed right at him. Bernard effortlessly dodged his fist, targeting an unprotected area—his groin—with a swift kick. The knock-knuckle man froze in place, and Bernard wasted no time with a spinning kick to the opponent’s solar plexus.

“What guts to not wear armor or protect yourself in a vulnerable area, seriously.”

The second attacker caught Bernard’s eye immediately afterward. Believing Bernard hadn’t noticed him, he quietly drew out a blowpipe from his back pocket and aimed it at Bernard’s mouth.

The only reason to use a blowpipe? A poison-tipped attack. Anticipating it, Bernard boldly leaped over the table and approached the poison guy, inhaling deeply, intending to blow air into the other end of the blowpipe before he could execute his attack.

It was an impossible feat for a normal human’s lung capacity, but Bernard’s powerful breath expelled the poison dart lurking in the pipe, driving it down the opponent’s throat.

Soon, the man holding the blowpipe turned pale, blood spraying from his mouth as he collapsed to the floor. Bernard frowned slightly and muttered.

“Oh right, I was told not to kill them for questioning…”

In the meantime, the remaining two men were still after Bernard, one with a knife and the other brandishing a longsword. Including the knockout knuckle guy, there were still three left breathing.

“Well, as long as I leave the rest alive, I might not get in too much trouble.”

The knife-wielding man once more threw a small dagger at Bernard. Reading the opponent’s movements and predicting the attack, the hunter promptly grabbed the longsword man, using him as a shield to block the dagger.

The blade sank deep into the left arm of the now-defensive attacker. Still dizzy from the earlier blow, he let out a sharp scream and collapsed, body curling into a crumpled heap on the floor.

As his face turned green, he began to rot right before Bernard’s eyes. Caught off guard witnessing the dying man, Bernard couldn’t suppress his surprise.

“What? Was that poison too? Damn it, nothing goes according to plan.”

Determined to subdue the last man alive, Bernard pulled a thin rope from the bag he carried.

Before the opponent could even react to the sight of the rope, Bernard expertly swung it, wrapping it around the assailant’s leg and knocking him down. CRASH! The opponent struck his head on the table, and Bernard could hear what seemed like bones breaking upon impact.

He dragged the knockout man over and bound him alongside the one just taken down with the rope.

With almost all the customers having left, except for a couple of drunks, the atmosphere had turned silent as the fighting came to an end. The bartender was peeking around the counter, looking left and right, trying to confirm if the situation had calmed down.

“It’s over. You may get up now.”

Bernard declared. The bartender, with black hair and a plain appearance, exhaled a sigh of relief.

“Thank you so much. I almost faced a big trouble…”

“No, you don’t have to thank me. Those guys were gunning for me anyway. Since I accidentally turned your place into a scene of corpses… I’m not sure how I should apologize.”

Feeling truly sorry for bringing trouble to his regular tavern, Bernard expressed genuine remorse.

At that moment, a man with white hair and gold-framed glasses appeared at the tavern entrance, looking somewhat uneasy.

It was none other than Walter Hellhound, the Hero.

“Bernard? Are you here? I saw a crowd rushing out earlier, did something happen?”

“I made quite the scene. Killed two people. Thankfully, I’ve restrained the other two.”

Walter’s eyes widened at Bernard’s words. After a moment, upon confirming the wreckage of chairs and tables along with two poisoned bodies laying around, he sighed, as if he understood the situation.

“Let’s make amends. Why would you go to a tavern and cause this ruckus when you’re being targeted?”

“Hey, did I know I was being targeted? Talk about nitpicking!”

Walter ignored Bernard’s complaints and approached the two unconscious men. Bernard, still grumbling, casually calculated the damages the fleeing customers would leave behind, including unpaid drink balances and costs of various broken furniture, before handing the bartender five gold coins.

The bartender waved her hands, as if to say she couldn’t accept such a large sum, but soon yielded to the pressure in Bernard’s frustrated demeanor and accepted the coins quietly.

Walter wasn’t one to deride payment for his hired help, so Bernard had some leeway financially. After all, every day was war, leaving little opportunity to spend money.

“Looks like these idiots fell under the succubus’s spell, and a very organized one at that.”

Walter concluded after inspecting the two floored foes thoroughly. Bernard shrugged his shoulders.

“But we just smashed the brothel, right? Why the sudden influx of succubi?”

“Smashed a brothel, and did you think that led to the extinction of succubi? No, the closure was merely a precaution to prevent leaking information, which tends to happen when you leave untended taverns. This was an outright ambush. It seems they lured a few men just to get at you. Sounds like revenge for what we’ve done, but it didn’t exactly work out.”

“That aside, let’s not start shutting down taverns on the basis of this.”

“Haha, don’t worry about that! If we did, I might actually be killed by my subordinates.”

Saying this, Walter briefly frowned and tilted his head.

“Wait a minute… There’s a chance there might actually be a prohibition on alcohol soon.”

“What?!”

“But I was warned repetitively in yesterday’s council about an impending food shortage. How could we waste fancy grain and fruit on brewing alcohol?”

“Seriously?!”

Bernard was incredulous, but he couldn’t refute the Hero’s statement. It was clear that if rations ran out, a prohibition on alcohol would indeed be unavoidable. Eliminating the possibility of obtaining more useful calories by brewing liquor would be an utter waste.

“So… does that mean I’m about to become unemployed?”

And no one could alleviate the bartender’s unfortunate anxiety, unknowingly overhearing the state secret.