Golden Age (2)

Guts briefly stands against the veteran soldier Donovan before the larger man overpowers him. His will collapses when he learns that Donovan paid his foster father Gambino for the chance to assault him. The next day Guts confronts Gambino, but the mercenary leader's easy, oblivious manner persuades the boy of his innocence, and he cannot bring himself to ask whether he was truly sold. In a later forest battle Guts hunts Donovan down, driving crossbow bolts into him and running his sword through the man's throat, demanding to know who betrayed him, but Donovan dies with the answer unspoken. The same battle costs Gambino a leg to an explosion, and though the mercenaries prevail, doubt spreads that their crippled leader will ever fight again. Two years on, a hardened Guts brings news of a reward to Gambino, only to be coldly dismissed. That night a drunken Gambino enters Guts' tent intent on murder, blaming the boy for the death of Shisu and the loss of his leg and confessing that it was he who sold Guts to Donovan. Left no choice, Guts drives his blade through Gambino's neck to save his own life.

Unable to voice the question tearing at him, Guts smashes a water barrel rather than accuse Gambino of selling him. On the battlefield he settles the score with Donovan, but the dying soldier never names who arranged the betrayal. Gambino's maiming leaves the mercenary band questioning his command and weighing new leaders. The chapter closes on the fatal confrontation in Guts' tent, where Gambino's drunken admission and murderous attack force the boy to kill the only father he has known.

The chapter belongs to the flashback sequence chronicling Guts' childhood within Gambino's mercenary band, and its cast is limited to Guts, Gambino, and Donovan. It marks the violent end of Guts' bond with his foster father, a formative rupture that shapes the swordsman he later becomes.