Chapter 57: Young Master

Watching Ketil labor in the fields alongside his workers, Einar admires a wealthy master who dirties his own hands. He then sees Ketil quarrel with a teenager and learns from Thorfinn that it is Olmar, the sixteen-year-old heir. Olmar snaps that he never wanted the farm and storms off, fumbling to draw his sword, vowing to rise in the world as a warrior. That night, settling into the hay, Einar tells Thorfinn that Olmar fails to grasp his good fortune and romanticizes soldiers only because he has never seen war. He recounts two raids on his childhood village: an English force that burned his home and killed his father, and a Danish army that stripped them of food while calling it liberation. To Einar, such fighters are beasts in human masks, and a silent Thorfinn lies awake, troubled.

Elsewhere, Olmar boasts to a girl in his bed that he will join the royal army and win renown in England. She urges him to inherit the farm instead and hints she wants his child, while her scheming parents eavesdrop, delighted their family's future seems secured. Sensing their designs, Olmar storms out, accusing them of coveting his father's wealth and treating him like one of Ketil's possessions. Riding off, he meets two drunken guests, Fox and Badger, who flatter him and coax him into drinking at the fortress despite his protests.

Intoxicated and self-pitying, Olmar rants that no one understands him and, when provoked, draws his sword to test Fox. Fox casually kicks the table into him, knocks him down, and levels his blade one-handed while still holding his drinking horn, reminding the boy that they live by the sword. Olmar bursts into tears and begs to be killed. Wary of angering Snake for making the young master cry, Fox changes tack and tells Olmar the rite that makes a man is the act of killing, an experience that hardens a person once they see how fragile a body is. He offers to arrange suitable beginner targets, noting the farm holds people Olmar is allowed to slay, the words falling over an image of Einar and Thorfinn.

Olmar openly rejects inheriting the farm and clashes with his father, declaring he will make his name as a warrior. Einar shares his hatred of soldiers with Thorfinn, recounting the raids that destroyed his village. Olmar spurns a girl's family for their greed, then gets drawn into drinking with the mercenaries Fox and Badger. His drunken challenge to Fox ends in humiliation and tears, and Fox proposes that killing an expendable slave will make Olmar a man.

The fifty-seventh chapter opens Volume 9 within the Slave Arc. Its pages were split across the anime, adapted in Episode 26 and Episode 27. The epigraph comes from Fox as he steers Olmar toward murder, foreshadowing the threat against Einar and Thorfinn.