126 — 13 (7)

Sword Master Ferdinand’s eyes narrowed slightly. In his hands, he held a horn bow. Its limbs were thick, yet supple, with a springiness that could not be compared to an ordinary bow. He drew the string back in a long pull, then released it once. Thang. The bow, with no arrow, made a sound like bamboo snapping back. He marveled. With this level of elasticity, it would have flown far and hit hard even without using mana. He found himself wondering who had devised it.

“…Just who, exactly, made this?”

“It was an artisan Duke Louis keeps by his side.”

Jodan, likely one of the most astonished people here, had an itch on his tongue to say that Duke Louis had conceived the idea. Even securing a thousand units made it impossible to imagine how much power the horn bow would show in this desolate region.

“May I take a look as well, Lord Ferdinand?”

“Go on.”

It was not only Ferdinand whose hands itched to touch it. Parse Akiteia and Orsini Spessart also wanted to examine the horn bow up close. A blond man with curly hair stared at it with fervent eyes. Ferdinand handed the bow to Akiteia. Akiteia ran a hand along the bow’s limbs—crude, yet carrying a simple kind of style—and spoke.

“How did you come up with this pattern? Was some magical power imbued into it?”

What Akiteia meant was the crest engraved on the horn bow—specifically, the emblem favored by Goguryeo warriors. Spessart answered before Louis did.

“No. That crest is not a rune script tied to magic. I suspect it carries some personal meaning for Duke Louis.”

“It was a crest I saw in a dream. It did not particularly mean anything.”

Only Louis knew what the crest truly meant. Even Mongol composite bows had their own distinctive ornamentation. Louis had ordered that, whenever possible, they should include each nation’s distinctive character in the crafting rather than stripping it away. He had realized those unique touches often led to positive results.

Spessart, who possessed the greatest scientific knowledge among them, truly understood the horn bow’s value. He noticed that not only the materials but the method of manufacture had to be made in an unusual way.

Ferdinand received the horn bow back again.

“Then I shall try using it once.”

The area around them was packed with soldiers.

“What is that?”

“They said the Duke invented a new weapon.”

“I heard a rumor he’s forming a special unit to use that weapon.”

“To think we can watch a Sword Master demonstrate archery—what an honor.”

“If someone blessed by the gods made it, then that horn bow surely bears the gods’ blessing as well.”

The surroundings buzzed. Other soldiers chatted freely, but the soldiers beside Ferdinand stood so rigid they could barely breathe. They were, after all, beside a Sword Master and Sword Expert. It was mentally overwhelming for ordinary soldiers, so only men of centurion rank could serve as aides. In front, they had laid several thin wooden boards to test its power. Ferdinand took an arrow from a soldier and nocked it on the string. His motion flowed so smoothly it was easy to forget the sensation of the string being drawn back.

Rather than snapping back abruptly, the horn bow’s limbs bent in a slow arc. The hand that had gripped tightly released. Pang! It was the same crisp sound Louis had made during his own demonstration. Before anyone could blink, the arrow was lodged dead center. The wooden boards trembled. Even as pure strength without mana, it carried twice the power of an ordinary bow.

The centurions—who would inevitably be issued this bow—could not help but exclaim in awe. Instinct told them it was something that would extend their lives on the battlefield more reliably than anything else.

“Wow…”

“That’s no joke…”

A few who recognized its value broke the hush with murmured words. The area erupted again, filled with excitement. After firing, Ferdinand smacked his lips and approached Louis.

“It is the finest bow I have ever held. I never imagined the reason you hunted a gorgon was to make this.”

“So, what is your evaluation?”

When Louis asked with a smile, Ferdinand answered honestly.

“Hah… the best. If you can mass-produce this, you might be able to create a huge current of change.”

Akiteia, Spessart, Ferdinand, and the thousands of soldiers nearby all looked to Louis. Louis began to pace as he spoke to them.

“What you have just seen is called a horn bow. From this moment, I plan to recruit a special unit to use it. Centurions will select the quickest men with the strongest arms and report them. We will run tests, then formally organize the special unit.”

Louis’s voice carried to every soldier. Whether the rain drizzled or not, a thunder-like roar of discipline burst forth—enough to startle the sky itself. Ferdinand, who had once handled an awkward army, felt envy at Louis’s immediate command of military order. Louis’s army had only recently been raised, yet their conviction and respect for their lord were of a quality that could be called the finest in the history of the Duchy of Eron.

The rain began to fall in earnest. In regions like this, rain usually slowed the movement of supplies. But that was not the case for Louis. He had invested money in opening roads in advance for this very moment. They had not pushed too deep yet, remaining on the outer edge of Pantalist, and over several days the camp barracks had been thoroughly reinforced to favor defense. Fences had been set up throughout, and even temporary wooden watchtowers had been raised. An enormous volume of military supplies was arriving there—food and large quantities of metal. Among the endless line of wagons, the most important cargo was likely this. Several wagons stood before Louis, covered in cloth. Louis ordered them to pull the covers back.

Soldiers clung to the wagons and yanked the cloth away. The revealed goods drew gasps from everywhere. The very horn bows Louis had received not long ago now filled the wagons. The army’s advance would begin only after the horn-bow archers were established. Since no message had arrived yet, the branch itself had not been created.

“Distribute them.”

Jodan, at Louis’s side, received the order.

“Yes!”

They received the goods in the morning. As the camp bustled internally with sorting supplies, a message appeared around the afternoon.

Dding.

Jodan entered the barracks. His face was visibly bright.

“The newly established branch is lined up.”

Louis nodded and went outside. The moment he stepped out, he raised his head to the sky. There were dark clouds, but after days of wringing itself dry, it no longer looked ready to spill more rain. Not a single drop fell to the ground now. Louis took the reins of a horse held by a slave. He stepped into the stirrup and mounted with ease, then rode toward the soldiers standing in formation. Soon, Louis stood before men who could not hide their excitement at being given a new weapon. He thought it had been the right call not to remove the crest. Some distinctive style had seeped into them.

Louis opened the status window. Newly created entries appeared before him—the horn-bow unit, a new branch. Simple figures were displayed: power, range, morale. The most important figure was, of course, range: it was +1 compared to ordinary archers. One particularly notable point was that even untrained, their power was already slightly higher than a normal archer unit. He was keenly curious what the numbers would look like once training was complete.

The one who shouted his loyalty and swore allegiance at the front was the chiliarch who would be responsible for the horn-bow branch. Louis checked his information.

He was a chiliarch selected directly from among the centurions. It was possible because there were not many centurions to begin with. Thanks to Chiliarch Van Tes’s Morale Boost specialty, the horn-bow unit’s total morale was 120. His mana was not higher than other chiliarchs, but Louis had chosen him as commander because of his unique specialty and exceptionally high agility.

Chiliarch Van Tes made a brief representative oath of loyalty, and Louis’s approval made the branch official. Louis spoke to him.

“Chiliarch Van Tes. From now on, you and the horn-bow unit will devote all your time to training. The deadline is one week. After one week, you will go straight into live combat, so do not disappoint me.”

“I will do my utmost to carry out your command.”

They were not teaching complete novices from scratch; these were soldiers gathered mainly from those who could already shoot well among the archer units. Louis judged that one week would yield results. Still, the horn bow’s unique elasticity made it difficult to tame. In any case, with the horn-bow archers prepared, one week later would be time to advance into Pantalist.

A country called Gaimer, far to the north beyond Pantalist, was suffering under war. It was a massive invasion by barbarians. Gaimer was not a weak country, so it had looked down on the barbarians. But the generals and lords dispatched by the king were shattered as if toyed with by a single man. With that terrifying marching speed, the nation stood on the brink of collapse. The man leading the overwhelmingly dominant barbarian army was called Atila, and Atila renamed the tribe he led as the Huns. The Huns had originally been a minor ethnicity within the Gedra Tribe, but after Atila dominated the civil war, even the name Gedra was being replaced by Hun.

Atila’s name had already spread swiftly to the northern states through Gaimer. People clicked their tongues at his cruelty. Even now, two of Gaimer’s lords were impaled on stakes. Their bodies were covered in marks of torture, their eyes had turned bluish, and their chests were uniformly bruised black. Even so, this was considered fortunate.

Those with hostage value were spared to that extent, but other chiliarchs and centurions were boiled in cauldrons. It was like the center of hell—filled everywhere with cries to be spared. It was the sound of humans being boiled alive. Atila, shamelessly, butchered the boiled bodies and continued sending the pieces to each city.

The lords who saw the corpses, brutally desecrated while fully conscious, were seized by fear in an instant as if an epidemic were spreading, and the method was extremely effective—even though it was a cruelty that had strayed far beyond morality.

A man with a tangled, long beard watched three hanging lords. His eyes were sunken, thin, and slightly curved; his face carried a distinctive insolence. The line of his mouth made it impossible to tell whether he was smiling or expressionless. He was the chieftain of the Huns who had unified the Gedra Tribe for the first time in history—now the king of the barbarians—Atila, who, after receiving an ancient shaman’s prophecy, was called the Final King and the Punishment of God. He stood 176 cm tall, an ordinary build that could not be called large, yet he was a monster who had risen to the rank of Sword Expert.