13 (41)

A heavy sound was heard again. One cavalryman in front rose into the air. Louis lowered his body and avoided it. Looking at the cavalryman rolling on the ground, an iron core was lodged right in the center of him. It was the same kind as the one that had just been lodged in the horse.

Since he had no intention of continuing to be hit, he grabbed the horn bow rolling on the ground. The distance was considerable, but it was not impossible to hit. Louis found the watchtower amid the hazy steam rising up. The man was measuring his third arrow. Perhaps because he was in a hurry, his hood was half off, and the muscles of his arm swelled.

If it were an ordinary bow, it would be a distance that could not be reached no matter how much mana was infused, but it was different with a horn bow. Louis’s horn bow was specially made even among horn bows, larger and deeper in elasticity than those used by the horn bow archers.

In terms of range, it was in a state of receiving a +2 correction effect. As a penalty for that, stronger grip strength or mana capable of drawing the string greatly was needed, but Louis possessed both grip strength and mana.

However, the problem was his current position. There were many obstacles when attacking upward from below. In any case, Louis fired the arrow. The arrow, soaked thoroughly in mana, drew a graceful trajectory and was sucked into the hidden watchtower.

The archer missed his third arrow, and his shoulder was pierced. He fell from the tower as if being bounced off. He did not die. His reflexes were on a level that could not even be compared to the knight Louis had met earlier. He was wounded, but it was not a fatal wound either. What mattered was that he might attack again next time.

Still, the current problem had been shaken off. Louis swallowed dry saliva once on the heated battlefield. His skin tingled from murderous intent that could not even be compared to before. Three warriors appeared. Each one was a high-level warrior. Louis searched his memory. All three were in his memory.

The man with disheveled hair was Aron, called the Sick Snake. He was skinny, and his weapon was also bizarre. Its winding shape was like a snake bending. Louis recalled the assassin he had faced last time.

In terms of strangeness, the sword Aron held was even stranger. If one spoke of efficiency…. naturally, a scimitar seemed better. If there was an advantage, it was that a sword of that shape would leave wounds that did not heal easily. The man in the middle was extremely tall.

He did not have a single strand of hair, yet he somehow looked gentle. It was Douglas. His wide, fleshy build with a swollen neck gave a flexible impression, but Louis knew this man possessed the most mana. The last one on the left was Redel.

“It will not be easy to kill Marquis Gregory.”

Redel spoke. At the same time, cavalrymen rushed at them. The three and eight nearby cavalrymen became entangled. Louis threw the horn bow to the side and drew his longsword. After lightly spinning the sword once, he walked forward.

Rainwater poured down, and blood spread over it. Cavalrymen fell from their horses one by one. The three Sword Experts certainly had names. There were three of them moving in turmoil. Cavalrymen died one by one, but what was unfortunate for them was that Louis’s troops filled every direction around him.

Until just a moment ago, there had been a boundary line between infantry and cavalry, but not anymore. Louis’s cavalry was pushing away the infantry, and though Louis had been at the front, the ones currently isolated were these three knights. Around five cavalrymen had already died, but the number of troops surrounding them had instead increased.

Amid that, Douglas, who had been watching Louis walk forward, gritted his teeth and kicked off the ground. He had looked gentle until just now, but in this moment, he was no different from a yaksha. When he raised his sword, boom, the sound that spread was not the sound of swords colliding, but the sound of mana exploding. Feeling the force pushing into his grip, Louis met his bloodshot eyes.

“You’re usable…?”

Veins bulged on Douglas’s forehead. He struck down at Louis again with all his strength. Raindrops were cut away in chunks. It was a miss. Mud spread everywhere, and the sword that struck the ground rang loudly. A venomous sound flowed from Douglas’s mouth.

The moment a dagger lodged in his right forearm, he tumbled away. Louis had driven in the dagger at the same time offense and defense were exchanged. Louis then struck downward with his longsword. Douglas rolled and rolled. With the wound widened further, his right wrist had reached the point where it was difficult to use. Exclamations flowed from among the cavalry.

“Sir Douglas!!”

“Damn it…. Just us won’t be enough.”

Louis groped at his waist and soon realized he had used all his daggers. In that instant, Redel and Aron closed in tightly. Aron slashed Louis with his snake-like sword. It did not take long for Louis to deflect the sword and then avoid Redel’s sword.

If he had had just a little more time, he could have finished Douglas off. The two had already killed more than ten cavalrymen, but because of that, they were clearly exhausted. It was because they had overexerted themselves to save Douglas. On the other hand, Louis’s body still had plenty of mana, and his recovery ability was excellent.

Several attacks continued one after another, but the expressions of the two only grew darker. Douglas stood up from his place, but what awaited him was more than three cavalrymen. Louis’s eyes quickly and lightly swept over the two. Their breathing was rough, their postures had dulled, and above all, their faces were not merely anxious but pale.

Fighting in armor amid pouring rain naturally placed that much burden on them. Even for Sword Experts hardened by battle, in this kind of dead end, they were surrounded on all sides.

“Is this the end…?”

Their expressions grew even more shaken. Louis had no intention of loosening the reins. “Then I’ll go,” Louis said, and raised his mana even further. The mana returned to the amount from when he had exchanged the first blow with Douglas earlier.

“Im… impossible.” One of the two uttered such words, but Louis had already closed in. Redel, startled, instinctively swung his sword at Louis, but Louis easily blocked it with the lower part of his sword’s flat.

Because the difference in mana was significant, when Redel’s sword was pushed upward, Louis struck his side. It felt more like he had beaten him than cut him. The sword entered as if seeping between the armor and squeezed out blood as if crushing him. Soon, with a thud, he flew away as if bounced.

After rolling messily across the rain-puddled mud, he never got up again. Aron, breathing roughly with a crushed face, panted madly as he faced Louis. Their crossing lasted only an instant.

After skillfully deflecting the sword, Louis struck up Aron’s jaw. There was a short thud. The infantry commanders watching from behind made a commotion, shouting for retreat. Louis walked forward and thought it was almost over.

Around Louis, cavalrymen continued to charge forward with a thunderous noise. Louis kept walking slowly. The sounds of groaning and the things being stepped on were corpses. So many people were dying in real time that it was difficult to step on proper ground.

Louis’s forces were perfectly surrounding and pushing them from the front and the rear. If there was a gap, it was only on both sides, and in the information window, Gregory’s soldiers were actually fleeing like leaking water. Gregory and his close aides were hopelessly trapped.

Louis looked up at the sky. Rainwater was pouring from the gloomy black sky as if there was no room for it to leak, and this seemed like the life of each person.

On both sides of the seated Louis, there were two soldiers holding cloth to block the rain, and thanks to that, the rainwater flowed down beneath the cloth. While cavalry and infantry stood fiercely, eight corpses were rolling near Louis alone.

The soldiers and cavalrymen lined up densely in rows on both sides were full of vigor. Right in front of Louis, eight men were kneeling. The one trembling at the very front was none other than Marquis Gregory.

Marquis Gregory was in a state with almost no wounds, unlike those kneeling behind him. However, he wore the most pained expression among them. Behind him were his son, and the important generals, warriors, and vassals who had led the battlefield. His troops had all died or fled, and though Louis had not checked the battlefield, he thought that nearly all of Gregory’s troops had died.

It had been a single battle, but it was a collision enormous enough to remain in the history of the Duchy of Eron, and even if Marquis Gregory returned alive, he had lost so many troops in this battle that he could no longer avoid downfall.

“What kind of death do you want?”

Silence followed. Louis threw at Gregory a question that was difficult, but absolutely necessary. Because he was the head of House Boarne, which had a long history that could not be omitted from the history of the Duchy of Eron, he had the right to choose.

And because this question also meant his destruction at the same time, he breathed in and out as if something had caught in his throat. The shoulder of Aust, his child kneeling right behind him, trembled. One of his ears had been blown off, so he was bleeding.

It would leave a scar for the rest of his life, but the rest of life in which he would worry about that was no longer given to him. In light of his infamy, it was the end of a libertine. Louis was not someone who left behind things he would regret. They would die today, and within this month, the Duchy of Eron would fall into his hands.

He still said nothing. Perhaps in his head, he was repeatedly thinking back on where things had gone wrong. Louis vaguely guessed that must be so, but it seemed correct, and if Gregory did not choose, Louis would make the decision. When Louis slightly raised his hand, all the warriors nearby fixed their eyes on Louis.

“You…. You bastard who abandoned heavenly bonds. You are a swindler……. The…. method, kill me like a noble. I have one last request. Will you hear it?”

Louis met his trembling eyes, and before long, nodded.

“Spare my daughters.”

Whether that was his final will, he finished speaking there and dropped his head. Before long, a tired-looking chiliarch with a sturdy build came and cut off Gregory’s head first.

Aust screamed and tried to flee backward, but he died after becoming a hedgehog from arrows, and while the others were being cut down one after another, Louis ordered the chiliarch to stop when it became the turn of the last remaining man.

He had stopped while holding the greatsword already soaked in blood, looked at Louis, and remained frozen just like that. He had a bear-like face, but when Louis saw the wound on this man’s chest, he realized who he was. It was the warrior who had sniped him. When he looked at his stats, he soon understood, because his agility value was 15.

“Raise your head.”

He looked at Louis with a face that clearly showed exhaustion. It was the face of someone who had given up on life, and it would not be strange if he died right away, let alone having any color in his face.

“Was it you who sniped me?”

“That is correct.”

“What is your specialty?”

“It is nothing impressive, but for over thirty years, I have shot and shot the bow.”

“Your origin.”

“I am a commoner.”

“I want to use you.”

Only then did life begin to return to his dying face, and it could be seen that he was flushing red with excitement. He stammered severely and left the words that if Louis would only use him, he would repay the favor for the rest of his life.

Louis nodded briefly. Though he had been an enemy, Louis did not particularly distinguish between enemy and ally when it came to appointing talented people. He could use him over time, and if it seemed he would betray him, he only had to kill him. Since House Boarne had collapsed, it was certain that each house that had been passively opposing Louis around the king would scatter. Also, if given another opportunity, they would come rushing at Louis. In truth, he was already no different from a king.

“Leave this man alive. I will watch him over time.”

When the chiliarch holding the greatsword slowly relaxed his arm, the man struck his head against the ground again and again. Louis walked forward and lifted Gregory’s head, which was rolling on the ground. It was powerful proof announcing victory in the war, and cheers of victory burst out loud enough to drown out the sound of rain.