13 (65)

“You bastard!! Where do you think you’re hitting!! Kulin, are you insane? You want to go? Huh? You want to go, is that it!”

Akuz shouted and swung back at Kulin’s face. Kulin dodged the punch. Then he drove his fist into Akuz’s stomach. Thud! Akuz tangled with the dry mud again. It was an ugly sight. Those around them ran over to stop them. In the meantime, a sword lifted its head with a loud sound. Akuz had drawn it. Naturally, Kulin drew his sword in response as well, and an atmosphere difficult to approach flowed between the two. Kulin spoke.

“You picked on the wrong person.”

“You little bastard… You’re going to kill me? Try it. Hey, comrades, watch carefully what this brat is doing. When we return, you will be stripped of your position and never set foot in the knight order again.”

“You think I can’t?”

Wood and Hamon, who had approached while watching their reactions, eventually stepped in.

“Get a hold of yourselves! What are you doing! Are you in your right minds in this situation? If you have the strength for this, think about running away!”

Akuz muttered.

“Damn it. You chick. Calm down and look at the situation coldly. Our chances of getting out of here are slim. Sir Layton is dying even now. If that is what you want, then do it. I do not even want to waste time talking to you. I still have too many things I want to do to die here.”

The matter was decided like that. Akuz gathered himself and mounted his horse, then moved first as if he did not care anymore. The others had slightly sympathetic faces, but that was all. At that moment, Hamon turned his reins and went back to them. Akuz looked at Hamon and spoke.

“What foolish…”

Wood seemed to think the same and also turned his reins.

“Y-you all.”

“I have not known Sir Layton for long, but I cannot simply leave him alone. Even if I run away like this, I will regret it. I will stay with you.”

“Same here. Hey, Akuz. Let us take him with us as far as we can for now. If he dies, we leave him there and go.”

Emotions had run high, but for the moment, it seemed they had escaped from their grasp. If so, they could take Layton with them for a while.

“Only for a while. If Sir Layton dies, we leave as is.”

It was decided. At that moment, members of the Wandering Guild appeared at the entrance of the plain they had passed through. They were not the only ones nearby. Dozens of Demon Soldier Corps members were also stationed there.

“We did well to come here. I never get tired of killing those guys, no matter how many I kill. Anton, take that direction.”

“This way. The smell of blood is heading this way. Do not kill them right away just because it is fun.”

The slender Wandering Guild member pointed the direction with his dagger, then climbed back onto his horse. The horse shot into the grassland like an arrow. His cavalry followed behind him. The cavalry gradually spread out like a bow. The grass laid its body down long, as if welcoming new intruders. The long, continuous afterimage now showed the direction without any need for thought.

Ahead of the Wandering Guild members, Kulin’s group, who were crossing the middle of the plain, was moving slowly. The biggest problem was, as expected, Kulin, who was carrying the injured man. Sir Layton barely opened his eyes and told Kulin to abandon him, but Kulin replied that it was nonsense. In truth, Layton had heard almost all of the conversation earlier.

As the sound of pursuit began in earnest, Akuz cursed and dashed forward at high speed. By this point, the others also gradually picked up speed. Kulin grew anxious. Before long, the distance widened, and he could no longer even see the backs of those ahead. It was a cold thing to say, but Akuz had been right, and the fate of those who might have escaped if things had gone well had become like a candle before the wind.

Akuz was inwardly cursing Kulin as if he wanted to chew him apart, but even that time was being wasted. His horse let out a death cry and threw him off. He flew into the air, then rolled across the ground. It was fortunate that he had protected his body with mana; because of the armor, he had nearly broken his waist.

Sensing that something terrible had happened, Akuz immediately lowered his stance. The surroundings were quiet. Too quiet, and that was the problem. There was something there. There was definitely something. The horses that had been following late fell one after another. Wood and Hamon also took their stances. They were not injured. Though they were not called the elites of the Holy Knight Order, the title of holy knight was not something just anyone could bear.

It was a rather valuable position that could only be obtained through dizzying training, painstaking effort, a certain degree of innate talent, and even social status above that of a commoner. The one coming last was Kulin, who had Layton with him, but because the original distance had widened, there was still no sign that he would arrive.

“Akuz… Don’t tell me.”

“There is… a tremendous one here.”

They held their breath for a moment, but that person did not particularly attack. Akuz shouted.

“Come out. Now that it has come to this, I will cut off your head.”

He had a plan of his own. If they dragged things out like this, they would be captured by the pursuing force. As for mounting their horses again, all the horses were foaming at the mouth. This meant that in order to escape from this place, they had to steal a horse from the person who had done this. Then that person appeared. The whistle came first. It was a woman. She wore a mask, but her swelling chest was clearly that of a woman.

“Was it you…”

She nodded silently. She suddenly threw the curved dagger she was holding. By the time the single dagger reached them, it had increased to ten.

“What the hell!!”

Moreover, what they had thought were daggers were mostly capture ropes. Hamon and Wood were helplessly captured. Akuz, who had the best skill, cut down all the daggers coming toward him and rushed forward. The crests on his armor emitted light. A great barrier unfolded around him.

The great barrier was a technique used by the knight order based on divine power, and it revealed illusions and deceptions while temporarily supplementing various physical abilities. In the current situation, one could say it was displaying the perfect effect.

She was the sixteenth-ranked member of the Wandering Guild. Her specialty was traps mixed with illusions. Therefore, the current situation was not a good one for her. Nor was it a good place to attack. The types of traps one could set on a plain were obvious. Even so, she had no choice.

She scattered all her traps at him. He broke through the weapons raining down like a shower and ran forward. Then he tried to attack her, but he could not pursue her. She openly fled, and he lacked both the strength and time to catch her. That was right. It had been an action simply to buy time.

“Damn it. Fight me fair and square.”

“…”

There was no answer, and she disappeared into the grass. As soon as he felt a chilling sensation, he realized he had been surrounded. There was nowhere to run. Two men appeared one after another on horseback. Then the Demon Soldier Corps filled the surrounding area. It all happened in an instant, like a torrential downpour.

Kulin, Akuz, Wood, Hamon, and the nearly dying Layton were captured by the Wandering Guild members, and they were soon in a position to be tortured. For now, this was a plain, and there was no particular torture chamber, but the two men had decided to handle things on the spot. Excluding Layton, the four were tightly bound with ropes, and Layton was thrown into the middle of the ground, bleeding heavily.

He had bled so much that it was impossible to tell whether he was conscious or not. He did not move, and it was certain that he had lost consciousness. The woman, looking coy, approached Akuz with a knife in hand.

“Wh-what do you want!”

The woman, who had been looking at Akuz with interest, seemed to wonder briefly whether she should answer that question, then glanced behind her before looking back at him and saying.

“Your… ear.”

“What??? I’ll tell you anything. Huh? Don’t!”

“Why…?”

“What do you mean, why? Why me?”

“…You were strong.”

“Ask me anything! Please. I’ll tell you.”

“That… is not my job. Those two will ask. Before that… I am taking this.”

The woman, who spoke flatly, brought the knife close, and as the sharp edge drew nearer and nearer, he struggled in every direction, looking like a puppy that had been kicked in the stomach. He struggled so desperately that the two Wandering Guild members behind him giggled and laughed. If the Demon Soldier Corps nearby had not been so lacking in intelligence, this place would have become quite a scene of laughter.

The woman briefly stepped away from the man violently struggling, then firmly stepped on his torso with her foot. With her left hand, she seized his hair, and brought the knife she held closer. When the cold surface touched him, he let out the scream he had been holding back. If he had suffered it in war or in a fair duel, it would not have been this humiliating.

As if finally satisfying her starving desire, the woman looked at the ear she had completely cut off and smiled widely for the first time. She fiddled with the blood-dripping thing, then placed it into a cloth pouch hanging at her waist, one enchanted with freezing magic. The one shedding horrifying blood was Akuz. He felt as though he was going to go insane. Strangely, the direction of his anger was aimed not at the woman but at Kulin, and if he had a knife, he wanted to stab Layton and Kulin right away.

“You bastard. This happened because of you.”

“…”

“Not only my ear, now we are all going to die… I told you… we should have abandoned him… you damn chick… What are you going to do now… Huh? What are you going to do?”

“…”

“Now then, shall we ask some questions?”

Anton, a Wandering Guild member as dry as a winter branch, said that and approached those who were tied up.

Everyone avoided his eyes, but only Kulin looked straight at him and spoke.

“I have nothing to say to the likes of you.”

“Ho. Is that so? Then I will kill these ones here one by one.”

Unfortunately, the one at the opposite end was Akuz, who was rolling on the ground, and as soon as he heard that, he shouted.

“Ask me! Sir Avan Keil is…!”

He tried to continue, but Anton, who had approached before he knew it, grabbed his neck. His face turned red, and soon he choked as if he could not breathe. He tried somehow to break free, but Anton’s face was expressionless. Thinking that another burden of guilt was being added to him, Kulin screamed like mad.

“Let him go!!! Kill me!”

“Hehe… A chatterbox like this is no fun. The real fun is seeing a holy knight with strong convictions sell out his own comrades. Therefore, this one is unnecessary.”

Crack. A short, dull sound followed, and after confirming that his neck caved in and his tongue slipped out, Anton threw him aside. It was instant death without even a convulsion.

“Be… because of me…”

Anton grinned and said, “Yes, because of you.” Then he approached closer and spoke.

“Now, shall you tell me what that dead comrade was about to say?”

After saying that, Anton slowly brought the dagger at his waist toward Kulin. He leisurely brought it up to Kulin’s pupil, then said, “You had better talk. Otherwise, this eye says goodbye.”

At the same time, Kulin spat in his face. After being hit in the face, Anton smiled unpleasantly as if angered, then struck Kulin’s face hard enough for the sound to fully ring out. The moment he lifted his head again and was about to gouge out his eye, Sir Layton, who had been lying there like a corpse, charged at him.

“You bastards!!!”

The man who had been on the verge of death charged at Anton with all his remaining strength. Of course, there was no way it would work, and while running, he was thrown backward. Now his condition had worsened to the point that he could not even get up.

“Should I kill the old man first…”

“No!!!”

“Aha? I should have killed the old man first.”

As if he had discovered something amusing, Anton slowly approached Layton and tried to slit his throat. Kulin, still tied up, desperately rolled around, trying to do something. The woman seemed to like Kulin as she crouched for a while and stared into his eyes, then said, “Give him to me.”

“Will you sleep with me once? Then I will allow it.”

“I do not want that.”

“Then it cannot be helped.”

After thinking briefly, she spoke.

“Fine.”

“Hehe… Good. Oh, right, I am killing this old man?”

“I do not care about that one. He is too old.”

Anton nodded and truly placed the knife against Layton’s neck to cut it, but suddenly, the plain began to shake. It was truly as if an earthquake had occurred.