In The Name Of Ingrad! (22)

Muriel was admiring the courage of the mercenaries before his eyes.

“You have not forgotten the fact that I am a Master, have you?”

There was such a thing as one-sided common sense. Among them, what could be called a representative piece of common sense was that, in order to face a Master, one needed either a Master of the same level, twenty top-grade Experts, or if not that, one thousand well-trained elite soldiers, including knights.

And even if one had such forces, they could only respond to someone who had just entered the Master level. Against a person of greater skill than that, such forces would often become utterly useless.

Viscount Muriel had been able to gain many realizations through the close battle against Ingrad, and through his clash with a beastkin Master who possessed instinctive strength, he had realized how insignificant his own existence could be considered and had experienced his power rising by one level.

Viscount Muriel’s current skill was at the middle grade among Masters.

Therefore, he could not help but find the actions of the mercenaries before him, who were like small fry, amusing. No, it was more accurate to say that he was dumbfounded.

However, the problem was that because the sound of the marching horns had just reached his ears, he could not afford to take his time.

Muriel slowly drew his sword and injected aura into it. The mercenaries tensed as they watched him, but honestly, he moved his steps while thinking they had no chance.

“I do not know what made you side with the enemy. Even I do not like being part of an Empire that is breaking down. However… you should have known how many Imperial subjects would be sacrificed because of your judgment.”

It was not that he was a philanthropist or benevolent. However, Muriel wanted to avoid useless sacrifices.

That was why he had no choice but to step forward readily, and the moment Muriel finished speaking and kicked off the ground to charge forward, the mercenaries before him quickly scattered and ran in every direction, forcing him to stop with a dumbfounded expression.

“…Do you intend to mock me…?”

Genuine anger began filling his head. So first, he drew a spare sword, infused it with aura, and threw it toward the enemy farthest away.

The sword flew through the air quickly. Since it contained incredibly powerful force, it sliced through the air without even making a sound of displacement as it flew.

And the moment it lightly dug into the back of the mercenary who was its destination and pierced his heart, an object flew in as if reversing direction.

Muriel was startled as he saw it.

‘That is made by Ingrad… Did they call it a bomb?’

A fist-sized sphere had flown in. It was a dangerous object that could not be avoided without injury even by a Master if it exploded nearby.

The very object he had worried about while thinking that the age of knights might be fading had flown toward him. He hurriedly retrieved his sword and strongly kicked off the ground, leaping back. At that moment, the sphere that had fallen to the ground rolled with a “thunk,” but when nothing happened, he could not help but be stunned.

‘I was deceived!’

Shame began rushing over Muriel, and at the same time, slight anger toward Ingrad, which had made such a thing, welled up in him. But first, when he saw the mercenary who had deceived him and approached the gate-opening mechanism, he growled and sprinted with all his strength.

“I will kill you…”

Meanwhile, Viscount Muriel’s run, filled with anger, was extremely fast, and the mercenary who realized that Viscount Muriel was chasing closely behind him gritted his teeth, then soon had no choice but to worry.

‘Do I have to use it…?’

He had managed to obtain a real one. Some time ago, there had been a few items secretly smuggled out of the Ishtain Region after paying an enormous premium.

In the case of mercenaries, they never knew what twists and turns their lives might encounter, so they always devised hidden measures. Then curiosity about the item they had heard of made him strongly desire it, and in the end, after much effort, he had been able to obtain two hand grenades.

However, he had been forced to use one before when he faced a special-grade monster, and he had somehow managed to keep the other one safely.

Moreover, rumors about hand grenades had spread quite widely, and he remembered that when he used them as a threat, even major disputes often passed over easily. So he had made two fake hand grenades for deception and carried them around.

And he had just used one fake, and because of that, he was being pursued by the enraged Viscount Muriel… but he had no intention of hesitating.

‘A mercenary’s life is his fortune. I will protect it. Definitely…’

It was a gamble, but he could not help it. So he took two hand grenades from his chest and held one in each hand. One was fake, and one was real.

Galashid, who had pondered how to use them in a situation like this to deceive the enemy well, eventually decided to use the real one first.

‘If it fails… I’ll deceive him with the fake.’

Having finally made his judgment, he looked at Viscount Muriel, who had chased close behind him, and shouted.

“If you come closer, I will throw it!”

“It seems you think I will be fooled by another fake?”

“If it looks fake, then come and see. It will hurt quite a lot.”

Viscount Muriel violently furrowed his face. He examined the hand grenade in the mercenary’s hand, but because the mercenary’s hand was large, he could not determine whether the object in his hand was real or not.

Moreover, even the object that had deceived him had possessed faint magic power, so it was a well-forged item that left him no choice but to mistake it for the real thing.

Therefore, he had to seriously consider it, and one thing that was certain was that Viscount Muriel knew of incidents where nobles had occasionally been assassinated with hand grenades that had flowed into the market from the Ishtain Region.

So he could not help but think carefully about what the mercenary before him had said.

He did not want to be injured so clumsily in a war like this, and just as he began pondering how he could quickly deal with him, the mercenary spoke.

“Either way, this war… the Empire has no chance of winning, does it? Just withdraw like this and leave. With a status and house like yours, I think House Pearl would give you an important position too! Isn’t that right?”

Muriel thought it was not wrong. However, he also thought one had to do what one ought to do. At the very least, he thought his house must not become cowards.

The current head of the house thought the same, but Muriel had no intention of pathetically explaining such a thing to a mere mercenary, so he began pouring aura into his sword.

He poured aura into it so it would not show outwardly, and spoke to the mercenary.

“Our lives are different from those of mercenaries like you. Trust is extremely important to us, so… how about you keep your life going pathetically, just as you have until now?”

“Even if my life is pathetic… I never break a promise. Isn’t credit also life to a mercenary?”

“So that means there is no room for either of us to back down… In that case…”

At that moment, Viscount Muriel swiftly swung his sword and released crescent-shaped aura, and Galashid gritted his teeth as he saw the aura approach in the blink of an eye as if it would cut through his chest.

‘If I hesitate, I die.’

The judgment and thoughts that had allowed him to survive until now as a mercenary captain shone, and Galashid threw the hand grenade right in front of himself, pulled out the steel shield he had been carrying on his back, and launched his body as if curling behind it.

Literally, he hid behind the shield in midair, and if the aura continued as it was, Galashid would be cut in two!

However, at that moment, the hand grenade that had left his hand immediately exploded.

Galashid had made good use of a hand grenade whose explosion timing could be adjusted. Then Galashid, who was sent flying by the force of the hand grenade that exploded in midair with a roar, hurriedly balanced himself in the air.

Then, feeling the presence of Viscount Muriel chasing close and approaching, he hurriedly feigned throwing the hand grenade in his other hand toward him and landed on the ground. Viscount Muriel, who had no choice but to put distance between them, looked at Galashid with a startled expression.

“You said trust is life, didn’t you?!”

The remaining force of the explosion had been transmitted directly through the shield into his body. Honestly, his body felt so ruined that even standing like this was a miracle, but he had prolonged his life.

Even his ears were ringing, so his shout was almost a roar, but Galashid felt triumphant that, for now, his tactic had worked on Viscount Muriel, and he shook the object in his hand.

“This is my last lifeline. So… refrain from careless actions. I won’t get hit twice!”

Viscount Muriel looked at Galashid as if he felt extremely displeased. And around this time, House Pearl’s all-out offensive began flying toward the wall.

Arrows, stones, and all kinds of screams and shouts mixed together, and chaos began descending.

He began feeling irritated at the fact that the situation was not easy, and then, when the knights who had killed the mercenaries one by one began surrounding the area, Viscount Muriel looked at Galashid, who was sweating coldly, and spoke.

“Because of you… I cannot allow a major flow to form on the battlefield… Knight there, I am sorry to force a sacrifice upon you, but… you will have to die together with that man.”

In the end, Viscount Muriel gave an order to the knight nearby.

He had completely believed that the object in Galashid’s hand was a hand grenade. And the moment Galashid, who had not expected this situation, showed signs of panic and slightly turned his gaze toward the knight…

Viscount Muriel closed the distance with explosive speed unlike anything before, cleanly cut off the wrist of Galashid, who was just turning back to look at him, and, adding rotational force as he continued, bisected his waist as he spoke.

“I cannot exchange an Imperial knight for the likes of you, now can I?”

“You… bastard…”

As a vain death descended, Viscount Muriel picked up the hand grenade that had fallen to the floor together with the severed wrist, let out a small laugh when he realized the contents were fake, and shouted.

“The interior has been cleared. Some of you, if more mercenaries come, cut them all down. The rest will defend the wall.”

“Loyalty!!”

The knights hurriedly moved after receiving the order, and Viscount Muriel glanced over the thousand or so mercenaries who had been quickly cleared out, briefly thinking that perhaps there truly was no hope for the Empire.

“Do not retreat!! Block them with your lives!!”

“Break through! Hurry and climb up! Why can’t you climb over rubble that isn’t even a wall anymore?!”

The shouts ringing out from one side of the battlefield were mostly not very different from this, but the soldiers who had to obey those orders could not help but feel like they were dying.

No matter how collapsed the rubble was, it was still rubble that had been a wall. It was not easy to climb, and on top of that, the ones defending it were knights and elite troops, so it could not help but be troublesome.

Moreover, the fact that siege weapons had difficulty approaching was making things difficult for everyone.

‘This is troublesome. At this rate, the knights will tire first…’

Agnes had no choice but to worry seriously. If they gave up the wall like this, there would be nowhere else to retreat, so urban warfare would have no choice but to break out.

It could be advantageous to their allies. After all, the capital was their main stage. However, the number of enemy soldiers was too great, and the number of defenders in the Imperial Army was not so large that they could handle all the enemy soldiers surging in at once.

Agnes thought that the fact that the circumstances were bad in many ways made her head ache.

At that moment, she saw the main force advancing toward the gate in the distance, and as she watched the enemy soldiers trying to attack the gate with countless siege weapons at the front, Agnes quickly made a judgment.

“We preserve our forces. The Gold Lions and Silver Lions will leave the battlefield and prepare to defend at the inner keep.”

“…However…”

“Cooperate with the shadows there. If we buy time… our allies will not lose.”

Agnes thought of the great magic spread over the Terakan capital, and in the end, she gave a firm order to withdraw and shouted.

“I will buy time. So… all of you, withdraw!”

“…Understood.”

‘You will need to match the timing… I hope your confidence becomes the answer…’

Agnes gritted her teeth as she thought of someone, and with her sword drawn, she threw herself toward the enemy soldiers surging in.