Chapter 168: Krais, Cut His Throat
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 168: Krais, Cut His Throat
"Esther, come with me. Krais, go find the Village Chief right now."
"Huh?" Krais blinked, looking utterly bewildered.
The awkward acting was over. There was no longer any need for it, and it was meaningless anyway.
"Tell him that from this moment on, I am taking command of all forces in the territory."
"Just like that?"
"Yes, just like that. If he refuses, show him this. Tell him that failure to obey orders will result in summary execution."
Handing over the written order, Encrid turned on his heel.
"Where are you going, Captain?" Krais asked quickly. He was sharp; he had already sensed the shift in Encrid’s demeanor.
"To the gate. If the Village Chief resists, take him hostage or do whatever you have to do to hold your ground."
"...Huh?"
The last part was only half-joking.
Encrid immediately broke into a run. With every rhythmic stride, his armor clattered against his body. It was incredibly uncomfortable to run in, but he couldn't afford to take it off.
Tap, tap.
Esther ran beside him, her steps twice as light as his own. She glanced up at him as they moved.
"Don't ask questions, just follow me. We don't have time."
The panther nodded. Sometimes, she seemed more human than animal.
They arrived at the main gate just as the first hints of light touched the horizon. He had made it in time; at least he had kept to the schedule.
Normally, five vigilantes guarded the gate: two on the watchtower, two below, and a squad leader stationed inside the guardhouse. If a fight broke out, all four sentries would usually retreat to the watchtower to hold their ground.
Encrid knew their faces all too well. In previous loops, these were the bastards who had sided with the monsters, raining arrows down into the faces of their own allies as they tried to climb the tower for safety.
"Huh? What’s this?" one of them asked, a man with a deceptively genial expression.
Encrid ignored the two guards standing before the wooden barricade and spoke clearly. "As of now, command of this post has been transferred to me, the Platoon Leader."
"...What?"
Encrid stared at the bewildered man. "I am now the head of the town guard."
Was this what Deutsch Fullman had been wary of? If so, his fears had just become reality.
The man, who outwardly claimed to be Deutsch Fullman’s subordinate, saw his expression harden. "Did you get our captain’s permission for this?"
Just then, another man poked his head out of the guardhouse. He was a mercenary clutching a short spear—one of Deutsch’s men and the current squad leader.
None of that mattered to Encrid.
"Do you have a problem with it? I have the written order. It’s only natural that I take charge."
"Since when? How long do you think you’re going to play captain, boy?"
"I’m starting right now, and I’ll keep doing it until the Colony issue is resolved."
The man’s brow furrowed, his genial mask slipping to reveal a vicious scowl. "Fuck, are you kidding me? Hey, you soft-handed bastard, do I look like a joke to you?"
It was a predictable reaction. Encrid spat out his prepared line. "If you have a complaint, you don't have to use your tongue when you've got perfectly good fists."
"This bastard has really lost his mind."
The man stepped forward. He didn't swing his spear immediately, but his intent to "teach a lesson" was clear. He lunged, throwing a sudden punch.
Encrid appeared to stand perfectly still as the fist flew toward him. But a split second before it connected, he tilted his head to dodge and thrust his left foot forward to sweep the man’s ankle. It was a single, fluid motion—the dodge and the counter-strike blending into one.
Caught off guard, the man tripped and stumbled. Encrid gave his off-balance body a light shove with his left hand.
"Whoa, whoa—!"
Thud.
The man tumbled sideways into the dirt. As he flushed red with rage and tried to push himself up using his spear as a cane, he heard a sharp sound.
Shring.
A cold blade pressed firmly against his neck.
"Don't get up. Don't resist. Disobeying orders results in summary execution."
It was hard to speak carelessly with a razor-sharp edge biting into your throat. The man gulped, his bravado vanishing.
"Do you... do you know how many vigilantes are here? You won't be able to handle it," he stammered. It was meant to be a threat, but his trembling voice betrayed his terror.
Encrid had no intention of killing him yet. He simply knew this action would provoke the reaction he needed.
It was a simple deduction. How did the Gnolls and Hyenas get inside?
How did the thick log barricade turn into a slaughterhouse? Why did this village become a banquet hall for monsters?
Because someone had let them in.
The Gnolls and Hyenas couldn't scale the walls; their lower bodies weren't built for it. The barricade was too sturdy to be breached from the outside. There was only one answer: the gate had been opened from within.
And why had there been no warning before the massive horde arrived? Encrid had confirmed the truth over several iterations of "today."
The bastard who opened the gate: guilty.
The bastards on the watchtower who saw the horde and stayed silent: guilty.
Still holding his sword to the man's throat, Encrid scanned the area for the emergency bell. It was right next to the gate. Since that bell hadn't rung, the only person here who might be innocent was the man sprawled on the ground.
So, how would the enemy react now?
It was exactly what he had been waiting for.
Up on the watchtower, a female soldier raised her bow. She drew, aimed, and released in silence. Encrid, who had been tracking the movement out of the corner of his eye, lightly kicked off the ground.
Thrum!
The moment the bowstring snapped, an arrow thudded into the dirt where Encrid had been standing a heartbeat before.
"...Are you crazy?! Don't shoot!" the squad leader shrieked in horror, but they weren't listening to him.
"Kill him," commanded one of the "genial" guards by the gate.
The two archers on the watchtower notched fresh arrows. One male, one female. From experience, Encrid knew the woman was the better shot.
These ones were cultists, too. He had neither the luxury nor the inclination to show mercy.
Whew! Whew!
Two sharp whistles cut through the air.
Throwing daggers sliced the dawn. Groans erupted from the watchtower as the archers were interrupted mid-draw.
"Gark."
"Guck."
The sounds of death. No one survives a hole in the throat.
The male archer pitched forward, hitting the ground with a heavy thud. The female archer collapsed where she stood, clutching her neck as blood began to drip—drip, drip—down from the watchtower.
It had all happened in the blink of an eye.
"Crazy bastard!" the squad leader shrieked, paralyzed by shock.
Encrid ignored him, pointing his sword toward the remaining guards. "Insubordination and the attempted murder of a superior officer are grounds for summary execution. However, if you drop your weapons and surrender, I will spare your lives."
It was a pitch he knew wouldn't work.
"Bullshit."
The two masked cultists among the gate guards bared their eyes, which gleamed with an eerie, unnatural light. These two were different; they possessed genuine skill. They were fast, and their coordination was seamless.
Clang!
Wielding shortswords, they split left and right, charging him with identical speed. They lunged, their blades cutting through the crisp, blue dawn air.
Before standing here, Encrid had endured countless "todays." He had suffered through endless cycles of training, honing his Sense of Evasion and Coordination. He had sharpened every sense, including his dynamic visual acuity.
All of it had culminated in a fundamental shift in his reaction speed.
What happens when your reaction speed changes? The world changes with it. It felt as though everyone else was moving in slow motion while he moved at full speed. The feats performed by Rem, Ragna, Sachsen, and Audin were finally within his grasp.
Therefore...
Clang-clang!
The result was inevitable.
He deflected and parried both swords simultaneously with a single blade. It was easy. A swing to the right, followed instantly by a beat to the left.
To the cultists, it was baffling. Their eyes widened in shock. How did he block that? His blade just vanished.
Encrid didn't stop. To celebrate his entry into this new world of combat, he swung with everything he had.
The Sense of Evasion and Coordination weren't his only gains. With a single breath, he awakened the Heart of Monstrous Strength, doubling his speed. The moment he perceived a movement, his body reacted on instinct.
Whoosh. Slash! Slash!
Encrid swung twice. An upward slash from the right, followed immediately by a downward slash to the left. Both were precise wrist cuts.
"Aaargh!"
"Gyaaaah!"
Their sword-hands were severed. Two hands, still clutching shortswords, hit the ground with a dull thud. Encrid stood between the two bleeding men, his blade steady.
"...What... what is this? Why are you suddenly slashing people like a madman?" the squad leader stammered, still cowering on the ground.
Encrid looked down at him. "I smell a foul stench. Is that gate locked tight?"
When he had first entered the village, he’d seen the gate operated by a pulley system. That pulley was the locking mechanism.
"Huh?"
"Check it. If you don't get up right now, I'll assume you're an accomplice and cut you down where you sit."
It was a casual threat, but coming from a man who had just maimed two people in a heartbeat, it carried weight. The squad leader scrambled to his feet and rushed to the pulley.
"Why is this unlocked?!" he cried out, immediately cranking the mechanism to secure it.
If the lock was released, the gate was no longer a barricade; it was just a door that would swing open with a push. The man strained until the muscles in his arms threatened to burst, finally locking the pulley before panting heavily.
"Whew, whew... But wait, what 'foul stench'?"
The moment he asked—
Thud!
Something slammed into the wall from the outside, sending a tremor through the earth. The foul stench—a smell Encrid was so familiar with he was sick of it—seeped through the gaps in the heavy wooden gate.
"Gwoooooh!"
A howl erupted from the other side. A Gnoll. A heavy, oppressive momentum pressed against the gate. The squad leader stumbled backward, his face pale.
Encrid glanced at him, then turned to the two men whose wrists he had severed. "Are you cultists?"
Their eyes widened. Some answers didn't need words.
Should I keep them alive? No. While high-ranking cultists used sorcery, these two were clearly just foot soldiers. Leaving them alive was just leaving a dagger at his back.
Thrust, thrust.
Two quick strikes to the throat turned them into corpses.
Encrid climbed the watchtower to assess the situation. High ground was always the right choice. As dawn broke, the morning light revealed the truth: a horde of over several hundred monsters and demonic beasts.
It was a horrifying sight. Encrid found himself amazed all over again that he had ever managed to survive amidst such a horde in previous lives.
Even if I only managed to hold out without dying...
There were just too many of them. They were throwing themselves against the barricade and the gate with mindless fury.
Encrid scanned the perimeter. The sentries who were supposed to be stationed along the barricade were missing. He spotted several vigilantes lying dead at their posts—undoubtedly the work of the cultists he had just killed.
"No, seriously, what the fuck is going on?!"
A voice called out from below. It was Krais. The "half-joke" had become reality; Krais was standing there with a blade pressed to the Village Chief’s neck. Behind him stood several confused and angry vigilantes.
"Seriously, what is this?!" Krais looked like he was on the verge of tears.
Encrid couldn't help but chuckle. "Esther."
He gestured for the panther to guard the gate.
"Grrr." She growled in understanding. She really was more reliable than most men.
"I believe I must ask what the meaning of this is," a voice boomed.
Deutsch Fullman and a crowd of his subordinates appeared behind the Village Chief. Their eyes were filled with confusion—monsters outside, their leader held at knifepoint inside, and dead comrades on the ground. Even Deutsch’s pupils were trembling.
Encrid spoke nonchalantly from the tower. "I give the orders, and I hold command. No objections will be tolerated. We hold off the monsters here. Send the remaining vigilantes up onto the barricade. Anyone who knows how to shoot a bow, get up here now."
No one moved. Deutsch Fullman, a man of strong resolve, ignored the thumping sounds from the gate and glared fiercely at Encrid.
Encrid knew exactly how to break the stalemate.
"Krais, cut his throat."
Since they held the Village Chief’s life, they held the leverage.
"Fuck, don't do it! What are you all doing?! Shoot those monsters in the head right now!" Deutsch roared.
Krais, of course, didn't actually kill the chief, but the threat was enough. Deutsch began barking orders to his men. Encrid simply shrugged.
"You're going to have to explain this later!" Deutsch bellowed.
Encrid ignored him. This was his shortcut—preventing the massacre before it could start by stopping the Gnoll invasion at the wall. If he successfully blocked them here, what would happen to the cycle? He had a plan to get past "today," but he didn't know if it would work. This was his first time trying this specific path.
Luagarne was still nowhere to be seen. Neither were Deutsch’s other key subordinates.
"Damn it, Enki..."
As he was organizing the defense, Finn crawled out from the shadows. She had been out on patrol and had returned with a literal hole in her stomach.
So that’s what happened.
Finn had been intercepted and injured. The wound was severe; walking must have been agony. This was why the warning hadn't come—Finn hadn't been able to reach them in time to report a Colony of this scale.
"Krais, let the Village Chief go and treat Finn first," Encrid commanded. It wasn't fatal yet, but she couldn't fight.
"The number of monsters... in the Colony... it’s close to a thousand," Finn wheezed, her face deathly pale.
Encrid simply nodded.
"Can you explain what is going on?" the Village Chief asked. Even with a blade recently at his throat, he showed the grit of a pioneer leader.
"Let's block them first, then talk," Encrid replied, heading toward the barricade.
Even if their skills were clumsy, they needed every arrow in the air. Beyond that, he had to find a way to smash through the constraints of this loop.
Because the day had only just begun.