Chapter 272: Not Everything Goes According to Plan (3)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 272: Not Everything Goes According to Plan (3)
Encrid muttered softly as he moved.
"Esther."
Thud. He dug his left big toe into the floor and lowered his center of gravity. Leaning forward from his deep crouch, he lunged.
In that single, fluid motion, two daggers grazed past him, embedding themselves deep into the inn wall behind him.
Without missing a beat, Encrid drew his sword.
The inn room was too cramped to swing a longsword properly—especially at the entrance, where a wall obstructed his range. The attackers were counting on that.
Even if you draw your sword here, how do you plan to swing it?
He could almost hear the servant’s smug thoughts.
Encrid pressed down on the scabbard with his left hand to adjust the angle. Instead of a horizontal slash, he drew the blade in a vertical arc.
Channeling power into the unsheathed steel, he sliced upward from below. The servant was cleaved from his groin to the center of his chest.
Squelch!
The sound of tearing fabric, leather lining, muscle, and bone being severed was nothing more than a quiet whisper. That was how fast the strike was.
Encrid had measured the distance perfectly, cutting to a depth of exactly one knuckle. It was more than enough to kill.
Adjusting his sword belt, stepping back—all his preparations had been for this single, decisive strike. He was satisfied.
"K-kgh!"
Since his lungs and vocal cords remained intact, the servant managed to squeeze out a brief death rattle before collapsing, spilling blood and entrails across the floor.
"You bastard!"
The innkeeper, a bandit in disguise standing behind the servant, drew a shortsword and shouted. Yet, he did not step inside. He had just watched his comrade die in a single blow; he wasn't a fool.
Right then, a black shadow swooped down from above, striking the innkeeper’s head.
Rip, crack!
The innkeeper’s neck snapped halfway. Three claw marks tore across his face, crushing his nose and bursting his eyeballs. It was the work of a beast’s forepaw.
Usually docile, the Lake Panther possessed a terrifying lethality in combat. Having killed the bandit in one strike, Esther landed silently beside Encrid. Her movements were light, appearing even nimbler than usual.
Encrid could feel his own peak condition from that single draw.
I feel incredibly light.
His body was in top shape. Exceptionally so.
"Hmm."
With a soft grunt of admiration for his own state, Encrid looked up to see the wide, staring eyes of the bearded man standing behind the fallen bodies.
The man opened his mouth, his voice a cocktail of tension, terror, and excitement.
"Kill him!"
Along with that shout came a loud, splintering crack. Encrid’s sharp intuition instantly located the source: above and behind him.
"Shit, what is this?!" another shout followed.
It came from atop the beds. Specifically, the one Sachsen had chosen.
A loud tearing sound echoed as Sachsen tried to react, only to be blocked by the fabric lining the ceiling. As the fabric tore, something dropped with a heavy thud.
"Kyah!"
Esther hissed. What fell looked like a leather bead, and it popped instantly upon impact.
It wasn't an explosion of fire or pressure. Instead, a thick cloud of green smoke billowed out. Even without inhaling it, Encrid felt a wave of dizziness. Poison.
To make matters worse, an arrow whistled through the window. Encrid deflected it with a sharp flick of his sword. With a metallic clack, the arrow snapped in half and bounced onto the floor.
Stray arrows were dangerous, but to someone who could dodge daggers at point-blank range, they were hardly a threat. The poison smoke, however, was a different story.
While Encrid’s attention was briefly diverted, the bearded man slammed the door shut, sealing it behind the corpses of the servant and the innkeeper.
Block the door and choke us with poison?
Encrid held his breath and turned. Archers waited outside the window; the bearded man stood guard outside the door.
Should he break through the door? No. Now that the ambush had been sprung, they likely had further traps prepared in the hallway. His sixth sense told him as much.
He was right. The bearded bandit had triggered the poison bead the moment he witnessed Encrid’s swordsmanship. Inhaling that mist just two or three times would twist a man's intestines, causing them to vomit until they died.
However, the smoke's dispersion range was narrow, and it was only lethal if inhaled. If Encrid tried to force the door, the bearded man was ready to scatter more of the same poison down the corridor.
The bearded man sneered internally. Foolish bastard. Where do you think you are?
He didn't know who his opponent was; he merely saw a skilled but ignorant fool who had wandered into a hornets' nest. This village was a major hub for the Black Sword Bandits. Did he really think the guards here were amateurs?
Even though a high-ranking executive had recently taken the elite assassins elsewhere, plenty of formidable fighters remained. Above all, this was their stronghold.
Contrary to his rugged appearance, the bearded man was a tactician who layered his plans. He believed he had successfully restricted his opponent's movements.
Or so he thought.
Encrid didn't care what the bearded man was planning, nor did he stop to analyze the situation. Such things could be dealt with later. He knew the smoke was dangerous just by Esther’s reaction.
However, the smoke was heavy. It didn't disperse quickly; it settled. The only problem was that it was settling exactly where Encrid stood.
In that case, he simply had to be somewhere else.
Encrid turned. He didn't even need to catch his breath. The inn was a hastily built wooden structure with thin walls—thin enough that Sinar and Finn’s voices could be heard through them. The bandits had built it that way to make surveillance easier.
Encrid swung his sword at the wall. He didn't even need to invoke Ragna’s Will of Severing. The blade sliced through the wood like butter. After two more slashes, he kicked the center of the marks.
With a loud crash, the pillars and planks shattered, creating a gap large enough to pass through. He stepped into the adjacent room.
It was supposed to be the room occupied by the Elf Company Commander and Finn, but instead, he found three men with glinting eyes waiting there.
"What the fuck?" one of them muttered.
Encrid did not hesitate. Since the smoke hadn't reached this room yet, he exhaled and swung his sword.
Slash, slash, thrust!
With two quick swings, he slit the throats of two men; with a thrust, he pierced the heart of the third.
Frok would lose his mind if he saw me being this reckless, he thought briefly.
Encrid slammed his gloved fist into the wall near the window.
Crash!
The window frame and a section of the wall disintegrated. Even though the building had a wooden frame, there were bricks mixed in, but Encrid smashed through it all with sheer brute force.
A few more arrows flew in from the darkness, but he dodged them easily and leaped out. He landed on the roof of the adjacent house and rolled. As he moved, arrows thudded into the shingles he had occupied a split second before. One arrow had even been aimed to intercept his roll.
As he rolled, Encrid slammed his palm against the roof. With a loud crack, the roof caved in, and the recoil propelled his body sideways even faster. The arrows continued to strike the empty air behind him.
Encrid rolled smoothly off the roof and pressed his back against the wall below. As if on cue, a hand shot out from a nearby window to grab him.
Having anticipated the move, Encrid seized the wrist and twisted. He didn't need technique; he used raw strength.
Crack!
"Aaaaargh!"
A crisp snap and a scream echoed simultaneously. These guys had less resolve than the assassins he’d faced before—screaming over a mere broken bone.
Encrid yanked the broken wrist forward with all his might. A heavy thud and a choked groan sounded from inside the building. The man had either fainted from the pain or hit his head and died.
Releasing the limb, Encrid dusted off his hands and stepped into the wide-open space in front of the inn.
Things always had a way of going awry. Not everything went according to plan. That was the nature of the world.
So, what to do next? He would simply adapt.
The Black Sword Bandits guarding the village didn't realize it, but with Encrid’s current abilities, he didn't actually need the forces the Elf Company Commander had prepared.
"What the hell is that guy? Kill him!" someone shouted.
Encrid found himself impressed by these bastards all over again. The ones showing themselves weren't just one or two. There were at least twenty, and the number was growing. From every alleyway and doorway, men with glinting eyes and bared blades emerged.
"I mean, you fight way too well..."
Among them, a man blocking his path stood out. It was the guard with the trailing voice. He was the opponent who had caught Encrid’s eye the most since entering the village. In Encrid’s estimation, this man was the most skilled warrior here—the strongest of the lot.
"Sigh... You should’ve just died quietly..." The guard’s tone wasn't an act; he sounded genuinely inconvenienced.
Screeech!
Esther, who had leaped out of the inn, landed gracefully beside Encrid.
"The rest of your companions are probably already dead..." the guard continued.
Encrid didn't smile or react. He simply scanned his surroundings.
"Is it the entire village?" he asked.
"Quick-witted, aren't you?"
The answer came from behind him, accompanied by a metallic clack-clack. A young woman wearing steel claws on both hands appeared. The claws, each with three jagged blades, gleamed in the moonlight.
Encrid looked at her and realized, So that’s what she was hiding on her thigh earlier.
The blades were long enough to transfix a human torso. She was the townswoman whose unusual gait he had noticed earlier. She was the second person Encrid had marked as a threat.
The third person he had noted was still nowhere to be seen.
"Where are you from? Looking at your bearing, you seem to be ex-military. You don't look like a mercenary. Whose orders are you under? Which fool sent you?" the woman demanded.
Encrid spoke calmly. "Every single one of you? Did you hide a treasure trove here or something?"
The woman’s brow furrowed. They were merely tossing questions back and forth without answering.
"Do you not understand the situation you're in?"
"If not a treasure trove, then you must have hidden a drug lab," Encrid said, looking around. He hadn't answered her, but he had already grasped the reality.
The number of people surrounding him had grown past thirty, nearing fifty. Every single one of them moved with the agility of a trained fighter. They were all decent swordsmen.
Even so.
They all seem a level below the recruits who came to 'play' at the Border Guard, though.
A few clumsy ones were mixed in—likely recent initiates. Still, some of their movements looked familiar. They carried the same scent as the assassins who had attacked him previously.
It made sense. Where else would a Black Sword executive recruit top-tier killers? They came from the "dens"—the strongholds established by the syndicate.
Of course, a few exceptionally skilled fighters had been left behind to guard this village. Two of them now flanked Encrid from the front and back.
"From your clumsy acting to your awkward attitude... Who the hell are you guys really?"
The woman didn't lose her temper. She had tried to needle him, but it hadn't worked. He was remarkably composed.
"We can just kill them, or capture them and ask..." the former guard said from behind.
Encrid remained impressed. The growing number of enemies, their coordinated actions, the scale of the trap—it all led to one conclusion.
This entire village was a bandit syndicate.
To turn an entire village into a bandit group...
It was proof of the Black Sword Bandits' immense reach. Where did they even find this many recruits?
So, should he be afraid?
Hardly.
Encrid let out a chuckle. Beside him, Esther glanced at him, puzzled. Why is he laughing?
Encrid was genuinely enjoying this. The power of the Black Sword seemed truly extraordinary. Obstacles, hardships, crises, death, the ferryman, and even the blinding darkness of the unknown—Encrid knew how to savor "difficulty."
Because it was difficult, it was fun. Because it was fun, it made his blood boil.
So, if asked whether the ones flanking him were threatening...
Not really.
That was Encrid’s final assessment.