Chapter 393: With Fists Instead of a Club
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 393: With Fists Instead of a Club
The name of the man who had become a Lycanthrope was Ronald.
Even as a human, Ronald had been a deviant who made a hobby of murder and dismemberment.
"It's fun, isn't it?"
He never denied the pleasure he found in his atrocities.
Thus, his end was inevitable. Ronald was hunted by bounty hunters and cornered on the brink of death. That was when he met Count Molsen and received the power of a monster.
Ronald considered it a stroke of divine luck.
The monstrous power surged, coursing through his limbs. His pounding heart pumped revitalized blood throughout his entire body.
He overflowed with strength. It was so overwhelming that he felt he had to do something. He wanted to tear someone's limbs apart right now, devour their innards, drink their blood, and crush their bones with his molars.
His desires thrashed and surged, burning clearly in his eyes.
"Khehehe—Awoooo!"
A bizarre mix of laughter and howling erupted from his throat, a shriek he could not suppress. Ahead, he saw a group of soldiers holding their ground. They were feigning a courage they didn't feel.
Even further ahead stood a massive figure, raising his arms and drawing them back.
The man looked tough, but that was fine. Ronald's sharp fangs could rip through anything.
He would chew him to pieces.
And once he entered the city, he would pick out the young women from among those watching in terror from their hiding places, kill them, and feast on their flesh.
"Kee-hee!"
Swallowing his anticipation, he bared his claws and lunged.
Whoosh.
A sudden gust of wind slammed into his face. It was a speed he could not react to. Ronald's strength had doubled, making him twice as fast, but to Audin, it made no difference.
Crash!
It sounded like two carriages colliding head-on at full speed.
A deafening roar erupted amidst the howling of the Lycanthropes. Fragments of Ronald’s shattered skull splattered in every direction.
Audin froze in his follow-through, his left hand flattened like a blade and his right hand extended. Dark red liquid dripped from the studded leather gauntlet on his right hand.
He had originally used a club specifically to avoid using his fists. But now, the situation had changed.
"If we don't stop them, it's over."
Hadn't Krais said so? Everyone behind him, in the city of Border Guard, would die.
There was another reason not to show mercy: his opponents were the dregs of humanity who had chosen to become monsters.
The Lord said: If a human abandons their humanity, their only place is by the Lord’s side.
Seek forgiveness by the Lord’s side.
Receive judgment by the Lord’s side.
These were words written in the Holy Scripture itself.
"My left hand is a blade, my right hand a stone," Audin muttered. He began to move from his frozen stance, continuing to chant like a prayer. "My Father protects me, bidding me to hold no mercy in my hands."
Drunk on the urge to slaughter, the pack of Lycanthropes lunged without fear. They had lost their human reason. Though the one leading them had been blasted into a bloody pulp, their minds, possessed by demonic charm, failed to register the danger.
Audin stepped forward to block their path. He advanced with heavy, thunderous steps, his stride like a juggernaut destined to crush everything in its way.
He marched forward with stubborn resolve.
"Though they were once human..."
Praying, he struck down a lunging beast with his left hand. His left hand was a blade. As the edge of his hand slashed diagonally, the head of an eyepatch-wearing Lycanthrope was severed clean along the strike's trajectory.
Blood sprayed with a heavy gush. Even in death, the momentum of the beast's charge carried it forward, collapsing toward Audin. He pivoted slightly on his left foot to dodge, letting the headless Lycanthrope tumble to the ground and slide past.
Crash!
Before the headless beast could even stop sliding, another thunderous boom erupted. It was the sound of Audin's right hand smashing into the chest of another beast lunging directly behind the first.
From the point of impact, fragments of organs, bone, and flesh sprayed outward in a radial burst. Where his right hand had struck and retracted, a gaping hole remained—a wound unbelievable to have been made by a human fist.
"I send up those who have now become monsters; make known their sins and judge them."
Before he could even finish his prayer, Audin swung his left hand three times and his right hand four times. Consequently, three Lycanthropes were severed, and four were crushed.
He finished his prayer just as a husky voice chimed in from his left.
"For forgiveness and judgment belong to the Lord."
It was Teresa. She raised her shield horizontally as she continued the prayer, then drew her left hand back and thrust it forward.
With a sharp whoosh, the shield flew through the air. While not faster than an arrow, it traveled at an unbelievable speed for an object large enough to cover half of Teresa's body.
The edge of the flying shield sliced clean through the waist of the Lycanthrope before her. The sharply ground edge, combined with Teresa's monstrous strength, made the shield no different from a masterwork sword.
With a tug of the cord, the shield snapped back into Teresa's hand with a heavy thud. Meanwhile, another beast lunged from the side, but even as she retrieved her shield, Teresa struck the crown of its head with the flat of her sword.
Crack!
The strength of a Half-Giant exploded against the beast's skull. With a sickening crunch, the skull shattered, sending a severed tongue and broken teeth flying. Dark red blood gushed from the head, which had been reduced to a pulp.
Several people, including the newly appointed commander of the Heavy Infantry, witnessed this. They were astonished, even though they already knew of the pair's strength.
Are they even human?
It was their first time seeing Audin fight in earnest.
Can a human really do that with their bare hands?
Though the gauntlets on both of his hands tore and shattered, Audin paid them no mind, continuing to swing his right fist and left hand. He was a human meat grinder. The lunging pack of Lycanthropes was shredded in an instant—severed, exploded, and smashed as if they were nothing but moving lumps of meat. Beside him, Teresa moved in perfect sync with her shield and sword.
Fifty Lycanthropes was a force that even a decent-sized city would find overwhelming. Yet that very threat was being dismantled by just two people.
One of the standing army commanders watching the scene shook his head in disbelief and roared.
"All forces, charge!"
Advance when victory is in sight.
This was the order from above. The messenger, that Big-Eyes fellow, had hammered it into their ears until they practically bled.
"No matter what you see, do not be surprised. Move forward. Push ahead while keeping the formation perfectly intact."
"Even if the enemy retreats?"
"Maintain the formation. That is what's important. Pursuing them comes after!"
That crazy bastard Krais talked too much, but the commander remained faithful to the order. After all, everything was being carried out with the approval of Castellan Graham. Above all, this was about defending the city where he was born and raised. For the majority of the soldiers on the front lines, Border Guard was their home.
Krais had intentionally deployed only those men.
The troops advanced without breaking formation, a testament to their training. Naturally, this was also visible to the commander leading Count Molsen's army.
What kind of battle started with bare-fisted brawling and ended with a steady march without a single arrow fired?
What on earth is this?
It was a battle that defied all common sense. The man sent by the Count was far from an outstanding commander, but he knew enough to recognize a losing hand. He made the only choice possible.
"Retreat! Fall back!"
Since their vanguard had been broken, they needed to regroup. He pulled his army back and fled.
It was exactly what Krais had hoped for. This was far enough. Pushing further to inflict fatal damage was out of the question; only a tiny fraction of the forces Count Molsen had prepared would have been sent here. Buying time was more than enough.
Watching the retreating enemy, Krais thought: I need to at least know what the hell is going on.
Has the Count already seized the royal palace? Probably not. If he had, there would be no need to attack Border Guard. This was an assault closer to a surprise raid.
If I had taken the palace, I would have demanded oaths of allegiance first.
Doing so while laying siege would make for a much more effective proposal. After all, reducing the opponent's options is the best way to negotiate. But the enemy hadn't done that.
Therefore, this is a retaliatory strike.
Who was the target of this retaliation? He didn't even need to strain his brain for that one. Who in this city was entangled with the Count? Castellan Graham? He had merely grit his teeth and declared he would defend the city.
Krais had sharp wits and a keen intuition.
Could the Captain be involved?
It was a small suspicion, but one he was inwardly certain of. There were no absolutes in this world, but the probability was extremely high.
This is going to be a headache.
It was clearly a civil war. And what had the Count brought to the table? Fifty Lycanthropes. Humans suddenly turning into wolves. Anyone who didn't feel like pissing themselves upon seeing that wasn't human.
By Krais's standards, therefore, a few people—Encrid included—were not human. They were monsters. If it were them, far from being terrified, they would probably charge out in excitement. Or, out of sheer annoyance, they might just kill only the ones that attacked them.
In any case, the Count had openly revealed a dangerous force. What was the reason? It meant this wasn't his trump card.
In other words... That's not the end of it.
Krais had seen people turning from humans into monsters when they struck the Black Sword Bandits. This force was practically a declaration that Count Molsen himself was the mastermind behind it all.
On top of that, the territory's army is highly trained.
Wouldn't they normally be shocked to march alongside Lycanthropes? Yet they retreated calmly and orderly. Their formation barely wavered. It looked as though they had prepared for this very moment.
Since he didn't know what they might have hidden up their sleeves, pursuing them was out of the question. His mind knew it, and his gut told him the same.
Fortunately, the enemy forces retreated unhurriedly.
"The Giant Siblings!" someone muttered, using Audin and Teresa's nickname.
Audin silently shook the blood off his hands and began removing his ruined gauntlets. Considering what he had accomplished with his bare hands, his fists had only a few minor scratches.
There were over forty Lycanthrope corpses piled in front of the two. The remaining dozen or so had run past them, only to be blocked by the newly formed pike-and-shield unit.
They did not panic. They kept their distance with pikes and shielded themselves. It was a coordinated tactic where the squad moved as one—a small-scale formation favored by the Eastern Mercenary King, a masterpiece introduced by a recently joined commander of mercenary stock.
Acting like a hedgehog, the squad calmly thrust, deflected, and killed the werewolves one by one. Though not on the level of Audin and Teresa, there were several skilled fighters capable of taking down a werewolf on their own.
Victory was inevitable. Krais anticipated that the strength Border Guard possessed would soon become widely known.
Whether it's Azpen or whoever, they'll analyze our strength.
Since they couldn't cover every watching eye and listening ear, word of Border Guard's formidable strength would spread in no time. Would that help in a situation like this?
Of course it helps.
It was an obvious truth that having power was far better than being powerless. After taking a breath, Krais prepared for the next step.
The Count's target is the royal palace.
It would have been nice for him to swallow Border Guard, but now that they had shown him it wouldn't be easy, predicting that his next move would be toward the palace was as easy as taking candy from a baby. Therefore, they had to prepare for that here as well.
Krais relayed all of this to Graham. Graham nodded.
"I will dispatch the swiftest messenger bird to the palace."
In the aftermath of a battle that had ended almost as soon as it began, Krais instinctively felt that a brutal civil war was on the horizon. He couldn't fully understand a man like Count Molsen, but if it were him...
I wouldn't make a move without absolute certainty.
The Count must have made his move because he was confident of victory. To him, testing Border Guard was probably nothing more than a light, playful jab.
"Seriously, what on earth are you doing out there?" Krais muttered to himself. He found himself exceptionally curious about what his Captain was up to.
* * *
"What is this?"
He had fallen asleep, and now he opened his eyes. Encrid stared at the unfamiliar objects placed on the boat. A table. A chair. The ferryboat seemed to have doubled in size.
"I thought we might have a chat. You and I."
There were two chairs. The Ferryman, sitting opposite him, spoke as he pulled back his hood.
Beneath it, Encrid saw the same cracked, wasteland-gray skin and purple eyes as before. The lamp was nowhere to be seen. Instead, the Ferryman's eyes glowed with the same eerie light as the lantern.