Chapter 779: Relatively Easy
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 779: Relatively Easy
Was it thanks to Luagarne, who had spent the last few days drilling it into their minds like a mantra?
Or was it simply because of the song they had been humming for so long?
Even as the scenery of the village shifted abruptly and the cacophony of battle erupted from all directions, not a single villager called out to the Demon God.
"Knight of the End, save us."
A child chimed in, echoing the old woman’s muttered prayer.
"They said he is the Knight of Demonic Charm."
A heavy shadow fell over the entire village—both physically and psychologically. Suddenly, the ground surged upward in various places to form walls, and before they knew it, a ceiling had woven itself overhead, sealing out the sunlight.
Then, those who preyed on their fear emerged.
They were two swordsmen. One wielded a thin, supple blade that moved like a whip, while the other carried a bizarre, rectangular sword that remained perfectly straight from the ricasso to the tip.
"I wonder if they'll be fun to carve up," the one with the rectangular blade muttered.
"I'm sick of this job. I just want to get out of the Demon Realm," the wielder of the whip-sword replied. The two of them seemed well-accustomed to this kind of butchery.
"Don't you know? We won't even be able to play this labyrinth game once we head to the continent."
Balrog's Labyrinthification could only be invoked in places heavily saturated by the influence of the Demon Realm. It was a detail easily inferred from their conversation.
Of course, to anyone else present, such technicalities hardly mattered. What did the mechanics of the spell matter when they were on the verge of death?
"Grant us the end," the old woman whispered, bowing her head.
Seeing this, the man with the short, rectangular blade raised his weapon. He was the one who had been relishing the thought of carving people up.
With hollow cheeks, deep dark circles, and skin so pale it bordered on gray, his appearance alone screamed "murderer." His greasy, shoulder-length hair only added to the revulsion. To make matters worse, he wore a jacket patched together from scraps of leather. His pants, vest, and coat were all far from ordinary.
They were crafted from tanned human skin—his signature, custom-made defensive gear.
Since he had spent his entire life using murder as a source of pleasure, calling him a monster based on his looks was no misunderstanding. It was the simple truth.
He raised his right hand. A single downward strike would split the old woman’s head clean in two.
Even if her skin had turned purple, her brains would look the same, and her blood would still run red. The sensation of carving her up would be just as exquisite as any other.
He was salivating at the prospect.
Usually, he had to settle for monsters, demonic beasts, or the partner standing right next to him. But his partner was a hassle to deal with, and beasts lacked that satisfying, human tactile feedback.
A sliver of his hideous desire leaked onto his face. With a feverish light burning in his eyes, he swung the rectangular blade straight down.
Clang!
The blade failed to reach its mark.
Yet, the fever in the murderer's eyes did not fade. His gaze shifted to the one who had intercepted the strike. He had known someone was approaching to block him, but he had allowed it to happen.
A longsword stood in the way of his blade. It was a weapon crafted by a dwarf, and its owner bore the name Ropode.
"Who the hell are you?" Ropode asked, staring his opponent down. Compared to the murderer, Ropode possessed a disciplined appearance and a sharp, clear gaze.
He had been in the middle of intense training, exchanging pointers with Pel—though their "exchange" was rarely polite. Suddenly, the terrain had shifted, and this butcher had appeared out of thin air. Naturally, Ropode had moved to intercept.
Ropode’s eyes were already scanning his opponent, dissecting him.
The posture, the attitude, the gaze. Just looking at the manic light in the man's eyes made Ropode feel physically ill. It was a gaze filled with a loathsome desire, like a decrepit old man lusting after a young girl.
The murderer withdrew his blocked sword and, without a word, swung his other hand. That hand also held a short, rectangular blade.
A kitchen knife? Ropode thought, pulling his sword back to parry. The weapon was peculiar—a shortsword shaped exactly like a butcher’s cleaver.
A faint, ghastly trace of a smile touched the lips of the man, who looked as if he had forgotten how to make a normal facial expression.
"Huu... You look like you'll be quite fun to carve up."
As those words were exhaled with his breath, an icy chill ran down Ropode’s spine.
Whoosh.
The murderer closed the distance. Between them, the old woman remained huddled, her body trembling violently with terror.
The opponent’s weapons were relatively short, while Ropode’s longsword had twice the reach. In a normal duel, keeping his distance would be the obvious advantage. The problem was the murderer’s target. He was deliberately aiming his cleaver at the old woman.
It wasn't a random whim; it was a calculated psychological ploy.
You're going to protect this old woman, aren't you? Then you have to stand your ground right here, don't you?
The murderer’s movements asked that very question.
Ropode thrust his sword forward, parrying the cleaver swung by the man’s right hand.
Clang!
Sparks flew as the metals clashed. In the artificial darkness of the shifting terrain, the sparks were blindingly bright.
While the right-hand cleaver was occupied, the one in the left hand lunged for Ropode’s neck. From his extended thrust, Ropode pivoted to the side, dropping his center of gravity.
Supporting his weight on one foot as he shifted his stance, he swept his other leg at his opponent’s ankle.
The butcher spun around the old woman, using her as a shield to dodge the kick. He knew that fighting with the civilian between them worked entirely to his advantage.
You're going to keep protecting her, aren't you?
The pressure remained the same. Furthermore, Ropode was not alone.
Ropode frowned. Was he in trouble? Not necessarily. It was just that a certain memory had finally surfaced.
Even when something you have only heard of in stories appears before your eyes, it is often hard to recognize immediately—especially when there is a gap between a childhood imagination and reality.
Ropode’s opponent was the protagonist of a very old story. To be precise, the villain. He was one of those ghost stories parents used to tell their children to make them behave.
That was why a mere word, even without an aura of intimidation, had sent a chill down his spine. It was a primal fear engraved in his childhood.
"Damer the Murderer?"
Damer the Murderer, also known as Damer the Tanner.
The notorious killer who wielded twin kitchen knives and wore raiment made of human skin.
He had grown up suffering horrific abuse, the son of a leather craftsman. One day, while being beaten with a leather belt, Damer had committed his first murder in a fit of rebellion—killing both his parents. On the very first day he held a knife, he had slaughtered them and wrapped the hilt of his blade in his father’s skin.
He continued his spree, tanning and selling the skins of his victims, earning him his gruesome moniker.
"Does this even make sense?" Ropode asked nonchalantly, even as they circled the trembling old woman.
Damer found the reaction intriguing. Is this brat fearless? Or just a good actor? Either way, he would be a delight to skin.
Ropode stared at him quietly. Hasn't he been dead for decades?
That was why, despite the distinctive appearance and the horrific human-skin armor, it hadn't clicked immediately.
"Yeah, I'm that Damer."
Three deep wrinkles sat on his forehead like fat earthworms—one of the features that had made Damer a legendary object of terror.
So the stories were real?
To Ropode, Damer had always been a campfire story. Few children raised in the city didn't know the name. That was how famous—and now, surreal—this encounter was.
"For real?"
Damer nodded, then suddenly feinted a kick toward the old woman.
Ropode reacted instantly. Damer planted the foot he had feinted with and swung both cleavers in a savage cross-cut toward the opponent who had stepped into his range.
Clang-clang!
Ropode barely halted his forward momentum, raising his longsword diagonally to catch the twin blades.
At the exact moment his breath and movement were halted, a whipping blade snaked out from the shadows behind him, aiming for the base of his skull.
Clang!
The strike was blocked—not by Ropode, but by another sword. It was Pel.
"Two of you attacking one?" Pel said, glaring at the newcomer.
"Tsk, what a shame."
The man with the whip-sword clicked his tongue and leaped back. Landing lightly with a soft thud, he narrowed his eyes at Pel.
He actually blocked that.
The man had judged his own strike to be faster, which was why he had allowed Pel to intervene. According to his calculations, his blade should have pierced the first boy's skull before the second could react.
In other words, this newcomer was no pushover. This fight would be a grind.
He was a master of orthodox sword forms, capable of calculating dozens of exchanges in an instant. Damer, conversely, enjoyed slowly eroding his opponent’s mind and body before delivering a finishing blow. They were swordsmen of completely different temperaments.
Ropode grasped their tendencies just by observing their stances, weapons, and speech.
What if his assessment was wrong? What if they were beings capable of deceiving his very senses?
"Then I'll just have to die," Ropode muttered.
The words of Frok and Luagarne came to mind. Had they not said that one shouldn't even think about survival when facing opponents of a certain caliber?
Then, he recalled Pel’s constant nagging.
"If you want to live, train. You talentless bastard, Ropode."
Pel was a man who handed out insults as easily as breathing. But it was likely thanks to him that Ropode felt this way now.
Reading Damer’s intentions was easy. It was incomparably more honest than the unpredictable, chaotic strikes Pel forced him to face every day.
Though Damer would never have believed it, Ropode awakened a latent talent in that very moment: an eye that objectified himself as if looking down from the heavens, understanding the opponent’s perspective as if viewing himself through their eyes.
In this state, reading the opponent’s intent was child's play.
Damer believed he was slowly wearing Ropode down. Ropode simply played the part. He pretended to lose his footing, pretended his breathing was labored, and feigned despair over his inability to save the old woman as the seconds ticked by.
Encrid-style Orthodox Swordsmanship—a deceptive blade that tricked the mind.
Believing he had finally found his opening, Damer swung his cleavers with everything he had. Breaking his pattern of rhythmic cross-cuts, he raised both blades high above his head, gathering his strength for a crushing downward blow. It was a heavy strike delivered with a jarring tempo change.
Meeting the moment he had been waiting for, Ropode gripped the hilt of his sword with his right hand and braced the ricasso with his left, preparing to receive the impact.
Crash!
It was a strike infused with Will. The opponent was a murderer who had reached the level of a knight through sheer slaughter—or rather, he had been one a very long time ago.
Ropode caught the blades using the technique of Bind. Absorbing the force Damer channeled, he dispersed the impact through his knees and waist, locking the swords in place.
In that frozen moment, he stepped past the old woman and stomped violently on the man’s instep.
The block and the stomp were simultaneous. Damer couldn't avoid it. Ropode’s boot slammed down with a sickening thud.
Crack. Crunch.
As Damer’s face contorted from his shattered metatarsals, Ropode released his sword, reached out to seize the man’s jaw and neck, and twisted them with a violent wrench.
Snap-crackle-crunch.
The cervical vertebrae shattered, and the skin of the neck wrung into a spiral.
It was a martial technique he had picked up by watching Audin and Encrid, and from the brief, brutal lessons they had given him.
Without even a death rattle, Damer collapsed to his knees. Ropode had slain the terror of his childhood. To his surprise, he didn't feel like it was a particularly big deal.
Meanwhile, Pel had also finished his business.
Since the man with the whip-sword was so busy overthinking his calculations, Pel had simply charged straight through them. He delivered a diagonal slash utilizing the principles of the Vortex that Encrid had demonstrated.
The whip-swordsman’s calculations had failed to account for Pel’s raw speed and power. He collapsed, his torso split open, spilling his entrails. Along with his guts, a thick black mist poured out instead of blood.
"You bastards... were going to die by our Master's hand anyway..." those were his final words.
"Master?" Pel asked.
The man chuckled weakly. "You are all... inside the labyrinth now!"
With a final gasp, he coughed up a torrent of black mist and expired. His body dissolved into shadow and vanished.
"Labyrinth?" Ropode asked as he approached. Pel only shrugged.
Only then did the old woman cautiously raise her head.
"It's alright now," Ropode said.
Whether they were destined to die by some "Master's" hand or were trapped in a labyrinth—that was a problem for later. For now, Ropode had achieved his goal. He had protected someone, just like Encrid. Even if the person he saved was a purple-skinned host called a Majin or an Eroded, he felt a quiet sense of pride.
"This isn't the end, is it?"
"No. We’d better move quickly."
The two set off, searching for signs of life or ominous energy. Soon, they came across Frok. She was missing a leg and an arm, leaning heavily on her Loop Sword for support. There was only black dust scattered on the ground before her.
"What happened?" Ropode asked, rushing to support her.
Frok constricted her muscles to stem the bleeding and spoke through gritted teeth. "Something jumped out. It was at the level of a knight."
"And?"
"Sachsen sliced it to ribbons and left in a flash."
Ah, understood.
The group, now three, continued through the shifting walls and soon regrouped with Audin, Teresa, and Roman.
There, they witnessed Audin fighting in earnest.
It was the same when he destroyed the fortress wall, but...
...he is even more terrifying now.
"To hold back those who ought to return to the Lord like this!"
What was more, Audin looked absolutely furious.