Chapter 154: Holy Land
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 154: Holy Land
“Stop showing off!”
Alex ground his teeth. Having built his fame during a five-year war and become the greatest knight of the Northern Continent, when had he ever been treated like this?
However, he didn’t charge at Andrei as he had with me. Instead, he seemed to be focusing on recovering his ragged breath while remaining wary of Andrei.
He recognized him as a threatening opponent.
“Did that look like I was showing off?”
Riding his momentum, Andrei boldly closed the distance. His extended sword aimed for Alex’s neck.
Alex reacted with agility. Kicking off the ground, he created more distance and swung his sword upward.
It was a strike aimed at Andrei’s wrist, which was exposed from the thrust. At this rate, his wrist would be severed.
Andrei naturally changed the path of his sword, shifting it downward to block Alex’s counterattack.
“You’re caught!”
Alex flashed a triumphant smile. It was now clear he had been luring Andrei into a moment where their swords would clash, forcing a contest of strength.
But Alex’s reaction was premature. How could Andrei, a master of the sword, not have known?
Clang!
Sparks flew as the swords collided. At the same time, Alex’s smile twisted. The sparks and the sound from the clash were far too small for a blow packed with such monstrous strength.
‘He… released his strength?’
Andrei’s sword quickly bounced to the opposite side. His body spun once, and in an instant, the tip of his sword was again aimed at Alex’s neck.
Instead of resisting the monstrous strength, he had guided its direction as he wished and seamlessly continued his attack.
Alex’s sword, which had been intended for a contest of strength, was so heavily weighted that it was now soaring toward the sky.
In other words, his upper body was wide open.
“!!!”
There was no time to block or counter. Alex, realizing this, relaxed his body and dropped to a crouch. The sword swept over his head.
It was such a close call that a few strands of his hair were cut, scattering in the air.
Having narrowly escaped death, Alex, his face pale as a sheet, rolled on the ground to get out of Andrei’s range.
“Do you still think I’m showing off?”
Andrei pointed the tip of his sword at him. Alex’s face contorted violently, having been played for a fool while trying to trick his opponent.
“You bastard—!”
Andrei didn’t face Alex head-on. At times he would use Alex’s own monstrous strength against him, and at others, he would break the flow just before the point of impact, dissipating the force. He even parried by using the structural strength of his sword.
What infuriated Alex even more was that Andrei wasn't being particularly aggressive.
“You bastard! Fight me properly!”
At first, I also thought Andrei was being cautious, wary of Alex’s monstrous strength. But when I saw him give Alex an opening to recover instead of attacking, even with a clear opportunity, I became certain that Andrei had something else in mind.
Just then, my eyes met Andrei’s over Alex’s shoulder. His eyes were smiling.
‘Are you telling me to learn from this?’
‘I believe I told you earlier. A battle against a stronger opponent is the foundation for growth.’
Andrei was putting on a show for my sake—a demonstration of how to defeat an opponent with superior physical conditioning.
The problem was that Alex was no pushover who could be easily used as a teaching aid.
While he was inferior to the master-level Andrei, his swordsmanship was by no means poor.
“How dare you… how dare you play with me!?”
Alex, misinterpreting Andrei’s intentions as an attempt to mock him, charged forward recklessly.
Even when Andrei extended his sword to check him, his speed didn’t decrease. He was planning to trade flesh for bone!
He had learned from their brief exchange. Andrei’s sword was sharp, but it lacked the power to inflict a fatal wound.
‘It’s a matter of efficiency.’
With his monstrous strength, Alex could inflict a fatal wound on Andrei with a mere check. Andrei, on the other hand, only had a chance if he aimed for one of the few areas unprotected by armor.
Alex was aiming to exploit that difference.
“So you’re not just a fool who rampages around, trusting only in his body.”
For the first time, Andrei’s brow furrowed. He urgently threw himself to the side.
“You’re not getting away!”
Alex immediately gave chase as if he had expected it. The space on top of the castle wall was narrow, and Andrei was soon cornered with his back to the parapet.
Only then did Alex grin and close the distance in a single bound. He had judged that in close-quarters combat, Andrei wouldn’t be able to deflect his monstrous strength as he had before.
Andrei’s grim expression signaled that he was right.
“Die!”
It was the moment Alex’s sword was about to overwhelm Andrei. A faint smile appeared on Andrei’s strained face.
“Surely, you didn’t mistake this for a duel, did you?”
Alex flinched and hastily looked behind him. But my sword had already reached his shoulder.
My own monstrous strength, comparable to Alex’s, tore through his chainmail with a crunch, leaving a deep wound in his shoulder.
If Alex hadn’t reacted at the last second, his shoulder would have been severed, and he would have become a one-armed man.
He rolled on the ground again to retreat, clutching his shoulder from which blood was pouring, and shouted.
“Urk. You coward—!”
“In a battle of life and death, there’s no such thing as cowardice. You should blame your own mistake of focusing so much on Sir Andrei that you forgot I was here.”
“Well said.”
After exchanging a look with me, Andrei slowly moved to Alex’s rear. I held his attention from the front, my sword pointed at him.
Surrounded from the front and back, Alex’s face hardened. It seemed the thought that he might actually die in this battle had finally dawned on him.
In this moment of crisis, Alex’s judgment was swift. He moved before we could completely encircle him.
“I’ll kill you first!”
His target was Andrei.
Since he had held the advantage before Andrei joined the fight, he must have concluded that victory was his for the taking if he could just get rid of him.
My reaction was slightly delayed by his reckless charge that paid no heed to his rear. For knights of our level, it was a significant opening.
I hurriedly chased after him, but Alex was already closing in on Andrei.
“You ignorant—!”
Andrei, who seemed not to have expected this, hastily tried to back away.
But Alex used his superior physical condition to quickly catch up and swing his sword.
“Dieeeee!!”
But his sword wasn't aimed at Andrei, who had raised his own sword horizontally to block the attack.
He pushed off his front foot to create momentum, and in the blink of an eye, he spun around and changed direction, targeting me as I swung my sword from behind.
‘A feint…?’
Even in my slowed perception, I could see the sword rushing toward me at incredible speed, and beyond it, the triumphant smile in his eyes.
“Got you!”
At that moment, I had been rushing to save Andrei, so my posture was completely broken.
I thought about changing my sword’s direction, but considering the difference in our strength, it was clear he would overpower me and pierce my neck as intended.
Andrei, realizing he’d been tricked, shifted from defense to offense in a fluid motion, but my head was likely to fall before he could intervene.
In that instant, a thousand thoughts flashed through my mind. Just as my life was flashing before my eyes…
“Allen—!”
Andrei’s voice pulled me back to reality.
Meeting my gaze over Alex’s shoulder, Andrei had the same look in his eyes as when I had trained under him. I read the meaning in his gaze.
‘Don’t try to resist the force.’
The image of reeds clustered on a riverbank during a raging storm came to mind.
While the surrounding trees were breaking in the fierce wind and rain, the reeds swayed back and forth, bending so far they nearly snapped, but never breaking.
My instincts whispered to me. I had to emulate the reeds. That was the only way to survive.
I released the strength from my sword. I did the same with my body. If Alex’s sword hit me now, I would die without putting up any resistance. It was a suicidal act.
But a certain faith had already taken root within me.
Andrei’s eyes curved into a slight smile as if to say, ‘Well done.’ But as a strict teacher, he was stingy with praise and wanted more.
‘The key is the sense of distance.’
The structural force of a sword weakens toward its tip. An experienced and skilled person like Andrei makes full use of such principles.
Unfortunately, I was not yet at that level. But I had the eyes that see the world slowly.
I substituted what Andrei had accumulated through countless experiences and grueling training with my eyes, tracing the path of Alex’s sword in my mind. Then, I guided my sword toward the tip, where the force was weakest. I also lifted my body slightly.
It all happened in the instant before our swords met.
CRASH!
An unbearable force sent my body flying. The one stroke of luck was that there was a watchtower connected to the castle wall behind me, which saved me from falling.
“Ugh.”
A sharp pain shot through my spine. My whole body screamed as if I’d been hit by a truck. To think this was the result after deflecting the force. If it had been a direct hit, I would have actually died.
I was forced to drop to one knee immediately. Dust and dirt from the watchtower rained down on my head.
Still, this was a tolerable level of pain. Especially considering my stamina.
“Shit—!”
Alex’s scream followed. The bastard had shown his back to Andrei, trusting his armor, but Andrei was skilled enough to strike the gap in the armor that my attack had damaged, even in that urgent situation.
Attacked from both front and back, Alex’s shoulder was in tatters. His left arm hung limp, the price for ignoring Andrei.
In the end, Alex had sacrificed his left arm and gained nothing.
“This is the last of my turn.”
Andrei retrieved his sword and stepped back. He had returned to teacher mode.
I clicked my tongue and dragged my pain-racked body toward Alex.
“Shit! You dare ignore me! You think I’ll lose just because I can’t use one arm?!”
Contrary to his words, the sword he swung with one hand was neither precise nor did it display even half of his monstrous strength. The moment the advantage in strength shifted to my side, the true face hidden beneath it was laid bare.
“You’re weak.”
“What! You dare to look down on me after you cowards ganged up on me!”
I turned my gaze to Andrei.
“Was I like this too?”
“It’s good that you realize it now. It’s not unheard of to stray onto the wrong path for a while and then return. Of course, you’ll have to work much harder to make up for it, but with your talent, it won’t take long.”
The wrong path he spoke of must have been the habit of relying on physical advantages in a fight.
Through my battle with Alex, I realized just how dangerous that was. I had known, but I hadn’t thought it was that important.
“Don’t ignore me!”
Having been ignored repeatedly, Alex swung his sword in a wide arc. From top to bottom. A simple downward slash.
Normally, it would have been a powerful attack packed with monstrous strength that I would have been desperate to evade. But with one arm lost, his attack was weak enough for me to parry.
Moreover, thanks to Andrei, I now had a feel for how to fight an opponent with better physical conditioning than me.
I widened the distance and used just enough force to block and neutralize the tip of his sword. Then, using my remaining momentum, I immediately changed my stance and swung my sword at his upper body, which was inevitably exposed after losing an arm.
“Aaaargh!! My arm—!”
His severed left arm flew through the air. As if finally grasping reality, Alex clutched the stump and stumbled backward.
The overflowing blood left a trail where he passed. I kicked the sword he had dropped far away and approached him again.
“D-don’t come here! Stay away!”
I didn’t stop walking. Conversely, Alex stopped, his back hitting the parapet of the castle wall.
His face turned deathly pale as he glanced down below the railing. A cruel coincidence had led him to the very spot where Baron Babel had thrown himself off.
Click.
He turned at the sound of my footsteps and shouted desperately.
“I-I’m still an excellent knight even without one arm! If I help you, you’ll become the king of the Northern Continent! I can make that happen!”
“Are you trying to beg for your life so wretchedly? The greatest knight who ruled the Northern Continent, who changed the tide of battle countless times with his strength alone?”
“What good is any of that if I die! In the end, the achievements I’ve made will fade with the passage of time, and people won’t even know I existed!”
As if to prove his desperation, Alex bowed his head. For someone who was trying to kill me just moments ago, his change in attitude was far too quick.
“If I let you live, will you give up on Cynthia?”
I decided to test his sincerity.
Alex flinched and slowly raised his head. His gaze fell on Cynthia, who was standing some distance away.
His eyes wavered. He seemed conflicted. But that moment was fleeting.
Soon, his resolute eyes left Cynthia and met mine as I looked down on him.
“Do whatever you want with that easy bitch!”
Cynthia’s expression crumpled like a piece of paper. It looked like she was cursing under her breath.
“Hmm. If that’s the case…”
I let my sword hang loosely as if I had no intention of attacking and slowly approached him.
His expression gradually brightened. Did he believe he would live? Or did he have some other trick up his sleeve? The answer came when I was within arm’s reach.
“Die—!”
The bastard shot up like a frog, a small dagger in his hand. He had secretly pulled it from his belt and hidden it while his head was bowed.
The man who had wretchedly begged for his life was gone, and in his place was the man who believed in victory until the very end.
But before the dagger could stab me, my sword pierced his right shoulder. He slumped back against the parapet and looked up at me.
“H-how…”
His face was one of disbelief. I could only scoff. Was it because he solved everything with strength? His acting was just too terrible.
“A man who was aiming for my neck just moments ago suddenly changes his tune completely. Wouldn’t that naturally be suspicious? Well, I had no intention of letting you live in the first place.”
If I let him live, he was the type to surely come back for revenge in the near future.
Given his obsession with Cynthia, which led him to join the hero’s party on what was clearly a difficult path, his obsessive and single-minded nature was something to be acknowledged.
“No… urk.”
I didn’t give him a chance to say more. The sword that had pierced his shoulder now pierced his neck.
The man looked down at the sword in his throat, his face frozen in disbelief as he went limp.
It was an empty end for a named figure who had commanded the Northern Continent. Well, I suppose that’s why he was just a companion of the hero.
“A shame. There won’t be another opponent as suitable as him to serve as the foundation for your growth…”
“I admit that, but he’s too dangerous to keep alive for such a reason.”
Just then, Cynthia slowly approached. Her face as she looked down at the limp, cold corpse of her friend was indescribably complex.
“Are you sad?”
Cynthia shook her head.
“I’m not sad. In fact, it’s a relief, like having a bad tooth pulled. I thought I would never be free from Alex, who followed me everywhere.”
“Then do you feel regret?”
“Regret… yes, that’s right. We’ve known each other for a long time, after all. Yes. We were friends. Friends in an ambiguous relationship.”
Cynthia defined her relationship with Alex as friends and shed a tear. Just a single drop. Then she coldly turned her back and walked away.
“Friends, huh…”
It was a statement that would have disappointed Alex if he had heard it. Just then, a tear of blood that had welled in his eye trickled down his cheek and gathered at the tip of his chin.
My interest in Alex ended there. Andrei retrieved Alex’s sword, handed it to me, and said.
“Allen. When are you coming home? The situation in the West is looking grim.”