The Red Eye Mercenary Corps (4)
What stepped out of the sunset-drenched forest was a monster of enormous bulk. A frame that looked three times a man's size, thick limbs, and a neck so massive it seemed no blade could ever cut through it. Even the aura it radiated set it apart from the lesser monsters scattered across the woods.
A troll. That was what they called it.
Among adventurers it was ranked a blue-grade monster, and the prevailing view held that three or four blue-grade adventurers working together could take one down. With the blue-grade adventurers gathered here pairing off, it should have been a manageable hunt. And yet—
"That's…"
No one moved rashly.
"That's a Blood Troll. What the hell is it doing here…?"
Of course not. The thing that had revealed itself before them was no ordinary troll.
A Blood Troll.
A mutant strain, and a monster that had slaughtered fifteen blue-grade adventurers a few months earlier before vanishing, earning itself a bounty. Unlike common trolls, this special specimen was cunning and highly intelligent.
The central guild of Cambria had ranked the Blood Troll as red.
Black, violet, blue, green, red, white.
Among the six grades, red sat in the upper tier—a threat considered manageable only when eight or more green-grade adventurers gathered. Knowing that, the adventurers held back.
It was a monster beyond their level.
Even Marsen, the highest-ranked among them here at green grade, was no exception. Had they come as a proper subjugation party intending to hunt a "Blood Troll," she might have taken the lead.
But…
Marsen scanned her surroundings.
Everyone was already preparing to pull out and run. That was only natural. They were adventurers and mercenaries first—beings who put their own safety above all else. Marsen herself was no different.
Don't take on dangerous jobs.
Don't challenge anything that looks like a loss.
Your own life always comes first.
That was the unspoken rule of this city.
Some might sneer and call it selfish, but the people who lived here were adventurers and mercenaries—not knights or heroes who threw themselves into deadly battlefields with their lives on the line.
"…Tch."
Marsen clicked her tongue and took a step back.
Seeing even the strongest among them prepare to flee, the adventurers slowly widened the distance from the troll. The Blood Troll merely glared their way without moving yet.
A crooked grin.
Then its demeanor shifted.
As the adventurers began to retreat, the Blood Troll curled its lips upward and took a step. The ground shuddered with a heavy thud, and the adventurers spun and broke into a full run.
"Run!"
"The mercenary corps—what the hell is the Red Eye Mercenary Corps doing?! That's a monster their corps is supposed to handle…!"
Panic was contagious.
While adventurers fled cursing, someone shoved another, and that adventurer went sprawling on the ground.
"Hey, you son of a—!"
The words never finished.
The Blood Troll was a seasoned hunter, and it never let prey that showed an opening slip away. With another thunderous crash it charged the fallen adventurer.
"H-hyaaaaaah!"
A club like a tree ripped up by the roots.
The moment it started to swing down, someone dashed in, seized the fallen man by the scruff of the neck, and hurled him backward.
KRA-BOOM!
The club slammed into the earth, kicking up a cloud of dirt.
When the dust began to settle, a single adventurer stood facing the Blood Troll. The fleeing adventurers kept their distance and stared.
What kind of lunatic? What kind of madman would volunteer to become bait?
The one standing there was a black-grade adventurer. A complete greenhorn who had only recently arrived in the city, still ignorant even of its unspoken rules. The unknown youth who had stolen all the attention of this subjugation stood there now.
Clang!
He drew his sword from its sheath.
As if he meant to fight the Blood Troll.
"Supervisor."
Sword in hand, Najin looked toward the supervisor on the platform. The supervisor, startled, had been about to send a rescue signal and prepare to flee himself—yet under the weight of Najin's presence he froze and met the youth's gaze.
"How many points is that one worth?"
"…What?"
The supervisor could not answer.
Even the adventurers present failed for a moment to grasp what Najin had just said. Points? Here? Now?
"Looks pretty big at a glance."
Najin leveled his blade at the troll before him and smirked.
"How about thirty points?"
Add thirty to Najin's current score and it would become sixty-five.
That would surpass the all-time high score of the Dochenberg Forest subjugation—fifty-seven points, currently held by Barger, now vice-captain of the Red Eye Mercenary Corps.
…The highest score in history.
Before joining this commission, what Najin had checked was not the number of participants in the subjugation, but the record high of every Dochenberg Forest sweep.
First place was already locked in.
But Najin had no interest in a half-hearted first place.
He had no intention of being satisfied with a narrow win over second. What he wanted was overwhelming first place. A perfect victory that shattered the historical record—one no one could ever diminish.
"I'd appreciate it if you could go higher, of course."
With that, Najin slipped sideways in a fluid leap. The troll's club smashed the ground again. Dust billowed high once more. This time, however, there was no need to wait for it to clear.
Shhhk!
A blade cut through the dust.
Najin's sword parted the cloud—and more than dust. It scored a shallow cut across the Blood Troll's hide.
Blood sprayed.
Yet what drew every adventurer's eye more than the flying blood was the sword in Najin's hand as he burst free of the dust. They fixed on the radiance clinging to the length of his blade.
A pure white gleam.
Something infinitely close to sword aura, shining with a color all its own amid the sunset-stained forest.
Cambria, City of Opportunity.
Since arriving, Najin had yet to fight a true strong opponent. He had sparred with Volkman, but that had been only a spar—never a life-or-death battle. And so Najin had been waiting.
For a fight to the death against someone equal to him.
Or stronger.
He knew that was the fastest way to hone his skill. Nothing was more valuable than combat experience against the strong.
Of course I'll have to size the opponent up as I go…
Najin eyed the Blood Troll before him.
It was certainly a formidable foe. Without Excalibur, without the complete platinum-gold sword aura, he could not be certain of victory.
But.
Even without using those, he did not think he would lose. The mercenary corps at the heart of the forest would arrive to support him soon enough; in the worst case, pulling out would not be a bad option either.
That was for if things went sideways.
Right now, what Najin aimed for was victory. His eyes snapped wide. Through bloodshot irises he read the Blood Troll's every motion. Tracking the club's path, he kicked off the ground and sprinted.
"Hoo…"
Najin let out a long breath.
As he drew that breath back in, he pulled in the mana that saturated the air around him. The amount of mana stored inside his body was vanishingly small… but in this moment that number meant nothing.
It had always been nothing more than residue.
The mana cultivation method Merlin had taught him.
That method did not set accumulating mana as its primary goal. Its purpose was to strengthen the pathways through which mana flowed and to reinforce the body itself, forging a physique optimized for mana.
Thus the mana piled inside Najin was merely what remained after reinforcing his flesh. The true measure of the mana he could wield appeared the instant he "breathed."
BOOM!
Breath complete, Najin accelerated in a single instant.
Widened channels and a body already adapted to mana locked together; the speed they produced did not lag in the slightest behind Sword Experts who had stood at that realm for more than a decade.
Movement equal to—or beyond—a fully mature Sword Expert.
In that burst of acceleration Najin's blade flashed. He slipped past the Blood Troll's club and scored its hide. The moment the sword completed its arc, however, he felt it. Too shallow.
It doesn't cut properly.
Well, of course.
Merlin muttered.
Troll hide is tough. Even magic has a hard time burning it. High natural resistance. You'll need technique if you want to cut it with sword aura.
She said.
Want me to tell you?
No need.
Najin refused.
His eyes darted, predicting the next move. Conscious of the club the troll raised, of the step it took, he moved.
I think I already know.
He adjusted his grip on the sword.
Not long ago he had watched. The blade of the mid-rank priest Volkman, who had carved through orcs without even drawing out sword aura. True, troll hide was tougher than orc hide…
But his own sword already carried aura, did it not?
Then a hide like this troll's ought to be well within his power to shear through. Najin reset his stance.
THUD!
The moment his foot struck the earth, his presence transformed.
No longer the swift hunter seeking openings, but the presence of a sword-priest who had tempered his art over long years.
Shing.
The power of swordsmanship unleashed with a reinforced body and a blade wreathed in aura was incomparable to before. Perfect form. The flashing sword skimmed along the side of the club the troll swung.
Only the troll's hide possessed resistance.
The club was merely a wooden bludgeon.
Naturally, it could not withstand sword aura.
With a clean cutting note the club split in two. It fell, showing a smooth cross-section. In the sudden absence of the club's weight the troll's stance broke, and Najin did not miss the gap.
Shhhk…
His feet stamped a dizzying pattern.
Steps that slid like a dance. This was the swordsmanship of the mid-rank priest Volkman. An application taught only to mid-rank priests who had completely mastered the four fundamental stances.
With that art, Volkman had cleaved an orc in a single stroke.
Recalling Volkman's movement then, Najin straightened his bent knee. He swung as though launching himself upward. The flow built through accumulated footwork, the stored power, released in one stroke.
SHHHHRAAAK!
This time he felt the cut. Blood sprayed as the blade tore through the troll's hide. A fatal blow that would have made any ordinary troll scream and flinch back. But a Blood Troll was cut from a different cloth.
GROOOOOOAR!
The troll bellowed and swung a fist.
In a fraction of an instant Najin twisted midair and caught the punch on his sword, yet he could not erase the impact entirely. He flew like a shot and crashed into a tree with a sickening crunch.
But he rose at once.
As if this were nothing at all. He spat a thick clot of blood—kh, ptoo—and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Far from contorting in pain, a smile touched the corners of his lips.
Because he had the feel of it now.
How to cut that thick hide.
The adventurers who had been about to flee stopped in their tracks and watched Najin fight the Blood Troll alone.
At first they had planned to use him as bait while they escaped, but now they simply stood in silence, observing the battle. An unbelievable spectacle was unfolding before their eyes.
A red-grade threat, the Blood Troll.
And the youth facing it single-handed.
Najin and the troll were evenly matched. It was hard to believe. He only wore a black-grade badge—did that mean he was actually a red-grade powerhouse? The adventurers' gazes wavered.
"…Shouldn't we help?"
Someone spoke and started forward, but at that moment Najin whipped his head around. The chill in his eyes halted the adventurer mid-step.
Don't interfere.
This is my prey.
That was the message in that bone-chilling stare. Poaching or meddling with another's quarry was something one did not do. That, too, was an adventurer's unspoken rule. In the end the adventurers could only watch Najin's hunt in silence.
GROOOOOAR!
The troll roared and swung another tree it had torn up by the roots. By the time the trunk smashed into the ground and raised a cloud of dirt, Najin was already gone from that spot. Sliding in from the side, he leapt and planted a foot on the tree the troll gripped.
He ran up the slanted trunk.
Perched on the troll's nape, Najin gripped his sword in one hand. With the other he drove a dagger hard into the creature's eye socket.
————!
The troll's scream.
An eyeball unprotected by hide was far too easily pierced by a sharp dagger. Hanging from the nape by the dagger buried deep in the eye socket, Najin swung the sword held in his free hand.
Shhk, shhhk, shhhhhhk!
Incomplete sword aura flashed again and again.
Stroke after stroke of the blade clawed at the Blood Troll's thick neck. The heavy hide grew ragged; blood sprayed in every direction.
Even when the troll thrashed violently Najin did not fall, and even when it reached to seize him it could not catch hold. At last the troll screamed and repeatedly slammed its own body against a tree. Only then did Najin kick off its shoulder and leap free.
Grk, grrrrk…
The Blood Troll glared at him, frothing blood.
A dagger still jutted from one eye; its neck hide hung in tatters, blood streaming down. It looked as though one or two more swings would finish the cut completely.
Watching that sight, the adventurers felt a chill.
At times he moved like a seasoned swordsman who had swung a blade for long years… at others he looked as unsettling as a hunting dog sinking its teeth into a prey's throat.
Overwhelming.
Faced with that overwhelming youth, the adventurers sensed it.
That black-grade adventurer could never be called a greenhorn. He was no novice. Like those who stood at the peak of this city of adventurers, he was a rising star who would reach those heights in an instant.
A new star ascending over this city.
And it was not only the adventurers watching that star. One of the five peaks of Cambria, who had arrived moments earlier in answer to the rescue signal, was watching as well.
"Huh."
Roselyn Ascalo let out a short laugh of disbelief.
"Crazy bastard, that one."
A smile spread across her lips as she muttered. It was the smile of someone who had found her own kind. Still smiling, Roselyn tracked Najin's movements.
Najin settled into a stance.
To prepare the final blow.
The single most powerful strike he had ever witnessed. The moment he took that stance to imitate it, Roselyn's eyes flew wide. She knew that posture.
She had meant to watch a little longer, but that was no longer possible.
The youth himself would not know.
That was a technique he should neither be able to use—nor use against a monster like this.