Chapter 183
Chapter 183
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Translator: True Detective
Chapter: 183
Chapter Title: The 5×5 Battle (5)
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The last survivor, left alone after all his comrades vanished, trembled in fear.
Pafsh-.
A flash erupted, and as his vision turned pure white, he realized it was finally his turn.
"Ah...."
Nothing came to mind.
He didn't know what to do or how to act.
His fear-addled brain couldn't issue any commands.
And in that instant.
Thud-.
A hand emerged from the flash and roughly seized his jaw.
"Mmph?!"
The startled final survivor bulged his eyes wide.
"Ah, so it's my turn now."
The moment he gave up resisting with that thought.
He finally grasped the true nature of the silent lightning.
"This guy?!"
Black hair and golden eyes.
Pafzsh-.
The lightning that snatched his comrades wasn't some ghost or specter.
The one who tore through the flash was none other than Yuri Holland.
"Mmph! Mmph!"
Realizing the identity of the lightning ghost, he thrashed and tried to scream, but his mouth was already clamped shut by Yuri.
"Mmmph! Mmmph!"
Yuri smirked at the struggling squadmate gripping his hand.
"Ahh, go quietly when I'm sending you off nicely. Let's not make this tiring for either of us."
The face of the captured 50th Cohort member turned pale blue at Yuri's cheeky grin.
Puk-.
In an instant, a fist plunged into the last survivor's solar plexus.
"Kuhk!"
Overwhelmed by excruciating pain, the 50th Cohort member's vision went white without even a scream.
Puk-.
Soon, a dull thud followed to the back of his head, and he completely lost consciousness.
Tap tap-.
Yuri dusted off his hands lightly and smiled.
"Done!"
Yuri had silently swept away the Blue Army occupying 5-2 in one go.
He moved to the center of the occupation point and inspected the mechanism.
The hourglass was half depleted.
Yuri removed the Blue Army's hourglass, inserted the one he brought, and turned it to the left.
Click-.
Srrrk-.
The mechanism operated normally, and white grains began falling to the bottom.
With his task complete, Yuri picked up the hourglass with blue grains and examined it closely.
"The Blue Army hourglass turns right, and the White Army one turns left. That's the design."
Lately, Yuri's interest in mechanical devices had skyrocketed.
He showed strong curiosity toward the hourglass and the mechanism.
Then he shook the one in his hand.
Srrk srrk-.
The sound was a bit off.
"This... doesn't feel like sand?"
Tilting his head slightly, he soon crushed the hourglass with force.
Powder poured out from inside.
Yuri scooped some up with his hand to check.
The particle size, the texture.
And above all, the smell.
Yuri was certain.
This was definitely not sand.
Moreover, it was something he knew well.
To be precise, something he'd been passionately studying lately.
"This... is gunpowder, isn't it?"
Excitement lit up Yuri's face.
His hands itching suddenly, Yuri crouched right up against the mechanism.
"This... after the quest ends, I gotta dismantle one and see?"
Unsure of its exact purpose, Yuri resolved to tear it apart and study it anyway.
If he didn't have to defend this occupation point, he'd already be at another one disassembling the mechanism.
Thump thump-.
As he tapped the mechanism to soothe his regret.
"YuriYuriYuri!"
His head snapped toward the voice calling him.
"YuriYuriYuriYuri!"
There was Arin, waving both arms wildly as she ran over.
Yuri's tone turned sullen in an instant.
"What? Why are you coming from there?"
Arin beamed at his grumpy question.
"I finished up over there and switched!"
"Switched?"
"I parked someone else at that occupation point and decided to be the scout."
"Ahh, you ran away from the perv."
Yuri nodded as if it made sense, but Arin shook her head.
"No, that perv senior isn't there."
"What're you talking about?"
Finally achieving her goal of switching, Arin excitedly started babbling.
"That perv senior went to sector 3-5."
"Isn't that... where Yulia is?"
"Yeah. Apparently, Gunter Rider showed up there."
Hearing this, Yuri stretched Arin's cheeks long.
"You should've said that first!"
"Aaaang!"
After a good long torture session pinching her cheeks, Arin was finally released and clutched her face.
Yuri sank into thought.
"3-5... not bad."
No, for the White Army, it was the best situation possible.
Gunter had walked right into Yulia's territory of his own accord.
"That... cavalry arts, was it?"
After the princess rescue quest ended, Teresa had told him.
The name of the technique Yulia used with around fifty from the 49th Cohort against a certified 5-dan demon king was cavalry arts.
Having heard the gist, Yuri summed it up briefly.
"That's totally broken!"
Most of the fifty Yulia used for cavalry arts back then were non-certified grade 1s and certified 1-dans.
Normally, they'd have been slaughtered en masse by a certified 5-dan.
But the result was surprisingly in the 49th Cohort's favor.
Even if the demon king hadn't gone all out back then.
Even if it was just a momentary advantage.
With that level of forces, they'd fought on equal terms with a certified 5-dan.
"Of course, there might be some weakness I don't know about."
Even so, the visible effect was an utter cheat of irrationality.
"There are twenty-four people in 3-5 besides Yulia."
Fewer than during the princess rescue quest, but there were third-years mixed in.
That wasn't unusable firepower by any means.
And if Goetz had joined as Arin said?
"Might be worth a shot."
The one concern, though.
"I don't know their forces over there."
Not just Gunter Rider's skill, but who else was around him—that uncertainty nagged.
"Eh, doesn't matter."
Yuri shrugged lightly.
"I'm not expecting a win anyway. Just hold out till I get there."
He said to Arin.
"Arin, handle the aftermath for me."
"Aftermath?"
"Drag that guy over there and tie him up."
Yuri glanced at the unconscious 50th Cohort member and jerked his chin toward the forest on one side.
"I'm heading out. Tie them up so they can't escape!"
Without a moment's hesitation, he turned and bolted away.
Toward the 3-5 occupation point.
"Ah...?"
Yuri was gone by the time Arin closed and opened her eyes.
Snapping to belatedly, Arin yelled in panic.
"...You're going? Ah, wait, you're gone? What about 5-1?! You gotta wrap that up first!"
Arin wailed, but there was no one left to hear.
After fussing around for a while, Arin sighed softly and grabbed one leg of the unconscious 50th Cohort member.
"...Came for nothing."
She'd really come for nothing and just gotten stuck with the hassle.
Grumbling under her breath, Arin dragged the body to the spot Yuri indicated.
Reaching the forest between 5-1 and 5-2, she gaped at the scene before her.
"Eh?!"
Thud-.
So shocked, she dropped the leg she was holding.
"My god...."
In her view.
Five people lay crumpled like trash.
But even more shocking were the ones tied vine-like to trees, dangling limply.
No movement from them either—unconscious, probably.
Arin counted them.
"Those are six too?"
Including the one she brought, that made six on the ground.
So where did the ones hanging from the tree come from?
"No way?!"
Something dawning on her, Arin dashed toward the 5-1 occupation point.
Soon after, she arrived at the empty 5-1 occupation point and gawked at the white hourglass mounted on the mechanism, pouring out.
"He already... finished it?"
When she arrived, Yuri was at 5-2, so she'd thought he'd just started there.
But she was wrong.
Yuri had already cleared 5-1 and was finishing up 5-2.
"Well, Yuri would... make that call."
5-1 was closer to the Blue Army, so naturally more sand left than in distant 5-2.
Clearing 5-1 first was the right judgment, but....
"Wow... even so, how long has it been? He took two occupation points already?"
Arin stuck out her tongue toward the direction Yuri vanished.
* * *
"Haa, haa...."
Rough breaths scattered into the air.
Suppressing a throbbing headache, Yulia scanned her surroundings.
Craters blasted into the earth.
Chaotic gouges scarred across the dirt.
All of it from just the past ten minutes.
Yulia gritted her teeth.
"Twelve left."
Her gaze flicked over the sprawled bodies.
No twitches—they wouldn't rise to fight again.
Forcing calm, Yulia glared ahead.
"Sacrificing twelve of ours... just to take down one?"
When Gunter's group first appeared, Yulia saw the opportunity.
If she could pin them down, the White Army's victory odds would rise.
She had some confidence.
She had cavalry arts and twenty-four personnel to wield it.
But....
"...And this is the result."
Half her forces gone, but the enemy had only one out of six combat-ineffective.
Even more despairing: Gunter hadn't actively joined the fight yet.
As Yulia bit her lip in anguish.
Tadad-!
Four from Gunter's side charged.
Leading was red-haired Michelle Ahn.
He rushed with dual hand axes, followed by Loop Crabe and the Yerun Crabe siblings.
Aris Moore flanked from the left.
Yulia assessed the situation.
Throb throb-.
Enduring the pounding pain, she overtaxed her mind.
And thought of a way to turn it around.
"Left three, retreat four paces."
The next order followed swiftly.
"Formation, disperse!"
Soldiers didn't think.
Yulia thought for them and conveyed it via cavalry arts.
Yulia was the brain; the soldiers, hands and feet.
"Rear support, deployment formation!"
Her cavalry arts orders reached the soldiers fast and precise.
They reacted immediately.
More orders flew rapidly, and Yulia's soldiers swiftly formed a surrounding net around the enemies.
"Frontal assau—!"
But as the next order came.
Wooong-.
A sudden vibration swallowed her command.
Her order cut off, and the enemies exploited the brief gap to press in.
Boom!
"Kuhk!"
Another fell to Michelle's twin axes.
"All disperse!"
In the end, Yulia abandoned the encirclement and pulled everyone back.
At the same time, she glared at Gunter, whose sword dangled loosely.
His bastard sword hummed faintly.
That vibration had caused the noise moments ago.
And this kept repeating.
Even with her cavalry arts, this was why Gunter's group overwhelmed them.
Yulia's face twisted in irritation.
"Read again!"
Cavalry arts transmitted orders via a fixed-frequency voice hypnosis.
Know the frequency, and you could disrupt it.
In theory.
If easy, cavalry arts would've died out long ago.
Even knowing the counter, executing it was fiendishly hard.
The problem: Gunter pulled it off effortlessly.
"First couple times, fine... but this is ridiculous!"
First time Gunter vibrated his sword to scramble her cavalry arts commands, Yulia switched frequencies immediately.
Problem was, after a few uses on the new one, Gunter quickly read it and interfered again.
"Perfect pitch or what?!"
Could one person have this many talents?
If there was a god who made Gunter, she'd yell at them right now.
But Yulia had no time.
The four enemies moved again.
And.
Woooong-.
Behind the charging four stood Gunter with impassive eyes.
His sword trembled wildly, emitting vibrations.
As Yulia swiftly tried a new frequency for her command.
Whoosh-.
A sudden gust whipped her bangs.
"Huh?"
Yulia froze, brain stalling at the figure before her.
"When...?"
The one before Yulia.
It was Gunter, who'd been far off moments ago.
He swung his sword at her.
Shing-.
Even as Gunter's blade approached, Yulia couldn't move.
Overwhelmed by his sudden presence.
"Ahh...."
In the slowing time, Yulia gave up.
"It's over."
Nothing more she could do.
Accepting it, rage surged.
"You could've done this from the start!"
He could've ended it easily but just watched from afar.
Simple meaning.
Amusement.
To Gunter, her struggles were mere entertainment.
Humiliated and furious at being toyed with, Yulia spat.
"You bastard...!"
Thus, even if dying, she'd curse once—prying her stuck lips open.
Shk-.
A single sword slipped between Yulia and Gunter.