Subjugation Battle (5)
Boom.
Crunch!
One. Then another.
Every time Leona’s razor-sharp arc flashed before my eyes, only those who harbored clear murderous intent—the ones deeply complicit in the atrocities—were sliced apart with surgical precision.
The cowards who hesitated in fear, however, were simply smacked unconscious with the flat of her blade or instantly pinned to the ground and disarmed.
Strength +3 permanently absorbed.
Agility +2 permanently absorbed.
Stamina +2 permanently absorbed.
The cheerful system alerts kept popping up, filling my vision. A satisfying haul.
“Th-this… what the hell is…”
The trembling voice leaked from Kent’s lips—the same lips that had been arrogantly and obscenely harassing Leona just moments ago. I activated the skill on him.
The frontline is unfavorable. At this rate it’s just a dog’s death.
A predictable calculation. Before his last remaining knight could even drop to his knees, Kent quickly retreated.
His shallow plan was obvious: escape this damned place first, then link up with Eric’s main faction. The idiot was convinced that if he regrouped and tried again, he could still win. It all flowed into my head with perfect clarity.
Kent spun around in a pathetic display, abandoning his subordinates and bolting like a madman toward the deepest part of the forest.
“Kent.”
I spoke coldly to the man’s fleeing back.
“Where do you think you’re running? Do you honestly believe a bastard who sold his own people can live out his natural life?”
I followed at my usual leisurely pace.
Kent zigzagged through the dark woods, desperately wasting stamina to shake me off, but his struggles were meaningless.
Thanks to Mind Reading, I could see his every move and thought in real time. I cut straight across the shortest path and stuck close to his back.
After a long sprint, the fool reached the depths of the forest and hid behind a massive tree.
As my footsteps drew nearer, my skill clearly showed the stupid sneer that crossed Kent’s panting lips.
Arrogant little shit. He chased after me alone, without even bringing Leona?
Even now, Kent still thought of me as the same worthless fool. It was almost funny. But for the moment, I needed to act exactly as he expected.
I walked toward the tree where he was hiding, pretending I hadn’t noticed him at all.
The instant I entered his range, he planned to burst out and launch a surprise attack. Honor as a knight? Forgotten. His filthy scheme was to cut me in half with one strike and flee.
“Die, you damn fool!”
Clang—!
But I moved faster, effortlessly deflecting the desperate surprise attack he had poured every ounce of strength into.
My blade hummed. If I hadn’t read the angle of his strike and redirected it, the difference in power would have carved straight through me.
His personality is garbage, but I guess he didn’t become knight commander purely by luck.
I acknowledged his skill inwardly while keeping a relaxed, arrogant smile on my face.
“How… how is this being blocked…?!”
Kent’s eyes widened in pure shock.
As expected, my composed attitude completely fooled him.
“How slow. Even your ambush is pathetic.”
I mocked him and swung my sword lightly at his face.
Far away, Leona was feeding me stats in real time through Hunt Harvest. My blade, strengthened by the constant increases, tore toward his throat with a ferocity that belonged to an entirely different league than before.
Clang! Clang!
Our swords clashed. There was no respect, no hesitation—only strikes meant to end each other’s lives.
And I held the upper hand.
Kent was the strongest knight in the order besides Leona, but with all his crimes exposed and his surprise attack thwarted, he had fallen into extreme panic. He couldn’t even use half his real ability.
Cold sweat poured down his face. I could clearly see the tip of his sword trembling with the fear that Leona would arrive if he dragged this out any longer.
“Y-you… you were hiding your strength, you bastaaaaard!”
Kent shoved his sword toward me with all his might. Had I not anticipated it through Mind Reading, the force would have sent me sprawling onto my ass.
Instead of fighting his push, I simply stepped lightly to the side. Kent went tumbling to the ground.
He recovered with a quick forward roll—proof of his long years as a knight—but his usually dignified beard was now filthy with dirt.
“Our family never had swordsmanship like that,” I sneered at the mouse that had just taken a dirt bath.
“You son of a biiiiiitch!”
Finally, Kent retreated in a frenzy and pulled a pitch-black talisman from inside his armor.
It was probably a blessing he had received from a dark mage. His trump card, saved for when he was pushed into a corner while fighting Leona.
Of course, I didn’t even blink. I had known about it from the original story and already had the perfect countermeasure prepared in my head.
“Did you think you were the only one hiding power, you damn fool?”
The talisman erupted with black flames in Kent’s palm.
Crack. Crunch—!
With grotesque sounds of tearing bone and flesh, Kent’s armor began to explode outward.
A dark, twisted mass that horribly distorted the human form began to rise from within.
I steadied my breathing and quietly waited for Kent’s transformation to finish. By then, Leona—who had nearly finished cleaning up the remnants—joined my side.
“Young master? What is that thing…”
Even Leona, who rarely showed panic or fear in battle, trailed off.
The aura Kent was emitting was that terrifying.
BOOOOM—!
The black flames bursting from Kent’s armor swallowed the surrounding trees and swelled violently.
The sounds that reached our ears—Kent’s bones snapping and his flesh twisting in grotesque ways.
Idiot… Did you really think that dark mage gave you power without any side effects?
I clicked my tongue at Kent, who had already lost his sense of self. Still, I felt no sympathy. He had done far too many trash things for that.
As the mutation neared completion, a more organized—yet even more sinister—form of mana began flowing out from beyond his shattered armor.
Leona drew her sword and instinctively moved to charge at him.
“Young master! We must strike now! Before the transformation fully completes…!”
I gently placed a hand on her shoulder, stopping her.
“Leave him.”
“But… that thing…!”
“Just let him finish. All the way.”
I watched with my arms crossed in perfect leisure as hideous horns sprouted from Kent’s bursting armor.
Leona couldn’t know, but the calculator in my head was spinning with pure greed.
“Young master…!”
Leona urgently called out to me and stepped forward like a guard dog, trying to shield me.
I quietly raised a hand to stop her.
“Knight Commander.”
“Yes?”
“I’m talking to you.”
“…Ah, yes!”
“Go back. Finish off Kent’s subordinate knights, then organize the evacuation line for the wounded and prisoners. We can’t waste soldiers’ lives pointlessly here.”
“Understood! I shall carry out your command.”
What I actually meant was that I needed ‘meat shields’ to use effectively in the upcoming all-out war against the monsters.
But Leona mistook my cold calculation for the mercy of a benevolent lord. She answered with a voice thick with emotion.
She bowed deeply, then sheathed her sword without any disloyal worries about leaving me behind and ran out of the forest.
Meanwhile, my thoughts were completely different from what she believed.
If I kill him now, I’ll only get regular knight-level stats. I have to wait until he fully pumps up to boss grade so I can suck out the highest stats in clean increments of ten.
“Kwaaaaaah!”
Finally, the transformation was complete.
Kent’s shoulders had swollen to twice their original size, and his spine had burst through his ribcage. His face was so horribly twisted that I could no longer remember what the old Kent even looked like.
The demonized Kent kicked off the ground.
The explosive speed of a monster over two meters tall after a successful mutation.
His sword, wreathed in black flames, plunged straight down toward my skull.
If I tried to leisurely meet it like before, both my sword and my upper body would be split in half.
Without hesitation, I rolled roughly across the ground to dodge the brutal strike.
BOOOOOOM!
The sword that had been aiming for the top of my head slammed into the mud, creating a massive black crater with a roar that seemed to shake the entire forest.
My eyes widened involuntarily at the sight.
I knew demonization caused a massive increase in power, but… this is on another level.
No wonder the human alliance in the original story couldn’t even put up a fight against these things. Of course, I would be the one to change that future.
“Kukuku, kuhahaha!”
Watching me roll on the ground, Kent’s mutated, insect-like jaw twisted hideously.
“Crawling on the dirt like that really suits a worthless fool, Werner.”
Kent’s murky voice echoed through the forest from within the black flames covering his face.
“I don’t know what trick you used to obtain such power, but it changes nothing. You are still nothing but a fool, Werner. The trash who threw away his sword after being humiliated by Isabella in front of the young ladies. That is who you are. No matter how much you struggle, it’s useless. Just die quietly.”
The sight of him approaching while radiating black mana like heat haze was certainly intimidating. For a brief moment, I even slightly regretted sending Leona away.
But instead of answering, I slowly stood up, brushing the mud off my armor with a few light pats.
He seemed certain of his victory, but to my eyes, Kent was nothing more than a giant lump of stats.
Pages from the original novel’s setting book flipped rapidly through my mind.
[First Generation Fiend Mutation]
An early biological weapon created by dark mages who grafted mana cores onto special ‘curse talismans.’
While the explosive output was excellent, this prototype version had a fatal design flaw.
The core transplanted through the curse talisman greedily sucked in surrounding mana to prevent the host’s body from collapsing, then spat it back out as corrupted mana—destroying the environment in the process.
Of course, by the middle and latter half of the original story, the dark mage leadership would realize this fatal weakness after getting slaughtered by Kael and improve the demonization. The explosive power would weaken, but efficiency would improve.
But right now? We were still long before the original story even began.
Which means the dark mages haven’t yet realized what kind of fatal bug their own monster possesses.
I pulled a small, old glass bottle from inside my armor. It was only two fingers long and contained a dull, mold-like gray powder—the perfect counter item that exploited the original story’s weakness.
Originally, one of Kael’s genius mage companions would think of it, but I decided to use it first.
“Trash. That’s what you are. No matter how much you struggle, it’s useless. Just die quietly.”
I threw Kent’s own words back at him and tossed the glass bottle from my pocket toward the charging fiend.