III. How to Crush Rock (4)
III. How to Crush Rock (4)
Sir Werner was fairly confident.
Although the fiery strength and hardness of his youth had worn away, in their place stood the seasoned expertise honed by the passing years.
He had thought that as long as there were only two rock trolls like last time, their current force, now joined by mercenaries and a wizard, could not possibly be pushed back.
But the rock trolls that emerged from the cave numbered three in total.
'There was one more!'
Since he hadn't even dared to enter the cave where the rock trolls hid, it had never occurred to him that another one might be lurking inside.
Just as Sir Werner, flustered by the unexpected situation, was struggling to calmly issue orders to the mercenaries—
Boom!
"...?"
A thunderous roar erupted from where the rock trolls stood.
Only then did Sir Werner realize that Keldric, who had been standing beside him, had vanished.
When he turned his head toward the sound, sure enough, there was Keldric.
"The knight has moved!"
"Sir Keldric!"
There was Keldric, having seized one of the rock trolls and pounding its leg with his mace.
"What in the..."
Sir Werner's expression went blank.
A rock troll was not a magical beast meant to be subjugated by shattering its skin.
Several soldiers with spears would surround it on all sides, and once two or three knights rushed in to pin the troll down, they would stab at the gaps in its rocky hide with bows and spears.
That traditional hunting method was shattering into pieces before Sir Werner's very eyes.
And what was also shattering into pieces was the rocky skin of the rock troll.
Keldric, who had been relentlessly battering the rock troll's leg, climbed atop it without hesitation the moment it collapsed.
Then, after ruthlessly smashing its skin with his mace, he forced his hand into the split crevice.
"Ngh—!"
Crunch!
With Keldric's strained exhalation, the rock troll's stony skin began to tear away from its body with a gruesome sound.
"Graaah!!"
Amid the brutal scene of its skin being torn off while it was still alive, a scream-like roar inevitably burst from the rock troll.
Not only Sir Werner but the other mercenaries also stared blankly at the spectacle.
Compared to a beast, it was no different from stripping raw hide with brute strength.
No, considering that the stone skin had fused with the flesh, it was even worse than that.
"What are you all doing!"
Keldric shouted loudly with a strained voice.
Behind him, the two rock trolls that had been vigorously rubbing their eyes now seemed to have nearly recovered their vision.
The first to regain his wits in the chaotic situation was Sir Werner.
"Ram Mercenary Company, spears up! Aim for the vulnerable flesh!"
The mercenaries, including Jorgen, hastily raised their spears and rushed at the rock trolls.
Through the gaps in the circle of mercenaries surrounding the toppled rock troll, Alisa could be seen murmuring something earnestly, campfires burning around her.
Once he confirmed even that, Sir Werner immediately went to reinforce Keldric.
No matter how strong Keldric was, ripping off skin that was practically glued to the raw flesh in one piece was an ordeal and a half.
"Sir! I'll help!"
"Behind! Behind you!"
In the meantime, the two rock trolls whose vision had now fully recovered were staring at Keldric.
As Keldric cried out urgently, Sir Werner hastily raised his shield and gripped his axe tight.
"I'll handle them, so finish it quickly!"
Whether Sir Werner could hold out for long was uncertain.
He was an aging knight, seasoned but declining, and a knight who fought with his body could not help but be affected by an aging one.
Keldric resolved to end it quickly. Not that he hadn't been trying to before, but he deemed it important to finish this one off even if it meant pushing himself a little harder.
With the mace in his right hand, Keldric struck the rock troll's back with all his might.
Bang! Bang!
"Graaargh—!"
With every thunderous impact, the prone rock troll thrashed and let out a tearing scream.
Thanks to Keldric's efforts, the stony hide on its back was already nearly stripped away.
The places Keldric was striking were the exposed, bright-red, vulnerable flesh.
The gruesome sound of torn flesh and spraying blood echoed repeatedly. Before he knew it, Keldric's helmet was thoroughly splattered with blood.
Yet Keldric did not stop. On the contrary, the speed of his mace strikes grew faster.
"Sword!"
With the rock troll's back already gouged deep enough to sink a foot into, Keldric shouted urgently toward Jorgen.
He had entrusted his sword to Jorgen, worried it might hinder the fight.
Jorgen, quick on the uptake, threw Keldric's sword to him.
Keldric snatched it, virtually tossing away the scabbard, and stabbed the blade straight down.
As if cutting through softened meat, the rock troll's back, its muscles mangled and gone soft from Keldric's mace, yielded far too readily to the blade.
It didn't feel like cleaving tofu as it had before, but Keldric ignored even the slight resistance and drove the sword in deep.
"Spears, thrust!"
At Jorgen's shout, the spears of the Ram Mercenary Company thrust toward the fallen rock troll.
Although Keldric had managed to crack and split the skin on its legs and several other spots, few could accurately stab into those gaps.
On the contrary, many had their spears deflected by the thrashing rock troll.
Even with a sword driven deep into its back, the rock troll's vitality remained tenacious.
Keldric reconsidered. This was not an opponent that would die easily from simply being stabbed or struck anywhere.
The sword lodged in the rock troll's back slid out— shlick. A groan of agony rang out, but even that had grown somewhat quieter.
Keldric aimed his sword toward the rock troll's back and gauged the position.
'Would the heart be around here?'
He was aiming for the heart.
After all, for any living creature, the vital points were much the same.
Keldric aimed below the rock troll's left shoulder. In a human, that was where the heart would be located.
The position might differ slightly in a rock troll, but it was still worth trying.
"Hngh—!"
With Keldric's strained grunt, the pointed tip of the sword split the softened flesh and plunged in without hesitation.
The rock troll flinched violently once; right after, its roar ceased, and it simply convulsed repeatedly.
Keldric had just felt the sensation of piercing something taut and springy.
From the hole where the sword had entered and withdrawn, hot blood gushed steadily. Through it, white steam wisped up.
"Sir Keldric!"
Keldric, who had been roughly wiping the blood from his helmet, only then realized that Sir Werner was holding off the two trolls alone.
Sir Werner was laboriously deflecting the rock trolls' fists with his shield.
Even that creaked ominously, seeming perilously close to breaking apart at any moment.
In the midst of it, Sir Werner's axe occasionally struck down on the rock trolls' wrists, but most blows just bounced off the skin.
"Lend me a hand!"
Keldric ran to Sir Werner without a word. The mercenaries who had been encircling the already dead rock troll likewise hurriedly followed after him.
Even as he ran toward Sir Werner, Keldric stole a glance at Alisa, who stood at the rear.
The three campfires placed around her flared massively.
'What is she trying to do?'
Keldric was a layman when it came to magic, and he had no leisure to guess what spell Alisa was attempting.
Keldric threw himself at the rock troll that was extending its fist toward Sir Werner.
Meanwhile, from the rock troll's perspective, the knight charging at it had just entered its sight, but it didn't think much of it.
Rather, indignant that this knight had brutally murdered one of its kin, it saw a prey willingly throwing itself at it as a welcome turn.
"Grraaa?!"
And that thought did not last long.
The rock troll flailed its arms in apparent confusion and staggered.
It was because Keldric had recklessly flung himself forward and wrapped his arms around the rock troll's waist.
Sir Werner's eyes widened as he watched.
'Combat wrestling...?'
Attempting combat wrestling against a rock troll was an idiotic act an ordinary person couldn't even conceive.
Even for a knight, the gap in physical strength arising from racial difference was insurmountable.
Yet Keldric was unscathed. On the contrary, after driving the rock troll back several steps, he tripped its iron-like leg and sent it crashing down as if to make a point.
Thud!
The rock troll, having fallen headfirst, could not immediately regain its senses.
No matter how much its skin was covered in rocky matter, a shock that reverberated inside its skull could not be recovered from quickly.
In battle, where a single moment's hesitation led to defeat, it was also something that must never happen.
In that interval, Keldric already had his mace raised high.
The skin of its chest was tougher than its back, but Keldric brought the mace down without hesitation.
Bang! Boom!
As chips of stone flew up repeatedly from Keldric's strikes, Alisa, who had been preparing her spell at the rear, shouted toward Sir Werner.
"Sir Werner! Get clear!"
Sir Werner quickly took the hint and threw himself aside.
Tumbling in the dirt wasn't a good look, but there was no choice.
Immediately after, an intense flame engulfed the rock troll's body.
"Graaak! Groooar!"
No matter how much its skin was covered in rocky matter, there was a limit to withstanding fire that burned from the inside out.
The fire that kindled from the vulnerable flesh spread inward in an instant.
The foul, acrid stench of burning protein spread all around.
The rock troll let out an agonized scream and rolled on the snow, but Alisa kept her eyes wide open and tried to maintain the flames to the end.
The inner flesh festered, and the stone skin over the softened, melted muscle sloughed off.
"Now! Thrust!"
Jorgen and the Ram Mercenary Company were not about to leave that opening unexploited.
Alongside Jorgen's shout, the mercenaries closed in swiftly with spears leveled and drove the sharp blades home.
Unlike before, when the skin had been covered in rock, the now soft, mushy, weeping flesh accepted the blades without any resistance.
The fire was gradually dying down, but the rock troll whose torso's stony skin had sloughed off could not resist the mercenaries' spears.
The pain aside, the species' characteristic rapid regeneration was also useless now that it had been thoroughly roasted by fire.
Meanwhile, Alisa, having finished her spell, steadied her slightly roughened breathing and closed her trembling eyes.
Unlike before, she hadn't used magic under the worst conditions, so her state was much better than last time.
But that wasn't the problem.
Every time she attempted to control the fire, that painfully bright flame yielded to her influence without reservation.
That made Alisa feel exceedingly uneasy.
For someone who had lost everything to fire, trying to rise again through fire felt contradictory.
Bang!
Alisa, who had been staring at her palm for a moment, flinched in shock at a thunderous sound and turned her gaze.
"What..."
There was Keldric, mounted atop a beaten-pulp rock troll.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
Keldric's mind was empty.
The only thought was that he had to kill the rock troll before him, and even that faded when the rock troll instinctively seized his arm.
The rock troll's strength was, indeed, beyond imagination.
Keldric involuntarily grimaced at the pressure exerted on his captured arm.
Keldric painstakingly pried open the rock troll's thick fingers that were gripping his arm, one by one.
A few broke in the process, but that was none of Keldric's concern.
'Its vitality is tenacious.'
As befitting a member of the troll species, the rock troll did not die easily.
Bleeding from ordinary wounds stopped quickly, and the tough skin to begin with made it difficult to inflict wounds at all.
Moreover, the mace in Keldric's hand had at some point lost its head, leaving only the haft.
Though he had brutally crushed the rock troll's chest, it wasn't enough to snuff out its life.
"Groooargh...!"
The rock troll let out a strained sound and immediately seized Keldric's right arm.
As luck would have it, it was the hand that had drawn the sword right after Keldric had realized his mace was broken.
With his sword hand seized, Keldric changed his mind about prying the hand off his arm and instead clenched his fist tight.
The broken mace handle, which he had already transferred to his left hand, felt as if it would shatter in his grip.
Bang!
A single punch landed on the rock troll's chest.
The rock troll let out a scream of agony, but Keldric didn't stop.
He simply kept driving his fist mechanically, caving in the rock troll's chest bit by bit.
If I can't use a weapon, I'll use my fists.
That was Keldric's way of fighting.
Boom!
Keldric was truly in a state of complete trance.
Without any particular thought, he beat the prone rock troll with the intent to kill.
Until its chest caved in, the sound of ribs breaking echoed, and something that had been pulsating inside burst with a pop.
Viscous blood gushed out— splat! Only then did Keldric's fist stop.
"S-Sir Keldric."
At the voice calling his name, Keldric's head, his helmet entirely plastered with blood, turned around.
Sir Werner stood there, wearing a profoundly flustered expression.
"Sir Werner? Why are you calling?"
"Well, I..."
Only then did Keldric have the leisure to look around.
A rock troll with its back torn open, a rock troll turned into a roast hedgehog, and a rock troll with its chest gouged out.
"...Ah."
Keldric stared at them blankly, then soon pulled off the dented gauntlet on his left hand and threw it aside.
It rolled across the snow, coated entirely in crimson.
"Well, hmm. I think it's all over."
Keldric spoke awkwardly, but no answer came back.
From his blood-spattered body, white steam wisped into the air.