Chapter 102: Uninvited Guest (1)
Chapter 102: Uninvited Guest (1)
It was midday, and the sun hung high in the center of the sky.
It was a time for those who had finished their morning routines to take a brief rest—the hour when the sun’s warmth was at its peak, casting a drowsy lethargy over the world. It was, arguably, the most peaceful moment of the day.
“Please state your identity.”
The Caravan Estate was no longer what it used to be. Unlike the days when a few neighbors took turns maintaining the peace, there were now formally employed guards. Their skill was almost laughable compared to true knights, and they were too insignificant to even be called swordsmen, but they were men who performed their duties with earnest sincerity. And a guard’s primary duty was to control the entry of those whose identities were uncertain.
“Identify yourselves, immediately.”
The guards were old men. Like most elders of the Verdi region, they had never professionally learned the way of the sword. Instead of blades they couldn't even swing properly, they held long spears. These old men, who didn't even know how to sense Mana, leveled their spearheads and issued a stern warning. Their skill was trivial—barely enough to catch wild beasts—yet they did not back down.
As the elderly guards leveled their spears, Hailyn’s golems, which had been loitering nearby, stomped forward. They were the legacy of the Black Mage Jerry Selfit. Having been further improved through the help of the Witch Audrey, these golems were now powerful enough to easily handle an average 「Sword Walker」.
In this rural backwater, they were overwhelming entities. In fact, the security of the Caravan Estate was maintained not by the elderly guards, but by these terrifying golems. To the sheltered folk of the Verdi region, the golems were no different from the monsters of legend.
However...
“Elderly guards who don't even know how to hold a spear, and golems kneaded together haphazardly.”
The uninvited guests were not the sheltered country bumpkins of the Verdi region. They were not beggars in need of food, nor were they bandits wandering because they couldn't endure the harsh reality of the Iron Kingdom.
“This is almost painful to look at.”
The uninvited guests at the entrance to the Caravan Estate were an armed force of about thirty men. Knights clad in steel armor from head to toe—beings capable of erasing a village in the Verdi region from the map before a single day had passed.
“Identify! Yourselves!”
Bravely, even in the face of such beings, the old guard continued to fulfill his duty. At the sound of the guard raising his voice, the knight standing at the very front approached silently. Without a word, the knight delivered a brutal kick to the chest of the guard who was still glaring at him.
The old man flew backward, rolling across the dirt floor before he could even scream. He slammed into a wall and slumped down, bleeding. His head fell forward; the breath had already left him.
In an instant, a man was dead.
The knight, who had killed the guard as if it were nothing, spoke in a flat tone.
“Is that sufficient identification?”
The moment the guard lost his life, the golems loitering nearby reacted. They identified the killers as enemies. The spell formulas of Jerry Selfit engraved into the stitched flesh, along with the magical formulas added by the Witch Audrey, began to glow one by one. The bloated masses of muscle charged toward the enemy.
The knight swung his blade three times at the charging golem.
The golem was dismantled into dozens of pieces and collapsed. The knight who destroyed it remained standing perfectly still in his original spot. He then turned his gaze toward the other guard, who was standing there blankly, clutching his spear.
“Has our identity been proven now?”
The other elderly guard hesitated for a moment. His comrade had just died. The golems, which were like monsters out of legend, had been slaughtered in an instant. What was the right answer? After a brief moment of deliberation, the old guard opened his mouth.
“No, it hasn't. You are enemies….”
It wasn't that a sudden, heroic courage had surged within him. He didn't have much longer to live anyway, so he intended to fight to the end, fulfilling his duty. To surrender and live would be a disgrace, but to die fighting would mean returning gloriously to the side of the gods. However, the uninvited guests were crueler than the guard anticipated.
“The old man has gone mad.”
Approaching the guard who was leveling his spear, the knight delivered a kick, this time controlling his strength. He intentionally didn't kill him. With a dull thud, the guard collapsed, coughing and wheezing. Every time he coughed, crimson blood spilled out. A pain beyond imagination washed over him.
Even as he gasped for breath, the fallen guard did not let go of his spear. He lunged with the weapon as best he could. The thrusting spear reached the knight, but instead of a piercing sound, there was only a metallic ting.
“Ah….”
“You’re definitely mad, aren't you?”
The spearhead, forged from scrap metal, could not pierce the knight's armor, which was engraved with dozens of magical formulas. It couldn't even leave a scratch on the decorative paint. The knight strode toward the collapsed guard. He grabbed him by the hair and began to slap his face.
Lips were torn apart, and teeth fell out in clusters. The old guard let out a confused groan before he began to sob in pain. The knight did not stop, continuing to strike his cheeks.
Amidst this horrific scene, the residents who saw it from inside began to scream. As the screams spread, the Guardian Stone gifted by a certain Orc Shaman began to glow. It was a spell to block and expel external enemies. As the powerful sorcery activated and a green light illuminated the estate, those staying in the center of the territory realized that uninvited guests had arrived.
In this manner, the uninvited guests announced their arrival quite grandly.
To the master of the Caravan Estate.
* * *
It was a day like any other.
I was in the middle of my sword training.
“…?”
The sky turned green. Thinking I had misseen, I rubbed my eyes and looked again, but the sky was still green. I couldn't tell what kind of phenomenon it was. I’d heard that in the Sky Mountain Range, one could see the ‘aurora’ where the sky turned five different colors every winter—was it something similar? Had a new tourist attraction been born in the Caravan Estate?
While I was having such trivial thoughts, Hailyn came running toward me in a hurry.
“Young Master! Uninvited guests! Uninvited guests have arrived!”
“Pardon? What do you mean?”
“That green light that just burst out! The Guardian Stone the Orc Shaman gave us has been activated!”
“The Guardian Stone was activated? But when the Black Mage Jerry Selfit tried to invade before, nothing like this happened….”
“It’s because these enemies are much stronger than back then! They’re so powerful that the stone’s sorcery had to be fully unleashed just to barely block them!”
Enemies much stronger than back then.
The expression stuck in my mind. Looking at Hailyn’s face, it didn't seem like a prank. I stopped my training, immediately grabbed my sword, and followed Hailyn toward the village entrance.
“Just when I thought things were quiet for once….”
Seol-yoon, who had been helping me with my training, was with us as well. Thus, Seol-yoon, Hailyn, and I ran together. Hailyn took the lead. As she ran, she explained the situation she had perceived.
“There are at least ten enemies. Moreover, the hostility I feel is unusual. It’s a level of malice you can't find in this region….”
“Is it another bandit group? Or wild beasts from the area?”
“No, my golems would have handled that much. But right now, all the signals from the golems I stationed near the entrance have been cut off. No bandit group around here could destroy a golem’s core so cleanly. Absolutely not.”
Then what kind of enemy was it? I couldn't even imagine.
As we ran, certain sounds caught my ears. The screams of the residents. Voices trembling in fear echoed from everywhere. As we reached the vicinity of the entrance, I saw residents fleeing toward the inner part of the estate in a state of panic.
“What is this… Arhan?”
“…….”
“Arhan, what’s wrong?”
The screams, the fleeing residents. Those two sights made me recall a landscape from the past.
‘This estate must be erased.’
A horrific memory I never wanted to recall. The worst uninvited guest who had visited the year I turned fifteen.
When that guest arrived, our estate looked exactly like this. I had seen the tragedy of that day clearly from the top of the hill. An absolute powerhouse who harvested human lives like crops in autumn. The process of a friendly village turning into a land of death, the fishy smell of blood, and my mother, who gripped my hand in terror and screamed.
‘Arhan, you have to run! Arhan—’
The moment that day replayed in my mind, my head filled with a searing rage. Why? Just when we had finally regained the appearance of the old days, just when my precious land was finally becoming lively again, why on earth?
The moment my anger boiled over, my pace accelerated. I ran in the opposite direction of the fleeing residents. Seol-yoon called my name from behind, but I didn't stop. My Second Heart throbbed, and immediately 「The Path」 extended within my body, granting me the strength of a superhuman.
Running at superhuman speed, I reached the village entrance in an instant.
There were about thirty knights there.
At the very front of the group was a single knight. He was clad in high-quality armor from head to toe, and beside him were the remains of a collapsed golem and the corpse of an old guard sprawled on the ground.
“Oh? Even in this backwater, there’s a decent swordsman….”
The knight turned his head the moment he noticed my presence. I didn't look at him. Instead, I looked at the other elderly guard he was holding. Unlike the one who had died, he was still breathing. However, his appearance was hideously mangled. He had been beaten so badly that it was difficult to distinguish his features through the swelling. His wrinkled face was covered in blood, and broken teeth were scattered on the ground.
Amidst the sound of breath leaking from his burst lips, the old guard sobbed and muttered.
“Save… save me, please… save me….”
As the old guard spoke, the thirty or so knights lined up behind him snickered. Everyone was mocking the pathetic, broken old man. In that situation, ironically, I recalled a memory of the past once more.
‘I shall step forward myself to set right this world full of sin and going astray!’
My father, who had lost his mind and spoke of things that were utterly bizarre. My father, who ran wild, calling himself an invincible knight. My father, whom I loved, who ended his life with his eyes wide open. My father, of whom I was prouder than anyone.
‘Your father looked exactly like that at the end. Acting like a knight possessed by madness, then sobbing like a dog when his woman died, glaring at me. But he couldn't do anything except glare. It was quite funny.’
And that bastard who insulted my father. The end of my father that the man had mentioned. The moment I remembered that, an uncontrollable rage surged.
I drew my sword.
Taking a deep breath, I kicked off the ground and lunged. Simultaneously, I extended 「The Path」 across the world I saw. The moment the straight path extended, the knight who was holding the old guard’s head moved. He let go of the guard and drew a sharp sword from his waist.
The 「Path」 I had extended. His path overlapped with my unobstructed one.
A sharp clang echoed.
When I opened my eyes, my sword and the knight's sword were locked together. As the two blades pressed against each other, I saw his gaze beyond the steel—through the slit in his helmet.
“Oho, quite a usable sword.”
“…….”
“I know who you are.”
Significant words.
Immediately after, the knight's sword moved in a mysterious trajectory. It wasn't like a piece of metal; it was like a living creature. Like a snake coiling around its prey, it aimed for my wrist with incredible speed and precision. I let go of the sword's hilt, caught the falling blade from below, and took a step back.
“……?”
After backing away, I slowly raised my head and glared at the knight again.
That swordsmanship just now. It was familiar. It was a technique I had experienced before—and not even that long ago. It was a technique I had encountered recently in the Infinite Duel. The one I had faced in the final duel of the three. The technique that man used.
Right, so….
“You are the Sword Demon. The fighter of Steel City, Liam.”
「Rhapsody」.
He was the Lazy Idler, the sword of the great family.
“I didn't expect to meet you this soon.”
“Did you come looking for me?”
“Yes, I came for you.”
“Why?”
At my question, the mysterious knight replied.
“To hold you accountable for daring to touch the master of the Six Free Cities.”