Ganin Plains
Hwanin locked eyes with the thirteen humans.
Their faces twisted in confusion as they stared up at him and Emergency Food soaring through the sky, clearly thinking, What the hell is that?
A strong sense of familiarity tugged at Hwanin, as if he had seen them somewhere before…
Necromancy on Emergency Food.
He had precious few acquaintances in this world. And if these were the sort of bastards lying in wait for an open ambush, any prior acquaintance would be null and void.
He channeled the mid-low-grade soul orb from the were-rat demi-human who had attacked them yesterday morning into Emergency Food, then used a low-grade soul orb from some second-class demi-human whose name he could not even recall on himself. Soul Stick in hand, he prepared.
And then—
Double-layered Soul Arrow.
Pii-pii-pii-pik—
After forty straight days of relentless training in Wayford, the casting speed of his double-layered Soul Arrows had improved dramatically. He loosed them one after another at the humans holding bows.
Keuk—, keok, kkeugeok.
Six death rattles rang out as six bandits crumpled and toppled in succession.
"What the—?!"
"Th-they're dead!"
"What was that? I didn't see a thing!"
"Kue~!"
Perhaps thanks to the mid-low-grade soul now animating him, Emergency Food let out a strained kkeueung and began beating his wings even faster. Astonishingly, his descent halted, and he started to rise little by little.
Still airborne, he adjusted his course and drifted toward the human trash below.
Hmm.
Catching the ground-bound bandits' intent to hurl daggers and axes, Hwanin unfolded two triple-layered Soul Shields and shifted them beneath Emergency Food.
Kak, kagak—
Of the five daggers, two went wide; the other three struck the Soul Shields and clattered harmlessly away.
The stone axes hit harder than the daggers, yet not a single shield shattered.
Eighteen orbs left.
Seeing the bandits prepare another volley of daggers and stone axes, Hwanin patted Emergency Food's neck and spoke.
"Emergency Food. If we keep hovering like this, they'll just keep attacking. Let's descend over there."
"Ku, kueht!"
"Don't you run!!"
"Stay right thereee!"
"Where do you think you're going, you son of a biiitch—!"
As they moved beyond the hills, the bandits roared in fury and gave chase.
Hwanin watched them with colder eyes. Besides the five in pursuit, two female bandits were raising their bows; he punched Soul Arrows clean through their skulls.
They collapsed, brains spraying, and between their falling bodies the hills rose abruptly into view.
Tadak. Emergency Food landed lightly. Hwanin praised him with a quiet "Well done," then narrowed his eyes slightly at the five bandits who now appeared atop the rise.
So 'nothing visible' works this way too. Even so, they're far too stupid.
Eight of the thirteen had died at first contact. Normally they would have fled in terror.
Had the attacks been visible, fear would have taken hold. But as the saying went, ignorance breeds courage—the very fact that they had seen nothing only stoked their bravado.
"Master~!"
From the far side, Isilite had grasped the situation. She drew her heavy iron greatsword and came running with a shout.
"Emergency Food, let's join up with Isilite."
"Kueht!"
Empowered by the mid-low-grade necromancy, Emergency Food's full sprint felt comparable to a sports car.
The distance to the pursuing bandits opened in an instant.
Even at that speed the bird's back barely swayed. From atop it Hwanin leveled his Soul Stick and unleashed a barrage of Soul Arrows at the human trash behind them—sparing the two class-holders and targeting the remaining three.
"Aaaagh—!"
"Keok!"
"Kyaaak…!"
The three female bandits toppled with holes punched through their bodies by the invisible assault. Only then did the two aura-wreathed men realize something was terribly wrong; they skidded to a halt mid-charge.
"Wh-what? Where'd they all go?!"
"Uh… uh…?"
Of the original fifteen bandits, only two remained: a deer-headed man radiating a warrior's aura and a chimpanzee-headed man with a fighter's aura—both of the Luke race.
Reading their intent to flee, Hwanin reined Emergency Food to a stop, turned to face the pair, and spoke.
"If you mean to run, then run."
"Kuu!"
The two bandits marked by Hwanin's Soul Stick could think of only one thing: We're fucked.
Barely twenty minutes earlier their scout had reported two people approaching on a Kue—one class-holder, one unclassed—and they had cheered at the easy prey.
"You pieces of traaash~!!"
Isilite's furious arrival sealed their despair.
Even at a glance the woman was a higher-grade warrior than either of them, and she rode a well-fattened Kue. The other was the unknown human who had just massacred their entire group.
Belatedly the two bandits noticed Hwanin's gear, the rare colored Kue he rode, and the exceptional armor it wore.
Don't tell me that stick is a magic catalyst!
Damn it. They only moved as a pair in times like these because they had something to rely on!
Realizing their lives were already forfeit, they dropped their weapons and fell to their knees.
"P-please spare us."
"We failed to recognize your greatness and committed a capital offense! Please, spare our lives!"
Begging was the only path left if they wanted to live.
"This is the third time I've seen this exact scene."
If you charged in meaning to kill, you should fight to the death. Yet the moment they realized they were the ones about to die, they switched to groveling for their lives. What kind of thinking was that?
"You tried to ambush and murder us, and now you ask for mercy?"
"It's a misunderstanding! W-we were just travelers resting behind the hills!"
"Huh?"
The deer-headed man offered an absurd excuse, but the chimpanzee-headed man, hearing Hwanin's voice, let out a dazed sound.
That black-hooded leather coat. That piercing low voice, calm and detached.
He had failed to recognize him because of the splendid Kue, but now he remembered.
"S-Soul Master!!"
"…What?!"
"…"
Thanks to the chimpanzee-headed man's cry, both the deer-headed man and Hwanin himself recalled who the other was.
They were members of Isilite's old bandit gang—the ones they had met outside Rehil Village.
The faces of the deer-headed and chimpanzee-headed men went deathly pale. Isilite's murderous expression twisted into something far more complicated.
Hwanin fixed his gaze on the deer-headed man and asked,
"You were resting behind the hills, you say."
"…Th-that…"
"Just travelers."
"S-Soul Master, that's not—"
Ignoring their attempts at excuses, he turned to Isilite.
"Isilite. In your eyes, did those two look like they were simply resting behind the hills?"
"Huh?!"
"Isil…ite, Boss?!"
Her former subordinates finally recognized her and recoiled in shock. Seeing the three corpses farther off as well, Isilite closed her eyes and let out a long sigh.
Then she composed herself, opened her eyes, and answered.
"It's a method we used often when the band was hard up. We'd hide in a narrow hill pass like this, shoot the mounts of any travelers or merchants who came by to disable them, then either attack or threaten them."
"…"
"Looking at it, the victims over there are their work too. I don't know how it happened, but… they've turned into a low-life pack that steals every last coin and takes lives as well."
"Boss! That's not true! It's a real misunderstanding!"
"We didn't do the ones lying over there!!"
When Isilite had led them, even banditry had its limits.
She had always tried to avoid taking lives during raids, and after hitting a target she would move far away or rest for the day, leaving a proper interval.
She had even shown mercy to poor travelers and merchants who clearly had nothing worth taking, letting them pass. She had never stripped every passerby the way these men did now, nor killed them or left them to die.
"Boss! Please spare us. Please! Boss!!"
"Isilite, Boss!"
Hwanin ignored the two noisy bandits and met Isilite's eyes.
"Please just watch, Master. I'll… handle this. When we parted, I promised that if we ever met again I would kill them."
"…"
He nodded. Isilite dismounted from Kurti, heavy iron greatsword in hand, and stepped before the two bandits.
"Boss!"
"Isilite, Boss!"
"Stop calling me Boss. I'm not your boss anymore, and I've quit the bandit life."
She exhaled a sigh thick with frustration and continued.
"Come at me. If you want to live, kill me and prove your strength. Then… maybe Master will spare you."
"…!"
"…"
The two bandits exchanged glances, then carefully eyed the Soul Master still mounted on the green Kue.
Confirming that the most terrifying person present had no intention of intervening, they thought:
If it's just the two of us, we have a chance.
The boss only knows brute force. If we flank her and wear her down, we can do this!
Watching her former subordinates fumble to pick up the weapons they had dropped, Isilite felt more sorrow than rage.
It was strange.
When the coup had driven her out, she had sworn she would kill them on sight if they ever met again. Why did she feel this way now?
She let out a short breath and asked,
"One question. What about Galteide? Why only the two of you? What happened?"
"…After you left, Boss, we split into two factions. Galteide wanted to use the money we'd saved to buy more horses or Kues and become proper horse bandits. The rest of us wanted to keep doing what we were doing and make easier money."
The growing pains that always came with a change of leadership had struck Isilite's old band as well. They had failed to weather them; the detachment and the main force had simply split apart—a common enough story.
When she heard that the band she had built for over ten years had collapsed, Isilite finally understood the sorrow she felt.
It was because the men whose blood and sweat had mixed with hers, who had shared life and death with her, had torn apart so meaninglessly and fallen into this filth.
Is this what it would feel like to hear that my child had died?
Now… it simply no longer mattered.
"Fine. I've heard the news. That's enough. Come at me."
"…"
"…"
The two bandits swallowed hard.
Their former boss had changed so completely she might as well have been a different person. The rough, mannish speech and appearance were gone; she looked and spoke like a refined young lady.
What had she done to that lion's-mane hair to make it so soft and glossy, as if it had been carefully tended?
Had the boss always been this beautiful?
Lost in such thoughts, the two began edging left and right to set up a pincer. Watching them, Isilite suddenly recalled the way Hwanin had moved against the Bloodhide Clan members in the labyrinth.
"…"
Then Lesim's teachings surfaced in her mind.
Kung!
The instant her foot stamped deep enough to leave a print, Isilite shot forward like a spring. The gap to the deer-headed man—who had been cautiously widening the distance—vanished in a heartbeat.
"Huh?"
Without a shred of hesitation she swept the heavy iron greatsword upward on a diagonal.
Peoheok—!
The massive two-handed blade flashed with a razor edge. The deer-headed man was cleaved clean in two; blood and entrails sprayed through the air as the halves were flung aside.
It was nothing like the crude, strength-only swings of her past.
Goosebumps rose on the chimpanzee-headed man as he watched his partner split into pieces. He raised his two-handed mace into a defensive stance—but it was useless.
Bbak!
A kick that launched her skyward like a gymnast sent the mace flying from his grip.
This is the limit of a bandit who doesn't even know proper grip technique.
"Sorry."
"Uwaaagh! Bo—!"
Ppeogeok!
A single blow split the chimpanzee-headed man from crown to groin; entrails and brains spilled onto the ground.
The duel had ended anticlimactically, yet the outcome was only natural.
Among low-grade class-holders, individual differences were enormous.
The higher the grade, the less equipment quality or specialty affected real combat. At second class, even minor factors created vast gaps.
Isilite's heavy iron greatsword was a mass-produced model, yet it boasted outstanding attack power and durability among its peers.
Her raw strength ranked near the top of her grade, and by mimicking Hwanin's training she had continued daily physical conditioning, little by little.
As for martial skill, she had diligently taken one-on-one lessons from Lesim, who was nearly fifth class.
By comparison, the bandits' weapons were rusted and tattered, their armor neglected and moth-eaten.
They possessed no special talent, and the only formal training they had ever received was the group weapon-swinging sessions from Isilite's days as boss—sessions that had vanished the moment she left.
The disparity those differences created was enormous.
Watching Isilite bisect a second-class warrior and fighter in single strokes, Hwanin gave a small nod.
She's putting what she learned from Lesim to good use.
Lesim had not taught her much.
Only four things: how to put weight into both legs, the timing of a weapon swing, and the footwork and body movement needed when wielding a greatsword.
All of them were elements that let Isilite harness her monstrous strength smoothly. Lesim's teaching style had meshed perfectly with her, allowing her to achieve considerable progress during the three days of training in the labyrinth.
And she had just proven that progress against the subordinates who had betrayed her.
The clumsy novice who had been swung around by her own weapon had become a true warrior who knew how to swing it properly.
"…"
Even though they had betrayed her in the end, comrades were still comrades, it seemed.
Seeing Isilite's shoulders droop slightly as she stared at her dead former subordinates, Hwanin wordlessly stroked her hair.
She gave a weak smile.
"In the old days, fighting these two would have taken a long, messy brawl before I could win… I guess I really have gotten stronger."
"What Lesim taught you simply suits you that well. So keep practicing steadily from now on. And…"
Hwanin considered for a moment, then decided.
"Starting today, we spar for thirty minutes every morning and evening."
"Really?!"
Her earlier listlessness vanished as she brightened. Hwanin gave a small nod.
"At your current level, sparring experience will help you as well."
"Yes! I'll work hard! …Um, but does that mean it wouldn't have helped before I learned from Lesim…?"
"…"
"Ugh. Yes, sir…"
Hwanin turned away without a word. Isilite's face fell as she wiped the blood from her greatsword and began searching the dead bandits' belongings.
They had clearly robbed a great many travelers and merchants; the coins and jewels were plentiful.
"The jewel pouch… looks like it'll fetch about fifteen gold. Cash is six gold, twelve ten-silver, sixty-seven silver, forty-six ten-copper, and a hundred twelve copper."
"They killed quite a few, didn't they."
"…"
Isilite's expression drooped again. Hwanin took the pouch and stowed it in his bag—only to find it far heavier than expected.
Our own funds… Race Alliance gold coins: sixty-one gold, twenty-three ten-silver, eighty silver, sixty-eight ten-copper, a hundred thirty-five copper.
The gold alone weighed nearly a kilogram; everything together came to about five. He would need to buy a dedicated subspace pouch for coin in the next city, or convert it all into Phase Stones for easier carrying.
"Most of the gear is rusted and moth-eaten. Probably worthless."
"Then leave it. We move out."
"Yes, sir."
That evening, after leaving the roadside and setting up camp, Hwanin took up his black spear before the meal and called Isilite.
She immediately understood and rose with her heavy iron greatsword in hand.
"Let's begin."
"Yes! I'll do my best!"
"What you need to learn is how to block and how to dodge."
"Defense techniques!"
"As Lesim said, your greatest weapon is strength. As your grade rises and you grow, that strength will increase dramatically, so you'll be able to smash through most defenses with raw power. There's a saying that the best defense is a good offense—but that doesn't mean defense itself is unimportant."
If she intended to keep using a greatsword, she absolutely had to master parries and guards with it.
Along with reading the right moment to attack.
Oh, the best defense is a good offense. That sounds like a profound maxim, Isilite thought—only to feel a sharp, electric pain bloom in her solar plexus as she staggered backward.
Belatedly she saw the butt of the black spear strike and withdraw.
"…Cough! Cough-cough! Wh-when…?"
She hadn't seen it move… no, she had seen it, but it had registered no more as an attack than a blade of grass or a leaf brushing the edge of her vision.
As Isilite retreated, left hand pressed to her chest, Hwanin spoke in his usual detached tone.
"You're not paying attention. I clearly said we were starting."
"…!"
"Shall we have you take a few more hits first? Once it hurts enough, you'll start paying attention whether you want to or not."
Hiiiiiik!
Isilite screamed inwardly as attacks poured down, leaving afterimages in their wake.