205. I Can't Forgive Those Bandits Who Interrupted My Happy Time
205. I Can't Forgive Those Bandits Who Interrupted My Happy Time
The sound of unfamiliar footsteps began to echo from the deck.
Apparently, someone fearless had attacked this airship flying under Perda's crest.
It was unpleasant, but dealing with the situation came first.
If they were brazen enough to attack this airship flying under Perda's crest in mid-air, they were no ordinary bandits.
I hurriedly got dressed and tried to go out, but Amy and Riber also tried to get up.
"I-I'm coming out too!"
"You're both in bad shape. Stay put and be quiet."
"But you were acting strange earlier too, Atlas!"
"Are you thinking of leaving us behind?"
"Listen to me. I'll be back within 10 minutes, so if you want to come out, do it after that. At least get dressed."
I roughly threw on some clothes and grabbed Squete.
I didn't know who the bold bastards were, but I figured I could keep two or three of their leaders alive for questioning.
"What's this, a little kid? Why are you holding a sword?"
"Whoa, looks expensive. Did you sneak your daddy's sword out?"
"Hey kid, that thing's dangerous. Wanna give it to your big bro here?"
"The hell kind of big bro has no conscience?"
"We can ransom a kid for a lot, so handle him carefully."
"Heh, got it, boss!"
The moment I stepped out into the corridor, I ran into the sky thieves.
Their equipment felt a bit shabby for people attacking an airship like this, but that wasn't my problem.
"You done?"
"Huh?"
"With your last words."
As soon as I finished speaking, a storm of blood swept through the corridor.
The moment I swung my sword once, the sky thieves' limbs were sliced apart in a single stroke.
All except for one man.
"Hiiiiiek???? Wha... what's going on??? Everyone... huh???"
"Answer the question you were asked."
"You... you!! What did you... how..."
-Puuuuk!
Squete stabbed into the sky thief's thigh.
"Gah... Aaaaaaargh!!!!! My... my leg!!!"
"I said, only answer what you're asked."
Unless he received immediate medical treatment, this sky thief was going to die.
I had severed the main artery in his thigh, so blood was gushing out of the wound like a fountain.
"How many of you entered?"
"Fi... fifty people...."
Fifty? That was quite a large number for sky thieves.
Due to the nature of targeting airships in flight, the cost of transporting people multiplies rather than simply doubling, so they tended to operate in smaller groups. A number like fifty was suspicious.
"Who instigated this?"
"I don't know...."
I hadn't even expected him to know this.
"Alright, you answered well."
-Seogeok
His head fell off.
It was a cleaner death than dying miserably from excessive blood loss.
In the corridor that had become a sea of blood, there was no one left standing but me.
"Uwaaaaah!!!"
-Puk!
Ah, there was one more.
The door to the cabin in front of me opened and a dagger flew out, piercing the sky thief's throat.
Casey walked out from inside, still in her pajamas, yawning.
"...What's going on?"
"With all this ruckus, you're up early."
"I was sleeping in advance because I knew it was going to get noisy. I have sharp ears, so keep it down."
Hearing that, I felt a bit stung and couldn't say anything more.
"Get your equipment ready. Let's go sweep up the thieves."
"I'm sleepy, can't you just handle it all, mister?"
"Where do you think you're slacking off? You're still an Imperial Knight."
I stretched Casey's cheek out.
"Ow ow ow... Alright, fine."
--------------------------------------------
"Hiaaaaak???"
"It's a monster!!"
Late at night, an enjoyable chase was unfolding on the airship.
The ones being chased were the sky thieves who had dared to invade, and the one chasing them was the boogeyman of the Imperial Academy, Atlas the Ankle Biter.
The sky thieves had initially scoffed at me when I appeared holding a sword as tall as myself, but now they could no longer do so.
Because the limbs of over a dozen sky thieves had already been hacked off, my body was drenched in crimson stains that could not be laughed off in any way.
Walking around with blood caked on my body and holding a pitch-black sword almost made me feel like I was back in my trainee days in the Imperial Knights.
After slicing up sky thieves for a while, I grabbed one of them and asked him a few things I was curious about.
"What did you ride here on?"
"We... we came riding wyverns!!!"
Having seen all his comrades get chopped to pieces right in front of him, the sky thief answered with remarkable promptness.
"Is that so? Wyverns are notoriously ill-tempered; weaklings like you would get bitten to death before even climbing onto their backs."
"I don't know the details, but the wyverns the boss brought were docile...!"
"That's quite fascinating."
-Seogeok
The moment he finished answering, the sky thief's right arm detached from his body.
"Gnh... Aaaaargh!!! I gave you an answer, why...!!"
"That's why I spared you with just one arm. You should be grateful."
He fainted soon after, likely going into shock from the pain of having his arm sliced off so brutally and the rapid blood loss.
If I left him untreated, he would die of exsanguination.
"Wow, the golems are doing a good job."
Since so many had been hacked up already, filthy blood was splattered all over the corridor that had once looked like a high-class hotel, but golems had appeared upon detecting the filth and were carrying out 'cleaning'.
"Ugh... what... what are you people..."
They erased the bloodstains and stuffed the sky thieves—the origin of the filth—into a large sack.
Some of them still had breath left in them, but they paid them no mind.
I had absolutely no intention of keeping any of them alive anyway.
The mood had been nice for the first time in a while, and they had to throw a wrench in it. They were all sentenced to death.
Even if that weren't the case, the moment they attacked an airship in flight, they could never be considered ordinary bandits.
Especially if they were riding things like wyverns.
"Ugh... so barbaric. You splattered way too much blood."
Cindy, the elf exchange student who had been attacked by the sky thieves moments earlier, looked at me with contempt in her eyes.
She wasn't scorning me for killing them.
She was acting like that because I had killed them brutally, causing excessive damage to the corpses.
Her attitude after having been rescued was top-notch insolence, but elves had audacity as a basic attribute, so I didn't even get angry.
"Well, is this how you do it, then?"
"Hey mister, I finished cleaning up over on that side and came back."
Casey walked toward me holding her rapier.
Behind her, about five corpses lay fallen with holes pierced through their heads or throats.
"See, isn't something that clean much better?"
"I really should've just not helped."
I only said it offhand, but it seemed she was genuinely satisfied.
"The head chef and his assistants were fine, us girls were grouped together in the cabin so Lucia was safe too, who haven't we seen?"
"Albion was fighting just now, so I helped him. According to what Nina said, it sounds like Lemnos and Perda are on the deck fighting someone who appears to be the boss."
The deck, huh. I was planning to clear things out on my way out anyway, so the route worked out nicely.
"Then... Phrygia was left all alone. I'll go outside to help, so could you go find her?"
"Got it."
The moment she finished speaking, I split off in the opposite direction from Casey.
Working with Casey was incredibly reassuring because I could trust her with my back.
First, let's clear the path to the deck.
As it happened, I had just been sensing an immensely powerful presence coming from that direction.
.
.
.
.
When I arrived on the deck, a rather interesting situation was brewing.
A one-eyed man who appeared to be the boss was being confronted by both Perda and Lemnos, but Shara was being held hostage.
The one-eyed man, by appearances, had skills that Lemnos alone could handle, but because Shara was held hostage, he hadn't been able to act rashly.
"D... don't come any closer!! Do you not care what happens to the hostage?!"
"Euk...!!"
Having just witnessed seven of his comrades being hacked to pieces before his eyes, the sky thief had fallen into a state of panic.
Shara's expression twisted in pain as she was pinned down by the sky thief's forearm, which was several times thicker than her.
There wasn't even a need to hold a knife to her throat.
If he applied just a little force with that thick forearm, Shara's slender throat, which had undergone no special training, would snap easily.
'I have to rescue Shara at a speed that bastard can't even notice.'
I held Squete in a reverse grip.
I wouldn't use a Law, nor an Aura Blade, nor the Sword of Taesan.
The Sword of Taesan could turn that sky thief into minced meat even from this distance, but its range was too wide, putting Shara, who was pressed right against him, in danger.
The same goes for approaching with a footwork technique.
When I cut his throat, the muscle spasm could also cause Shara harm.
At my level of skill, I could technically make two cuts look like one, but I planned to use a simpler and more certain method.
"I don't know what kind of trick you pulled, but don't think it'll be easy!! Boss, finish those guys off quickly!!"
"...Euk."
She was in pain being crushed by the brutish force, but no fear showed in Shara's eyes.
Instead, as she looked at me gauging the distance, she showed a trust that seemed bottomless.
While I was measuring the distance and confirming the point I had to aim for, Shara, who was being held captive, opened her mouth.
"Ugh, the smell... you look like a pig, and you smell like a pig too. My nose is so bent out of shape from just standing here that I feel like I could die; did you perhaps eat dung for a meal?"
"What?! You little wench..!!"
Subjected to a scathing personal attack, the sky thief turned his gaze, which had been fixed on me, downwards.
His ulterior motive was to torment Shara more for insulting him.
'Now.'
While he wasn't looking at what move I was making, I threw the reverse-gripped Squete as if I was hurling a spear.
The tip of Squete, shot out like a cannonball, pierced through the sky thief's forearm and torso, pinning them together as one.
Thanks to the cross guard, it didn't fully penetrate, but with his forearm pinned to his torso, the sky thief could no longer move his arm.
And at that very moment, the sky thief's remaining arm was also 'ripped off' and sent flying through the air.
The moment I threw Squete, I had rushed forward myself, crippling both his arms almost simultaneously.
Once both arms of the sky thief holding her were completely wrecked, the pale-faced Shara was freed.
"Gnh...Aaaaaaaaaaargh!!!!!"
"Alright, alright, move to the back."
"Cough, cough... Yes, thank you."
Seeing Shara flee behind me, the sky thief's face turned bright red with fury.
"This... this little brat..!!!"
The muscle-pig of a sky thief forcefully yanked out Squete, which had been skewered through his forearm and torso.
With Squete pulled free, red blood sloshed out from the hole in his torso, but Squete was still lodged in his forearm. With only one hand left, he couldn't pull it out easily.
It seemed he intended to crush both me and Shara to death just like that.
"I'll tear you apart..!!"
He was bound to die soon if not treated immediately, but he lost all reason and charged at us.
Since he wanted to die early, I figured I might as well grant his wish. I kicked his abdomen with all my might, stomping down heavy enough to dent the deck.
-Tukwang!!
The sky thief's body flew into the air.
He hit the railing once, then tumbled over it and fell downwards.
Perhaps because I had twisted around, grabbed Squete's handle, and delivered the kick, his forearm tore off with Squete still embedded in it.
"Ugh. Disgusting."
Wrinkling my face in distaste, I pulled the sky thief's impaled arm off Squete and threw it over the railing as well.
Now, only one person remained on the deck: the one-eyed sky thief holding a scimitar and a dagger.
"Hey, now you're the only one left. What do you wanna do? Pick up your sword if you want to fight."
When I said this, pointing with Squete, he obediently dropped his weapons, showing no further will to fight.
"Ha... this is hopeless... I surrender... I surren..."
-Seogeok!
He raised both hands in the gesture of surrender, but as Squete flashed, the sky thief leader's legs were severed at the thighs.
"Kuaaaak?? M...My legs! I surrendered..!"
"Your gaze is still too high, you impudent bastard. Your posture was all wrong."
Blood gushed from his cleanly severed shins, but now that his eye level roughly met mine, I felt a bit more at ease.
I had wanted to kill them all for their rude intrusion in the middle of the night, but it was probably best to keep at least two alive.
"Aah... Still, you spared one! I really hoped we could at least make him talk about who was behind this, I thought you were going to kill them all."
Looking at the miserably dead bodies of the sky thieves, Perda seemed to think it was a pity.
He must have really wanted to know the truth of who attacked them.
But I didn't think these guys would know anything.
"These guys are bottom-tier grunts, they won't know."
"Him? That guy at least seemed like the leader, didn't he?"
Perda was surprised at my confident assertion that they were nothing.
It seemed he thought that man who looked like the leader must know something.
"Nope, that guy isn't the leader. He's just a figurehead."
I erased that possibility.
The 'powerful presence' I had sensed on the deck wasn't this guy.
"What? You're saying... there's more?"
"Yeah. For example...."
I swung my sword and pointed toward the empty air, and a fireball that came flying out of the darkness was sliced apart.
-You have good instincts, human.
The wyverns that had been flying up in the black night sky swiftly surrounded the airship, laying siege to it.
The identity of the 'powerful' presence I had sensed was exactly the wyverns.