Chapter 127
Chapter 127
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 127
Chapter Title: Kranz's Demise
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Kranz, facing me, furrowed his brow.
“Wasps? What nonsense is that?”
“…You’ll see.”
“…?”
My shout seemed to echo into the void.
No one but Kranz, right in front of me, even registered it. The situation was too frantic.
Liser Haldras seemed to let my cry go in one ear and out the other as well. He swung his polearm at Eo without a moment’s hesitation.
Spotting that Eo was ready to counterattack with utter disregard for her life, he first knocked her sword away.
Clang! The blade flew back and stabbed into the ground.
“It’s over now. At least I’ll send you off without pain!”
Liser raised his polearm high. Eo accepted her fate with dignified resolve.
That was the moment.
Stab! A sword burst through his chest.
“Guh…!?”
It was Dalmore, who had been guarding Lisitea’s back while facing away from Liser.
He had stabbed Liser in the back.
At this shocking sight, the protagonist’s retainers all wore expressions too complex for words. Like they’d just seen an alien. Faces that had witnessed something impossible in reality.
“Dalmore…! Why would you…!?”
“…”
Crunch! Dalmore twisted his sword without a word. Then, to finish him off, he drew a dagger from his bosom and tore open Liser’s throat.
His movements were as natural as a professional butcher slaughtering livestock.
“Kyaaahhh──!!”
“What the hell!?”
Tena screamed, while Lina fell into panic.
Aegert looked baffled, unable to process it, but Gaspar was different.
“Kuahaha! The kid went for the kill. That’s how war should be! Urraaht!”
“Kyaaak!?”
Lina couldn’t withstand Gaspar’s assault and dropped her large shield, stumbling backward endlessly. Gaspar wasn’t sloppy enough to miss that opening. He charged in and brought his greatsword down.
Splurt! Blood sprayed up.
“Sister──!!”
Her younger sister Tena wailed. Honestly, if Aegert had struck Tena then, she probably would’ve died too, but Aegert just stood there in a daze.
“I’m… dying…?”
Gaspar sneered at Lina, who muttered in disbelief.
“Of course! What, you think I’d go easy because you’re a girl or a kid? Kuahahaha! There’s no such romance on the battlefield!”
Crack! Gaspar mercilessly severed Lina’s neck and turned his gaze toward me. He knew Kranz was the core of the enemy forces.
‘As expected of Gaspar!’
The level of composure was on another plane. Or could you even call it composure?
Gaspar just seemed to surrender himself to the battlefield’s madness.
‘I can’t miss this chance.’
I shouted right away.
“Rania! Wasps! Join up here!”
My target was Kranz.
I’d kill this dangerous bastard right here.
Truth be told, if I could’ve, I would’ve tried to take out the protagonist while we were at it, but he was tied up dealing with Fourth General Pelaini and hadn’t reached my position.
So, pheasant or chicken, I’d settle for taking out this Kranz guy.
“Y-You bastard…!”
Kranz’s face turned desperate as he grasped the situation. I gave him a light smile.
“That’s why I said you’d see.”
“Planting a spy…! How in the world…!?”
His mentality cracked, and he staggered from Gaspar’s blow after joining up.
Gaspar sneered.
“What’s wrong? You’re wobbling! Where’d all that earlier momentum go? Kuahahaha!”
“Urk!”
Me, Ymir, Gaspar, and even Dalmore. Facing our combined assault, he judged his chances hopeless and scanned for an escape route.
He soon spotted something and swung his halberd wide, striking everyone around him.
I deflected and parried the attack, while Dalmore and Ymir retreated to dodge. Gaspar lowered his stance to evade.
But Eo couldn’t.
Eo, who had hastily picked up her sword, tried to deflect it, but her injured leg wouldn’t move properly. She took the full force head-on and went tumbling away.
A gap opened in the encirclement.
Convinced this was his only chance to escape, he tried to flee even at the cost of taking hits.
“Tch!”
I wanted to chase him, but enemy soldiers were where Eo had tumbled, so I ran to protect her instead. Ymir’s thrown dagger embedded in his back in my place, but it wasn’t fatal.
But the seasoned Gaspar didn’t let him go.
The tenacity of never releasing prey he’d once bitten.
He had lowered his stance to dodge the halberd precisely because he’d read Kranz’s intent to flee.
As he dropped low, he swung his greatsword downward, then rose with explosive power, slashing upward.
“You think you can escape me!? Uraaaah!”
Whoosh! Slash! An arm flew off. His right arm, gripping the halberd, was severed.
Kranz kept running without even time to groan in pain.
“Kuahahahahaha! Yeah, run! Run away! Pathetically! Filthily! Abandoning even a strongman’s pride! I can’t stand it. This is it! This is what I wanted…!!”
His face was already steeped in madness.
Half out of his mind, he chased Kranz with wild laughter, heedless of Ymir watching.
Mad Dog Gaspar. The nickname came to mind anew.
If not for his special circumstance as Ymir’s father, I wondered if I could’ve tamed him.
“You damned bastard…!”
Feeling the threat of death as Gaspar closed in, Kranz grabbed a sword rolling on the ground and swung it backward.
It wasn’t his dominant hand, but with aura loaded into it, Gaspar couldn’t ignore it.
“Ugh!?”
Clang! Gaspar’s greatsword bounced off, unable to overpower it.
Kranz saw it as an opportunity and swung again to kill Gaspar.
“With one arm, as if!”
Gaspar barely dodged the sword strike and raked his right hand’s nails toward Kranz’s throat.
Missing one arm, Kranz struggled to block. Slash! His neck was gashed. But not deeply.
Gaspar targeted his eyes with his left hand’s nails next.
Whoosh! Kranz jerked his head aside, barely evading.
And that was the moment.
“…!?”
Swoooosh! A spear crossed between Gaspar and Kranz.
Cassius had finally broken through the soldiers’ defensive line and intruded. He’d thrown the spear to block Gaspar’s follow-up and charged in with a ferocious scowl.
“Whoa! A dangerous one showed up.”
Gaspar retreated without lingering.
The intruding Cassius glared at Lina’s corpse and the traitorous Dalmore alternately, grinding his teeth.
“You bastards…! I’ll never forgive you!”
Kranz restrained the raging Cassius.
“It’s time to withdraw, Cassius! Tena! You too, fall back!”
Escorted by his aides, the withdrawn Tena sobbed in a half-dazed state.
“Cassius! Sister, my sister…!!”
“Tena…”
Cassius death-glared Aegert, Tena’s opponent, but Aegert just scratched the back of his head awkwardly.
Then cheers erupted from the left flank.
Dorothy had come to the rescue in the center with reinforcements. Kranz shouted.
“We have to break out now! Any more delay and we’ll die like dogs! For Reser and Lina’s revenge, hurry!”
“Mr. Kranz…! Got it! Everyone, withdraw!”
Byurang’s army began its retreat.
They had ambushed our right flank and scored a major victory by killing Fourth General Pelaini, but lost officers Lina and Liser in the process.
Objectively, the losses were even.
Cassius and Tena glared at me, the commander, with blazing eyes.
Kranz growled on their behalf.
“I’ll repay this debt. Kranz Ibwegade! I won’t forget your faces even in my dreams!”
Even having lost his right arm, his fighting spirit hadn’t died. I sensed it instinctively.
That man would appear before me again someday. And become my greatest adversary.
“But.”
It was Gaspar.
He tilted his head and remarked.
“Did I ever say I’d let you go?”
“…What?”
As I headed toward him to support Gaspar, I saw it.
Something transparent connected to his hand. Leading to Kranz’s neck.
It was the thin, versatile wire mercenaries often used.
For fishing lines or emergency wound suturing. Thicker than thread, thinner than cord, transparent wire.
I’d heard it was quite strong, hard to break with ordinary force.
Of course, it still wasn’t strong enough to kill a person.
Even if used to attack, it’d only cut skin, not sever bone or muscle.
But Gaspar seemed to have a special knack for handling it. Aura he’d infused flowed through the transparent wire.
The aura’s glow made the formerly invisible wire faintly visible.
His opponent hadn’t noticed due to the neck wound, but with the aura, he finally caught on.
“What the!?”
He hurriedly brought his hand to his neck, but Gaspar was a step faster.
“Bye.”
Gaspar clenched his fist around the wire, then yanked his arms wide apart as if snapping it.
Slash! The wire severed his neck. It couldn’t cut bone but sliced through skin and muscle, taking everything but the spine.
“Gurgle…!”
Kranz spewed bloody foam and died.
“Kyaaaaahhh──!!”
Tena, witnessing it up close, screamed and fainted.
Cassius stared blankly at Kranz’s collapsing body.
“Kuahahahaha!”
Gaspar laughed maniacally.
“You thought I’d let go of prey I’ve bitten? Huh!?”
Byurang’s soldiers cowered under Gaspar’s madness. Some trembled and pissed themselves.
Fear that crushed courage. Gaspar bestowed it upon the enemy.
For some reason, it felt like we were the villains here. No, we were, weren’t we?
Finally, Cassius screamed with bloodshot eyes.
“You…! You’re demons! Evil that shouldn’t exist in this world!”
To me, it was a symbolic declaration. The protagonist’s enmity. The moment the main villain was confirmed. Me.
“Justice will judge you! I’ll judge you!”
I’d planned to stay quiet, but I couldn’t stomach that hypocrisy.
Without thinking, I shot back at the protagonist.
“What’s this? He’s just a total idiot.”
“What…?”
“Judgment? Justice? Because a few close friends died? Don’t make me laugh. If that’s the case, why didn’t you say the same when your soldiers died? Unknown soldiers dying means nothing, but friends dying is unacceptable? There’s no such thing as justice in war to begin with. It’s just everyone pursuing their own gains. No way something that simple has ‘justice.’ So drop the bullshit and say it straight: you want revenge.”
“Guh…!”
“Besides… you’re the ones who invaded. Do you even have the right to talk about justice? You, who’ve been plundering civilians with guerrilla tactics these past few days!”
It hit the mark; Cassius couldn’t retort.
He ground his teeth, glared at me a moment, then turned.
“…We’re withdrawing!”
Cassius retreated.
Thus, the first clash with the protagonist came to a close.
*
*
*
Because Fourth General Pelaini fell to Cassius’s attack, I took overall command of the right flank.
“Pudge bro. Take your infantry and form a horizontal square formation.”
“Got it.”
After Pudge bro’s infantry set up the square, we recovered the wounded.
If the center had pushed deep, we would’ve had to force our way into their lines too, but since it was a showy attack from the start, General Altiore wasn’t overextending.
Thanks to that, we had time to recover the wounded.
“Eo, come here.”
“Y-Yes? Yes!”
Eo tried hobbling over, so I went to her instead.
I sat Eo on a nearby rock and checked her leg wound.
“It’s pretty deep.”
“This much is fine! I can still fight!”
“What kind of nonsense is that.”
I took emergency treatment tools from the medic and handled it myself. Healing magic was cheat-level effective, but it had limits.
If treatment was delayed or emergency care wasn’t done in time, it could become untreatable.
Until she got priestly healing, the wound needed managing.
I carefully cleaned around it, disinfected with alcohol, and wrapped a bandage.
Then Eo, who’d been downcast the whole time, murmured softly.
“…Are you disappointed in me?”
“Huh?”
“You’re thinking if it’d been Iliya or Anton, this wouldn’t have happened, right?”
“No, I’m not disappointed in you. But… I do think you were a bit careless.”
I hadn’t prepared for a powerhouse like Kranz appearing.
If I’d been more thorough, I would’ve brought Master Iliya or Anton for sure.
In the best light, I trusted my other retainers too much; worst case, my talent pool is still shallow.
What Eo meant was the former. She thought she’d troubled me due to her own lack of ability.
“I… I’ll get stronger. Stronger than Iliya or Anton. Soon I’ll be your best, Lord Als. In command and in battle! So don’t lower your expectations of me….”
“What are you talking about. I’m not disappointed in anyone. And like I’ve said a million times, that drive of yours goes in a bad direction. I’d prefer if you took it easier than now.”
“B-But…”
“There, done. We’ll talk the rest later. Dorothy! Move the wounded to the rear.”
I sent Eo to the rear with them so she could get treated too.
And in that brief lull.
That man approached.
Dalmore Sting. He glanced around and spoke.
“First time meeting you, Lord Wade. I’m Special Forces 16th Officer Bowell.”
“…Who told you my identity?”
“Word from Lord Juras. He said only he and you know the final code phrase.”
Bowell must’ve been shocked too.
A Caliper general suddenly shouting the final code phrase out of nowhere.
“And that if Wade used the code phrase, I should carry out the final mission without hesitation.”
I could easily guess what that final mission was.
Betraying the protagonist’s group. The ideal scenario was probably killing protagonist Cassius and Prince Eldric.
“If so, doesn’t that mean your mission failed because of me?”
“Maybe, but Lord Juras probably anticipated this outcome to some extent when he gave you my final code phrase.”
“…”
That sounded just like Juras.
Bowell gave a faint smile.
“Besides, thanks to you, I preserved my life. So don’t think too hard about it.”
“Ah…”
If he’d carried out assassinating Cassius and Prince Eldric, he likely would’ve died too. Escaping after killing them wouldn’t have been easy.
Spies might seem heartless, but they’re human too.
Bowell felt relief at completing his mission while keeping his life.
“What happens to you now?”
“I’ll return to Special Forces and get reassigned. Spy work’s impossible now, so probably intelligence.”
“You’ve worked hard all this time. …I’ll put in a good word with Juras.”
So he wouldn’t get discarded like a used rag.
Bowell understood, expressed thanks, and left.