Chapter 52
Chapter 52
-----------------------------------------------------------------
Translator: penny
Chapter: 52
Chapter Title: The Forest Without Echoes
-----------------------------------------------------------------
The forest without echoes was enormously vast.
Inside the forest, where tall conifers like firs, hemlocks, and pines stood densely packed, few people ever ventured, so there were no paths, and finding one's way was incredibly difficult.
Moreover, beneath the towering conifer canopy, all sorts of underbrush grew thick in clusters.
It was practically paradise for herbivores.
But where there were many herbivores, it also meant prime hunting grounds for carnivores.
The same held true for mid-to-large monsters that preyed on both herbivores and the beasts that hunted them indiscriminately.
Thus, this massive natural forest—stretching roughly seventy kilometers east-west within a twenty-to-thirty-kilometer width, and snaking along peaks over two thousand meters elevation for a hundred kilometers north-south—formed a perfect, self-contained ecosystem.
In one region of that ecosystem—specifically, about forty kilometers of the sixty-kilometer stretch that separated the Sion Dukedom from neighboring territories lengthwise—the North Mountain Elves held responsibility.
That area was the North Mountain Elves' "territory."
It was the land that Sion had granted them when he took them in, wanderers who had roamed a world full of dangers, and told them to tend and cherish.
The South Mountain and High Mountain Elves felt the same, but the North Mountain Elves especially cherished and loved their territory.
The North Mountain Elves, numbering fewer than two hundred, learned the paths of their forest alongside the adults even before undergoing their coming-of-age rites.
Unique trees, ancient trees, large rocks, small rocks.
Young North Mountain Elves, who had spent their entire lives—decades, or from birth—in the forest, knew nearly every topographical feature of their territory to perfection.
To them, the forest was their territory, their home, and also the "playground" where they had romped since childhood.
That was why.
The North Mountain Elf rangers traversed the forest—through which the mercenaries hired by the Pamell Count family and the outsider elves had barely managed to push—as easily as their own living room.
They easily spotted the intruders' travel routes and the traces of their battles with beasts and monsters.
To the benefactor who had granted them a part of the forest without echoes, and to the master who owned all this land including the forest.
They could report the location of the encampment of those who had invaded his and their land without permission—in just two days.
* * *
Sssing. Shissit!
With the sound of a snake slicing through underbrush, arrows from the composite bows unique to the dukedom's elves launched simultaneously.
The targets were the outsider elves standing watch on their perches atop tall conifers.
Even elves, born hunters, couldn't fully unleash their usual prowess in a region they were visiting for the first time.
And against opponents who had lived their entire lives in this place, North Mountain Elves, it went without saying.
Before sunset, the North Mountain rangers had already identified all the treetop hides the outsider elves had built for their night watches. They then simultaneously loosed composite bows with ranges exceeding two hundred meters, sniping the sentries.
With archery skills bordering on the divine, the outsider elves on watch died atop the trees, their heads pierced through, without even a scream.
A couple tumbled to the ground with dull thuds, but since the watch posts were quite a distance from the encampment, no one noticed.
"Let's go, brothers."
Elf warriors, their exposed skin slathered in mud to reveal only the whites of their eyes and pupils, advanced low to the ground, slipping through the dense underbrush like nimble beasts.
A timely night breeze swept through, rustling bushes and branches, perfectly masking the faint noises they made.
With over two hundred mercenaries encamped, the site was vast.
Unable to fell the tall trees, the mercenaries had pitched small tents or shelters between them, or kindled bonfires with seven or eight men sleeping in sleeping bags around them.
The thirty-odd elf warriors started at the outskirts, silently putting the sleepers to eternal rest with daggers.
After dispatching the mercenaries in one tent or shelter, the elf warriors didn't press forward. Their next targets were in the adjacent tents.
Though the thirty-odd elves moved in groups of five or six, the sprawling encampment slowed their pace.
But the seasoned night hunters neither hurried nor grew excited; they methodically carried out their stealthy killings like machines.
In this forest without echoes, excluding mid-to-large monsters, three predator species reigned at the top of the food chain.
Mountain lions, brown bears, and black panthers—the apex predators of the forest.
North Mountain Elves had encountered black panthers, which inhabited only the forest and not the stretching north-south mountains, since childhood.
Thus, they knew the black panthers' ecology and movements intimately—enough to mimic their movements and hunting methods.
Moving silently in the darkness, felling even large boars, the black panthers were the forest's assassins. Now, the North Mountain Elf warriors employed those same panther hunting techniques to eliminate their targets.
Puk. Puk. Puk.
A one-span dagger relentlessly plunged into the soft necks of humans.
A stabbed throat doesn't kill instantly. But since they blocked the mouth at the same time, the victims could only gurgle briefly, writhing for a moment.
Then they slipped into eternal rest.
About five minutes of stealthy, brutal time passed.
The tents and shelters on the south and west sides of the encampment fell completely silent.
The snoring and sleep-talking heard just five minutes ago vanished entirely.
Under normal circumstances—or at least two days ago—such a large group wouldn't have been wiped out so perfectly.
But after two days of heightened nerves from potential beast and monster attacks, plus actual skirmishes that left most mercenaries exhausted and fatigued.
They stood no chance against the silent assault of the midnight attackers.
Amid the cleared south and west sides, groups emerged.
High Mountain and South Mountain Elf warriors appeared from the south, while from the west came Sion leading Yonas, Longlive, and Paloma's soldiers.
"......"
At the sight of dozens of mercenaries slain soundlessly in just five minutes, Yonas, Longlive, and Paloma's soldiers shuddered in silence.
They knew the dukedom's elf warriors were exceptional.
They were all too aware that the North Mountain Elves guarded the forest without echoes—the border and first line of defense of the Sion Dukedom.
But none of them had truly witnessed the elf warriors' full capabilities.
Only Yonas and Longlive had glimpsed their skills once a year as beaters in the hunting tournament.
They had thought them quite impressive.
Pretty decent hunters.
Reliable friends who had spent decades in the forest, as expected.
But that was it.
They hadn't known these elves excelled not just at hunting—but even more at murder.
"If it were us?'
Yonas felt chills race up his arms at the certainty that they would have fared no differently from the dead mercenaries.
If Yonas felt that way, Longlive and the other soldiers were beside themselves.
Blood pools everywhere and the thick, cloying stench of gore felt utterly unreal.
"Not bad, but a notch below the previous generation."
Sion's low voice pulled Yonas back to reality from right beside him. Snapping to, Yonas whispered.
"Do we continue like this?"
It wasn't certain, but in those five minutes of assault, they'd taken out at least fifty. And even now, the elf warriors continued their panther-like stealth killings.
"For now. But unless all the mercenaries are idiots, it won't stay this easy. Get the lads ready."
"Yes."
Yonas nodded lowly and gestured to Longlive.
Longlive nodded vigorously and, per the prearranged plan, circled wide behind the cleared tents and shelters with the soldiers.
"Take care, Grandfather."
"Don't worry about me—look after the soldiers."
"Yes, Grandfather."
Who was worrying about whom, really?
This was the hero who had slain a demon dragon when establishing his house on this land.
Yonas turned, carrying both relief and pride, to follow Longlive and Paloma's forces.
But Sion's low voice halted him.
"Yonas, don't get hurt."
Overwhelmed by surging emotion, Yonas pressed a slightly trembling fist to his chest and bowed his head.
"I will keep that in mind, Grandfather."
Finishing his salute, Yonas melted into the darkness after the others. Of course, Sion's eyes saw it all clearly.
"Well then...."
Alone now, Sion's eyes gleamed coldly in the darkness.
His daylight-equal vision swept over the North Mountain Elf warriors still carrying out assassinations, while his superhuman hearing pierced the killing sounds to catch others.
'As expected, not everyone's asleep.'
He ignored cursing conversations and grunting moans that sounded like self-pleasure.
Then, his hearing picked up louder laughter than the rest.
Not one, but several.
"The great noble... does."
"Just one drink each... no overdoing it...."
"Hahahaha...."
In a place like this, only one type would gather in a group, laugh openly, and drink.
The leaders.
"Got you."
Sion smiled in the darkness.
That was when it happened.
Piiik!
"W-What!? Kaaaaak!"
A horn blast echoed, followed by the first scream.
"Tch. That's it, then."
With over two hundred head, silently taking out nearly a third was an incredible feat.
And the plan after the first scream had already been drilled into everyone.
Papat!
Legs extended far back, torso lowered nearly to his waist, Sion kicked off the ground.
His thighs and calves, swollen to bursting, unleashed power all at once.
Pabababat!
Immense acceleration.
With a stopwatch, he might have broken a hundred meters in five seconds.
"Assault!"
"What the fuck!"
Mercenaries just drifting to sleep scrambled up, grabbing weapons in panic.
But amid the chaos of the sudden attack, spotting Sion streaking like a falcon into the pitch-black shadows was no easy task.
"W-What is that!?"
A panicked voice rang from his targeted spot.
At the same time, Sion's eyes caught three or four bursting hurriedly from the largest tent.
In under ten seconds, arriving via shadowed, dark paths, Sion put extra force into his right calf.
Puk!
With a drumbeat thud, the ground cratered, and the propelled Sion's body launched skyward.
Zero seconds.
Distance to the tent: about ten meters.
None from the large, ornate tent saw Sion leap over five meters high with a single foot plant from the shadows.
As he soared, Sion slipped palm-sized thin shurikens from his belt between his fingers.
One second.
Sion whipped both arms out.
Shyushyushing!
Six shurikens flew.
Pukpukpuk!
Two seconds.
Three collapsed, two shurikens each in throats, brows, eyeballs. Sion landed almost simultaneously and unleashed a lightning punch.
Three seconds.
Puk!
"Kueeeek!"
Sanders, knight of the Pamell Count family, crumpled as his right thigh exploded in agony.
Four seconds.
Leaving him, Sion—daggers in both hands—leapt into the tent like a feline.
Shwak! Sgak!
"Kaaaak!"
"Kiek!"
Four slashes severed the Achilles tendons of both feet on the remaining two mercenary captains, who collapsed screaming horrifically.
Five seconds.
"Kuueee... Kuuee!"
After knocking out Sanders—writhing and squealing like a stuck pig with his thigh torn—Sion chopped with his hand.
Buuk.
He roughly tore the tent fabric to tourniquet Sanders's thigh.
This all unfolded in roughly seven-to-eight seconds since Sion had launched from the ground.
"What!?"
"This bastard...!"
Only now did mercenaries realize a knight Sanders and the captains were under attack in the encampment's center, raising swords, axes, and maces to surround the tent.
Hoo.
It had been ages since Sion had fought a real, no-mercy life-or-death battle—blood boiling, he laughed.
Especially against those who had slithered onto his land without permission to attack the territory he had built with his wife and children—no reason to show mercy.
"I've got prisoners secured. Now die, all of you."
The undying superhuman erupted with killing intent and charged into the mercenary pack like a beast at wild dogs.
(To be continued)