Chapter 112
Chapter 112
Iron Emperor — Chapter 112
Samdopyo and Mong Ryu-hwa, meeting after a long time, were chatting warmly.
"Your whole body's wallpapered with blade scars."
"Heh. And you, didn't you end up running around buck naked after messing with that third leg of yours?"
"......."
"Keh-heh-heh, knew it. A dog can't change its nature, and I'm amazed all four of your limbs are still attached."
At Dupyo's mockery, Ryu-hwa's face turned blue. He'd been too busy so far to receive a proper punishment from Ung-sam, and the psychological dread was piling up day by day.
Finding that sight amusing for some reason, Dupyo kept bursting into laughter at Ryu-hwa's deflated expression.
"Keh-heh-heh-heh-heh!"
"Now that you mention it, I heard Daesaja Gye gave you something to do......"
"Keh......"
At Ryu-hwa's words, Dupyo's excited laughter cut off.
Dupyo's mind started spinning furiously. He had indeed received orders. To locate the Twenty Thousand Elite Troops. The guide who had set out with him then was Keun Namu. While following him and moving around, they'd spotted a band of Northern mercenaries.
At that moment Dupyo had figured that Northern mercenaries were Northern mercenaries in name only, just homeless wanderers, and that if he could win them over they'd be a useful addition to Gauri's strength.
So he'd drifted into this place to gather information, and once he'd drifted in, he'd had the bad luck of being surrounded and had fought until his own body was covered in blade scars.
The problem was that while the course of events up to that point had been beyond Samdopyo's control, he had heard rumors of the Haian Kingdom's Twenty Thousand Elite Troops but still hadn't determined their location or anything else.
"Nngh."
As a groan leaked from Dupyo's mouth, the corner of Ryu-hwa's lips curled up.
"Heh-heh-heh. You really are my classmate."
As if the fact that he wasn't suffering alone satisfied him, delighted laughter kept bursting out. Then a familiar voice reached their ears.
"What're you two doing?"
"Hngh, that you, Giyul?"
The owner of the voice was none other than Buyeo Gi-yul. Unlike the two of them who were wearing dark expressions, he had a cheerful look on his face.
"What brings you here instead of playing with the little kids?"
"Ho-oh, what can I do~ there aren't any widows here?"
The moment Ryu-hwa and Giyul met, they bared their teeth and started snarling at each other. Dupyo shook his head and muttered.
"Ngh, what the hell's wrong with my classmates, every last one of them is abnormal."
When Dupyo spoke up amid their clash, Ryu-hwa shot back.
"Says the guy with muscle for brains......"
"Damn it, you Kangsoe-like bastard!"
"What!"
But Dupyo wasn't the type to just take it from Ryu-hwa either. Watching the two of them, Giyul shook his head.
"Tch, I caught a glimpse of Daesaja Gye a little while ago, and he didn't look to be in a good mood. You two oughta be worrying about that."
"......."
"......."
That one remark from Giyul was more than enough to instantly crush the two men's lively energy.
The eyes they turned on Giyul were filled with sorrow. At those looks, Giyul let out a sigh and, in a low voice, broke some good news to them.
"If things go well, he might just let it slide. Thing is, soon as he got here the day before yesterday he got thrashed by General Buru, then after the meeting he got thrashed again, and now he's laid up sick. I just went and brought him some porridge right now, didn't I. Looks like we'll be marching out soon, so you two can probably relax until then."
"I-is that so?"
Color returned to both their faces. And at the same time, as if picturing Ung-sam getting pummeled by Buru, smiles spread across their lips.
"Keh-heh-heh."
Suddenly laughter burst from Dupyo's mouth.
"Hey, what're you laughing at all of a sudden?"
When Ryu-hwa stared at him wide-eyed and asked, Dupyo began chattering away, swinging both arms in his characteristically large gestures.
"About Daesaja Gye. Keh-heh-heh."
"And?"
"That day, whatchamacallit, soon as we got outta the magic circle."
"Kick-kick-kick!"
As if both of them understood exactly why Dupyo was laughing, laughter burst simultaneously from the other two. They looked as though they were taking joy in Ung-sam's misfortune. Dupyo's even bigger gestures and louder voice only magnified Giyul and Ryu-hwa's laughter.
"Daesaja Gye got the crap beaten out of him like a gale!"
"Kill-kill-kill!"
"You bastard! Went and grew yourself some guts while I wasn't lookin', huh?!" General Buru shouted, and then he just plain hammered him......
"Kick-kick. He's right, Dupyo's right, he got the crap beaten out of him like a gale!"
At Dupyo's act of mimicking Buru, the three of them laughed as if all their pent-up stress was draining right out of them. Then a gentle breeze tickled the ends of their hair.
"......."
A silence fell in that instant.
As if by agreement, three pairs of eyes simultaneously swiveled toward one side.
Creeeeak.
Light seeping through the crack of the door.
As if time itself had stopped, the door slowly tilted wider, and more and more light leaked through.
Trickle.
The sound of sweat running down three spines echoed like thunder. In that span, with the slowness of eons, the door split in two and fell away.
BOOOOOM!
Through the light flooding into the space where the three had been merrymaking, a beautiful blade shimmering like rippling waves revealed its form.
"Heh-heh-heh."
Gulp.
From the dark silhouette gripping the blade, an eerie laugh as cold as frost seeped out. The sound of Dupyo swallowing hard echoed alongside the unnerving laugh.
"Right."
From the lips of the wild-haired man, a voice like phlegm boiling up came out again.
"Let's see you get the crap beaten out of you like a gale."
Gye Ung-sam's calm voice struck the three classmates like a thunderclap.
That night.
Three more bowls of porridge were served.
A voice of puzzlement leaked from the soldiers lined up in formation for training.
"Huh?"
The closer the faces of the three men came, the deeper the soldiers' confusion grew.
"I mean, your faces are......"
Led by Samdopyo, whose face was dyed every color of the rainbow, followed by Mong Ryu-hwa and Buyeo Gi-yul, the trio's complexions were simply too far from anything you could call normal. To the soldier's question seeking the truth, Dupyo opened his mouth as he passed by.
"Don't ask."
It was a single, resolute word. Ryu-hwa, walking behind him, paused to look at the soldier's face and added a remark.
"You people even know what a gale is?"
"Huh?"
At Ryu-hwa's incomprehensible words, the soldiers' faces filled with even more confusion, and Giyul, bringing up the rear, opened his mouth.
"Goddamn...... It's called loving your classmates and loving your country. Remember that."
The very words Ung-sam had used to dismiss Giyul's protests after he'd been dragged out for laughing in the same place. They didn't know the details, but the soldiers could feel it. That today was a day they'd better tread carefully.
With the three rejoining them, full-unit training was conducted for the first time in a while. Whether because everyone had recovered from post-battle fatigue, there was no wasted motion in any single movement. And as for the new recruits, whether they'd grasped the truth that the sweat they shed preserved their lives, they were more engaged than ever before.
While they were observing the soldiers, a familiar voice came from one side. Familiar, or rather, a voice that was hard to forget.
"Seems like you're all fit enough to move your bodies?"
"Salute! We greet the Daesaja."
When Gye Ung-sam appeared behind them with Baron Gowin and his knights in tow, Ryu-hwa gave the salute on behalf of the group. With Ryu-hwa at the front, Dupyo and Giyul also sheepishly stepped forward and paid their respects.
"Got a complaint?"
"No, sir!"
At Ung-sam's question, which sounded almost like a passing remark, the three voices rang out as one. Just as they were about to exchange their own conversation, Baron Gowin and his party—the knight Rainman and the others—found themselves unable to tear their eyes away from the soldiers' training.
Mostly, their gazes were fixed on the pure-blooded Gauri men to one side.
"Impressive."
"They are."
At Baron Gowin's admiring remark, Sir Rainman clicked his tongue and nodded. Beside him, Beskin and Ravin were also nodding back and forth as they watched their movements.
"They appear to be of a higher caliber than even our elite soldiers."
"Yes. If I were to face them, five at a time would seem to be my limit."
When Beskin and Ravin answered almost simultaneously, Giyul, standing off to one side, narrowed his eyes fiercely.
"Then why don't you, good sir, test yourself by facing one directly."
It was a voice tinged with a bit of provocation.
At Giyul's words, Sir Beskin frowned slightly. But Sir Rainman placed a hand on his shoulder and shook his head.
"Hmm, no harm in it, I suppose. We ought to know each other's abilities anyway."
"My lord!"
Rainman cried out in a startled voice. Baron Gowin had taken up Giyul's provocation. As Rainman and the other two knights stared wide-eyed, Ung-sam met Baron Gowin's eyes and gave a slight nod.
"Giyul, set the stage."
"At once!"
Ung-sam had given his permission.
A sharp sword reflected the sunlight, its tip aimed at its opponent with a ferocity that threatened to devour him. The man standing opposite Sir Beskin held a single axe and was slowly shifting his steps with a relaxed air, keeping his distance.
Swish.
Beskin's body paused for a moment. But the footsteps of the soldier circling him as if out for a stroll did not stop.
'Damn, he's better than I thought....'
When a single soldier had first stepped forward, Beskin's face had practically twisted in anger. It was more than enough to feel insulted by being paired against a mere soldier as a sparring partner when he himself was a knight.
But now that they were actually facing each other, such thoughts had vanished cleanly.
Even so, Beskin had traveled many battlefields alongside Baron Gowin and so did not easily underestimate an opponent.
Moreover, having seen the abilities of Ung-sam's party firsthand, he'd been able to properly gauge the skill of even a single common soldier.
'A mere soldier, my ass.'
Beads of sweat began to trickle slowly from his forehead.
"Hahp!"
Beskin's sword moved first.
'I'll exploit your defensive weakness!'
A soldier whose primary weapon was an axe could not help but be vulnerable in defense. Beskin's attack, aiming precisely at that point, shot in sharply.
"Whoa-up!"
THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!
The soldier spun his body and evaded Beskin's sharp thrust.
'His back's exposed!'
The moment Beskin's thrust missed and the soldier twisted away, his back entered Beskin's line of sight. Beskin recovered his sword. And then, almost unconsciously, he raised his shield, and a blunt impact transmitted through the hand gripping it.
BANG!
"Kuurgh!"
He'd failed to properly deflect the downward chop that had come almost simultaneously with the evasive spin, which used centrifugal force, and took the impact of the attack directly through his shield.
"Chahp!"
WHOOSH!
His counterattack using the shield split only empty air, and in that opening the axe blade slammed toward Beskin.
"Damn!"
Feeling the chilling pressure in his body, he pulled up his mana and focused it onto his sword.
"Chahp!"
SWIISH!
Watching the splitting blow come down with a thunderous battle cry, Beskin foresaw his own victory. The soldier's motion was, to put it plainly, one that had staked everything on a single strike. So the opening after the attack was clearly visible without even having to look for it.
CLANG!
KLA-KLANG!
Two metallic sounds rang out.
Clatter.
"Hngh, that's enough."
Right above Beskin's head, the axe blade was stopped by Dupyo's iron staff, and his own sword had been pitifully reduced to just half a blade.
"Th-this can't be!"
"A sword coated with Aura!"
Even louder than the man who had nearly had his head split open were the shocked cries of Rainman and Ravin, who had been watching beside Baron Gowin. Something beyond common sense had just occurred.
But by contrast, the soldiers of the Gauri camp were watching the scene with perfectly composed expressions.
"Can you explain this?"
"I'll be happy to."
Baron Gowin had expected a difficult fight to some degree, but he'd never imagined the result would turn out this absurd.
"If he had dodged or blocked that attack earlier, you would have to consider the attacking soldier's life forfeit."
"Indeed."
"That is that soldier's fate."
At Ung-sam's calm words, Baron Gowin's expression shifted significantly. It was, in a sense, a statement about branch specialization, but what he couldn't understand was the very act of staking one's life on an attack to that degree.
"In truth, in the case of axemen, they normally double in duties like obstacle-clearing and path-breaking, and their defense is low as well. So while they suffer the most casualties, they're also a means to crush enemy armor easily, and thus they've been a branch used expendably."
At Ung-sam's explanation, Baron Gowin nodded slightly. It was a method often used when employing militia in similar situations.
"But our unit's case was a bit different. Like Baron Gowin's unit, it was originally a single unit. Because we'd been under a lot of scrutiny and couldn't easily increase the unit's size, every single soldier was precious. On top of that, an unusual person happens to be beside His Majesty......"
"You speak of General Buru?"
"That's correct. Perhaps you could say it's thanks to the axe being the primary weapon...... The training itself was so arduous that dying might have been preferable. As the axemen's offensive power grew, the shieldbearers were pushed even harder. Add to that the spearmen using short spears, and he directly assembled them into trios. In other words, they fight staking their lives on their comrades. In practice, if one man dies, the probability that the other two also fall in battle is not small. That's why they inevitably become even more specialized. Because each one holds the others' lives in their hands."
Baron Gowin could understand it to some degree. In terms of overall skill, Beskin might have been superior, but his lack of knowledge about his opponent had been his greatest weakness.
Although he had been on guard, he found himself thinking, just how many soldiers in the Haian Kingdom could deliver a life-risking blow like that.
'None.'
Baron Gowin let out a faint, wry laugh.
But there was something Baron Gowin did not know about Gauri: he could not know the history of the empire that had fought a long war against the Tang in its struggle to become hegemon of the continent.
All he could know at this moment was one thing: Gauri was strong.