Chapter 21
Chapter 21
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 21
The shieldbearers were the first to charge in. Already accelerating as they ran with their heavy shields, they slammed into the enemy in a brute-force assault, and the battle line that had barely been reformed collapsed in an instant. Right behind them, the axemen's axes slashed down toward their chosen targets.
Bwaaack!
Crrrack!
"Hieek!"
"Drop dead!"
Fwaaang! Crunch!
"Heeaaagh! Nawaen wesut! (Heeaaagh! My back!)"
At the very front, Buru's great axe tore through the air and ripped a soldier's waist apart, and a despair-laden scream leaked out like a gust of wind.
SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!
"Dura! (Die!)"
"Look out!"
"Damn!"
As the axeman split the skull of a fallen enemy soldier, a mercenary's blade flew in through the opening.
THUNK! THUNK-THUNK!
"Kuhik... gurgle."
Clank.
Thud.
But before the mercenary's blade could even reach the axeman, the pikes of the soldiers supporting from behind lunged forward as if competing with one another, three or four of them piercing through the mercenary's torso in a flash. In the mercenary's blue eyes, as he dropped his sword limp, a hollow death crept in.
The axeman straightened up and grinned at the spearmen, flashing white teeth.
"Thanks. Drinks are on me when we get back to camp!"
"I'll hold you to that."
Faced with a battle formation combining the shieldbearers' physical defense, the axemen's decisive blows, and the pikemen's holding thrusts, the enemy was gradually herded into a single mass, and at last they were surrounded.
"Aaaargh!"
"Where did an army like this come from...? They're not Imperial troops, and what even are those armor shapes I've never seen before...?"
Tilluman, standing in the middle of a battlefield ringing with screams, felt utterly hollow. Baron Alvin, cowering and trembling off to one side, had already vanished from his thoughts; only curiosity about these unidentified enemies remained.
Tilluman looked around at the mercenaries trembling nearby and the domain troops frozen in terror.
'Six hundred soldiers... reduced to barely over a hundred in a single charge.'
Tilluman felt a sense of emptiness.
Even though this had been an ambush, to be crushed so miserably — and to see the will to resist evaporate from the remaining soldiers' eyes — meant they could fight no more. They were barely holding onto their swords, let alone any will to resist.
"......."
Clop. Clop. Clop.
Tilluman watched as one side of the encirclement parted and Go Jin-cheon, who had led the cavalry charge from the very front, approached. Instinct told him this man was the commander. Tension gripped him, and Tilluman shifted his grip on his sword and called out.
"I am Sir Hugelion Tilluman, knight of House Baron Alvin."
"......."
From atop his horse, Go Jin-cheon looked down at Tilluman with haughty indifference and offered no reply. How could he answer if he could not understand?
"Nawaen mudek hareo! (Are you ignoring me!)"
"Gurajaengi!"
"He hasn't returned from the village."
"......."
Only then did Tilluman catch the sound of an unfamiliar tongue. It was the strange language he had heard sporadically earlier.
"Risel!"
"Yes, Master."
"Give me that thing, that item."
Jin-cheon, looking at Tilluman glaring at him, received the ring from Risel and slipped it onto his finger. He hadn't known before, but upon hearing that he had to say something called an activation word to use it, he had felt his blood pressure spike.
Once the ring was on, Jin-cheon muttered the activation word in a low voice.
"Activation word."
"......."
"Hmm, ahh. Can you hear me?"
"......?"
Watching Jin-cheon say "activation word" as the activation word, Risel could not decide whether to laugh or cry. But fearing the consequences, he approached Jin-cheon and spoke up.
"Masterrr, the activation word is something sep... arate."
"......."
"Please repeat after me. Interpretation!"
"Interpleteshion!"
"In. Ter. Pre. Ta. Tion!"
After a couple of tries, the ring finally glowed.
Fwoosh.
"Master, it worked."
"......."
As Risel spoke with his awkward pronunciation, two lines formed again between Jin-cheon's brows. He slowly turned his head to look at Buru and Uru and realized they were deliberately avoiding his eyes. He had told Risel to teach him the words, but Buru and Uru had taken it upon themselves to do the teaching.
"Can you understand my words?"
"Y-Yes, I can."
"Hmm, good."
Tilluman answered with a slightly trembling voice, relying on the translation magic item. The sheer pressure emanating from Jin-cheon was difficult to bear.
"I will speak again. I am Sir Hugelion Tilluman, knight of House Baron Alvin."
"I am Go Jin-cheon, Daesaja of the Great Gauri Empire."
"Gauri... Empire?"
"That is correct."
Tilluman was bewildered by the unfamiliar name of a nation that did not exist in his memory. Risel felt the same. The incomprehensible clothing, culture, and language he had observed while living among them had driven his curiosity, but he had never been able to learn the details.
Go Jin-cheon's low, weighty voice broke through Tilluman's and Risel's thoughts.
"Are you the commander of these men?"
"No. Baron Alvin, here, is our liege lord."
"......."
Tilluman pointed to one side and answered Jin-cheon's question. Then he was immediately struck by a grim feeling. In the corner, Baron Alvin was glancing around with anxious eyes, in a state beyond any further speech. Jin-cheon stared at Baron Alvin for a silent moment, then turned his gaze back to Tilluman.
"That bed-wetter is already unqualified. I will ask you. Do you intend to continue this?"
"Hmm."
At Jin-cheon's words, the soldiers looked at Tilluman with a faint hope that they might be allowed to live.
"......."
Tilluman kept his head bowed in silence, lost in thought. After a pause, he shifted his grip on his sword, raised it before his chest, and spoke.
Clack!
"I, Sir Hugelion Tilluman, hereby challenge you, Lord Go Jin-cheon, Daesaja of the Great Gauri Empire, to single combat."
"A duel, is it...?"
Tilluman had come here for Baron Alvin's money, but he was still a knight. And deep down, he had pride. The pride of an Aura User, one who could wield Aura. And if Jin-cheon accepted, he also wished to use the contest as a bargaining chip.
Clank.
"Pfrrrr."
Without a word, Jin-cheon dismounted. Then he drew his Hwandudaedo from where it hung on his saddle.
Srrring.
"I accept. Your challenge as a warrior."
"Thank you."
Tilluman swallowed hard as he watched Jin-cheon raise his blade with one hand — a sword even longer and broader than his own longsword. But the hesitation was brief. He began drawing his Aura from throughout his body and pouring it into his blade.
"Hyaaap!"
HUMMMMM.
"Oh!"
A crimson Aura began to course along the blade like a red heat-haze. At the sight, the mercenaries forgot their fear and could not help but gasp in admiration.
"Hmph."
An Aura User who could handle Aura meant skill on par with the Royal Guard. Having such a capable fighter on their side brought some measure of calm to their hearts. And yet, Jin-cheon merely stood there, leveling his Hwandudaedo one-handed.
"Are your preparations complete?"
"Come."
Tilluman was certain now. This foreigner could not use Aura.
'If this goes well, I might even take him as a hostage.'
A sneer curled at the corner of Tilluman's mouth.
"What's an Aura User doing in a place like this!"
"Aura User?"
At Risel's exclamation of surprise, Buru's face turned surly. But the thought that he had to stop Jin-cheon, who was standing there without drawing any Aura of his own, made him hurriedly speak up.
"Master, that's an Aura User! Pi... tokkaeo (Dodge it!)!"
But Risel's command of the language was not yet high enough to give Jin-cheon a warning. And even at Risel's warning, Tilluman merely sneered and swung his Aura-laden sword from left to right. Even if Jin-cheon had understood his words with the help of the translation magic, Tilluman's blade was already slicing through the air toward him.
CLANG!
"Huk!"
Clang-ng.
"H-How!"
A single exchange.
In that one exchange, Jin-cheon's sword had cut clean through Tilluman's Aura-charged blade. Jin-cheon's sword still bore no trace of any Aura whatsoever. As if refusing to believe it, Tilluman spoke with a trembling voice.
"How did you cut through a sword wreathed in Aura in a single exchange!"
"...Sloppy."
"What?"
Tik. Tik. Tik.
When Jin-cheon turned his back and began to walk away with that short answer, Tilluman tried to grab him. But as he stretched out his arm, a dull, metallic sound rang out, and a sharp, stinging sensation ran through his side.
"Ah... my body."
CRACK. SLASH!
"Ah... since when...?"
Thud.
With those final words, a crimson line traced itself from his left flank up to his right shoulder. And then, with his arm still outstretched, his upper body tilted and slid off his lower body. Only incredulous doubt remained in the pupils of the already-dead Tilluman.
"Withdraw with the prisoners. Kill anyone who resists."
The voice of Jin-cheon, mounted once more, echoed through the clearing, and the mercenaries and soldiers were already dropping their weapons to the ground.
"Risel, you did well."
"Ah!"
Risel, who had received the ring back from Jin-cheon, was still standing with his mouth agape in shock. The mana he had sensed when Jin-cheon swung his sword was already at the level of an Aura User's mana, and beyond. Buru looked at the fallen Tilluman and remarked sourly,
"So in this part of the world too, there are fools who just leak their ki everywhere."
"......."
Seeing Buru brush off an Aura User as if he were a complete idiot, and the soldiers nodding in agreement as if it were the most natural thing in the world, Risel began to grow even more curious about the true identity of these people.
Go Jin-cheon had saved the slash-and-burn farmers but was still taking them along without setting them free. Yet the rest of his people followed him in silence, as if that were only natural. Buried in a tail-chasing spiral of questions, Risel walked along mutely.
"Eomang... baerumna. (Mommy... I'm hungry.)"
"Shh. Godanra siren. (Shh. Endure it, Selin.)"
Clatter. Clatter.
Inside the jolting wagon, a small child whined. Whether it was because her instinctive needs were greater than her awareness of the situation she was in, the child named Selin would not stop, even under her mother's soothing hands, and her large eyes glistened with welling tears.
Trudge. Trudge. Trudge.
"Huk."
When an axeman walking beside the wagon approached the spot where the child was fussing, the child's mother hugged her close and stared at him with terror-stricken eyes.
Clatter. Clatter.
Step. Step.
Hic- hic.
"Jensullu. Jensullu. Selin-mane...(I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Just Selin... please...)"
As the soldier drew near and looked down at the mother shielding her whimpering child, the mother sobbed and desperately begged to protect her daughter.
Rustle. Smooth.
"Here, feed the kid."
"......!"
But contrary to the mother's fears, the soldier produced a piece of dried meat from his bosom and smiled. The bewildered mother could not readily take it, but the child was wise.
Snatch.
"Buru. (Thank you.)"
"That's right. Eat up and grow big."
The child, who had snatched the lump of meat as quick as lightning, beamed with an innocent smile, and the soldier grinned with satisfaction and stroked the child's head.
"My name is Giyul. Nawaen Giyul."
"Giyul?"
"That's right."
"Hehehe."
Gazing into the girl's sparkling eyes, Giyul wore a happy smile, then offered a smile to the child's mother as well. Only then was the mother able to erase some of the anxiety from her eyes.