Chapter 214
Chapter 214
The Iron Emperor — Chapter 214
"Hee-hee-heeng."
As Go Jin-cheon smoothed down its mane, Gangsoe let out a contented whicker.
The practice of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry personally tending their own horses came naturally to the cavalry troops of Gauri. Even among the Hawk Corps knights, it was not unusual for each man to care for his own horse.
If the Yeolje Go Jin-cheon personally looked after his beloved steed, how could the warriors beneath him do any differently?
Moreover, a significant portion of the mounts ridden by the Gauri cavalry, including the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry, were Pumas—a cross between the Pukel and the horse.
It was nearly impossible for a servant, rather than the master, to approach and tend to a Puma that was as fierce as a wild beast.
"Looks like those are the little rat bastards who came sniffing around in the afternoon, Your Majesty."
"Mm."
Jin-cheon had already sensed the movement from far off. Not a single member of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry could have failed to detect those presences. The fact had already been quietly relayed to the ordinary Chalgap cavalry troops as well.
Calmly donning his armor as he felt the approaching presence, Jin-cheon lifted his helmet. At that very moment, a North Roselin ambush unit began bursting out of the undergrowth.
"Strike!"
A man who had surged to the front raised his sword and charged straight for Jin-cheon. Despite this, Jin-cheon slowly pulled his helmet down over his head.
The nearer the lead attacker drew, the more Jin-cheon became aware of that same itch in his ear—the one that had been bothering him since earlier.
* * *
"Kraaah!"
"Hurk!"
Baron Iban, who had charged off in a different direction than Viscount Roun, felt his very soul flee his body. He had definitely assaulted a place where horses were gathered, but what appeared before him was a colossal saber-tooth tiger.
Crunch!
"Ugh!"
The sound of a tree stump shattering under the saber-tooth tiger's front paw thundered right behind Baron Iban as he frantically hurled himself aside. After rolling a couple more times, Baron Iban steadied his wits and glanced around.
Clang!
"Wha—what the?!"
He heard the startled cry of a knight he knew well, someone who had just swung his sword down.
A decorative horn mounted on the horse armor.
The knight had clearly struck to cleave the horse's head. Yet the horse had deftly blocked the knight's blade with the horn on its armor.
The horse roared at the dumbfounded knight.
"Ki-hi-hi-hi-hi-hiiing!"
"Hurk!"
Two long fangs glittered inside the horse's mouth as it opened its jaws as if to menace him. The red eyes reflecting the moonlight did not belong to any horse he knew.
"A horse...?"
The knight never finished his sentence. His torso had been severed by the Hwandudaedo wielded by the man beside the horse—to be precise, a member of the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry.
Only then did Baron Iban realize that something had gone terribly, catastrophically wrong. He scrambled back desperately and searched for Viscount Roun.
"Hurk!"
The instant he thought he had spotted Viscount Roun, Baron Iban felt his entire body freeze solid.
A man in black armor bearing five horns, revealed beneath the moonlight.
The man he had thought existed only in rumors was sending Viscount Roun hurtling through the sky with a single punch.
"Hmph. Come here, kitty."
Someone spoke chillingly from behind him.
A gigantic frame nearly two mir tall.
A long dark-hued iron staff slung over one shoulder, and a saber-tooth tiger nuzzling and fawning at his side.
"Sam...dopyo?"
"Heh-heh-heh, seems I've gotten pretty famous myself."
"......."
Despair swept over Baron Iban as he felt himself plunge into a bottomless abyss.
The total force that had joined the ambush numbered about four thousand. For men who had charged in targeting the horses, catastrophic misfortune awaited them.
One, that nearly half of what they had assumed were horses were actually Pumas—Pukel hybrids that even ogres shied away from. Two, that the people tending those horses were none other than the Black Armored Ghost Cavalry, the absolute elite among the Gauri elite, alongside the Chalgap Cavalry troops who followed behind them.
In the end, not one of the men who had rushed in, including Viscount Roun, escaped; they were all killed or captured.
"We've located the enemy's encampment. Heh-heh-heh."
Samdopyo approached Gye Ung-sam, who was reorganizing the camp, and made his report in a supremely smug manner. Beside him, Giyul, who had been thoroughly working over a prisoner, shot back a question between huffing breaths.
"How'd you find out?"
"Heh-heh. I have my ways. Something I learned from General Buru."
The moment Dupyo let out that chuckle and held out the captured Baron Iban, Ung-sam and Giyul were rendered speechless.
"......."
Eyes drenched in terror.
More than that, the viscous fluid smeared all over the man's face was unmistakably the saliva of the saber-tooth tiger that Dupyo affectionately called "Nyang" and rode around on.
Gowin and the Hawk Corps swiftly followed Samdopyo in a surprise assault on Duran Fortress. The roughly four thousand remaining troops and a handful of nobles were killed or captured before they could mount any meaningful resistance. Afterward, the Gauri and South Roselin forces, who had deliberately followed at a slower pace, were able to rest and recover from their journey at Duran Fortress.
The next morning, a downpour washed everything clean from the previous night's chaos. After a hearty breakfast prepared from the provisions stockpiled in the fortress, Go Jin-cheon ordered the prisoners captured the day before brought out.
"Hmm."
The look in Jin-cheon's eyes as he gazed at the bound Viscount Roun, hands clasped behind his back, was anything but benevolent.
The itch in his ear that had flared when he sent Viscount Roun flying the previous day had completely vanished.
"Name and rank."
"Viscount Roun Pelangs."
"How insolent!"
"......."
Gowin furrowed his brow and stepped forward at the curt way Viscount Roun addressed Jin-cheon, but Jin-cheon himself remained utterly silent.
"And who are you?"
His face still swollen, Viscount Roun directed his question at Gowin, who had been about to charge at him.
"Daesaja Gowin of Gauri."
"Tch. When did the Hawk of the Battlefield become a dog for that bandit pack called Gauri?"
"Watch your tongue!"
Gowin pressed him again at Viscount Roun's jeering, but still Jin-cheon showed no reaction. Viscount Roun, who had been watching Jin-cheon with amused eyes, sneered once more.
"So you are the one they call a demon?"
"Mm."
Two deep furrows formed between Jin-cheon's brows.
"You're as brutish as the rumors claim. Let me ask one thing: is it true you have perverse hobbies, skewering our soldiers' corpses on spears and parading them around while flinging children into the air?"
"Hmm."
The two furrows between Jin-cheon's brows deepened. Seeing this, Viscount Roun burst into loud laughter as if he found it immensely entertaining.
"Kuh-ha-ha-ha! Don't tell me a beast like you who rampages like an orc struck by a Dragon's Breath is really the King of Gauri!"
"So it was..."
Only then did Jin-cheon's mouth open.
"It was because of you."
"What?"
Viscount Roun wore a puzzled expression as Jin-cheon's deeply furrowed brow smoothed out into a bizarre smile. But a heartbeat later, Jin-cheon's foot lashed out at Viscount Roun like a lightning bolt.
THWAAACK!
With the long, resonant echo of the impact, Viscount Roun sailed out into the pouring rain without even managing a proper scream.
"The thing is, I hate having an itchy ear."
Muttering those incomprehensible words, Jin-cheon cracked his knuckles and slowly walked outside. King Alsein and the commanders of Gauri watched this scene in silence from one side, as if they had known this would happen all along.
Stepping outside, Jin-cheon let the downpour soak him and murmured as if deeply satisfied.
"Raining, is it? Good."
At his quiet words, Eulji Buru and Uru flinched simultaneously.
"What's the matter?"
In response to Gowin's puzzled question, Buru smacked his lips a few times before slowly speaking up.
"Let's make a bet."
"A bet on what?"
Buru's sudden talk of betting only deepened Gowin's bewildered expression, and the others also cocked their ears.
"Whether that son of a bitch gets dust knocked out of him when His Majesty the Yeolje beats him."
"What do you mean?"
Gowin glanced at the rain-swept sky and retorted, unable to comprehend. But Buru pressed on with the bet.
"I'm putting my money on 'there will be dust.'"
"Same here."
As Uru sided with Buru, Gye Ung-sam, Samdopyo, and Buyeo Gi-yul—who had all been standing quietly off to one side—piped up one after another.
"Me too."
"Heh, I'll also take 'dust.'"
"Me too."
"......."
Gowin, King Alsein, and the others from South Roselin were mired in bewilderment—but it did not take long for them to understand the reason for the bet.
Puh-puh-puh-puh-puh-powk!
Amid the unrelenting sounds of a beating, Alsein spoke in disbelief.
"Dust... is rising?"
There, in the middle of a rainy day, Viscount Roun was truly being beaten so hard that dust flew from his body.
In the eyes of the knight who handed Go Jin-cheon a towel to dry off after the prolonged pummeling, a mixture of infinite respect and reverent awe shimmered. Perhaps it was the deference owed to one who had accomplished something theoretically impossible?
"What shall we do with the rest of them?"
Marquis Baikal asked.
"Strip every noble naked, tie them behind the horses, and drag them along."
"That is barbaric!"
Alsein already knew that Continental Law held little sway over Jin-cheon, but killing the nobles so publicly and brutally would surely cause problems. The empires might invoke Continental Law.
As Alsein explained this, Jin-cheon fixed his cold gaze on him and spoke.
"Were the members of the South Roselin royal house spared their beheadings thanks to the Nobility Law?"
"......."
King Alsein shut his mouth.
"They may be few, but if groups like this keep clinging to us, it will cause complications. It's time to make an example of one. Remember this, Alsein. You have a clear justification."
King Alsein nodded his head silently.
When the allied column of Gauri and South Roselin set out the next day after the rains stopped, over a hundred nobles had been stripped bare, their ankles bound and tied behind horses. They were dragged until they died—and even after death, they were dragged onward until reduced to lumps of meat.
Afterward, Baron Kaal, a close friend of Viscount Roun who had witnessed that spectacle, mobilized ten thousand troops and launched a mountain campaign. But within two days, he too was stripped naked, bound beside Viscount Roun, and dragged along to meet his end.