250. Deception 10.
250. Deception 10.
I entertained Seths with naughty stories while she was in heat, and I completely lost track of time.
"I want to be kissed like that too..."
"Huh?"
I asked if I'd misheard, but Seths just giggled.
The she-cat toyed with me for a long while on top of me before she finally fell asleep. Afraid she'd wake and start babbling nonsense again if I moved, I wrapped my arms around her as she slept and held her through the night.
When I opened my eyes, Seths was nowhere to be found.
Only silence remained.
I ate a few grapes from the table, then cautiously opened the door that had appeared in the wall.
What greeted my eyes was a barn—and two women.
"Did you have a comfortable rest?"
"No."
"If you would inform me which aspect caused your discomfort, I shall ensure it does not happen again."
"...Then why do you smell like another woman?"
Lexi approached me and ran her eyes up and down my frame. Strange. No matter how I looked at it, this was a barn.
"Where are we? Have we already reached the next village?"
"We haven't even set out yet."
The unexpected answer seized my attention.
Lexi wore a sulky expression, as if something didn't sit right with her. Yet the corners of her lips were twisted. I couldn't read her thoughts at all.
"Then where exactly?"
"Those people who were buried in the ground escaped by themselves."
"That's good. So, why are we here?"
"Because they latched onto Dragonia."
Lexi jerked her chin toward a corner. There, a group of humans huddled in the barn, their appearances filthy. Every one of their gazes was fixed on me.
Now I understood the situation.
"What do you think we should do about them?"
"What kind of nonsense is that? Obviously we leave them."
At Lex Carter's words, the old man's face turned pale.
"P-please, spare us!"
"What about you, Edelin?"
"We do not involve ourselves in disputes between Ain."
Edelin said the same thing she always said and offered no further opinion. Jules clearly hadn't expected them to dig their way out of the ground.
One elderly man, three young men, one middle-aged woman and one middle-aged man, two young women, and a young boy and girl. They'd even buried children.
"What on earth did you do to make tenant farmers bury you alive?"
"No, it's not like that! Those people are bandits! This land was originally ours!"
I had asked the middle-aged woman, but the old man burst out with a passionate cry.
"Are you the Seigneur?"
"Yes! I am Skelrad Orlinge, the rightful landowner of this territory!"
Orlinge? An unusual surname. That was the full extent of my reaction.
"These people are your family?"
"Yes. My family... Please, at least let my children escape from this place...!"
There might have been a reason to silence them, but did they truly need to bury even young children alive? That crossed a line.
"Where are the other Ain outside?"
"Armed with farming tools. The moment you step out, they'll attack."
Finally, the whole picture was coming together.
After mulling it over for a few moments, I reached my conclusion.
I really do hate bandits.
"There does seem to be a problem here. They buried people alive, tried to steal horses, and now this..."
"The horse... they ate it."
...So they really went and caused a disaster.
That was unexpected. They hadn't planned to use the horse as a draft animal but to eat it? Well, it didn't matter either way.
"Where are my polearm and armor?"
"You mean to kill them?"
"I don't leave bandits alive."
Bandits deserve to die. I've killed countless bandits, and I intend to kill every last one that appears before me.
Bandits in this world are not like modern organized crime—yakuza, mafia, or the like. Those are people who run dark 'businesses.' They don't kill without a compelling reason. But bandits are creatures for whom killing is their trade. They hunt humans the way people hunt animals.
When I followed Jul to exterminate bandits, what I learned was that people are more terrifying than ghosts.
"I'll put it on you."
There could be no compromise with them.
Lexi began to strap my armor onto me.
* * * *
The instant I stepped out of the stable, a pitchfork flew at me.
Kik-eeek!
It scraped across my armor, leaving a scratch.
I set my poleaxe down and picked up a fallen pitchfork.
"I gave you a chance."
Thirty bandits stood before me. On the roofs, more of them held crude bows. Mixed-blood cat-folk, pureblood cat-folk, Rektalians, Hosott, elves—even a goblin. They traded nods and muttered in low voices.
"Twice, actually."
I hurled the pitchfork at the dumbest-looking one.
Crack!
The sound of bone snapping. The elf who'd been holding a scythe had his chest caved in and toppled backwards.
"Hwaaaah..."
He let out a bizarre moan and convulsed. Several bandits rushed to him.
"Heal him, quick!"
A Hosott simply yanked the pitchfork out of the elf's chest. That would obviously cause him to bleed out and die. There's nothing as entertaining as an amateur's mistake—it seized my gaze.
Then they brought out something: Holy Blood.
The goblin shoved Holy Blood into the elf's mouth. In moments, the hole in his chest closed at a visible speed. The elf used his scythe like a staff to climb to his feet, then sneered at me.
"Never seen something like this before?"
...So these bastards really were hardened bandits.
"Thank you."
I'd known this was a bandit village, but I hesitated because I wasn't confident about kicking the hornet's nest. Most of the farmers were men. If I took action and the village's working population disappeared, could the place keep functioning? That thought had held me back.
But now my mind was calm. I had never supplied Holy Blood to any Ain other than humans. If non-human Ain possessed it, that could only mean one thing.
"Ha. You crazy bastard."
The elf I'd struck with the pitchfork scowled and tilted his head in confusion.
I'd intended to just leave, as Lexi had said. Now, I reversed my grip on the halberd, aiming the butt spike at them.
The bandit group holding long farming tools took up throwing stances.
"Throw!"
Clang! Screech! Crack! Snap!
Farming tools made of poor-quality wood and cast iron shattered or glanced off. New scratches marred my armor, but I was fine. It held. I wasn't sent flying the way I had been by a Beriritauros javelin.
Thud.
My footsteps rang out unnaturally loud.
"Come at me properly."
"Rush him all at once!"
At the command of the middle-aged elf, three charged at me from the front. If I cut one down, the other two would swarm me. But a dogpile fight was my specialty.
Adjusting my halberd into a reverse grip, I swung a wide horizontal slash.
Whoo-oong!
A deadly swish of splitting air.
The bandit charging with a dagger seemed to sense something was wrong. He was right. It was wrong.
Thwack! Crunch!
His waist was severed in two and his upper body flew upward. The ones to my right and front dodged my strike, but the one who had rushed from the left—the exact opposite direction—couldn't react in time.
Thwack!
I smashed my iron fist into the attacker. The last man I shouldered aside and drove my halberd down onto the head of the one who had fallen.
Crack!
His skull was pulverized and an eyeball popped out. In just five seconds, two were dead. The third scrambled backward and fled.
"...Bandits all deserve to die."
They weren't worth dealing with.
"Surround him and rush!"
I had no intention of going down quietly. I charged at them boldly, just as Jul would have. They rushed me in return. But my pace was so fast that, paradoxically, they failed to encircle me properly.
I brought my halberd down on the stupidest-looking bandit among them.
Wadd-udeuk!
The elf split in two. It wasn't a clean, cinematic cut—more like he was crushed apart and collapsed.
An encirclement means nothing once it's broken.
"Whuaaagh?!"
The one right beside me saw the grotesquely divided corpse and reeled backward. Banditry is not something a human should do. In the modern world, even armed groups rally together for a reason. But these creatures had no such cause. Even the self-proclaimed Immortals were no different from bandits.
"I'll turn every last one of you into two pieces."
"Kree-eeek!"
Out of nowhere, a scream came from the roof. Up there, Lexi's wing was tearing through Terup's belly. When her wing withdrew, her hand held his heart. She hurled the heart at an elf on the opposing roof; the elf dodged, nocked an arrow. Lexi caught the arrow and threw it back like a dart.
Kwachik!
The arrow lodged in the elf's crown. After killing two in seconds, Lexi leaped like lightning across the building roofs.
"Get down! Rejoin the formation!"
At the middle-aged elf's order, the Terup and elf who had been positioned on the roof dropped to the ground at a sprint.
An elf of middle age meant he was at least a hundred years old. Most middle-aged elves were of the type who had fought in the Great War.
"Archers, attack the Rektalian! Everyone else, protect the archers and keep that armored bastard in check!"
Lexi glanced at me and drew her spear.
"We knew you were bandits from the moment we arrived in this village. We even knew you buried people in the ground."
They drew their bowstrings toward Lexi.
"We looked the other way when you tried to steal the horse. We gave you two chances."
Holding my halberd one-handed, I covered my visor and sprinted out.
Clang! Scrape! Shwaaak!
Arrows slammed into my body. But the armor Heinrich had made couldn't be pierced by cheap arrows like these.
I stamped my butt spike into the one who blocked my path.
"Gk?!"
"There won't be a third."
I brought the halberd down diagonally on the staggering man.
Wadd-udeuk!
In a single blow, his bones were crushed and his upper body tore away.
The brutal sound of gristle snapping was more than enough to seize the bandits' attention. Lexi was pinned down by the archers' fire. My situation was no better. A spear wall formed by long weapons is always effective against an equally armed opponent—especially when outnumbered.
I needed to smash their formation to help Lexi.
Every time I advanced, they fell back a step. One step, then another.
...They'd lost their will to fight.
I broke through them and rushed toward the archers targeting Lexi.
"Stay back!!!"
But Lexi shouted at me.
Ujijik!
At the same moment, the ground collapsed beneath me. I tumbled into a pit bristling with sharpened wooden stakes, the same kind of trap from the Vietnam War. The stakes shattered against my armor without piercing it. It wasn't that I hadn't noticed the ground under my feet. They must have used their bodies to conceal the trap and slowly retreated while my visor blocked my view.
Crafty bastards!
The pit was about three meters deep, the walls earthen—any foothold would crumble. Climbing out looked difficult. For an ordinary person, that is.
I drew the short sword at my waist and drove it deep into the dirt wall. After stepping back, I used the sword's grip as a foothold and vaulted out of the trap in a single motion. The instant I emerged, I saw the bandits' faces, beaming with glee as they gripped their polearms. Their smiles froze, and they stared at me dumbly.
I took the halberd in both hands again—
"Huh?"
—and cut the nearest one clean through the waist.