251. Deception 11.
251. Deception 11.
"Gyaaaugh!!!"
One of them barely managed to retreat, but the spearhead raked his belly and spilled his guts.
"What the hell is that?!"
Another bandit hauled the gutted one behind the long-weapon formation.
The one who'd been lucky enough to run likewise dove back inside the defensive line.
But every step I took forward broke their formation and drove them back.
"What are you doing?! You hold the line, you defend!"
"B-Boss!"
"Leave five to keep the archers and the Rektalian busy, and surround him!"
At the middle-aged elf's command, the bandits scattered instantly, falling back. Lexi had no armor, and with the archers focusing her, she had no choice but to retreat, darting away between the buildings.
Lexi had never received Venus's Blessing.
She was an Immortal, but an arrow through the heart could still kill her.
Her decision was only natural.
"He's running!"
"Don't chase him! Throw what you're holding first, then surround the bastard and stab him dead with your knives!"
The village chief was bellowing at the top of his lungs.
It felt less like a fight and more like they were trying to manage a raid boss. The absurd thought almost made me laugh. The bandits followed the chief's orders and hurled their weapons at me.
Clang! Screech! Clank!
Impact, and a friction noise like nails scraping slate.
I could endure it.
"Kill him—!"
Someone screamed from behind. I lifted the poleaxe like a bat, pivoted toward the sound, and swung sideways.
Whoom! Slice!
Amid a chilling sound, something snagged on the axe blade. Three men cleaved apart in a single stroke.
"Yuh-raaah—?!"
The Rektalian I'd seen that first day charged in low, driving his shoulder into my stomach.
Boom!
The impact drove me backward, violent, but I kept my feet. He wrapped his wings around me, though he wasn't as strong as Lexi.
The problem was—
"Kill him with knives!"
A dozen bandits were rushing me with daggers drawn.
This was bad—
Abandoning the halberd, I ripped the dagger from my gauntlet and drove it straight into the Rektalian's cervical spine.
"Gurkgh—"
He crumpled at once. In the same motion, I smashed an elf's jaw as he lunged at me.
Crunch—!
The jaw dislocated, white teeth spraying. "Grab his arm!"
Knife-fighting was bodywork, and bodywork was my specialty. I snatched the fallen elf without hesitation, yanked him into a hold, and pressed the dagger to his throat.
I needed a breath—a moment to think. But these men were thieves to the marrow.
I slit the elf's throat instead and kicked his body into the charging attackers.
Thump!
A goblin latched onto my back! With the goblin clinging to me, I charged straight at the half-blood Terup ahead.
Kieeek! Kik-kik!
Daggers raked my body, but I twisted the angle just enough to deflect them. A circus trick earned from being stabbed dozens, hundreds of times.
"Wh-What—!"
I barreled straight into the stunned elf. Not a single soul in this place could stop a hundred-and-fifty-kilo giant.
Wham!
The half-blood Terup flew backward and crashed down. The impact sent me rolling, and I let it. The goblin on my back lurched from the shock. I snatched him by the hair and hurled him to the ground.
"Kiiieeek?!"
Crack!
I stomped down hard and burst his head.
A few of the bandits were scrambling to tend to the Rektalian with the pierced neck. I drew my hand crossbow and put a bolt into the head of the half-blood Terup as he tried to rise.
Thwack!
The bolt lodged in his forehead, and the Terup stiffened, then collapsed convulsing.
"Malbet! No!!!"
An elf dashed out to retrieve the half-blood Terup, trying to heal him.
They were regrouping.
—So the Holy Blood was being put to use like this by bandits. I'd never imagined it. Worse, I'd lost my polearm. They weren't attacking one by one like in a film. If they used their weight to force me down and pinned me, I'd be slashed to ribbons. That would be the end.
Fwoosh!!! Thunk!!!
The sound of tearing air and bursting flesh. A wooden shaft buried itself in the half-blood Terup's chest. Lexi, hidden in a blind spot, had taken a farming tool's wooden handle, sharpened it into stakes, and was throwing them like javelins.
"Archers!"
The elves reacted quickly. But Lexi simply reversed her grip on her black spear and came springing toward me on all fours like a beast. The speed of a tiger or leopard—a winged tiger, literally. Using the bandits as cover to evade the archers' sightlines, she drove her spear into one of them, then slipped behind me.
"Ram into them! Use their bodies to block the arrows!"
She shoved my back. At the same time, she used me as a shield and charged.
"Incoming!"
Patatatak!
I took the arrows on my body and plunged into the bandits. I threw a fist— Whump!
The black spear shot out from my flank and pierced the heart of the man I'd aimed for. The thrust was neither too deep nor too shallow—maximally efficient, and just as easy to withdraw.
The bandit collapsed. A few of the others didn't even seem to realize why he'd fallen.
Lexi still had her hand on my shoulder.
"Stop leaning on me—!"
Her yell snapped my mind back into focus.
"Clear!" "Move!"
Weaving our positions so the archers couldn't target us cleanly, we charged. A Hosott was tipping Holy Blood into the mouth of the one whose heart had been pierced—they clearly didn't understand it couldn't raise the dead.
Crack!
I kicked his ear, and he died right there.
Lexi was at my back, fending off attackers from other angles. Every thrust of her spear dropped a man. The crisis had eased, but the noose was starting to tighten again.
We had to break through before it sealed.
"Surround him!"
But Lexi, her hand still gripping my shoulder, wouldn't let go. At this rate, we'd both die.
"What are you doing?!"
"Wait."
She was watching the situation unfold. As a result, the bandits' ring was nearly complete. If I didn't act soon—
"Cut through the front!"
What?!
She shoved me forward again!
"Attack!"
With Lexi now here, the remaining archers had converged on this spot too. The point she'd pushed me toward was exactly the densest pocket. I could fight them, but I couldn't wipe them all out in one stroke. The ring would tighten instantly, and Lexi behind me would be torn apart by their attacks.
"It's too dangerous!"
"Pick up your halberd on the ground!"
—My halberd!
I dove and snatched it up. This changed the calculus entirely.
"...I'm going!"
I rushed the long-spearman and the archers who were right ahead, jabbing to keep me at bay. The bandit's long weapon clubbed down on me like a bludgeon, hammering one strike after another.
Boom! Crack! Crunch!
I didn't care. Heinrich's armor wouldn't be pierced by this kind of punishment. I took the beatings and the arrows on the plate, then brought the halberd around in a massive, sweeping arc at the men shielding the archers.
Splash-crack!
Four of them were combat-ineffective in a single stroke. Bisected, or belly ripped open. The last one died on Lexi's black spear.
"Grraaaahhh—... Gyaaaaaugh—?! Urk!"
Lexi stepped on the groaning man's throat and snapped it, then glared at me with chilling eyes.
"Block the bastards coming from behind!"
The archers fled. Lexi seized the long-spearman's spear and hurled it into the back of one of the escaping archers.
Whoom!
The man was pinned like an insect, flailing, until the movement stopped.
The idea of an encirclement meant nothing in front of my halberd. Fear had paralyzed them; they could no longer close in on me.
Whoom!
Only four more dared to attack. The heavy swing of the halberd cleaved through them, weapons and all.
"Gyaaak!!!"
Three left.
"Geh-euuk!!"
Two.
"Kurghh!"
One.
Three dead in barely a few seconds. But the bandits were subtly adjusting their grips, starting to recover. I glanced behind me—Lexi was chasing down a fleeing bandit. She seemed to believe she could handle multiple opponents on her own.
I gripped the haft like a two-handed sword and awaited the bandits' approach.
"Come at me."
"No."
The one who stepped forward with that denial was the old Terup who'd identified himself earlier as the village chief.
"We've lost."
The chief was finally hoisting the white flag. The bandits visibly wavered.
"Chief?!"
"At this rate, this village can't go on. Can't you just kill me alone and let it pass?"
"You threw your chance away."
"I'm begging you."
The chief drew a dagger and hacked at his own wrist.
Slice!
"......!"
His face flushed crimson as he choked back a scream. Blood poured from the wound like an open faucet despite his expression.
"Old man! What are you doing?!"
"Shut your mouth!"
When one of the bandits shouted, the chief snapped back, furious. Then he rearranged his expression, picked up his severed hand, and approached me.
"I'll give my life. Please, show mercy...!"
Crazy bastard.
"The same mercy you showed. I'll spare anyone who survives being buried alive."
"Aahh..."
The chief clung to my feet, begging. Where did he find the nerve to beg with so little shame? I studied his face.
His eyes, staring up at me, were utterly cold.
"Die."
The severed hand he'd offered me held a white fluid with the opacity of— A sea-monster extermination bomb. It was filled with nitroglycerin.
"You motherfucker—?!"
I kicked the chief away and he toppled backward.
KWA-BOOOOM!!!!!
The chief exploded right in front of my eyes.
...His arm detonated, scattering bone shards and gore in every direction, most of which he himself took point-blank. The explosion blew off his upper body and arms. Only his lower half remained, discarded a short distance away like a hunk of meat left by a predator.
A faint ringing filled my ears. In front of me stood a glass wall with permeability so extreme it would be hard to replicate even with modern technology. The wall was smeared with the random debris that would have hit me.
From the barn, Edelin was watching this spot.
Plop-plop-plop.
As the wall vanished, clumps of blood splattered down.
I'd killed enough to know that a human being was a surprisingly fragile animal. Limbs? Target the joints and you could joint them with a kitchen knife in ten seconds. But killing a man with gunpowder was something fundamentally different. Truly... nothing else compared.
"Wh-What! What happened?!"
Lexi came running. She'd apparently finished dealing with the archers.
"We... we surrender...!"
A half-blood Terup threw down his dagger.
"You bastard—?!"
"Go ahead and fight amongst yourselves! I'm out!"
I needed to keep at least one of them alive.
"The vice-chief's been cut down—how can you do that?!"
The elf doing the shouting right now seemed suitable.
"I think it's best if we kill everyone except that one."
The provocative word "kill" made every bandit's eyes snap to me.
"You! You were caught in the blast?!"
"Don't worry—Edelin blocked it. My ears are just ringing a bit."
"Haaah...!"
Lexi grabbed my shoulder and crouched behind me.
"Take the lead."
"Hieeek...!"
The bandits recoiled in horror, as if they'd seen a ghost.
"What exactly are you looking at that makes you so afraid?"
"If you were them, would you not be scared of a monster that can chop two or three men in half with one swing?"
...I suppose that made sense. Living alongside someone who could shatter an elephant's skull with her fist had clearly dulled my sensibility on that front.
"Well, I'll find out by asking. Are you more afraid of me, or of this Rektalian?"
The bandits couldn't bring themselves to answer. Every step I took forward, they took one backward.
"Did my horses taste good?"
"N-No..."
I flung a piece of gravel at the one who'd spoken. The mixed-blood Terup took the stone square on the forehead and toppled.
"Guh-euk! Guh-hughh—?!"
"If they didn't taste good, why did you kill them?"
He was a pureblood Terup, male, and yet his build was slender—especially the neck. I stepped on his thin throat as he writhed on the ground.
Crunch.
"Hrrrghh..."
A deep sigh escaped him. The last exhalation of the dead.
"All of you deserve to die."
With fewer than half of them left, the remaining bandits were seized by terror. When I then raised my polearm and leapt forward—
"Aaaaugh!!!" "Run for it!!!!"
—they scattered in every direction and fled. All except the elf who'd been making the most noise.
The elf glared at me, teeth clenched tight.
"We washed our hands of that life! We were going to settle here! Melt down the weapons into farming tools! Learn to farm!"
What was this nonsense? The absurdity pulled a laugh out of me.
"Then why did you kill my horses? Why bury people alive? I'd wager anything you saw this as one last score. Your kind's one-last-murder-score."
"Eek!"
"If you know your own chance is precious, then you ought to know other people's chances are just as precious."
He swung a dagger at me. Simple bodywork—I seized his arm, twisted it, and drove him into the ground.
"The Holy Blood. Where did you get it?"
"Why don't you ask your mother?!"
I slid a karambit under his fingernail.
"Grrughh—?!!!"
And dug—
"Gyaaaaagh!!! Uwaaaaaaaagh—!!!!"
He screamed loud enough to empty the whole little village. I didn't stop. By then, how many nails had I ripped out?
"Where did you get the explosives, and how did you know what the drug does?"
"You... broken... bastard...!"
"I'll ask again. Who told you about the Holy Blood's effects?"
This elf was thoroughly poisoned with spite.
...Persuading or torturing a man was far harder work than killing him.
"You'd do well to answer my questions. Otherwise it's going to be a long and exhausting day for both of us."
I pulled a handful of Holy Blood vials from my belt pouch and showed them to him, and the elf's face went pale.