Chapter 103: Hero Hunt (2)
Chapter 103: Hero Hunt (2)
Normally, food chains ran from bottom to top. But in the Demon Forest, every arrow pointed at everything else.
Herbivore? Carnivore?
Weak? Strong?
Delicious? Unpalatable?
None of it mattered. After death, it was rare for flesh to rot away and vanish.
The gnolls, who had lived a life of penance in this green hell, could not help but long for the homeland humanity had stolen from them.
And the blessing, the privilege of the races that formed a society, was the birth of a hero.
Just as a hero who could write a grand epic arose among humans, a hero arose among the gnolls.
The young gnoll hero felt his race's god in the bones and muscle that grew with every passing moment.
He felt the unknown touch kneading his muscles and stretching his bones when he ate, when he ran through the forest, when he rested, when he slept.
CRACK!
His first kill was when he strangled a chieftain to death.
The chieftain, wary of the abnormally growing hero, had launched a preemptive strike and gotten himself killed in return.
As if in approval, the god's laughter echoed in his ears. It enraptured the hero more than fresh meat or slaughter ever could.
With the passage of time, the fully grown hero proclaimed that he would reclaim the homeland stolen by humans, and he united dozens of tribes under his rule.
Among gnolls, for whom words like 'thank you', 'sorry', 'pay', and 'promise' did not exist, persuasion was simple.
"Grrr..."
If they refused to submit, the chieftain's neck was split open by the hero's axe. Then the tribe's second-in-command automatically became chieftain.
Crunch, crunch.
The hero devoured the former chieftain's corpse before everyone's eyes, then posed the same question to the new chieftain. At that point, most accepted.
If they refused again, he killed and ate the second-in-command too, produced a third chieftain, and asked once more.
Gnolls were voracious eaters to begin with, and the hero was so huge that other gnolls looked like children beside him. There was no danger of his persuasion stopping because he got full.
After uniting every tribe in the region, he was finally preparing to march on Gord when something happened that no one could have foreseen.
FLASH!
BAAANG!
It was a colossal castle that descended in a flash of light, a deafening boom, and a storm.
Its massive gates swung open, and out poured a horde of monsters straight from hell.
For the first time, the monsters of the Demon Forest, who had waged endless conflict among themselves, faced a true challenge.
Tundalini, the troll who ruled the largest territory in the Demon Forest, was a powerhouse who had survived being pierced or mauled by swords, axes, spears, teeth, and claws more than a thousand times in total.
Nor could Urgan, the gargantuan anaconda, be overlooked. If its prey fled up a tree, the monster simply coiled around the trunk, crushed it down, and swallowed whatever fell.
In the domain of the giant spiders, the Demon Forest's supreme trap hunters, the bones of every creature that inhabited the woods lay scattered about.
Even the gnoll hero avoided the Demon Forest's own minotaurs, which walked on four legs unlike their kin outside the forest.
For they were incarnations of destruction, with heads and horns twice the size of ordinary minotaurs, ramming and pulverizing everything in their path.
The monsters from hell tore apart, crushed, and devoured all those mighty creatures without discrimination. Of course, they too were killed and eaten in the process.
It was like thousands of tons of horrid pollutants spilling into the sea.
For the moment, the waters turned black and countless sea creatures died in droves. But gradually, bit by bit, they were swallowed by the vast ocean and purified.
By the time all the hell monsters that had invaded gnoll territory lay dead, the hero was dead as well, and his army, which had numbered over a thousand, was shattered to pieces.
The hero's son, now the new chieftain, and his hundred remaining subordinates changed their dream from conquest to plunder.
They headed for Gord, seeking human flesh and sweet blood, so much softer than any monster's.
The mercenaries of Salvatore, who had been poised to fight with high spirits, lost their will the moment they saw the gnolls.
"Sir Knight! This is not what we were told!"
"We must retreat at once!"
Gnolls, along with goblins and orcs, were monsters the mercenaries routinely hunted down. But these ones were different.
They were larger and more muscular than any gnolls the mercenaries had ever seen.
All of them wore armor made from the hides of predators and monsters. The tanning was crude and the quality shoddy, but the materials themselves were so excellent that even at a glance they looked tough.
"Grrrr—."
Above all else, there was the colossal specimen leading them.
"You call that a gnoll?!"
"Could an ogre or some other monster be controlling the gnolls?"
Someone shouted as much, for it differed far too greatly to be a mere mutation, yet its outward form was unmistakably gnoll.
"Sir Salvatore! Give the order to retreat!"
"What disgrace would it be to flee from monsters—gnolls that are fewer than us, no less?!"
The mercenary captain begged, but only a thunderous rebuke came back.
"What do you mean, gnolls? That's an ogre wearing a gnoll's skin!"
"Silence! Crossbowmen, concentrate your fire solely on that large gnoll! Spearmen, forward!"
Trembling though they were, the mercenaries formed ranks according to Salvatore's orders.
"Even if we retreat, most of the men without horses will be caught and killed. Do you plan to get all your men killed?"
"..."
"Humans can't outrun monsters. Even if we retreat, we first have to hit them hard enough to drive them back."
Once he presented such a practical justification, the mercenary captain had nothing left to say.
The mercenaries formed ranks at their knight's command partly because they were veterans, but also because they had no other choice.
The captain, his adjutant, and a few others were mounted, but the vast majority of the men were infantry.
"Cut down anyone who runs! Hold the formation."
"Understood."
The mercenary captain, too, was forced to fight. A retreat with the enemy right before you required a rearguard willing to die, and it hardly seemed likely the knights would volunteer for the sake of mere mercenaries.
The knights had their own schemes.
'They look dangerous, but we can take them.'
'We'll throw the mercenaries at them to wear them down, then seize an opening.'
The knights regarded mercenaries as expendable. They were not even house troops, and if the knights did not care whether the hired hundred-man unit died to the last man, the gamble was worth trying.
And above all, was this not a quarry far too tempting as a chance to avenge their humiliation in the tournament? None of them had ever seen or heard of such a mutant gnoll.
Thus the bloody battle between the two groups began.
Appropriate for a unit assembled on the premise of the hunt, many of the mercenaries were armed with crossbows. Their volley fire drenched the leading gnolls in blood.
"Keep shooting!"
"Let the bastards taste our bolts—ghk!"
But the gnolls, too, possessed their own ranged means.
Boomerangs fashioned from the shoulder blades of prey they had devoured came flying with terrifying force, smashing crossbowmen off their feet.
BANG!
Even the knights were taken aback, for the impact transmitted through their shields exceeded all expectation.
If one of those struck where armor could not protect, even the most resilient knight would suffer a serious wound.
"The chieftain is coming!"
"They won't penetrate! The bolts won't penetrate, I tell you!"
Seizing the opening, the giant black-furred gnoll charged. Crossbow bolts fired in panic failed to pierce its leather armor and thick fur.
"GRAAAH—!"
The chieftain stretched out fingers thick as clubs and pointed at the knights.
WHOOSH!
Instantly, bone boomerangs came flying at the knights with murderous intensity.
The knights swiftly raised their shields, but what the gnolls had aimed for was their warhorses.
THUD!
Neeeigh!
"Aaargh!"
Horses with their faces or foreheads smashed in toppled, blood streaming from their noses.
"Damn it!"
Their plans gone awry, the knights spat curses as they pulled themselves clear of the horse carcasses and readied their weapons.
Now that they had lost their mounts, if the mercenaries meant to support them were annihilated, the knights would be finished as well.
Facing the gnoll chieftain at full strength from the very start had not been part of their calculations, but they had no other choice.
The cavalry force led by Eugene reached the gnolls' encampment third in order.
Along the way, they had encountered a small group of knights who seemed to have been the second to arrive. Their armor was unscathed, and their mercenaries' breathing was steady, as though they had fled without fighting at all.
"Well met. By chance, in the direction you sirs have come from..."
"Pressing business, if you'll excuse us!"
They answered Eugene's greeting half-heartedly before rushing away in haste.
"What was that about?"
"They probably came after the first screams to loot the bodies of fallen warriors. Then they found the monsters still here and ran for it."
"It happens all the time. At least they seem to know it's shameful."
The tribal warriors looked upon those who fled with derision.
Not all who were called knights were necessarily brave. A knight without a house to support him could see his entire life ruined by a single failure.
Thus, plenty of them lived not as predators but as scavengers.
Following the faint sounds of battle that began to reach them, they soon discovered two groups locked in bloody combat.
"These gnolls are entirely different from the ones we faced in Richwood Forest."
"You can't think in human terms, where differences between races are relatively small."
Rex spurred his horse and drew up alongside him.
"Humans have a long cycle from gestation to first steps, taking up weapons, reproduction, and death. For monsters, it's often less than half that long—sometimes less than a quarter."
"So rapid generational turnover combined with an extreme environment makes mutations more likely?"
"You grasp things quickly, as always."
It was a surprisingly sophisticated conversation for a knight and a mercenary, but that was not strange in this case.
Eugene was an unusual knight who knew an oddly wide range of things, while Rex came from a tribe where hunting and nomadism were everyday life and possessed knowledge learned through experience and passed down over generations.
"But even taking that into account, that colossal gnoll defies explanation."
BOOM!
Whenever the axe sized for the chieftain's bulk came down, the earth burst open as if exploding.
The Gord knights, Salvatore among them, were fighting it with every ounce of their strength.
"The forest is a cradle holding the mysteries of ancient times. Things unknowable to mere warriors do sometimes occur."
The upper half of a knight cleaved in two hung from a nearby tree, entrails dangling.
With the knights pinned down, the mercenaries were steadily driven back by gnolls stronger than usual. Their numerical advantage had already disappeared and reversed.
"Grrk—?"
It was around then that the gnolls who had been blocking the escape route noticed Eugene's army.
Homi, Rex, and the other tribal warriors immediately put arrows into them. It was time to make a decision.
"If we leave them be, they will all die, never mind escape. I will intervene."
Eugene nodded after quickly sweeping his gaze over the knights, all fighting on foot, and the carcasses of their fallen horses.
"Watch for the gnolls' ranged attacks. Keep your distance as much as possible while firing."
Rex watched proudly as Eugene and Homi stood at the forefront while Eugene gave the orders.
It was because both carried the composite bows he had gifted them. It felt as though the two of them had become part of the Black Hand Clan as well.
The other tribal warriors seemed to feel the same and smiled in satisfaction.
"Commence attack! Sound the horn!"
BWOOOM—!
The moment Eugene, bearing the great X-shaped composite bow, loosed the string, the horn blast echoed through the forest.
The Gord mercenaries, fighting for their lives, could not immediately grasp the change in the situation at the sudden sound of the horn.
WHOOOSH!
THUD-THUD-THUD!
But when dozens of arrows flew in from behind and gnolls collapsed bleeding, they finally understood.
"Reinforcements!"
"Good heavens! It's the Black Hand Mercenary Company!"
The pointy-ears they so habitually cursed were, in a situation like this, the most trustworthy of allies by far.
Each time the dark elves, riding hard with their black cloaks billowing, loosed their strings, gnolls howled in agony.
There were some among them who blocked with shields or evaded with startling reflexes.
"Where are you looking?!"
But whenever they looked away like that, they were liable to take a spear or sword from the mercenaries right in front of them.
"Hold them! Hold the gnolls back!"
The mercenary captain, snapping back to his senses, rallied his men to interpose themselves between the gnolls and the relief force.
He knew their best chance of survival was to act as shields and let the mounted archers concentrate on shooting.
"Sir Knight?"
Rex looked at him as Eugene thrust his bow into the saddle.
"I'll join the knights."
Clink-clank.
The great flail flashed in the sunlight.
"It's dangerous. There's no need for you to get that close..."
"If I'm going to make them owe me, I should do it properly. Fighting beside them on the front line will be several times more effective than just saving them with arrows."
Whether the debt would be repaid in gold or gratitude, it was best to make people owe him as much as possible when the opportunity arose. That was especially true of Salt Flow Faction nobles, who were unlikely to favor Eugene.
The mercenaries would gladly give him anything after having their lives saved, but that alone would not be enough for Salvatore and the knights following him.
'It doesn't look especially dangerous, either.'
Even looking at the giant gnoll fighting the knights, Eugene did not see much of a threat in it.
It was not arrogance. He had simply grown able to gauge with clarity the gap between his enemies and himself through many and varied battles.
"Let's go, Might!"
The Barsian warhorse, all the more composed amid the scent of blood on every side, obeyed Eugene's command.
"Sir Haind, stop any gnolls that slip through!"
"Understood."
The likelihood of gnolls breaking through the mercenaries and arrows to close in was near zero.
Haind perceived that Eugene had given him this order to keep him away from danger, but he quietly obeyed.
He knew well that the knight he served, however generous he might be outside of combat, had no mercy for insubordination during battle.
WHOOOM!
For the gnolls in the front rank too close to the mercenaries for arrows to fly, the three-section mace came sweeping down along its chain.
CRUNCH!
THUD!
Heads spectacularly burst apart as gnoll corpses toppled.
"Kyaaagh... gkk—!"
The gnoll that raised a shield had its hand crushed along with the shield. As it screamed in agony, the mercenary in front of it stabbed it with a sword.
A gnoll that tried to knock the weapon aside with a massive club managed to block only the lowest mace head.
Clatter.
The middle mace head slipped past the club and whipped inward.
CRACK!
The upper mace head smashed into the gnoll's cheek. Its neck snapped and its head twisted 180 degrees; it flailed briefly, then toppled backward.
A gnoll struck squarely in the ribs was sent flying through the air as if gored by a bull.
Everywhere Eugene went, flail swinging with both hands, gnolls were swept away.
Because he freely shifted the point at which he gripped the shaft, the gnolls could never so much as guess his reach.
Even being completely out of range was no safer.
Tap.
Between shattering gnoll heads and shoulders, Eugene would occasionally flick up fallen axes, swords, and bone boomerangs with the butt end of the shaft.
Each time he snatched one from the air and hurled it, the sounds of tearing flesh and snapping bone followed.
'Is he really the same kind of human as us?'
Salvatore's mercenaries were appalled at the sight of the champion weaving among them and slaughtering gnolls.
With the great flail whirling in both hands, he looked like a black storm tearing through the battlefield.
WHOOOSH!
"GRAAAH!"
Sometimes an axe or sword would suddenly spring from the ground, flash away like lightning, and split a gnoll apart. No matter how many times they saw it, their jaws still hung open.
"Support the knight!"
Finding close combat utterly hopeless, the gnolls moved to retrieve fallen bone boomerangs, but concentrated fire immediately poured down upon them.
THUNK!
A few gnolls, even as they were struck by arrows, persisted and managed to hurl their boomerangs, but the mercenaries' shields blocked those.
Such protection was possible because the nature of the flail allowed him to strike enemies while remaining within the allied line.
"Well done! I shall reward you when the battle is over!"
"Th-thank you!"
He had only acted on reflex, but when an unfamiliar knight promised him a reward, the mercenary shouted excitedly.
The knight who had come to their rescue was, it seemed, as generous in his spending as he was mighty.
As Eugene tore open a breach, the tribal warriors found it correspondingly easier to plant arrows in the gnolls' vitals.
Even as gnolls died on all sides, Salvatore and his knights fought with desperate strength to keep the chieftain gnoll pinned down.
"Gah!"
Just as one exhausted knight was kicked away by the chieftain, spitting blood, Eugene finally joined them.
"..."
"..."
On one side stood the gnoll chieftain covered head to toe in black fur; on the other, the black-haired knight with his Wendigo cloak billowing.
As the two glared at each other, they looked every bit the leaders of their respective sides.
Gulp.
Salvatore, at last granted a moment's respite, swallowed hard at the standoff between the two great warriors.
Proud as he was, even Salvatore had to admit that he was not the star of this stage.