Chapter 124 - Lunatic Andrew

Encrid naturally tried to step forward himself.

Wasn't that why he had come out?

He was also starting to want to move his body, and even if using two swords at once might still be too much, and even if he had to spare his right hand so it could recover, that was fine.

Seeing the opponent's stance, steps, and hand gestures as he came forward, he was certain.

His left hand would be enough.

The opponent was no Mitch Hurrier.

THUD.

The flat of an axe, held upright, touched Encrid's stomach.

At the same time, Jaxon grabbed his sleeve, Audin placed a hand on his shoulder.

Ragna stepped right in front of Encrid entirely.

"I can do it."

Ragna said.

"Like hell. I told you to recover first."

Rem said as well.

There was something firm in the glance he cast over.

Something that said Encrid couldn't step out here.

He could feel the will of every platoon member.

Then were they going to step forward?

Krais had said that, if possible, it was better to avoid having Rem and the others step out.

Then what?

"For that level, well, the youngest is enough."

Rem said, holding his axe.

The corners of his mouth curled upward, and he looked as though he was greatly enjoying this situation.

And the youngest he had called.

"Andrew?"

Encrid spoke, and Andrew tilted his head.

It meant, why are you calling me?

"Go out there and kill him."

Rem said.

His tone made it sound so obvious, as though there was nothing difficult about it at all.

Andrew blinked for a moment, then recalled his anger from earlier.

The bastard who had said his goods weren't ripe yet was definitely that prick, right?

The opponent held a spear.

The main force of the Aspen Kingdom was its short-spear infantry.

He was aiming forward with a spear that was not all that long.

In reality, in infantry combat, there was no weapon as effective as a spear.

"Come out, you cowardly bastards!"

If one had to choose the most insulting words throughout history, what would they be?

Even if they could not be ranked, the word coward could not be left out.

Andrew drew up the anger he had briefly forgotten.

"Fine."

When Andrew took one step forward, the opponent also took one step forward.

Like that, the two of them sized each other up and closed the distance.

Behind him, Mac watched Andrew with worry in his eyes.

Winning or losing was not the issue.

He wondered if this would end with Andrew getting turned into a porcupine by a flower arrangement of arrows.

In any case, that Platoon Commander of theirs really did speak harshly.

'If things go wrong.'

Mac tightened his grip on the handle of the buckler he had brought with him.

It was a shield made larger than the one he had originally used.

He was originally skilled with sword and shield.

'I'll block and endure.'

Unless their allies were fools, if arrows came flying, they would shoot arrows back.

And judging by the fact that everyone standing at the front of both armies carried large shields, an arrow attack would not be fatal.

'If we endure and get out.'

His worry lasted only a moment.

Now that he thought about it, the people here weren't the type to go somewhere and drop dead, were they?

So all he had to do was take care of Andrew and get out.

Mac set aside his worry.

He decided to watch with an easy mind.

In truth, aside from arrows, he was not worried.

He had watched Andrew all this time.

Andrew had improved from before.

He had moved forward.

He had fallen even deeper into the sword.

The way the allies looked at it was strange.

If Encrid and the others stepped out, it was a fight they would obviously win.

But it was not them.

Another soldier had stepped forward.

Andrew Gardner.

A soldier from a noble family who had once risen as high as Squad Leader, but had joined Encrid's platoon of his own will.

Some thought he was an oddball.

Others worried whether that little whelp could even handle a weapon properly.

A bad air was slowly beginning to spread.

How many soldiers had confidently stepped forward only to be defeated so far?

They naturally wished Encrid or one of the others had stepped out instead.

Andrew looked at his opponent with anger.

The opponent was the same.

"Hmph, so you only wag your tongue and leave the fighting to your subordinate."

That probably was not the intent.

Andrew had never seen Encrid avoid a fight.

Most of all, the gap in skill would be enormous, so what of it?

Even with his injury, it did not seem like that kind of bastard could do anything to his Platoon Commander.

In Andrew's eyes, Encrid was a genius.

A real genius whose skills grew by leaps and bounds in a short time.

Someone who possessed true talent, different from himself.

He sincerely thought that.

"My goods aren't ripe? What the hell is wrong with them?"

"Bring me the bastard who ran his mouth and called me a ghoul-head!"

The two did not listen to each other.

They only expressed their own anger.

Soon, that anger became spear and sword.

The cold fog cleared, and on ground dotted with low grass and gravel beneath the stabbing sunlight, the two angry men exchanged opinions.

Watching the spearhead fly toward him, Andrew momentarily thought back over the past few months.

It had not even been that long.

'Crazy barbarian bastard.'

After facing Rem's axe, seeing an enemy soldier's short spear made it look like child's play.

Of course, if it stabbed into his body, it would definitely make a hole.

It was not an attack he could simply slap away carelessly.

"A bastard who sees an opening and hesitates has no excuse even if he dies, kid."

The thing that bastard Rem had said again and again had sunk into his body and become familiar.

As Mac acknowledged, Andrew had talent.

Rem had recognized that too.

He was someone who was rewarding to raise in a different direction from Encrid.

Of course, he had only touched him up to a certain point.

He had not shown him the heart of a beast or anything else, nor had he even brought it up.

That was not a technique to be taught lightly.

For Andrew, even that was enough.

He had actual talent.

Quite outstanding talent, at that.

Seeing the short spear fly in, Andrew swung his sword.

From right to left.

The blade struck not the spear shaft, but the tip of the spearhead.

CLANG!

If a spear was advantageous in a straight thrust, then in a horizontal attack, the shorter weapon, the sword, had the advantage.

In the brief moment the short spear was knocked aside, Andrew's foot stepped on gravel and advanced.

CLATTER.

He closed the space.

In a fight, the beginning was the feet, and the end was also the feet.

"Ik!"

The enemy soldier pulled back his spear and swung his elbow.

Andrew swung his sword at the same speed as he approached.

The blade rising from below split the man's forearm nearly halfway through.

SPURT!

Blood sprayed from the forearm of the man wearing a gambeson.

Amid the blood drops scattering down, Andrew's eyes shone.

Was there any need to end it with a slash?

No.

This was a fight, and a war.

Andrew's feet moved again.

One step to the left, and he swung his sword again, striking the spear shaft with a crack.

Then he calmly thrust the sword he had drawn back.

It was neither fast nor slow, but to an enemy soldier whose arm had been cut and who was out of his mind from pain, it was enough speed.

SQUELCH.

A moderate resistance could be felt through the grip that held the sword.

The sword had lodged in the gap between armor and helmet.

When Andrew pulled out the sword that had gone in about half a span, blood gushed out.

"Grrk."

The enemy soldier staggered, then dropped to his knees.

He tried to block his own neck with his hands, but what meaning would that have?

The difference in skill was stark.

This happened because Andrew was excellent.

The enemy soldier, too, was a regular soldier who had received considerable training.

The kind of regular soldier who had killed most allied soldiers until now.

But he was no match for Andrew, who was brimming with talent and had been tormented by Rem.

The opponent, kneeling and collapsing with his neck thrust forward, flailed his hands.

He had little breath left.

He would die even if left alone.

Andrew stood behind the enemy and drove his sword straight down.

STAB.

Kill him for certain.

With that will, the sword entered from the back of the neck and took the enemy soldier's remaining breath.

Silence, quiet sunlight, only such things remained.

Krais, watching from one step behind, thought this had become an even better move than Encrid stepping forward.

It was the achievement of someone unexpected.

"Lunatic Andrew!"

And when he shouted the name that had been gnawing away at allied morale all this time so that it actually sounded like the enemy army's nightmare.

Soon, Andrew's name, the name of the one who had killed an enemy regular soldier, rang out everywhere.

"Woooooo! Lunatic!"

"Andreeeew!"

What was this?

Encrid shrugged his shoulders even as he listened.

It was more effective than he had expected, wasn't it?

Somehow, he even felt like he was the one hearing the cheers.

Among the voices calling Andrew's name, he could hear things like lunatic and hero who killed the ghoul-head.

Rem cackled.

"See? For that level, the youngest is enough."

Since when had that guy been the youngest?

"Andrew, back!"

Mac shouted to Andrew.

It was time to withdraw.

Andrew took several steps back.

Even then, the strength did not leave his eyes as he looked toward the enemy.

"My thing's fully ripe, you bastards!"

Good grief, what the hell was that now?

Mac was dumbfounded.

"Puhah."

This time, even Encrid could not hold back and burst into laughter.

He had teased him a little to change the mood, and did Andrew still have a grudge over it?

"Come back, Andrew."

Andrew's return after killing an enemy soldier, accompanied by cheers.

It was when the atmosphere began to change.

What Krais had expected began.

It was the blade of Battalion Commander Marcus, which he had been waiting for until now.

* * *

Marcus's mouth was slowly beginning to dry.

'Something needs to break open.'

In his judgment, their numbers were similar, and their level of training was similar as well.

But those Aspen bastards had done a fine job wrapping it up.

They had sent out those with outstanding skill among the enemy soldiers and started something as if it were a duel between knights.

Thanks to that, morale was on the floor.

Still, it was fine.

However, there needed to be a moment when this atmosphere changed.

He had looked at the lunatic platoon and expected that.

But when the barbarian-born soldier named Rem actually stepped out.

'Why is the atmosphere getting even more like a ghoul?'

That filthy, ugly, poisonous, shitty atmosphere.

Both allies and enemies had reacted coldly.

Then should he try to change the mood somewhere else?

It happened while he was thinking this and that.

One of the lunatic platoon members whose name he did not know, one of the soldiers accepted as volunteers just to fill out the numbers, easily defeated an enemy soldier.

And not by barely winning, but overwhelmingly.

It was now.

"Send them!"

At Marcus's words, both the messenger and the adjutant moved.

Soon, a small flag rose above the Battalion Commander's tent.

That signal reached the unit commander waiting near the river dotted sparsely with rocks.

If Aspen had the Gray Dog.

Naurilia had the Frontier Slaughterers.

Every one of them was a soldier worth ten.

'Moron.'

Marcus actually welcomed the clumsy stunt the enemy commander had pulled.

The atmosphere of a battlefield tended to change in an instant.

Most of all, when morale that had fallen to the ground surged upward, the rebound was even greater.

On top of that, Marcus was the type to think that in any case, the side better at killing won the battlefield.

So.

"Kill them all."

Marcus's mutter reached nowhere.

But the order had already been given.

The Border Guard, Naurilia's proud independent company, moved as one body and struck the enemy's flank.

From the moment they had concealed themselves near the riverside, around the rocks and water, making their bodies small to disguise themselves as a smaller force.

To the moment they charged and met the enemy.

All of it was an unexpected blow to the Aspen commander.

"Sweep them away."

The Captain of the Border Guard said, and the unit members did exactly that.

Torres was one of them.

An approaching enemy soldier thrust his spearhead forward.

Torres grabbed the incoming spear shaft with his hand and pulled, and the opponent tried to hold on.

In that gap, Torres used even the force of the man pulling back, closed in, and drove a dagger under his jaw.

THUNK.

With a short noise, the enemy soldier, now wearing a beard made of iron under his jaw, toppled sideways.

Without even having time to retrieve his dagger, Torres immediately charged toward the next opponent.

The other Border Guards were busy fighting as well.

Hyo-un, who handled a longsword brilliantly, was among them.

The sword of Hyo-un, a northern-born soldier, flew as if dancing.

After taking the lives of two enemy soldiers in an instant with stabbing thrusts, he half-turned and flung out his sword.

BAM!

The feet of the enemy soldier who blocked that powerful sword strike with a shield lifted backward.

It was a heavy, weighty blow.

The enemy soldier sent flying backward was finished off by Aizen.

Aizen's specialty was the trident.

He was a former fisherman, and his skill with a three-pronged spear was astounding.

Aizen's spear stabbed into the enemy soldier's back.

The center prong of the trident, which dug into the gambeson, pierced the enemy soldier's back, broke through the armor, and emerged from his stomach.

Bani's specialty was her fast feet.

She was also the kind of soldier for whom being a woman was no disadvantage at all.

Bani ran between enemy soldiers, throwing daggers, then lightly withdrew and hurled round stones and the like with a sling.

TWANG! WHOOSH! BAM!

An enemy soldier struck in the head by a stone collapsed sideways.

A leather helmet or the like could not block the impact of a projectile shot from a sling.

In truth, since they were consumables made by carving stone, they took a lot of labor, but the effect was outstanding.

Each of the Border Guards had exceptional individuality.

They were also specialized in guerrilla warfare, not group combat.

That was what they did.

They tore through, killed, and advanced.

Torres controlled his platoon and began digging into one side.

Hyo-un stuck to his side and swung his sword several times, blocking enemy soldiers.

Toward the group of soldiers holding longbows.

That was their target.

To be exact, their purpose was to take the archer commander's head.

Each platoon of the Border Guard moved toward its own target.

And with their movement, the battlefield heaved greatly.

The enemy commander did not overextend himself to overturn the battlefield once it had gone wrong.

"Retreat."

He sent the Gray Dog to stop the Border Guard.

And drew the rest of his forces back.

* * *

If it were wind, it would be a storm.

If it were an earthquake, it would be a powerful quake of considerable magnitude.

If it were a wave, it would be like a tsunami.

Originally, the flow of the battlefield was bound to surge like that.

The strange thing was that they had only been facing off until now.

Encrid also read the changed atmosphere.

Even if he had not seen the movements of the Border Guard.

Something had certainly begun.

If not.

"Fire!"

The allied archers would not be acting like that.

THUDDUDDUDDUD.

Arrows drew arcs over the heads of Encrid and the lunatic platoon members.

In contrast, the enemy's counterattack was pathetic.

Not even a few arrows flew properly.

Instead, a swift-footed unit specialized in reconnaissance followed behind Encrid.

"Kill them all! Don't let them leave alive!"

They were chasing from behind with crossbows and light equipment.

Encrid grasped the situation around him.

"Turn around, hit them, then slip out to the side."

Then he gave the order.

The number of those chasing them was twenty at most.

Then there was no need to avoid them.

Two squads or so, well.

They just had to clear them away.

"Sounds good!"

Rem shouted in an excited voice and swung his axe.

He was so excited that he kept sweeping his axe left and right, causing Henri beside him to quickly dodge aside.

"They're armed with crossbows."

Henri shouted after looking back.

Would that be a problem?

It would not.

Encrid himself had dodged incoming arrows time and time again.

Would his platoon members lack that much skill?

The more he knew, and the more his skill grew, the more new things he saw.

They were strong.

Soon, with Rem at the lead.

The lunatic platoon positioned behind him stopped their feet, turned back the way they had come, and attempted a charge.

Somehow, they had become the spearhead of the allies.

And at that spearhead was Rem.