Chapter 64 - One Exchange

After the door opened, the first one to step inside was Rem.

"Where..."

He tried to say something as he entered, but he had no time to open his mouth.

Something dropped down from above Rem's head.

As if he had predicted it, Rem swung his axe vertically.

A flash that split the space above his head cut through the dark room.

The moment Rem swung his axe, he immediately sprang sideways.

All of it was as smooth as a rehearsed movement.

THUD.

Only the corpse that fell afterward revealed what had happened here.

"What the hell?"

Startled, Krais poked his head out.

The man had been hiding up near the ceiling.

With short knives gripped in both hands, he had been split by Rem's axe from chest to crotch, spilling guts and blood onto the floor.

The stench of blood and death stabbed at their noses.

"I thought they were just some criminal guild."

Krais muttered.

"These bastards."

Rem showed a twisted smile.

"They're being cute."

After saying that, he strode inside.

The interior was fairly spacious.

Beside walls made of neatly laid square bricks, dirt, and straw, a passage could be seen bending to the right.

Rem strode forward and said,

"Is it you?"

He said it out of nowhere and swung his axe.

The merciless axe blow made a second corpse.

It was a man who had been hiding beside the passage.

He had been holding something like a skewer and making as if to stab, but it was useless.

Rem's axe was faster.

The enemy was a criminal guild.

They were men who picked pockets or extorted protection money.

By contrast, this side was a group of soldiers whose profession was combat.

On top of that, Encrid himself was an upper-grade soldier, and the rest fought better than he did.

'I did think it was only natural that we had the advantage.'

Seeing it with his own eyes felt different.

The criminal gang hid in secret and stabbed from the darkness with knives and the like, and though their skill was far from ordinary,

Rem destroyed every one of those ambushes.

It could not be called going berserk, but there was a glimpse of some quiet madness in him.

A madness that said he would split apart anything that came at him with his axe.

Rem moved like that, and his mouth did not rest either.

"Or is it you?"

Every time he killed someone, he opened his mouth.

"It's you, isn't it?"

CRACK!

"Is it you?"

He split the fifth ambusher's head open before asking.

"Dead men can't talk."

When Encrid said that from behind him, Rem lifted his axe, dripping blood, and scratched his head with the axe handle.

"I know that too, but the living ones aren't answering either, see. No answer."

Someone else would have the answer.

After they passed through the passage bending to the right, they saw one room on the left, another room on the right, and a space straight ahead that seemed to be used as a reception room.

It was not a complicated layout.

A reception room, two rooms, a place that could be used as a food storage room, and a kitchen.

That was all.

And there were five dead ambushers.

None of them spoke.

"For a criminal organization, they were overprepared. I guess these really are the ones who were after you, Squad Leader."

Krais said as he examined the dead bodies.

After staring for a long while at the dead man's face, Krais lifted his head.

"I don't recognize him."

Encrid nodded.

It was a sign that he agreed with not recognizing them, and also that he agreed these seemed to be the men who had targeted him.

'Is this lucky, or unlucky?'

To be honest, half of it had been an excuse to avoid the devil's dung powder.

He knew a criminal guild was well suited for forging identification tags and guiding assassins.

'But against professional soldiers of the Border Guard?'

It was not something one could easily attempt if they wanted to keep living in this city.

And yet they had.

They must have had their reasons too.

Of course, those reasons were none of Encrid's concern.

They had come here half by guesswork.

It was like a loosely shot arrow landing right between a boar's eyes.

"Huh? That's it?"

Rem said as he searched the inside.

There was no one to answer, and only five men had rushed them with knives.

It was, truly, a matter finished by one Rem running mad.

"No way. If they were this prepared, and Jaxon found out properly..."

Krais stepped forward.

Perhaps it was too dark, because he took flint from his coat and gathered the straw lying around nearby to light it.

With the crack of flint striking flint, the straw caught fire.

Light appeared inside the house where cold air lingered.

With the makeshift torch made from bundled straw, Krais searched the surroundings thoroughly.

Then he soon stamped one side of the reception room floor with his heel.

THOOM.

It was an echo.

It meant the inside was hollow.

"I will do it."

Audin stepped forward.

A cheap fur rug was spread over the floor, and even a chair sat on top of it, but he grabbed the edge of the rug and flung it aside.

The chair wrapped in the fur made a heavy thump.

After that, Audin once again performed a magnificent knock.

BANG!

A hole appeared in the wooden door from the fist he drove straight down from a seated posture.

Audin pushed his hand through the hole, reached his arm inside, and undid the latch.

"Where do you think it connects?"

"Their base."

Jaxon answered Krais's question.

His attitude was calm, as though he had expected something like this.

Rem looked at Encrid.

Thanks to the crackling straw torch, Rem's eyes, which should have been gray, looked red.

"We keep going."

Encrid spoke before Rem could even ask.

Since they had started this, should they not see it through to the end?

This was not the extermination of a mere criminal gang, but an opponent large enough to be called a guild.

It was not a rabble that had gathered together and simply stuck the name guild on itself.

Then it was highly likely they were the ones who had targeted him, so he had to settle what needed settling.

No idiot would quietly leave alone those who were after his life.

Fortunately, Encrid was not an idiot.

"Of course!"

Once again, Rem went ahead first.

The earth tunnel was not long.

Before even half an hour passed, they saw a passage leading upward.

It was damn cold, but Rem had already thrown away his blanket and the like when they met the beggar.

Encrid looked at Rem's shivering back, and somehow felt anger from it.

"There's someone above."

Jaxon, who was walking right behind Rem, said.

It meant there was someone guarding it.

"Then they expected us to come."

Krais said from the very back.

"We cannot allow bandits to run rampant inside the city like this."

This time, too, it was Audin.

He seemed to have a certain talent for breaking doors.

Perhaps this had originally been his hobby.

He climbed the crudely made dirt stairs two at a time, then twisted his body from below to above and struck the door with the boundary between his shoulder and back.

It was a different sort of technique.

Encrid's eyes sparkled when he saw it.

BOOM!

It sounded like a cannon shell exploding.

Or perhaps fire magic had gone off.

At the same time, the door shot upward and flew away.

"Whoa!"

The startled cries of the men waiting above were heard.

After that, it was Rem's stage again.

"Is it you!"

Once again, he threw out an incomprehensible question and shot upward.

With his first step he stepped on the stairs, with his second he stepped on Audin's thigh, then flew through the air and swung his hand axe.

Because Encrid was below, all he could see was Rem's ass.

But the result was plain.

There were thumps as bodies fell, and blood flowed to the edge of the hole.

"That Brother has poor manners. To step on another man's thigh like that."

Audin brushed off his thigh with a slap and went up first, followed by Jaxon and Ragna, then Encrid and Krais.

WHOOSH.

When they climbed up, there were torches on every side.

"I was wondering what kind of crazy bastards you were."

Then a voice came.

Encrid looked left and right.

He saw at least more than thirty grown men.

Every one of them held at least one weapon.

Nail-studded clubs, shortswords, spears, and even a weapon called a blackjack, a leather pouch filled with sand, could be seen.

In other words, they were armed in all sorts of ways.

The torches made their vision bright.

Krais tossed the straw torch that had been their eyes until now into the hole they had come out of and exclaimed in admiration.

"Wow, there are a lot."

Yes, there were a lot.

Encrid thought the same.

"You're soldiers, aren't you?"

Among the more than thirty grown men, there was one man alone wearing a shirt and pants of fine silk, with a beast-hide coat over them.

He stood with a cane planted against the floor.

It was not a cane he used because his leg was bad.

It was a cane with a jewel set into the end of its handle, the kind nobles or wealthy merchant heads carried around to symbolize their wealth.

What need did he have for a cane when both his legs were perfectly fine?

It was only a symbol of vanity.

"Are you the Gilfin gang?"

Encrid answered the question with a question.

The man with an aristocratic air frowned.

It was obvious his mood had been soured.

"Why is everyone so eager to die?"

"We came to ask about the ambush incident that happened within the Border Guard."

No sooner had Encrid finished speaking than Rem opened his mouth.

"Is it you?"

A short but weighty question.

Encrid wondered what he was asking, and only now realized.

He was asking about the ambushers who had targeted him.

But would they answer if he asked like that?

It was a method that suited Rem well, though.

'I wouldn't answer either.'

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

The opponent was not flustered at all, only confident.

That confidence instead made him suspicious.

And for Encrid's squadmates, suspicion alone was enough.

"It's that bastard."

Jaxon muttered.

"Hmm, guess it was him."

Ragna also looked at the opponent holding the cane.

No, if one considered the usual Ragna, this much was at the level of glaring.

He had his eyes properly open and was staring directly at the opponent.

Normally, he walked around with his eyes half open.

"Brother, did you truly target our Squad Leader?"

Audin took one step forward and asked.

Three or four nearby men flinched.

In the dark night, thanks to the shadows cast by the torches, Audin's body looked even larger.

Encrid's height was close to 180 centimeters, and Audin was a handspan taller than that.

He was a little under two meters tall.

Nor was he only tall.

If one looked closely, his whole body was muscle.

The thickness of his forearm was greater than the thigh of a fairly average woman.

The members of the troublemaker squad, including Encrid, were all solidly built and muscular.

Even Krais had built his body for every woman he met and possessed sharply defined abs.

Yet Audin was overwhelming even among them.

If the thickness of muscle was a measure that symbolized a man, Audin might be one of the greatest men on the continent.

"Is that true, Brother?"

"What the hell are you talking about? Squad Leader or whatever, what reason would I have to send assassins just to kill one mere soldier?"

Perhaps he had flinched at the sight of Audin's body, because the man spat out unnecessary words.

"We didn't say you sent assassins."

They had said ambush, not that there had been assassins.

At Encrid's words, the aristocratic-looking man's expression instead grew calm.

"So?"

What of it?

They were a criminal gang of more than thirty people.

They were heavily armed too.

It seemed they had already known Encrid's group was coming.

That meant information had leaked from somewhere.

So did anything change?

No.

At least, that was what Encrid thought.

It was the same regarding their crimes.

There was no evidence.

Therefore, whether they admitted it or not was not important.

Therefore, nothing mattered.

That was true for the opponent, and true for Encrid as well.

What need was there for evidence when exterminating a criminal organization?

Then, what should he do now?

Even if they were a criminal guild, among them there would be some who had grabbed a club in confusion.

Did he have to kill even those people?

Encrid had no intention of doing that.

So he decided to give them a chance.

SHING.

Without a word, Encrid drew his longsword and dragged it across the ground.

A few flinched when they saw him draw his sword, but no one charged.

A line appeared in the dirt ground frozen by the winter cold.

Since the torches were the only source of light, the line could not be seen properly, but it was enough as long as the meaning got across.

A short line appeared in the wide empty space.

Encrid pressed the tip of his sword against the line he had made and said,

"Anyone who has never once killed the weak in their life, anyone who will quietly go to prison, anyone who doesn't want to die, throw down your weapon and come across."

This was not a battlefield.

Even if they were criminals, from this point on it would become a one-sided slaughter.

The enemy did not know that, but Encrid did, and so he gave them a chance.

"Choose carefully. Otherwise, you all die today."

He spoke of slaughter.

That was the kind of world this was.

It was an age where killing and being killed was nothing strange.

Even so, murder was not something one could always enjoy.

If this place were a battlefield.

If it were for survival.

Then he could say it could not be helped, but that was not the case now.

That was why he had given them the chance.

"What'd he say?"

"Huh? Who's dying?"

"Did he get so scared he lost his mind?"

"Hey, friend. You didn't piss yourself, did you?"

The criminal brothers mocked Encrid as much as they could.

There was even one who twirled a finger beside his ear.

In the end, no one crossed the line Encrid had made.

"What are you doing?"

Rem asked.

Encrid was not ashamed.

From the beginning, he had meant to give them a chance.

"Brother, because devils have possessed their eyes, they will not believe unless they see."

Audin whispered.

Killing them all was a bad move.

Encrid chose the next method.

"Who's the best with a blade?"

He would broaden their range of choices by showing them his skill.

Unlike before, he now had confidence.

Confidence that he could win even if a fairly capable opponent came out.

Encrid stepped forward with his sword drawn.

"Face him."

The guildmaster answered with a snort of ridicule.

It was as though he wanted to watch a little trick.

An opponent stood before Encrid.

"You're getting pretty cocky, huh?"

He seemed to be a former mercenary.

He had grown a beard, making it difficult to guess his age.

Even if he was old, he did not seem to be past forty.

"You keep that up and you'll die. If you're smart, just..."

Valen Mercenary Sword Technique.

Hitting in the middle of talking.

That was the trick the opponent used.

It was as though Encrid were looking at his past self.

The opponent literally stopped talking and suddenly thrust his spear with a whoosh.

His skill at thrusting with the spear in his hand was far from ordinary.

But it fell short of the first pervert soldier's thrust.

And it was far below Mitch Hurrier, who had blocked the front of the flagpole.

Encrid dodged the spear flying toward him, dug into the opponent's chest, and raised his sword.

A sword strike thrusting from below to above.

STAB!

It was a single blow.

The fight was decided in one exchange.

The opponent's level was exactly similar to Encrid's former self.

That was why,

Encrid felt his own growth.

'This much.'

He did not even need a repeating today.

The moment he saw him, he knew the opponent's level.

Because it was a fight that ended in one exchange.

The man stabbed by the sword bled with a choking gurgle.

Encrid pushed him aside with force.

When he pulled the sword out with a slide, the body that had fallen to the cold floor shuddered, and steaming blood poured out.

Silence settled over the field along with the cold air.

A single stroke of the blade was enough to make the opponent aware of him.

The way everyone looked at Encrid changed.

Encrid asked again.

"Anyone coming across?"