Chapter 134 - Mercenary of the North (1)

The world caught on the tip of the sword split apart.

Both the sky and the earth were cleaved in two.

No dust rose.

Everything caught in the sword's trajectory froze solid.

In the center of it all stood Sigrun.

The silver sword forged by fairies for a noble being was snapped in half, and her grass-colored cloak was torn to rags.

Her once-mysterious silver hair was disheveled, and her half-frozen body was covered in frost.

Sigrun brought a hand to her forehead.

Trickle.

Red blood trickled down her pale white forehead.

She stared blankly at the blood staining her hand.

Then, she suddenly furrowed her brow.

It was an unfathomable expression.

At first glance, she seemed dumbfounded, unable to comprehend the situation, while at another, she looked as if something had angered her.

It was neither.

Suddenly, Sigrun clutched her forehead and began to giggle.

"Ah, truly. That was the best."

Her voice sounded genuinely delighted.

But I could feel it.

A massive aura was swirling around her.

Contained within it was a terrifying madness.

A monster who, over a thousand years of life, had finally reached the status of [Myth].

Her lofty presence crushed the surroundings.

"Ughhh..."

A suppressed groan rang out.

I turned my head and saw Gunne's face, her eyes out of focus.

The Sword Maiden who had been prepared for death no longer existed.

All that remained was a pitiful half-elf terrified before that colossal status.

With a face covered in tears and snot, Gunne trembled violently.

Because she was still gripping my hem tightly, that trembling reached me all the more profoundly.

I quietly stepped forward.

A massive aura bloomed from my body.

The status of my true body, temporarily borrowed at the cost of my lifespan.

The myth of the fairy and the myth of the demonic sword churned to crush each other's status.

Right now, it was a stalemate. But it wouldn't last long.

Unlike the Elder High Elf who had perfectly achieved her status, my status was merely borrowed for a moment.

"Run."

I tightened my grip on my sword and told Gunne.

Right now, I was an existence equal to Sigrun; refusal was impossible.

Gunne hesitantly backed away.

Sigrun's laughter stopped.

Her unsmiling face and snake-like eyes swiveled to glare at Gunne.

I stepped forward, blocking Sigrun's line of sight.

"Did you never intend to keep your promise from the start?"

The covenant forged between the Elder High Elf and myself was one of equal cooperation.

Having violated this by attempting to bind and possess her partner, she could no longer demand anything from me.

I declared.

"The covenant is void."

That one sentence was enough.

Her status, which had been crushing the surroundings, began to waver unsteadily.

Her status was damaged.

This was the natural price an existence had to pay for breaking a covenant.

"Go back, Elf."

I declared to her with the rightful authority granted to a party of the covenant.

That the outing was over.

Sigrun did not answer.

She merely raised her severed silver sword in silence.

At the same time, her status became even more unstable.

But despite that, she was still overwhelming, looking down on the world from a lofty height.

I could tell.

Where her confidence to break the covenant without hesitation stemmed from.

From the very beginning, she had intended to pay a portion of her thousand years of life as the price. She must have believed that much was easily bearable.

And she was right.

She had the power to do so.

If the price she had to pay was *only* related to the covenant with me, that is.

"The fairies to the forest, the dwarves underground."

I recited aloud a portion of the end-of-war declaration from the Great War, which I had once proclaimed before the dwarves and fairies.

She still gave no answer.

Instead, she simply strode toward me.

However, she couldn't take even three steps before she was forced to stop in her tracks.

I looked at her and spoke coldly.

"Return to the forest. Fairy."

Sigrun looked at me.

Her wide eyes were filled with shock.

At the same time, her status became insanely unstable. As if it would scatter into nothingness at any moment.

"How?"

The Elder High Elf, facing an unprecedentedly powerful binding force, looked at me and asked.

Instead of answering, I demanded once more that she leave.

"This is not a place for you to be."

It was not a request.

It was not from the human Adrian Leonberk.

But from the observer who had watched the beginning and end of the Great War,

An order handed down as the witness to the end-of-war declaration sworn by the fairies.

"Piss off to the forest."

The fairy, dragged down to the ground from her lofty, arrogant stroll, glared at me.

At that moment, a sense of foreboding washed over me.

I tightened my grip on the sword and roused my aura.

But before I could even react, it happened.

CRACK.

The sword in Sigrun's hand shattered to pieces.

Simultaneously, dozens, hundreds of fragments flew out.

Infused to the brim with the Elder High Elf's yet-undissipated sword energy.

It was far too sudden to block, and the distance was far too close to dodge.

I was left defenseless, exposed to the fragments of the sword.

The shards of the silver sword dug into my body.

It was right then that Gunne blocked my front.

"Urghhh..."

Embracing me, Gunne coughed up a mouthful of blood.

"Nnnngh!"

Her already pale face grew even whiter.

The contrast of the red blood flowing down her white face made my eyes ache.

Gunne looked at me with a pallid complexion.

Sigrun's abominable voice rang out.

"Why must the sword break at a time like this."

I became extremely furious and slashed my sword down with all my might.

RIP.

At that moment, the frozen, sealed wound on my stomach burst open.

My damn true body. My damn flesh.

It had betrayed me.

Even so, I swung the sword all the way to the end.

That was the end of it.

I lost consciousness, and when I woke up, I was in the royal palace.

* * *

I let out a sigh as I looked at Gunne.

I was told the search party found me in a crevice of a stone pile somewhere on the plains.

I guessed that despite suffering near-fatal wounds, she had desperately moved and hidden me in case Sigrun changed her mind.

Though I hadn't experienced it directly, the fear she must have felt at the time felt as vivid as if I could grasp it with my fingertips.

"Phew."

A sigh slipped out naturally.

To be honest, even if the Sword Maidens hadn't stepped in, I wouldn't have met the worst-case scenario.

Because I had prepared sufficient safety measures in my own way.

But the Sword Maidens didn't know that, and so they protected me even at the cost of their own lives.

It was tragic.

I didn't know their names, nor their faces. All I could remember were the partial glimpses of their faces revealed beneath their cloaks.

Because of that, I couldn't be sad, nor could I mourn them.

That made me even more tormented.

They were people who gave their lives for me, yet I didn't even possess the memories to mourn and memorialize them.

I looked at Gunne again.

I was told her wounds were severe. I had heard that even if she woke up, she might never be able to hold a sword again.

I couldn't even dare to guess how she would feel when she woke up.

I would just do what I had to do.

I would do my best to ensure that poor half-elf could live the rest of her life for herself, at the very least.

I was also planning to call back the four Sword Maidens I had attached to that bastard Marquis Montpellier for surveillance.

After quietly observing Gunne, I asked a maid nearby.

To care for her with the utmost devotion and to notify me the moment she woke up.

With Adelia's help, I headed back to my room.

A day passed.

Gunne still hadn't woken up, and the Sword Maidens I had dispatched to watch Marquis Montpellier came to see me.

I delivered the news of the other Sword Maidens to them as they hid behind their grass-colored cloaks.

They said nothing. They just listened calmly.

Having lived their entire lives being worked like livestock, it seemed they didn't even know how to mourn the deaths of their comrades.

Only their ragged breathing revealed the fact that they were shaken, however faintly.

"Could you show me your faces?"

I let out a sigh and asked them to take off their cloaks.

They pulled back the hoods of their cloaks without hesitation.

"Ah..."

I let out a lament.

Their hair colors, their faces—none of them looked the same.

They were so distinct from one another, yet I hadn't known that.

I had only remembered them by their grass-colored cloaks.

I asked for their names.

They stared at me blankly.

With their tongues cut out so they couldn't speak, and unable to write to convey their thoughts, they didn't know how to reveal their names.

"Just mouth the words."

Only after hearing my words did they part their lips.

The lively-looking Sword Maiden with red hair was 'Yonaen'.

The calm-looking Sword Maiden with black hair was 'Gionne'.

The young-faced Sword Maiden with light brown hair was 'Harun'.

And the exceptionally pale-faced Sword Maiden with faint blonde curly hair was 'Ivir'.

"Yonaen, Gionne, Harun, Ivir."

When I called their names, the Sword Maidens averted their eyes with awkward expressions.

I watched them quietly before speaking.

I told them they were free now, and to tell me if there was anything they wanted to do.

But having lived their entire lives as slaves, they had long since forgotten how to decide things for themselves.

Instead, they looked at me with depressed faces, as if they had just been abandoned.

It seemed they would need time.

Until these women—who had lived as slaves, as livestock, as daggers in the dark—could become human again.

It wouldn't be impossible.

If a bastard like me could openly masquerade as a human being, there was no reason they couldn't.

I asked for the names of the sacrificed Sword Maidens, carved them into my mind, and ordered them to take an indefinite rest.

I planned to leave the surveillance of Marquis Montpellier to someone else.

While they couldn't watch him as stealthily as before, it would be enough to stop that Marquis bastard from acting rashly.

While I was lying in bed alone after the Sword Maidens left, Marquis Bielefeld came to visit.

After talking for a long while, the subject of the Sword Maidens came up.

The Marquis said he would erect a monument engraved with the names of the sacrificed Sword Maidens to honor them, and that he would adopt all the surviving Sword Maidens as his foster daughters, providing his full support so they could live new lives.

"Thank you."

If it was Marquis Bielefeld, who had taught me so many things when I knew nothing, he would surely be able to teach the Sword Maidens a lot as well. I bowed my head in gratitude, even as I lay on my bed.

The Marquis smiled gently, saying that since he had gained four beautiful daughters in his twilight years, he was the one who ought to be grateful.

After that, I devoted myself entirely to recovery while lying in my bed.

Not long after, Gunne woke up, and I gave her her freedom.

But she stubbornly insisted on remaining by my side.

Fortunately, since she recovered well and was left with no lingering aftereffects, I bestowed upon her the title of knight, even if it was just an informal one.

I then urged her never to hide her face with a cloak again and to hold her head high wherever she went.

Though she was deeply awkward about showing her bare face, she quickly adjusted and began following me around everywhere with her trademark expressionless face.

In truth, nothing had changed between her and me from before.

If there was any change, it was only that she now revealed her face and stayed openly by my side.

That difference was bigger than I thought.

As Gunne, alongside Adelia, started trailing right behind me everywhere I went, the knights even teased us, saying it looked like baby ducklings following a mother duck.

While I was spending such peaceful times, an urgent report flew in from outside The Capital.

"The Imperial Army has attacked the border fortress of the Dotrin Kingdom!"

By that time, all the impure energy remaining in my body had vanished, and the wound on my stomach had largely healed.

There was no reason to hesitate.

I threw off the bedcovers, got up, and geared up.

And then I went to the King and declared.

"I am heading out."

Perhaps because of the recent incident, the King went back on his permission and tried to persuade me otherwise several times.

But I remained stubborn.

Through my clash with Sigrun, I had deeply realized it.

I was still weak. I needed to grow even more.

So that I could exact the blood price of the Sword Maidens from the wicked Elder High Elf, and so that I would never again have to borrow the status of my true body at the cost of my lifespan.

"This is the last time. That I will permit you to journey outside."

In the end, the King granted me permission to head to Dotrin.

"I thought you'd only ask to go after the war was already over."

Jean Catherine grumbled, saying we were far too late.

To him, I said that since we were already late, we should take a short detour.

Jean Catherine jumped in shock.

Asking if I thought a wyvern was some sort of stagecoach.

Even as he cursed me for being shameless, he ultimately complied with my request.

We stopped by the North, returned to The Capital to gather the knights, and then set out for Dotrin.

"We have arrived."

At Jean Catherine's words, I looked down below.

The sky was thick with dark clouds, and the visibility was poor.