Chapter 140 - A Fish in Water, or a Foal off its Reins (3)

Evaluations of the Mercenary King were sharply divided.

Some gave him a thumbs up as the greatest knight, while others harshly criticized him as a worthless piece of trash with an empty reputation.

They were all correct.

He was not one to move without a price, and when he received a price, he acted exactly as much as he was paid—no more, no less.

At times, he rolled through the battlefield in a vulgar manner, and at other times, he rebuked the battlefield with extraordinary prowess. And sometimes, he showed a side of himself that did not fall short of the title of a hero.

Some denounced this discrepancy, calling him overly calculating.

However, he was not calculating.

He always did his best.

Nevertheless, the reason his strength varied so much on each battlefield was due to the peculiarity of the poem he possessed.

Absurdly, the [Poem of Gold] changed its grade based on the amount of the promised compensation.

'Then what about me right now?'

I scanned the enemies with my eyes.

Dozens of heads worth thirty gold coins, and hundreds, thousands of heads worth six silver coins.

I calculated the value of the fortress.

However, there was no need to give myself a headache calculating the value.

FWOOSH!

A massive aura surged from my heart.

The surging energy raced through my body without hesitation.

My limbs overflowed with vitality.

Not a single ounce of that energy leaked out in vain.

I quietly savored that overflowing vitality.

It went without saying.

The compensation was beyond sufficient; it was overflowing.

The highest grade achievable by the [Poem of Gold], a power equivalent to a [Heroic Poem], proved it.

SSSSS.

The Aura Blade that had covered the sword's blade faded away. The endlessly ringing Sword Resonance came to an abrupt halt.

I simply let my sword hang loose and looked at the Imperial Army.

"He's already exhausted!"

The knights' spirits were soaring.

It seemed they had mistakenly assumed my stamina was depleted from the battle with the Paladin.

This was merely a characteristic of the poem. The power of the poem, which pursued efficiency to a frightening degree, had merely suppressed the emission of all energy.

"Hah!"

With a bloodthirsty shout, a sword fell toward my head.

I raised the sword in my left hand to block it. At the same time, I swung the sword in my other hand from left to right.

From that incredibly ordinary attack, the knight's chest split wide open.

The knight spat blood and fell backward.

Behind him, more enemies appeared.

Swords flew at me. I raised a hand to block. I raised my other hand to attack. With my eyes, I searched for the next opponent.

Block and stab. Dodge and slash.

I repeated those simple motions dozens of times.

The knights faltered.

In the meantime, the commanders acted as supervising officers, pushing the soldiers forward.

Spears and swords without a single ounce of Aura rained down on me.

I repeated the same motions once again.

I pushed aside spear shafts and thrust my sword through the gaps. I slashed them before their swords could reach me.

The soldiers continued to push in.

Whether they possessed a staunch sense of duty, were blinded by the prospect of war merits, or were helplessly pushed forward by the supervising officers, they sought to kill me, and I repaid them in kind with killing intent.

Corpses piled up.

Every time I stepped down and pulled my foot back, the splashing sound of blood could be heard.

Fifty, a hundred? Or perhaps even more.

I had no idea how many times I had swung my sword or how many I had killed.

And I didn't care.

The only thing that mattered to me now was that I was still overflowing with strength.

Eyes flashing, I searched for opponents.

A soldier who met my eyes let out a bizarre shriek of "Heeek!" and collapsed to the ground.

Beyond him, I saw shooters lined up in two horizontal ranks.

Dozens of crossbows, capable of piercing the knights' heavy armor and tearing flesh, took aim at me.

I stepped forward. I grabbed the collapsed soldier by the collar and hauled him up.

Then, I pulled him tight against my body.

At that moment, dozens of crossbow bolts flew toward me.

The soldier held by the collar opened his eyes wide.

THWACK-THWACK!

With the sound of tearing flesh, the soldier convulsed. A few crossbow bolts that pierced through his body struck mine.

However, not a single one of them could leave a scratch on me.

It was thanks to the utility possessed by the [Poem of Gold].

Because the owner of the poem had a terrible aversion to getting injured.

"Urgh."

The soldier, vomiting blood, stared at me blankly before going completely limp.

The rain of bolts ceased.

I threw the corpse aside and looked at the shooters.

The shooters who met my eyes turned pale and fumbled around to reload. Keeping my glare fixed on them, I consecutively kicked the blades rolling around at my feet.

"Ugh!"

"Gah!"

The shooters struck by the blades screamed.

The commander who had been urging the shooters on was also pierced in the chest by a flying blade and crumpled to the ground.

The infantry commanders screamed at the top of their lungs. The soldiers faltered as they stepped forward. The knights were still waiting for me to tire out, having taken a step back while looking for an opening.

A laugh leaked out of me.

To think that such a vast number of people were blocked by just me, unable to advance or retreat. How hilarious.

I adjusted my grip on my sword.

Normally I would have just held my ground, but not right now.

If I killed one grunt, one of the kingdom's soldiers could arm themselves with a decent iron sword.

If I took down one knight, one of the kingdom's knights could ride a warhorse of good breed.

It was so simple.

All I had to do was strike the heads of the enemies offering up their necks to be killed.

I raised my sword.

With my lips, I quietly recited the poem's chorus.

"Bloodstained gold coins are the rightful price given unto me. Thus, they are my power."

At that moment, the blade was dyed yellow and flashed brilliantly as if it were made of pure gold.

However, my sword was by no means soft like pure gold.

SLASH!

Everything caught on the tip of the sword was sliced away.

The Imperial Army's front line crumbled.

"Huh?"

With their line collapsed, the imperial soldiers who faced me without having time to prepare let out dumbfounded noises.

I cut down even those bewildered figures with my sword.

DASH!

I kicked off the ground and dug right into the center of the collapsed formation.

From then on, I swung my sword at random. Slashing left and right, I truly ran rampant like a madman.

Suddenly, I came to my senses.

Only then did I realize that I had come out too far from the citadel gates while wildly running amok.

I swung my sword fiercely to shake off the blood and walked back toward the gate.

No one stopped me.

The Imperial Army merely watched me from a safe distance.

Then, as I came to a halt in front of the gate once more, someone spoke.

"M-Monster..."

Fear spread through the Imperial Army.

I raised my aura.

So that their terror would grow even larger, so that the entire Imperial Army would harbor fear.

That I was not tired, that I was still overflowing with strength.

With my full status, I proved I was still going strong.

The soldiers exposed to the widely dispersed aura dropped their spears and swords and collapsed.

The surviving knights furiously rotated their Mana Circuits to resist. However, the momentum they raised was merely enough to protect their own bodies. The morale of the Imperial Army plummeted. The martial spirit of the enemy, which filled the surroundings, noticeably lost its edge.

And I was only one person.

Yet all those countless people were terrified because of me.

I could guarantee that even if ten other Quad Chain knights were here, they wouldn't be able to display the same dominance I was showing right now.

This was because the source of power for the knights of the current era was, at best, nothing more than the mana accumulated in their human bodies, and that was insufficient to change the tide of war.

They possessed the martial prowess to turn the tide of battle in their favor, but they could not demonstrate anything beyond that.

Perhaps that was why.

Why the Sword Masters of today had lost their glorious old modifiers.

However, even that would now become a thing of the past.

Because here and now, I would recreate that ancient glory.

Thus, I declared.

"Pass this on to your general."

And I spoke them aloud.

The glorious achievements built by the Sword Masters of the past.

"If you intend to overcome me, you will have to lose an entire legion."

I flaunted the might of a One-Man Legion.

The aura surrounding me violently fluctuated.

And then, it transformed.

Like the martial spirit ignited by thousands of soldiers.

My declaration echoed across the entire battlefield.

It was then that the sound of a retreat horn was heard.

The Imperial Army looked at me with crushed expressions before turning their bodies. Then, they swarmed out of the battlefield.

I quietly watched their retreating backs.

BWOOO, BWOOO, BWOOOOO.

The sound of the retreat horn continued to blare urgently.

As if something massive had happened in their rear.

"Looks like they succeeded."

* * *

As soon as the Imperial Army retreated, that Eli bastard, Gawain's trio, and Gunne appeared.

Their clothes were singed by fire and heavily scratched, leaving them in a mess, and their faces were full of fatigue.

However, despite all that, their expressions were not dark.

Upon seeing me, that Eli bastard held out two pouches.

"We killed the first one easily with a surprise attack, and somehow managed to kill the second one. But after that, there was nothing more we could do."

He then reported their progress, his voice clearly brimming with smugness.

Knowing them, Gunne probably did everything by herself while they only assisted from the side.

It was a truly petty boast of achievements.

However, since even that was no small feat, I uncharacteristically praised that Eli bastard's contribution.

Just then, the old commander appeared.

He stared at me for a long time.

Seeing him open and close his mouth repeatedly, it seemed he had something to say but couldn't easily bring himself to speak.

Then, after a long while, he finally opened his mouth with a complicated look on his face.

"You said you'd buy us time, but you ended up driving the enemy away entirely."

A voice tinged with disbelief that went beyond awe.

I let out a soft chuckle and held out the pouches I had received from that Eli bastard.

"These are the heads of imperial Mages."

The old commander's expression changed by the second as he verified the contents of the pouches.

Instead of trying to fathom his complicated feelings, I asked.

"How much will you pay for these, I wonder."

The old commander looked at me in disbelief.

But that only lasted a moment, as he soon burst into hearty laughter and told me he would give me whatever I wanted.

"You'll go bankrupt if you do."

Because I've got quite a few mouths to feed.

* * *

The discussion regarding achievements and compensation was short.

The situation was far too dire to be discussing such matters.

"The troop casualties are massive. Even if we gather everyone capable of fighting, there are barely 300 of them."

"We're recruiting additional forces from the civilians inside the citadel, but we can't expect much in terms of how well they'll perform."

At the commanders' reports, the commander let out a groan.

It was a victory, but a pyrrhic one.

If the enemy stormed in again, there would be nothing I could do either.

Defending around 300 defeated soldiers and numerous civilians all by myself was impossible.

In the last battle, the enemy forces, underestimating me, had stubbornly focused on breaching the gates in an attempt to easily enter the citadel before retreating. But there was no guarantee they would do the same this time.

I expected there was a high probability the Imperial Army would simultaneously attack the entire length of the citadel walls.

Even if I ran myself ragged trying to cover everywhere, they would eventually break through somewhere, and if that happened, the soldiers in the citadel would be massacred by the Imperial Army.

We had driven the Imperial Army away for the moment, but this merely delayed the citadel's fall by a brief margin.

The old commander immediately convened the command staff and held a strategy meeting.

I attended the meeting as the person in charge of the reinforcements.

The citadel's commanders offered various opinions.

Among them, someone suggested a retreat. Everyone agreed with that idea.

The problem was the timing and the method.

What the soldiers, who were utterly exhausted after suffering a fierce offensive all night, needed wasn't an indefinite flight but a brief moment of rest.

No matter how urgent the situation was, they couldn't drag out soldiers who were so fatigued they couldn't even run properly.

"From what I've seen so far, the imperial commander is a cautious man. Having suffered massive casualties today, rather than risk further damage by launching an all-out offensive, he will likely encircle the citadel and have the remaining Mages bombard us."

"During that time, we must tend to the wounded and the civilians and figure out a way to safely escape the citadel."

The old commander and the commanders spoke as if they believed they still had time.

My thoughts were the exact opposite.

"The Imperial Army will launch another all-out offensive tomorrow."

When I abruptly interjected, the commanders looked at me with frowned expressions. However, because of what I had shown in the previous battle, none of them openly voiced any reprimands.

For some reason, I felt disappointed.

If they had lunged at me calling me a lowly mercenary or something, I would have shown them what's what, just as I had prepared to.

"Why do you think so?"

Smacking my lips, I replied to the old commander's words.

"Because they have a reason to rush."

"And what is that reason?"

The old commander asked again.

"An idiot who is more than capable of ruining a battle already won is heading this way."

Just before attending the meeting, Gunne had told me using hand gestures.

That she had seen Imperial Knights in the enemy camp. Someone that both she and I knew.

Only after hearing that was I able to recall who the imperial Paladin that died by my hands today was.

"The Third Imperial Prince of the Empire is coming here."

He was a Paladin of the Third Imperial Prince.

"If I were the imperial commander, I would wrap up the battle by any means necessary before the Third Imperial Prince arrives."

To an idiot who was more than capable of ruining a massive empire if given the chance, overturning the results of a single trivial battle like this would be a piece of cake.

There was no way the imperial commander wouldn't know what I knew.

Furthermore, the imperial commander had one more reason why he had to capture the citadel as quickly as possible.

Due to the orders he gave today, the Third Imperial Prince's Paladin had died on the battlefield.

To keep his own life, he had to offer up the citadel by any means necessary and offset his demerits with merits.

Of course, that was merely the enemy commander's wish.

I officially made a proposal to the old commander.

"Even if we are to abandon the fortress and retreat, let us at least hold out until the Third Imperial Prince arrives."

The old commander expressed his doubt, asking what difference it would make to hold out until then.

Looking at the commander, I spoke in a voice full of conviction.

"I guarantee you, if we just hold out until then, a great many things will change."

And I added one last remark.

That once the Third Imperial Prince arrived, the tightly blocked path to survival would blow wide open.