Chapter 124

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The forest was a place of purity and mystery, but also one of gloom and danger. Perhaps that was because it held both life and death within it.

Look closely, and even the smallest creatures were locked in a desperate struggle for survival. Frogs, snakes, centipedes, ants, mushrooms, leeches, parasites... It was not so different from human life.

Wherever you went, there were eerie tales of demons or witches living in the woods. Stories of children being lured away and eaten, or people deliberately led astray.

And, surprisingly, many such tales circulated in the military. Whether exhausted men on predawn sentry duty had been seeing things or had truly experienced something was anyone's guess.

The trouble was that this was a world where demons and witches really existed. Of course, almost no one had seen them firsthand, so whether their existence was real or not came down to personal belief.

But even if someone claimed not to believe in demons and ghosts, how firm was that conviction, really? It was hard to ignore the primal fear whispering deep within the heart.

All the more so in a forest at midnight, when darkness lay thick and the stars were silent. The harder one tried to look away, the more vividly fear made itself felt.

The mercenary standing guard occasionally met the eyes of an animal glinting green in the pitch-black darkness.

He could not tell whether it was a rabbit, a rat, or a fox, but there was no denying the unease he felt whenever he met those eyes.

He looked away, doing his best to seem unbothered, only to encounter something far stranger: a pair of lights blazing gold.

Frowning, he craned his neck to see what on earth they were. Then the two lights suddenly rushed toward him.

He barely had time to gasp before he felt every muscle in his body seize.

The world tumbled this way and that, and he saw a fountain of blood spurting from a headless body.

By the time he realized it was his own, his consciousness slipped away, and he sank into a darkness deeper than the night.

Holding his burning sword, Ricard surveyed the enemy camp he had thrown into chaos. They had tried to put it back in order, but all they had done was crudely erect poles and stretch canvas over them. It looked like a beggars' settlement.

Dozens of banners belonging to mercenary corps and companies hung limply overhead. It was hard to tell which belonged to the man in overall command.

For now, Ricard walked deeper into the camp. The enemy still had no idea he had launched a surprise attack.

A few mercenaries sat by a fire, quietly trading jokes. Whether they were on duty or simply unable to sleep, he could not tell. Then they happened to look his way. Their conversation stopped dead, and they froze.

Ricard closed in swiftly and swept his sword wide with one hand. One man sprang to his feet, another fell backward onto his backside, and another threw himself flat on the ground.

"Eek!"

"Aagh!"

Had they made clumsy attempts to dodge, they would all have died. Fortunately, by abandoning every last shred of fighting spirit, one of them managed to survive.

Before the pieces of the bodies severed at the waist could even hit the ground, Ricard gripped his sword in both hands and raised it overhead. The man who had narrowly won himself another moment of life screamed.

"The Red Prince!"

The blade flashed.

Ricard brought it down, cutting through the man without even feeling the resistance of solid bone. But the dying cry had already escaped him, and the word "prince" jolted the sleeping mercenaries awake.

Perhaps because of everything Ricard had done, starting with stealing their banners, not one of them dawdled in a sleepy haze.

They scrambled up and tried to get out of their tents and shelters, only for Ricard to kick them straight back inside. Then he toppled the bonfire and set the shelter ablaze.

Soon, however, mercenaries poured out from every direction like ants robbed of their queen. Ricard darted away, keeping tents, canvas shelters, and support poles between himself and the enemy.

As he went, he hacked, stabbed, and slashed at everyone he encountered, light flashing along the path of his sword. Copious sprays of blood followed as surely as thread follows a needle.

"He's here!"

"Damn it!"

"Crossbows! Get the crossbows!"

"Keep your distance! Don't go near him!"

"I'm killing this son of a bitch today, no matter what!"

Some mercenaries were so terrified their hands shook, while others were beside themselves with rage over all they had suffered at his hands.

Even on that chaotic battlefield, where it was impossible to tell what was happening, Ricard took in his surroundings in an instant. He charged toward the most vulnerable point—and the one that could pose a danger to him.

He sprang upward, kicking off stones and posts left over from the unfinished fortifications, then descended on the men busily winding their crossbows. Moonlight gathered and gleamed at the tip of his burning sword.

He split one mercenary diagonally in two, then carried his momentum forward, driving in and swinging wildly. Right, left, a feint to the right, then left again, and straight ahead.

Whether he was improvising or had planned every movement was impossible to tell. He flowed like water and struck like lightning.

"You son of a bitch! Are you a man or a demon?"

The braver men desperately tried to do something, anything. Ricard seized the speaker by the face and smashed his head against a large block of stone nearby.

The back of the man's skull shattered, killing him instantly. Ricard hoisted the corpse in one hand and hurled it at the approaching mercenaries, then swiftly moved on.

To the mercenaries, Ricard was terrifying enough in plain sight. But lose sight of him for even an instant, and they had no idea where he was.

They frantically scanned their surroundings with eyes wide in alarm, only for him to spring out from the opposite direction every time. Like a tiger pouncing on its prey.

Gritting his teeth, Ricard charged headlong into a sizable cluster of mercenaries. He drove his sword in like a spear and kept pushing, knocking several men down together.

Then he raised his sword high overhead in both hands and brought it down in a great stroke upon the tangled heap. Five or six men were cut to pieces at once.

Necks, torsos, arms—it made no difference. He sliced through them all.

Those who came hurrying over were struck speechless by the sight. When Ricard turned his glaring eyes on them, his jaw clenched tight, their legs gave out and they collapsed to the ground.

This was no swordsmanship, no mere technique. He was a god of battle, or a demon of slaughter. This should not have been possible.

Yet frantic shouts continued to rise from beyond their sight, all across the chaotic battlefield. Many men were fully occupied with putting out the fires, and each mercenary had his own task to do.

"Where is he? Fuck!"

"Throw the net!"

"Get spears! Spears!"

"Put the fire out first!"

He seemed to have killed quite a lot of them, but five thousand was a far greater number than it sounded. Even if all he did was kill without resistance, he would run out of stamina before he finished them all.

Ricard's tactical intuition told him it was time to withdraw. His instincts, however, told him to keep fighting until he died.

In his previous life, he might have pulled out. Allowing for his stamina, the sensible course would have been to inflict the maximum damage and leave. But now?

Standing on the boundary between composure and madness, Ricard chose madness. Unlike the days when he had wandered the world alone, he now bore responsibility on his shoulders.

The golden flames along his blade burned fiercer. Burn more. Hotter still. Whether it was rage or yearning that fed them.

Ricard ran farther into the heart of the enemy camp. By now, mercenaries had packed themselves tightly together in several places, forming human walls many ranks deep.

It was not deliberate. It was simply what happened when so many people converged on a single point.

Even then, some were still searching for Ricard, unsure where he was, while others had spotted him and kept their distance, waiting for an opening.

As he boldly plunged deeper into their camp, the mercenaries wondered if he had lost his mind. His audacity left them dumbfounded.

Ricard had less and less room to maneuver. His avenues of escape were narrowing as well.

Then a wall of spears, dense as a hedgehog's spines, blocked his front and right. Several ranks of men stood behind it, leaving no chance of forcing his way through by strength alone.

He looked back. That side still seemed disorganized. If he wanted to escape, this was his last chance.

Instead, he climbed onto a nearby stone block and shouted, his burning eyes blazing like those of a demon—or an angel.

"Come at me all at once!"

Courage and nerve had their limits. This was beyond any sane man. He was so outrageously powerful that they even began to wonder if he was a demigod.

The mercenaries swallowed hard and held their ground, trembling with fear. That alone was remarkable. Without battle experience, they would have fled long ago.

Filthy, vile, vulgar men they might be, but they lived with a resolve of their own.

Then, astonishingly, Ricard leaped from the stone straight into the forest of spears. The mercenaries stared blankly, their spearpoints instinctively rising toward him. In midair, he lashed out with his sword, severing every shaft within reach.

He landed in a tangle of mercenaries. Seeing their chance, the men around him seized, stamped, and stabbed at him, trying to kill him. Or rather, they tried to.

A golden, burning blade suddenly thrust upward through a man's body, then swept in a broad circle, cutting through everything around it. Their grand endeavor ended as no more than an attempt.

SHLAAAAASH!

The mercenaries were packed so tightly they had no room to move. When one side collapsed, the others toppled in that direction all at once. What? What just happened? Did they kill him? Wasn't he dead?

Unfortunately for them, Ricard was not dead. He rose again, drenched from head to toe in red blood, like a man newly born into the world.

A momentary opening—that was all he needed. The golden flames along his blade burned away the clinging blood in an instant, leaving its edge as keen as ever.

The mercenaries had no idea what was happening and could not recover from their shock. As Ricard danced with his sword like a demon in the moonlight, they were slaughtered without putting up any meaningful resistance.

The mercenaries blocking the other escape routes, along with those arriving late, stared numbly at the horrific spectacle. It was like a scene from hell.

After hacking and hacking his way through them, Ricard paused to catch his breath and turned toward the others. His entire face and body were so soaked in blood that no color but red could be seen.

Only a pair of burning eyes stared at the mercenaries. Meeting that gaze, they felt as though their breath had stopped.

Ricard left them behind and kept running toward the heart of the camp. For a while, no one stood in his way, and he ran freely.

Then an enormous tent caught his eye. It was unmistakably the commander-in-chief's quarters.

Near it stood a man in a red cloak, personally directing the troops. Red cloaks were traditionally worn by an army's commander-in-chief.

The man turned toward Ricard and recoiled in horror. Drenched in blood, with only his eyes blazing with golden fire—how could anyone take him for a human being?

Without a word, Ricard rushed him, stabbed him in the belly, and ripped the sword out upward. Blood gushed forth, and warm organs spilled out in a heap.

The mercenary company commanders nearby fled in terror, but Ricard pursued them and killed most of them.

The mercenaries chasing him went blank at the sight. Their overall commander was dead, and so were their own company commanders.

Ricard paid them no mind. He rushed into the commander-in-chief's tent, picked up the chests at the foot of the bed, and bolted out the other side.

Each chest was heavy enough to require two strong grown men to lift it. Ricard stacked three of them together and ran with them.

Once he escaped the camp and fled into the forest, he momentarily lost his bearings. The fighting had been so frantic that he no longer knew where anything was. Lester appeared like a ghost.

"This way."

Ricard ran after him. Farther out in the darkness, ghostlike rangers escorted him.

Moonlight welcomed him as he emerged from the forest. The enemy was too mired in confusion even to give chase.

Only then did the exhaustion of battle catch up with him. His hands and legs shook, and he gasped as though each breath might be his last.

The mana flames burning inside him posed no danger to his body, but they seemed to be crying out that he had to stop now. Otherwise, they would have no choice but to burn his heart.

He hurriedly took deep breaths, steadying his breathing. The flames became like a gentle breeze, seeming to seep into his blood vessels, muscles, and organs. That was how it felt, at least. He could not tell whether they were truly seeping into anything.

At any rate, the enemy did not seem to be following. He set the chests down and opened one. In the moonlight, it revealed enough silver coins to make anyone's head spin.

"Good. This should be more than enough to lure them out."

Ricard brightened as he spoke. Mercenaries lived and died for money. Surely the plan would work now.

When he returned to his soldiers and showed them the enormous war chest he had seized, their eyes widened, and they were at a loss for words. Forget the operation—with this much money, couldn't they simply hire mercenaries?

"This is only the beginning. This money will be used to defeat the enemy, so don't get any ideas. Just remember the plan. When I lure them into the gorge, you stay hidden here and then drive them toward the precipice."

Ricard cautioned the soldiers. Just because things were going well was no reason to grow careless.

But it was not complacency that had struck them speechless. They simply could not believe what they were seeing. For one thing, Ricard seemed unaware of his own appearance. That was even more shocking than the enormous sum of money.

They all knew he was strong. But he was still a man of flesh and blood. Charging into the heart of an enemy army, killing its commander-in-chief, and returning alive defied all reason.

Was it heaven-sent luck? A miracle of God? His own skill? It was making their heads spin.

But when dawn broke the next day, Ricard's plan fell apart. Things did not unfold as he had expected.

Having lost both their overall commander and their funds, the mercenaries simply began to scatter. There was no question of luring them anywhere. They had abandoned the fight altogether.

Some took a long detour to rejoin Grantz, some headed straight for Beringen, and others came to Ricard and told him to hire them. Huh? Wait a minute. What was he supposed to do now?

No matter how brilliant or experienced someone was, no one could predict everything in the world. Especially in war, with its endless unforeseen variables.

And, quite unintentionally, a rumor spread through the world. There was a man who could stand against an army alone.

The Red Prince of Adelorn, Ricard von Kaldebern.

Chapter 25 – One-Man Army. End.