CHAPTER 277

"He hid something in the forest. I followed the traces, and they led that way."

Finn had a knack for tracking people. It's inevitable for traces to be left behind on paths humans traverse.

The scent is different, footprints are left behind. Even a single broken branch on a body gives it away.

Finn had found such traces, and Encrid, having wandered the continent and encountered various people, suspected he might have once been a bounty hunter.

Naturally, the past didn't matter, he just thought it was helpful.

That's how they found the hidden cave from the village.

It was a village built alongside a small forest, a bit off to the north.

In the distance, they could see the Pen-Hanil River.

And these people had dug a cave inside the forest to hide the beasts.

Every one of them was drugged up and staggering. There was a wolf beast with its tongue hanging out, drooling, and signs of the alchemist who had previously cut off arms, legs, and split heads.

That bastard had really meddled with a lot of things.

It was a wolf beast, but its legs were like those of a deer.

When this kind of synthesis succeeds, the world calls such a creature a chimera.

It's a monster created by humans, neither a beast nor a creature.

"Who's there!"

There were five of them, either beast tamers or people meant to be the beasts' emergency rations.

"If you attack, you'll die."

The moment they heard that, they attacked. And then they died.

One guy, who had been rolling his eyes from behind, saw this and released the remaining beasts.

Kaaaak!

A lion with a snake's tail charged. A half-finished chimera, similar to a manticore, came rushing but lost its balance and tumbled to the ground.

Encrid split the head of the unfinished chimera lion.

With a swoosh, the blade flew, splitting the head in half, and brain matter along with dark red blood spilled out.

Jaxon and Sinar also joined in the fight.

Esther climbed up a nearby tree and just watched.

The guy who released the beasts tried to escape at the right moment, but a foot-long arrow lodged in his head, killing him.

It was Finn's work.

"Where do you think you're going?"

It meant there was no escape.

The weapon that fired the arrow was something Encrid had taken from the Black Blade Bandits.

'She uses it way better than that bandit.'

She hid the launcher in her sleeve, and when the target's attention shifted, she aimed at the back of the head and fired.

Unless someone was extremely sharp, they wouldn't be able to avoid having an arrow-shaped decoration stuck in their skull.

The beasts that emerged were ferociously violent.

Grrroar!

Screeech!

A human-faced dog with a snake's venom gland sprayed venom into the sand. However, they were all half-baked.

There was no reason to spend too much time killing them all.

It took over half a day just to kill them all, clear the village, and clean up.

"The next one is a four-day walk from here."

Encrid nodded at the words of the Fairy Company Commander.

Afterward, it was just like a traveling circus performance.

Find the village, enter it, hit them, beat them, kill them, and clean up.

It was a continuous cycle of such tasks.

Most of the village bandits ran away when they saw that the village chief and beasts had all been killed.

That made things easier.

"If the higher-ups knew about this, would they leave us alone? Anyone seeing this might think we're starting a rebellion! If you value your life, follow me!"

The bandit who still had his wits about him made this judgment, and while he fled, he gathered a force as he went.

In any organization, there are always those who harbor ambitions.

Encrid didn't bother to chase them down one by one.

He didn't have the time to waste on that.

"This feels unsettling. It's bothersome."

The sharp-witted bandit said these words as he fled.

What remained was very little. The village that Encrid struck quickly became desolate.

The village, where they used to exchange information among themselves, had tried to prepare, but it was meaningless.

When five of those guarding the village were killed with a single silent slice to their carotid arteries, the bandits were gripped with fear.

"Damn it! Did a ghost just pop out or something?"

The bandit, who was responsible for the village and was once a top-class assassin, was consumed by fear.

An impossible event had occurred.

The six bodyguards who had been protecting him vanished without a sound.

Yet, he didn't even sense their presence.

No, he did see it with his own eyes.

It was in the corner of the bedroom.

A hand emerged from the darkness, grasping and twisting the necks of his guards. It was as if the hand had snapped thousands of necks before.

The most terrifying part was that there was no sound as the necks twisted.

What was even scarier was that the dying guards didn't even seem to realize they were being killed.

Their expressions showed no shock, and they continued to scan their surroundings with sharp eyes, their mouths tightly shut in tension, as their necks were snapped and they died.

"There!"

The Village Chief, who was formerly an assassin, swiftly threw a poison-coated dart.

The extremely toxic dart, which could kill with just a scratch, vanished into the darkness.

Several guards stabbed their spears into the spot where their comrade had disappeared.

When they stirred it around, they were met with a horrifying sight.

A hole had appeared in the ground behind their comrade's body, but when it had been made was unknown.

"When?"

That was the Chief's final moment and his last words.

A thin line descended from above and sliced through his neck with a swift 'schwik'.

It was an assassination tool created through alchemy, the String Knife.

A blade thinner and sharper than a pinky finger sliced through the Chief's neck, leaving it hanging in the air.

"Argh!"

Dealing with the remaining guards was no problem at all.

The panicked ones even started stabbing each other.

Jaxon, who was hanging upside down from the ceiling, threw two Silent Knives and finished the job.

Given the chaos that had erupted, there was nothing the villagers could do but flee.

The dwelling where one group had stayed became as deserted as if it were haunted by ghosts.

A gust of wind whistled through the center of the village.

"If a wraith popped out from somewhere, it'd make the perfect scene." 

Finn said.

Encrid agreed, but that didn't mean he was going to let his guard down.

Of course, they didn't plan to leave things like this forever. After eliminating the village's combat-capable population, slitting the Chief's throat, and causing a commotion, Sinar sent out a raven.

Caw!

As she extended her arm toward the trees, a jet-black bird flew over and perched on her arm.

The trained raven immediately flew to the Border Guard to deliver the news.

This meant that the military force was moving to take over the village that the bandits had abandoned and fled.

In the meantime, Encrid and his group continued moving. They headed toward the next village.

If necessary, they bought horses and rode them, if not, they released them and crossed cliffs.

The path required them to cling halfway up the cliff, but such a rugged mountain path was not particularly difficult.

Rustle.

Stone dust scattered and fell underfoot.

The entire group was clinging to a cliff so high that if anyone were to fall, even the luckiest among them would never walk again.

Yet, none of them felt any sense of danger.

Finn wedged a dagger into the crevice of the cliff, then used her elbow guard to hammer it in deeper before grabbing hold and climbing up. As she skillfully ascended, she looked down and said,

"If someone were to fall and die here, that would be pretty funny in its own way."

It was the kind of comment that was bound to come up.

And it wasn't just about people, how about the panther following them?

Its claws, as if they were some legendary blade, dug into the cliff as easily as one might stir mud, climbing up as if it were walking on flat ground.

It wasn't surprising.

Those claws and its skill were enough to scale even a sheer vertical wall.

As for the others—Encrid, Jaxon, and Sinar—there was no need to even mention them.

They were all perfectly capable of handling themselves.

Encrid climbed steadily, one step at a time, while Jaxon appeared as if his hands were coated in glue.

Sinar moved with ease, even joking as she skillfully scaled the cliff. She called out,

"Ever kissed anyone on a cliff, fiancé?"

"... What do you think?"

"Sometimes, I wonder if my fiancé is even a virgin."

It didn't seem to matter whether they were on a cliff so high that even the luckiest person would have only their legs shattered if they fell, or in a parlor sipping tea. They exchanged jokes as if it were all the same.

It was impressive that Encrid could respond to her banter so calmly.

In any case, if any of them were to die here, it would be about as likely as a raven dying from an ant bite.

As they continued on, they reached the next village.

In a place crowded with slaves, Sinar found three of her kin.

She didn't even furrow her brow.

"Got caught like fools."

She criticized them sharply, and the three said nothing in response.

One of the male Fairies, as soon as he was freed, picked up a dagger that had fallen to the ground and charged at a bandit with a smooth, clean-shaven face, repeatedly stabbing him in the gut.

"S-Save me! Urk!"

The bandit, who had been pitifully begging for his life, was caught off guard and received six holes in his belly as a reward.

There was a trace of something like hatred in the Fairy's eyes.

"A peach even insects wouldn't eat."

Encrid, who overheard the male Fairy muttering, pondered the meaning of his words.

Thanks to the Fairy Company Commander, he had become familiar with Fairy expressions.

It wasn't in the Fairy language but in the Empire's common tongue, so he could understand the meaning.

When you grow peaches, most of them will have worms. If a peach doesn't have any worms, then what does that mean?

It was a phrase used to describe someone who was utterly worthless, a piece of trash.

It wasn't hard to understand where his hatred came from.

The two female Fairies had likely been through something similar.

Their bodies had been violated. And in the midst of that, the male Fairy had also suffered.

'Someone who doesn't discriminate between men and women, huh.'

He had broad tastes.

It wasn't a pleasant thing to witness, but on a continent-wide scale, how many times does something like this happen?

So, is it possible to cut down and kill every single one of them with a sword?

When he was younger, he thought that if he became a Knight, it might be possible.

After leaving the village, he realized it wasn't possible.

The issue wasn't a matter of talent.

It wasn't just that he had been defeated by a boy barely in his teens that was the issue.

Encrid was young and short-sighted.

His concept of a village expanded to a city, and the idea of a city grew to encompass the continent.

That's when he realized.

Even if you became a Knight, even if you became a scourge on the battlefield who could cut down a thousand men with a single sword, you couldn't cut down things like this.

So, do you just give up and let it go?

Should he remain as nothing more than a flashy swordsman on the surface?

When he dreamed of becoming a Knight, was his ideal merely to don radiant armor and emit a halo of light? Was that really all there was to it?

It couldn't be.

Encrid had never thought that way.

The Knight he envisioned was not just a killing tool that wielded a sword skillfully.

As these thoughts filled his mind,

"Do you want to wipe them all out? Burn everything down? You can. If necessary, I'll help you."

Jaxon approached and spoke. His eyes burned red. It didn't seem like something he had carefully thought out.

It just seemed like words spoken in the heat of the moment.

And that made Encrid wonder,

'Is he a little unwell?'

Jaxon had a habit of saying strange things from time to time.

Encrid gathered his thoughts and asked,

"Why all of a sudden?"

"Your eyes were burning."

At Jaxon's words, Encrid briefly closed his eyes and then opened them.

The flames from earlier were gone from his eyes. At least, the destructive fire that Jaxon had seen had disappeared.

"Let's go."

Encrid focused on the task at hand.

Now that he could wield a sword as well as any Junior Knight, was he having different thoughts?

That wasn't it. The embers in Encrid's heart had always been burning.

It was just that they were now becoming visible.

"Well, look at that? There's a Dwarf too?"

It was as if they were playing some kind of game to collect different races.

It was a village where they had dug tunnels all over to hide slaves.

"Damn it, who are these bastards?"

A few bandits resisted, but their throats split open beneath their vocal cords, spewing blood as they died.

It was Jaxon's handiwork.

He moved silently, concealing his presence while using the items he had picked up.

"I received a useful artifact as a gift."

The way he boldly said this while looting the belongings of the dead made it clear that he wasn't quite normal either.

None of the bandits that Jaxon sneaked up on even managed to react.

He went around, cutting their throats one by one with his dagger.

When eight noisy bandits had been killed, the rest knelt down, trembling with fear.

The one who acted as the Village Chief was already dead.

This time, the Chief wasn't a wizard or an assassin. He wasn't even skilled with a sword.

He just kept trying to pull off tricks by exploiting openings, setting up traps all over his bedroom.

But with Sinar and Jaxon in front of him,

'That says it all.'

There was no need for Encrid to step in this time either.

Well, except for the one time he swung his sword.

When two of the village's so-called tough guys attacked, he parried with the Fluid Sword Technique and struck with the Snake Sword.

Thud, thud!

With two fleshy sounds, two corpses were made, and no one else dared to challenge Encrid.

After suppressing the village with such brutal methods, they freed all the remaining slaves, and as for those who continued to resist, they were all cut down.

Most of the villages were similar. A few of the so-called strong ones would attack, and after cutting them down, the rest would either surrender or flee.

In this way, it took two months of searching for and fighting in the villages hidden here and there by the Black Blade Bandits.

You could say it was just two months.

Considering the actions they had taken, it was appropriate to say so.

It wasn't until half of the villages under the control of the Black Blade's Officer had been destroyed that he realized what was happening.

They had moved that quickly.

By the time he figured it out, the remaining half of the villages were beyond saving.

"These crazy bastards!"

Bang!

The officer slammed a candlestick onto the desk in a fit of rage.

The blow left a dent in the center of the rosewood desk, splintering the wood and sending shards flying.

"Huff, huff!"

Even after this, the Black Blade Officer's anger didn't subside. In fact, his fury only grew stronger.

In the end, he threw the silver candlestick out the window.

Crash!

The expensive stained glass, colored red, yellow, and blue, shattered and rained down in pieces.

The silver candlestick fell into the garden below the three-story mansion.

The gardener, who had been trimming the bushes with shears, was startled and ducked his head.

He quickly picked up the fallen silver candlestick and went to find the butler.

It seemed that something was wrong.

Of course, they had no idea what was really happening.

The Officer had hidden his true identity well.

Most of the mansion's staff knew him only as a Nobleman and official of the Royal Court.

Despite his boiling anger, the bandit officer could do nothing.

A new guild had emerged in the capital, and they were unifying the underworld with terrifying speed.

'What the hell is this Language Revival Guild?'

The guild's stated purpose was absurd.

Among the groups they were crushing in the underworld were several criminal guilds that the officer had been backing.

Because of this, he couldn't back out.

'Damn it.'

There was nothing he could do about the people targeting his hideouts.

In reality, even if he stepped in, nothing would change. It was inevitable. He had no more forces to send, no more swordsmen to deploy.

The enemy was better prepared.

These were people who had deliberately set out to destroy villages.

So, he had no choice but to send a report to the main base.

The thought that he might die filled his mind.

'Damn it, damn it!'

His enterprises were in ruins, and the villages he had spent his life building were gone.

The officer wanted to scream, but his attendant stopped him.

"Are you going to throw away your value like this? Find out the name of the person behind this. That's your best option."

It was sound advice.

The Officer put in the effort. He scattered gold coins among the Information Guilds and hired several mercenaries.

And that's how he got the name.

"Marcus, you son of a bitch!"