Chapter 133 - Spring Holds Magic
Chapter 133 - Spring Holds Magic
Andrew and Mac raised their swords.
Between them, Enri continuously drew the string of the short bow he had brought instead of a crossbow.
Whenever he saw an opening, he shot.
If an enemy approached him by chance or if he found a fallen foe on the ground, he struck their skull with a hand axe.
Thunk!
Unlike Rem, he couldn't split a head open in one blow, but that didn't mean his enemies' heads remained intact.
Fractured skulls, blood seeping through the gaps of helmets, eyes filled with resentment or despair—
They looked just like the beasts he had hunted.
Enri turned his gaze away from the sight.
Such sentiments were a luxury on the battlefield.
Regardless, that was all he did.
The rest was handled by Andrew and Mac.
They might not have been as fearsome as the so-called Madmen Squad, but they were formidable in their own right.
"You bastards think the Grey Hounds are a joke?!"
One of the enemy soldiers shouted.
He had already taken down several of their men.
His eyes were fierce, and blood dripped from the tip of his spear.
Andrew stepped forward to face him.
Five exchanges were enough.
He blocked twice, slashed twice, then finished with a single thrust.
That thrust—somehow, it resembled Enkrid's.
At least, in Enri's eyes, it did.
Mac skillfully cut down foes, keeping Andrew from pushing too far forward.
"That's far enough."
The moment Mac spoke, Andrew came to an immediate stop.
Then, he began pounding his chest with both fists.
"Uwoooah!"
What the hell?
Why was he suddenly yelling?
It seemed he had picked up something strange from Rem.
"Come at me, you half-baked bastards!"
A clumsy provocation.
More than that, what was with the way he was pounding his chest like that?
Regardless, an excited Andrew fought well.
Enri watched the two of them and the others from behind.
Blood speckled helmets.
"Waaaaah!"
Shouts of triumph.
"Kill them! Kill them all!"
Cries filled with murderous intent.
"Hkk… Please, no."
Whispers of those clinging to life.
Amidst the bloodbath, Enri came to a realization.
'This is it.'
While some cheered for the Madmen Squad—
And others felt overwhelmed by their presence—
Enri saw his limits and understood.
This was as far as he could go.
"Uwoooah!"
Andrew let out another beastly roar as his blade sliced through an enemy's clavicle and neck.
Schlick.
He pulled out the half-embedded sword.
"Guaaaah!"
The enemy soldier's scream followed the motion of the blade.
Having reached his limit, Enri found himself yearning to return to the grasslands as a hunter.
But his homeland had already become a battlefield.
Maybe returning to the city and living as the husband of the florist widow wouldn't be so bad.
That woman—the widow who had lost her husband to war, now raising a child alone with unwavering strength.
Enri missed her dearly.
So much so that he wanted to leave this place immediately.
Ending his life as a hunter and soldier here felt right.
"How sentimental."
Muttering to himself, Enri turned his eyes to the battlefield, which was rushing toward its conclusion.
***
The enemy commander was quick—both in feet and in judgment.
Somewhere along the way, his command flag and escort had disappeared entirely.
Most of the remaining soldiers surrendered.
Only a few resisted.
The battle was ending.
And in the midst of it—
"Long live the Madmen!"
A chant he had never heard before tore through the air.
A victory cry.
The Aspen commander was fleeing for his life.
'Damn bastards.'
Being a competent leader, he knew exactly how things had turned.
Who had overturned the battlefield?
Where had the winds of change begun to blow?
The axe-wielding man and a few others.
He needed intelligence.
Someone had to report that there were dangerous individuals among the enemy forces.
He had already sent a messenger pigeon.
But as the commanding officer who had witnessed it firsthand, he had a final responsibility—
"I thought the night would never end, you bastards!"
His heart lurched.
A sudden roar—
A heavily armed unit blocking the retreat.
They looked like an independent force.
Definitely not allies.
The eagle emblem emblazoned on their right shoulders made that abundantly clear.
"Are you telling me we lost even before these guys showed up?"
The commander muttered bitterly.
His guards formed a tight circle around him.
But that was their limit.
"The Slaughterers of the Frontier."
The enemy was Naurilia's pride—the elite combat unit known as the The Slaughterers of the Frontier.
They had circumvented the battlefield and lain in ambush.
Their original mission was to harass the enemy from behind, whittling down their numbers and morale.
Had the giant's attack struck true, this maneuver would have been meaningless.
But now, it was a fatal blow.
Even the Slaughterers of the Frontier force found it baffling.
They were supposed to be the ones launching a surprise attack on the enemy rear.
Yet here they were—
Watching the enemy return, not as an organized army, but as a pack of fleeing stray dogs.
There was no time to question things.
The defense captain knew what needed to be done.
After confirming that Aspen's rear had been left unguarded, he changed plans from disrupting enemy supply lines to an ambush.
If no enemies came, he had planned to return to the main force.
But now, they had arrived.
"Slaughter them."
The border defense captain's words sounded like a death sentence.
The enemy commander and the escort unit resisted, but the outcome did not change.
"Retreat! Retreat!"
The commander shouted as he rushed in himself. It was quite an impressive sight.
Shouting for retreat but charging in instead meant he was trying to save as many of his soldiers as possible.
Etiquette had to be followed.
The frontier defense captain stepped forward.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
He wielded a flail, with the spiked iron ball swinging on a chain that screamed as it cut through the air.
"I'll send you off properly."
The captain did as he said.
The fight was short.
On one side, there was a commander who had risen through sheer force.
On the other side, a person who specialized in tactics.
Wham.
The spiked ball at the end of the flail followed an unusual trajectory and fell.
Bang!
The Aspen commander's head shattered, and blood and brains splattered.
That was the end.
"Argh!"
It didn't take long to deal with the rest of the fleeing soldiers.
Thunk!
With a final swing of an axe into the last enemy's head, the battle ended.
Was it a scene befitting of the title "Slaughterers of the Frontier"?
Leaving behind the battlefield full of slaughter, the captain spoke.
"Retreat."
The frontier defense unit quickly turned back, retracing their steps as ordered.
They were not planning to break the enemy's ranks or cut off their supply routes, just to decapitate the commander.
How had the battlefield turned out like this?
Curiosity, anticipation, and a mix of emotions moved his feet.
Finally, what they saw there was...
Their own forces, cheering in victory.
The traces of a dominant victory were clear in the battlefield, unmistakable for anyone to see.
And in the heart of it, no one needed to ask to know who was there.
The ones who had shattered the enemy's blades across various fronts.
And the man leading them.
The name of that unit echoed through the cheers.
"The Madmen's unit!"
"Lunatic unit!"
"Crazy bastards!"
Colonel Marcus did not stop the cheers.
In fact, he made sure the heralds called out the name of the true heroes of this battle, the Madmen's.
Amidst the cheers, Enkrid and the Madmen stood there.
The allied forces formed a wide circle.
Torres also saw them, and as he gazed at Enkrid's face, he thought:
'They are definitely a group of madmen.'
Where is the sanity in all that?
And although no one would admit it...
From personal experience, Enkrid was also one of the madmen.
There were many reasons, but if he had to pick the biggest one...
"The fact that he fits right in with those lunatics," was proof enough.
'Moreover, it seemed like they all got along quite well.'
The fairy company commander muttered as she watched the victory and the flow of the battlefield.
"There's magic in spring."
Spring, the season of gentle winds, had returned.
The battle, which started in the early morning, ended by noon.
As the sun passed overhead, a warm breeze blew.
It was spring.
Like a flower born in winter, now lifting its head in spring.
After the harsh cold winds, the gentle winds always carried magic.
In the face of spring's magic, which signaled a new beginning,
A man, filled with that magic, stood tall amidst the cheers.
The fairy commander's gaze followed the man surrounded by spring's magic.
Enkrid.
The man leading the Madmen's Squad appeared in her eyes.
Enkrid enjoyed the cheers of the battlefield.
"Not bad."
People shouting his name.
People calling for the Madmen's Squad.
He knew too.
Who had changed the tide of this battle?
It was his squad who had done it.
Rem had slain the giant.
Audin had broken the enemy's formation.
Jaxen must have done something too.
He hadn't asked or heard yet, but surely he had.
And he and Ragna had cut down the enemies who appeared on the right side of the battlefield.
The mercenary group with ten members wielding slaughtering swords.
If they had been left alone, they would have been cutting down allies instead.
"Good job."
It wasn't bad.
So enjoying these cheers wasn't such a bad thing.
"How's that, enjoying the cheers?"
Rem chuckled as he spoke.
"Yeah."
Enkrid was as honest as ever.
"Honestly, you're just too easy."
Rem teased, but then grumbled.
Why was he so easy to please?
At that moment, some others returned.
"Madman Andrew under your command has returned."
Despite Rem's beatings and Audin's soft threats, Andrew, proud of being part of the Madmen's Squad, returned.
Just from the blood splattered on his helmet, it was clear that they had fought fiercely.
Enkrid nodded.
"Did you chop off the commander's pinky? Or maybe a giant's balls?"
Unable to tease his squad leader, Rem shifted his target to Andrew.
"Seems like I chopped off two hundred instead of just one giant."
It was bravado.
Everyone could tell it was bravado.
Andrew knew it, the listeners knew it, but it wasn't unpleasant to hear.
Something about the atmosphere within the squad had softened.
"Cut the crap."
Rem chuckled and ended it.
Ragna, too, seemed to have calmed down, like he had let out whatever was boiling inside him.
He was relaxed, as always.
Most notably, Jaxen was smiling too.
Audin, as expected, was calm, his presence almost saintly, like a holy knight called by the gods, even with his blood-stained club in hand.
He glanced around softly.
Even with the club now stained dark red, the atmosphere remained tranquil.
Krais, standing to the side and observing everyone, pondered.
'How did we end up with this result?'
It was a habit of Krais to guess the cause after seeing the outcome.
'Did it start from that sparring session?'
Krais prided himself on being the sharpest observer in the squad.
He'd noticed something strange in the air during the sparring session that began after Enkrid's return.
Rem, Ragna, Jaxen, and Audin—the four central figures of their strength—had changed.
They felt better?
That's one way to put it.
Digging deeper, it seemed like some kind of burden had been lifted.
A single sparring session?
They'd done that every day, so why now?
'No, that's not it.'
He remembered the time when the squad leader fought the Frog.
And later, when he saw the squad leader bite off an enemy platoon leader's ear.
It didn't matter whether the technique was a Valen-style mercenary sword technique or something else.
The important thing wasn't the technique.
Krais had been watching his squad leader for a long time.
The others had been too.
'Growth.'
It was growth—rapid growth.
Though Krais knew that the squad leader would never reach their level.
He still kept fighting, unwilling to give up.
He had hoped for the day he could see his squad leader stand tall, running and walking alongside them.
But they all knew.
They couldn't help but know.
They had seen so many who couldn't surpass their talent's limits.
No matter what Enkrid did, he couldn't stand beside them.
But now?
"Good job, everyone."
Enkrid spoke, facing all the squad members.
Krais felt a lump in his throat as he watched Enkrid's back.
He looked like the same squad leader as usual.
But also different from the usual squad leader.
The afternoon sunlight, the warm breeze, the smell of the battlefield, the rusted iron and blood, and the scent of death.
Everything blended together and faded.
Krais had to admit he had been intoxicated by something.
It must've been the power of spring.
As the saying went on the continent.
Spring carried magic.
And just like that, everyone in the squad felt the same way as they watched Enkrid.
No, it wasn't just them.
From the side, where he had been watching, the Battalion Commander Marcus approached, his gaze similar.
"Keep going with the cheers!"
Marcus walked over and spoke, smiling at Enkrid, who turned to face him.
"Let's dedicate this cheer to the greatest hero of the battlefield."
Amidst the short, loud cheer and the cries calling for the Mad Squad's name.
Marcus' words spread far, and the roar of triumph pierced the spring sky.
Wooooah!
It was the cry of those drunk on victory and spring's magic.
It was the joy that victory brought.
Ultimately, it was the cheer for those who had earned the victory.
Enkrid quietly enjoyed the cheers.
It wasn't bad.
Not bad at all.