Killing

The guard inched closer to Anna and Norn, who looked like two frightened quails. So careless was he that he even left his spear to the side. He kept leering, thinking that the young boy wasn't bad-looking either, and he hadn't tried that kind of thing yet.

Just as the guard was within arm's reach, and just as he was lost in his lewd daydreams, Norn struck. A lightning-fast roundhouse kick shot toward the guard's groin, ending his lascivious fantasies amidst a flurry of feathers and squawks.

The intense pain instantly robbed the guard of his ability to think. His lewd grin turned into incoherent moans, and his hunched body bent forward as if bowing.

Faced with the guard's exposed neck, Norn pulled out the iron arrow he had hidden behind his back and drove it in with a heavy thrust. The not-so-sharp arrowhead painfully tore through the guard's blood vessels and windpipe.

The former caused a gush of blood to spurt out, while the latter silenced his moans completely, or rather, turned them into a series of gurgling sounds.

The tax collector, who had been calculating how much he could sell the little girl for, was jolted out of his reverie by a scream. He glared at the cabin, thinking that his guard had accidentally killed a child.

"If the girl gets hurt, she won't fetch a good price!" he muttered to himself. Just then, the cabin door creaked open.

Like a demon from hell, Norn emerged from the darkness of the cabin, half-covered in blood and wielding a spear. The tax collector and his remaining guard were stunned. They had thought that one guard would easily handle two kids, but they hadn't expected a counterattack.

"Something must have gone wrong," the tax collector thought, driven by a strong desire to survive. He pointed at Norn and shouted at the guard, "Go on, attack!"

The guard swallowed hard and took slow, reluctant steps toward Norn. He was used to bullying honest farmers and enjoying the company of village girls while they cowered. Facing a real murderer, he would have run as far as possible. But since his opponent was just a kid, he figured he could win.

Norn watched the slow-moving guard with disdain, spat on the ground, then leveled his spear and jogged toward him. "Uncle Otto, what's the secret to using a spear?" Norn had once asked.

"Just strike before your opponent does," Otto had replied. Those words echoed clearly in Norn's mind now.

Watching the panicking guard and his slowly thrusting spear, Norn flicked his waist and quickly pushed forward with his right hand. The spear in his hand, like a striking snake, shot toward the guard's chest as fast as lightning.

Coldly watching the spear stop right in front of him, Norn twisted his right hand again. The guard, who had been moaning in pain, fell completely silent. The spearhead, now deep inside his body, had completely extinguished his life.

More blood spurted out, splattering Norn once more. "Ghost!" the tax collector, who was used to oppressing the innocent, had never seen such a brutal scene. He didn't even bother to check on Jinn, who was lying on the ground and scrambled out of the forest.

Jinn was suddenly engulfed in darkness. Looking up, he saw Norn, drenched in blood, and was too scared to speak. Then, in a voice as cold as a snow-capped mountain, Norn said, "Lend me your axe."

Norn picked up the axe from Jinn's hand, took a rough aim, then pulled his right hand back hard. His entire body tensed like a drawn bow, and he hurled the logging axe with all his might. The spinning axe traced a deadly arc through the air and struck the tax collector's back with a heavy thud.

The tax collector let out a scream and collapsed instantly. He tried to crawl forward, but before he could stand up, a not-so-large foot stepped on his shoulder. Even though he couldn't turn his head, the tax collector knew that the owner of the foot was a merciless killer.

"Spare me! I have lots of money," the tax collector pleaded frantically.

"Let you go? So you can bring the baron's knights here?" Norn glared at the tax collector, raising his spear high.

"You didn't show mercy to Anna just now!"

"N-no..." The tax collector's plea was cut short as a spearhead pierced through his mouth, ending his despicable life.

Norn pocketed the tax collector's heavy money bag and turned back to the cabin. Jinn, who had recovered from his shock, struggled to get up. A bloodied hand was extended toward him.

Jinn looked at the hand, the dripping blood still seemingly steaming. "What are you waiting for? Get up," Norn urged nonchalantly.

As if commanded by the devil himself, Jinn quickly stood up. "Enno... you..." Jinn was in disbelief. A shrewd, street-smart kid had just effortlessly taken down three adults much older than him.

"Well, when you're out in the world, you're bound to run into bandits and robbers. If you don't learn some self-defense, you'll be robbed down to your underwear," Norn explained nonchalantly, seeing Jinn's confusion.

Jinn reluctantly accepted this explanation and nodded, but looking at the nearby corpses, his stomach churned.

"Ugh!" Jinn couldn't hold it in and vomited to the side.

Norn, forgetting his past discomfort, looked at Jinn with disdain. After vomiting, Jinn finally got used to the gruesome scene and looked at Norn, whose face was unchanged, with a hint of admiration.

Facing Jinn's admiration, Norn didn't think much of it. After all, he had seen hundreds of dead bodies. This was just a small scene.

"Where's some water? I need to wash up," Norn said.

After washing off the blood and changing his clothes, Norn was back to being the shrewd kid he was, if you ignored the fact that he had just rummaged through a corpse.

Norn took stock of the situation. The tax collector had a whopping 120 silver dinars, and the two guards had 30 silver dinars and some copper coins.

"It looks like we have our travel expenses, Jinn," Norn tossed the money bag in his hand, the silver coins ringing out crisply.

"Yeah! So we're heading to Genoa now?" Jinn asked hopefully, having cleaned up the bodies.

"No. We're heading west," Norn explained. "Once the local baron finds out someone killed his tax collector, he'll search the roads. Heading east is all imperial territory. Who knows if the baron has any relatives among the nobles along the way? If he asks for their help in the manhunt, we're done for."

Confidently, Norn continued, "But heading west is the Kingdom of France. No one there will care if we kill someone in the empire. And there, we still have a chance to get to Genoa."

"The Kingdom of France?" Jinn's eyes widened. He had never traveled far, and even going to Marseille seemed like a long journey to him.

Norn thought for a moment, then threw out a big carrot, "And who knows, maybe we'll have a chance to fulfill your knightly dreams along the way."