Chapter 14 - Morning Star (4)

BANG!

BANG!!

Each intermittent gunshot sent the enemy scattering in confusion. Ivan could sense it.

It wasn't simply that they lacked training. In fact, the more elite they were, the harder this was to avoid. Any competent officer caught in an ambush would estimate the enemy's numbers from the frequency of their attacks.

'Judging by the intervals between shots, there's only one enemy, or a handful at most.'

That much was obvious. The problem was that the shots ringing through this forest weren't coming from just one direction.

One shot from the east.

BANG!

Send troops that way, and by the time they arrived, nothing remained but a few corpses. As they scattered in confusion, another shot came from the west.

BANG!

By now, it was obvious what the commanding officer would be thinking. 'The enemy has spread out a small force to herd us in.'

An accurate assessment.

Unless the opponent was an Extermination Unit field commander.

CLICK.

Feeling the tension, killing intent, and anger saturating the forest air, Ivan slowly raised his pistol. Ahead, three soldiers were looking around with torches in hand.

They moved in fear, or in rage. From a distance, the two looked no different.

Ivan let out a long breath. Halfway through, he braced his abdomen, pressing firmly downward. He leveled the tip of the front sight at his target, calculated the distance, and raised it five notches. Fluid as flowing water, a learned motion honed almost to instinct.

Elapsed time: 0.3 seconds.

Both blue eyes wide open, he rapidly scanned his surroundings. The spacing between the three soldiers, their differences in height, their respective distances from him.

Calculations complete, he filled his vision with the farthest one.

Fired.

BANG!

The instant he fired, he lowered the gun and gripped his axe. No need to confirm the kill. They would tell him.

"Damn it! Inof's down!"

"Where are you? Come out! Goddamn it!!"

He leaped swiftly through the trees toward his next target. The torches they were waving about made excellent target markers all on their own.

Fire was far too visible in a forest. Granted, without even a torch, the woods were so dark they wouldn't be able to see a thing—but wasn't that their problem?

They shouldn't have picked a night like this.

Night raids were fundamentally very, very difficult. They required an exceptionally capable commander and perfectly trained troops. Even such a force would hesitate to launch an ambush in a forest at night, especially a forest in another country. Probably a third of them had become separated from the others as soon as the operation began.

'That would put their total strength at around fifty.'

That was his estimate, judging by how widely they had dispersed and the size of their scattered squads. Standing above a torch-bearing soldier's head, Ivan tightened his grip on his axe and plunged straight down.

CRAAASH!!

"Aaaaagh!!"

A jumpy one. The man who had actually taken the axe hadn't even managed a scream. Still, he seemed properly trained, judging by the way he raised his gun the instant Ivan appeared.

Ivan bent low. The man's trembling finger pressed into the trigger. He didn't bother aiming. It would have been pointless at this distance, and he didn't have the presence of mind for it anyway.

He was panicking, firing first and worrying about the rest later.

But Ivan couldn't allow that.

"D-die!!"

Ignoring him, Ivan tensed his thighs. Tendons stood out sharply on the back of the man's hand. In that instant, Ivan was already upon him in a single bound, swinging his axe.

The man's right shoulder and the back of his neck shattered together. Quite literally, shattered.

One blow packed with savage force, then a swift twist of the body and another. Then another.

Three axe blows in less than half a breath. No one else here would ever speak again.

"Whew."

Ivan rolled his shoulders with a crack and tucked his axe away. Taking the nameless soldier's gun, he pointed it skyward, looped a fine thread around the trigger, and ran it over to the nearest tree. He nestled the gun in the corpse's arms and secured it firmly. That finished the job.

Someone would come to investigate the gunshot. The moment they disturbed the corpse, the loaded gun would fire, leaving the command group bewildered and mistaken about Ivan's position.

The delay in information reaching command from the field. The limited visibility of the dark forest. Fear of unfamiliar surroundings. Conflicting information. Their comrades steadily dwindling.

The more capable the enemy, the easier they were to deceive.

Ivan thought as he raced through the trees.

Which meant... this was strange.

These enemies were far too capable for a tutorial.

'Dian August should have been an NPC who helps Isabelle through her tutorial, then disappears.'

Ivan narrowed his eyes. Without him here, could Isabelle really have made it out of these woods alive on her own? Considering the enemy's ample firearms, well-trained troops, and capable command, this wasn't a level of danger a child barely twenty could overcome.

'Why...? Is wiping out the enemy not the tutorial's clear condition?'

That happened sometimes. Some games taught you the controls while you fled an overwhelming enemy.

But how? And where to?

Considering the distance left to Prizhenkaya, the odds of a clueless kid who couldn't even get her bearings making it safely out of the woods would approach 0%.

Even in his confusion, Ivan didn't stop moving. There would be time enough to think once this was over.

* * *

"Commander, they've hit us again. They say all three were hacked up with an axe this time."

"Well, damn. What is this...?"

The man groaned, rubbing his chin. It felt like facing a tiger. A hunter that started with the weakest and steadily tightened its grip around the group's throat.

The countermeasure was simple. All he had to do was concentrate his troops. But he couldn't do that. His target was the hero's daughter.

"Wouldn't it be better to gather the men now, at least...?"

"Idiot. Isn't that exactly what those bastards out there want?"

The enemy was few in number. That was obvious. If this had been a counterattack by a large force, they wouldn't have used such a cumbersome method.

Suppose a small, highly elite strike team was scattered through those woods.

BANG!

Another gunshot. From the west this time.

Then, moments later.

BANG!

This time from beyond the north. The gunshots were gradually closing in on his position.

"They already know where we are."

"Sir?"

"They already know this is our command post! You idiot! Don't you get it?"

"Ah, yes. Yes, that's true, but... then why aren't they attacking us directly...?"

Wouldn't it be much simpler to strike the command post first, then hunt down the disorganized troops one by one? Why was the enemy going to all this trouble?

Because...

BANG!

BANG!

After those two shots from different directions, a shocking realization flashed through the man's mind.

"Give me your gun."

"Sir? Ah, yes!"

He snatched the man's gun and fired into the air.

BANG!

He stood frozen for a moment, then spoke in a growl.

"It's one man."

"But, Commander, the shots came from—!"

"Fucking cheap tricks!!"

CRUNCH!

Crushing the gun in his hand, he roared.

"Those are our guns firing! He's killing our men and controlling when the shots go off! A child could do it with a simple trap, and I missed it!"

He threw the gun's remains to the ground and drew his sword.

"He must have watched our reaction to the first shot. To see whether we had Line of Fire Detection! We reacted too quickly. Damn it!"

Ordinary soldiers would seek cover the moment they heard a gunshot. But not the command group. Their commander had Line of Fire Detection. As soon as they heard the shot, they had determined its direction and sent out a pursuit team. That had been their fatal mistake.

"Why else wouldn't he have attacked us straightaway? Either he wasn't confident he could take us, or he couldn't afford to get bogged down. Why would men trained that well think that? Huh?"

"B-because he's alone..."

"Exactly! God fucking damn it. The gunshots were bait from the start! Gather all the men! Damn it, I didn't want to deal with that hero bastard's bitch of a daughter myself..."

The scar across his face twisted. The hero's daughter. Even if she was only half as much like him, a monster's offspring was still a monster.

He remembered the hero. Remembered that incarnation of preposterous martial might. However young she was, he couldn't let his guard down. The hero himself had been a mere youngster of thirty or so back then.

He loosened his shoulders and stepped forward.

"I'll handle the girl myself. Gather the men and bring me the bastard in the forest."

"Yes, Commander!"

* * *

"Are you the hero's daughter?"

Standing in the moonlight, Isabelle stared directly at the man who had emerged from the woods. Behind her sat a huddle of terrified people, gathered before the campfire, shivering with cold as they watched her.

Isabelle shook her head. She closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and forced the sword that weighed so heavily in her hand around, gripping it firmly once more.

"No."

She opened her eyes. Moonlight dimly illuminated their surroundings. The man's silhouette came into slightly sharper focus.

This was her first time fighting for her life. Her first time fighting with someone else's life resting on her shoulders.

But it was all right. Because this was right.

"I'm Maximilien and Marie's daughter."

Not the hero's daughter, but the daughter of two people. That was what she meant.

The man before her gave a long laugh. Horns rose from his head, thrusting toward the sky.

A demon. Isabelle swallowed. She'd never faced a demon before, either.

"Excellent."

He nodded and adjusted his grip on his sword.

"I am Eiphellos. A Centurion from His Excellency the Sixth Dragon General's Guard Infantry Division."

"Isabelle. A knight of Thilles."

The night wind rose. The conifers shivered. Far away, a faint gunshot rang out.

BANG!

The two charged toward each other.