Chapter 164 - Wielding the Sword

Just as a Knoll charged with a crude spear, Encrid's sword traced an arc, cleaving through both the shaft and its chest.

CRACK! THUD!

The two sounds rang out together as the Knoll's chest split wide. Blood streamed through its yellow fur—the thick black blood peculiar to monsters. Encrid flicked his sword, scattering the blood clinging to it across the spotted hide. Black, bloody froth bubbled from the Knoll's mouth as it gurgled, its chest laid open.

CRACK!

A whip flew next. It caught the hyena demonic beast charging at the fallen worker by the neck and hurled it skyward. The beast went sailing far away, back among its fellows. It landed on a house roof, yelped, and tumbled off one side.

"Lua is what a lover calls me, you know?"

The Frog answered to the name. Somehow she had already donned her heart guard. Her eyes passed over the Knoll's corpse. Encrid had not intended it, but he had sliced through its heart. She looked away, untroubled. Even that betrayed her wealth of experience as a Frog.

That was who she was: his teacher in the Righteous Sword Technique, a Frog with a wealth of experience.

"Hey, I have to go."

"... Where?"

And this Frog was saying she would leave now? So suddenly?

"An evil cult."

An evil cult? Before he could ask what she meant, a deep rumble sounded.

GRRRRRK.

Luagarne's cheeks swelled enormously. It was an expression of something akin to anger or bitter regret, but Encrid had no way of knowing that.

She shot forward, kicking off the earth with a boom and all but vanishing. Dirt fountained from where she had stood. The Frog left an afterimage in her wake. A few hyena demonic beasts blocked her path, but it was futile. She raced on as a streak of green.

THUD-THUD-THUD!

The hulking hyena demonic beasts struck by the tip of that streak flew in every direction. Watching them sail through the air felt utterly unreal. It was a feat of monstrous strength, something only a Frog who could disregard minor wounds could accomplish.

Encrid focused his gaze on where she was heading. There was something there. No, someone familiar. A man he had seen throughout the past three days—the one who had kept trailing after that captain, Deutsch.

"Hiss!"

Esther stood before the worker who had collapsed in terror. Encrid turned his attention back as well. Knolls and hyenas packed the space before him. This was no time to gaze idly at something in the distance, or to ask what she meant by an evil cult.

"What is all this?" Krais muttered behind him.

Encrid had no time even to say he didn't know. The Knolls before him had begun to swarm forward.

"Whew."

Breathing out, he planted his left foot and twisted his ankle, knee, and waist as he swung. The Heavy Sword Technique's spinning cut slammed into an approaching Knoll.

THWACK!

The blade severed its torso from its lower body, sending black blood and entrails pattering down. The bisected corpse flew to Encrid's left, briefly checking the Knolls' charge. But only briefly. One stepped over the corpse and swung a war hammer. Several more lunged behind it, tongues lolling and spittle flying.

Encrid wore no armor. All he had was a single sword. The situation could not have been worse.

"They keep coming!"

Krais shouted, and Encrid broke his breathing into short bursts once more and raised his sword. A melee had begun that would leave him no time even to speak.

* * *

There were things in this world one could not concede, things one must not overlook. And there were things that could not be forgiven. For Luagarne, the evil cult was one of them.

A band of mad fanatics who believed their gods lived in the Demonic Realm. Targets of vengeance she must never let escape. So the moment she spotted the cultist, Luagarne lost her head.

She was indeed experienced enough to utter the word "heart" aloud, but she was still a Frog—a race that gave vent to the desires and urges boiling within their chests.

They had killed her second lover. Back then, she had sworn upon her heart to kill every cultist she encountered. To Luagarne, this mattered more than anything.

Kill the bastard first, then return. That had been her intention. But now she was pinned down. The cultist bastard was more resourceful than she had expected.

"Crazy Frog bitch."

The cultist she had chased twisted his lips into a sinister smile. That was how it looked to her, at least. Had she fallen for his lure? No. It was time to break their arrogance.

But she would not be able to return to Encrid right away.

'Don't die.'

All she could do was hope.

* * *

The instant Luagarne left, the monsters surged in like water through a burst dam. Encrid stepped forward to buy time, but it was hopeless. There were far, far too many.

"Grrrook!"

With a strange cry, a squat war hammer came for his head. The weapon had an iron weight at its end. Getting hit would do far more than hurt. He stepped back, swinging his sword upward—a rising vertical cut.

THUD!

His sword split the creature's jaw and half its skull lengthwise. Next, he used his pommel as a bludgeon to smash the head of a hyena charging from his left.

THWACK!

The hyena had leaped for an opening, only to drop with a thump. The unmistakable sensation of cracking a walnut lingered in his hand. He must have broken its skull. There was no time to check how thoroughly.

This time, from the right. Three gleaming blades. They flew at Encrid, intent on demonstrating their purpose upon his body. The Knoll bastards coordinated damnably well.

Thinking on his feet, Encrid swung three times. If he couldn't block them, he could simply knock them aside. His eyes blazed with concentration as he battered away two strikes.

CLANG-CLANG!

There was no opening to parry the last, so he twisted aside. A spearhead darted in toward his belly. He immediately chopped down, striking the middle of its shaft.

THWACK.

He stopped the spear aimed at his belly, but—

THUD!

A hammer fell on his shoulder in that opening. Yet another attacker. He simply could not block it. However keenly he honed his senses, he could not detect every attack in a situation like this. It had come from a blind spot behind him.

Stop because he'd been hit, and he would die. His instincts told him so. His Sixth Sense and intuition told him so. Encrid threw his weight backward as though falling, shifted to a reverse grip, and drove his pommel back over his left shoulder.

THUD!

The heavy blow drew a choking, groan-like cry from the Knoll behind him. Still pretending to fall backward, Encrid suddenly sprang upright and swung to his right. A hyena demonic beast was charging.

If the first one, which had gone for his throat, had been bold, the hyena demonic beasts that followed were relentless. This one was after his wrist.

The instant he split the charging hyena's head, Encrid's heart lurched in the face of danger. Composure. Boldness. The heart of the beast held his mind steady. As he took in his surroundings, his sense for the blade reached beyond the five senses and stirred his Sixth Sense.

At the same time, time slowed. The weapons of the Knolls before him were falling toward his body in sequence. A spear, a gladius, a battle-axe, and a hammer. He saw a line connecting point to point. A line dividing life from death. Encrid swung his sword along it.

THUD! SLICE! CRUNCH! THUD!

A marvel wrought by a well-honed blade. A snapping strike to the crown took the foremost Knoll's head. As the sword rebounded upward from that strike, he drew it smoothly down across the second one's neck.

For the third, he raised his sword in an instant and brought it down, slicing through the collarbone and into the heart. Pulling the blade free of that heart, he swung diagonally at the fourth, carving through part of its ribs and opening a great gash across its belly.

It was a wound wide enough for its entrails to spill out. Naturally, it was as good as dead. The other three were no different. Every wound was fatal. He had killed four in an instant. The ground was soaked with the monsters' black blood.

Knolls were the very definition of tenacity. They exploited their companions' deaths to thrust spears from behind them. Every so often, the hyena demonic beasts added their own persistence. When going for his wrist failed, they targeted his thigh. He swung again and killed that one, and the next went for his shin.

This was no matter of one or two. There were so many Knolls that counting them was pointless. He had no attention to spare even for worrying about anyone else. Encrid focused his entire mind on what he could do now. Cut and cut again. Stab and stab again.

Moves from the Heavy Sword Technique flowed freely, splitting the demonic beasts' heads and bodies. Yet even after battling for his life against a dozen or so in the melee, the number of Knolls and hyenas surrounding him was unchanged.

However composed he remained, he could not stop his heart from pounding as he struggled for breath. Worse, strange Knolls began to appear among the others. They stood a head taller than their fellows. Naturally, they were stronger and harder to fight. Most of the creatures were smaller than Encrid, but these oddities were bigger than he was.

One approached and swung a studded wooden club down at him.

"Grrrooo!"

'Can't dodge it.'

A split-second judgment. The best he could do.

'Beat.'

THUMP!

He unleashed the secret technique he had prepared earlier but held in reserve, knowing he could not use it recklessly. Calling upon the Heart of the Superhuman, Encrid swung upward without hesitation.

BOOM!

An explosive report rang out. The mutant Knoll's club shot skyward as though an explosive spell had gone off. Encrid launched his whole body forward, extending his hand toward the disarmed Knoll's throat. His one-handed stab became a ray of light, punching a hole through its neck.

THUNK!

Stab and withdrawal were a single motion. They had to be. If he lost his sword, he lost his only weapon. Now two mutants charged from the side. No, every other Knoll's yellow eyes were gleaming as well. Eyes filled with killing intent, malice, and greed.

What could he do against those eyes? What was possible? He didn't know. All he could do now was swing his sword. That was all.

* * *

Esther knew something was wrong.

'Too many. Mass aggregation.'

The term described a colony on an entirely different scale. It was already too late to flee. The panther's eyes swept behind her. She saw humans dying, a massacre perpetrated by monsters.

"H-help!"

A man took a gladius through the throat before he could finish.

"Aaaaagh!"

Another was being torn apart alive by a hyena demonic beast's teeth.

THUNK! THUNK!

A Knoll stabbed its spear repeatedly into an already fallen corpse.

"Grrk! Grrk!"

The monster exulted in its depravity. Everything had happened in an instant. The humans could not escape. The palisade was high. The moment the monsters got inside, this ceased to be a human village and became the monsters' dinner plate.

There was nowhere to run. Some humans rushed toward the watchtowers. They seemed to hope that climbing higher would at least buy them time, but it was futile.

'The monsters aren't the only problem, either.'

Esther's eyes narrowed. Atop a watchtower, a man from that former mercenary corps was grinning as he fired his bow. He aimed at a human trying to climb up.

TWANG! THUD!

Struck by the arrow, the man fell to the ground. His skull split open, and he became food for the hyena demonic beasts. Everyone trying to climb the watchtower met the same fate.

Esther felt foreboding weave through her mind.

"HISSS!"

So she revealed a portion of her abilities. A kick of monstrous strength shattered a Knoll's skull. Then she leaped forward, raking, slashing, and driving her claws into several hyena beasts.

THUD! THUNK! CRUNCH!

Her claws split skulls. Esther rampaged too. Yet even after she killed a dozen or so, the wave did not end. This was not a colony a handful of people could handle. It was a disaster-class colony. An abnormal monster colony certain to cause grave trouble within the kingdom.

'Someone's been meddling.'

Esther was a mage with a spell world. Her intuition told her someone had deliberately caused this. That did not mean she could do anything about it now. She kept moving without pause as she thought, and soon felt her limits. There were far, far too many.

Hold their ground, and they would die. They had to flee. That was her judgment. Where was the way out?

"Ahead! We have to break through ahead, Captain!"

Krais—Big-eyes—was shouting. At some point, he too had drawn a shortsword. A resourceful fellow. She had wondered how he had survived with just one shortsword, but he was close to where his captain raged like a storm. He was holding on right at its edge. The surrounding Knolls went for the threats first.

Meaning Encrid. The person Esther needed. He fought like a hero out of legend.

With a single sword, he cut, stabbed, and killed the approaching Knolls like a madman. Watching him grip the blade near the ricasso as though half-sword fighting and smash a Knoll's skull through sheer force was truly a spectacle. It was martial prowess worthy of legend.

Had there been time, had the danger been less, she could have watched in amazement.

'This isn't good.'

Perhaps it would have been different for Esther the human, with her spell world. But what could she do in a panther's body? Fight alongside him? That would mean dying alongside him.

Esther climbed onto the roof of a nearby hut. Concealing her presence, she watched the man. Now, she intended only to watch.

'I'll avenge you.'

And she steeled her resolve anew. Never in her life had she felt this way for anyone. Without even realizing it, Esther vowed revenge.