Chapter 259 - On How to Handle Idiots (4)

“Did I or did I not tell you morons always end up in bed with other morons?”

Rem spoke at the sight of one of the people blocking their path. The man had donned a black robe in an attempt to disguise himself, but his protruding belly and exposed mouth alone made his identity obvious. “Hmph!”

The corrupt priest snorted. Rem had mentioned it before they left: he had run into that fat idiot at the market, and the man had given him a strange look. He had also said that moron might join forces with another moron.

His prophecy had just come true. Granted, there had been some scheming to make sure it did. “Call me Rem the Prophet.”

It was rather like tripping over his own feet and landing on his backside just as an arrow flew over his head, but he had reason to swagger. Things had turned out as he said, after all.

Encrid obliged him with a title. “Rem the Idiot.”

“Are your ears broken? I said prophet.”

“Prophet and idiot mean the same thing.”

“You didn't just make that up?”

“No.” That was what he had always thought. Encrid was confident and honest, and Rem abandoned his prophetic title with a muttered, “Fuck it. Let's not talk.” “The world abounds with the wayward and foolish. It is a servant's duty to send them to God's side, that they may repent and be born anew.”

Audin recited a prayer. It sounded like he intended to beat them all to death. Somehow, the mere sight of that corrupt priest seemed to make him want to kill. Encrid stepped forward. He represented this group. His left hand rested on the pommel of the sword hanging from his sword belt, his weight settled on one leg.

To the uninitiated, his stance looked lax. To anyone who knew how to use a blade, he was well prepared. A man stepped out from behind the potbellied, corrupt idiot of a priest to address him. His stance looked solid overall, without any openings.

“My client told me to ask one last time. Will you serve under Black Blade?” Still trying to win them over? Oh, that would certainly work.

Krais inwardly snorted and studied the man who had stepped forward. He stood a head taller than the potbellied priest. Like Encrid, he had identified himself as the leader by taking that step.

He had fierce eyes. A long sword, a fierce gaze, and an air that might almost be mistaken for annoyance. A mercenary named for his skill at planning his opponents' deaths.

Krais guessed his identity from his appearance alone. “The Prepared Blade?”

Encrid had ears, too, and heard him. A fairly famous mercenary, then? Something like interest stirred. Arms hanging loose, legs a comfortable distance apart, eyes fixed on Encrid's feet and legs. The man also angled his body slightly into the ideal position to draw his weapon.

He knew how to fight, and he was good at it. That was Encrid's assessment. “You know me?”

The mercenary's flat voice made the question sound brusque. “I didn't realize you'd sunk low enough to take jobs from Black Blade.”

Krais feigned surprise. It was hardly an impressive taunt, but the man furrowed his brow. He looked offended. “... You've got a clever tongue.”

“And you've got a talent for selling your body for a few gold coins.” A tall mercenary with fierce eyes, said to wield a sword as long as he was tall. By the usual measure, a fighter at territory level or above. One who might even be called a proto knight-level mercenary.

He was particularly famous for preparing thoroughly for every fight. That was how he had earned his nickname.

Krais kept needling him for a simple reason: an angry opponent was easier to handle than a coolheaded one. “Didn't I tell you? Those fools don't have a thought in their heads.”

The potbellied priest babbled from behind him. Krais wanted the man to lose his temper and charge, but things did not go as he hoped. The Prepared Blade merely raised his left hand.

Heads began popping up along the hills on either side. These troops had been lying in ambush here for two days already. Some were from Black Blade; the rest belonged to the Prepared Blade's mercenary band. The Prepared Blade had been given a rough account of his opponents. He had heard about Swallow Blade's defeat, too.

He also considered himself nothing like an idiot such as Swallow Blade. Relying on scrolls? Why do anything so stupid?

Unless you were a knight, you could not survive a relentless rain of arrows. That was why he had brought fifty archers alone. The hills to either side were steep. Perhaps some of these men could climb them. To stop that, he had stationed two heavily armored ten-man squads around the slopes.

More than seventy troops had mobilized to deal with fewer than ten targets.

And was that all? In addition to the Prepared Blade himself, a group of accomplished mercenaries stood solidly behind him. Getting here undetected had been the hard part. The actual fight would be easy.

That was preparation.

The Prepared Blade spoke with his hand still raised. “You have no idea how precious your lives are.”

How long could they last after making an enemy of Black Blade?

A mercenary had to be clever and quick on the uptake to live long. He was just such a man. Krais poked only his head out from behind Encrid.

“What a relief. I was worried you'd bring a whole crowd of mages. But this is sloppier than I expected. Didn't they pay you much?”

He touched his thumb and forefinger together in a circle as he spoke. Encrid felt a fresh surge of pride at Krais's glibness. He certainly knew how to get under someone's skin. “I'm going to skin that little fucker alive myself,” the Prepared Blade said.

Krais widened his eyes in mock terror, then stuck out his tongue.

“Go ahead.” Sometimes childishness could be a devastating move. This was one of those times.

“You son of a bi—”

Krais had certainly driven the enemy commander into a fury. 'Hmm. Nice.'

A splendid bit of manipulation. Encrid was impressed. Meanwhile, Krais was still thinking. Spells always introduced unpredictable factors, so he had been wary.

'Then again, even Black Blade couldn't have dozens of mages.'

Seeing a scroll used last time had simply set his imagination running in that ominous direction. Still, the enemy force struck him as woefully inadequate. Too few, and not good enough.

'Why?'

The answer came with the question.

'They still don't know how strong we really are.' Encrid and every member of his company had fought well enough for word to spread. They had distinguished themselves in battle. They had destroyed colonies.

'But once that gets passed from mouth to mouth?'

That was the nature of rumors. They grew and became exaggerated. And fools who thought themselves clever would account for those exaggerations when forming their strategy.

Had it been Krais, he would first have investigated the truth behind those rumors like a man possessed. To be fair, Black Blade had its own difficulties. Whenever they tried to seize control of Border Guard's streets at night, this Gilfin Guild exerted its influence. As for planting spies inside the castle, that man Marcus was no ordinary operator.

Despite his reputation as the Warmonger, he kept a tight grip on internal security. Even traveling merchants were saying that the Border Guard standing army's duties had grown more demanding since his arrival. Of course, that was another misunderstanding. Those suffering through Encrid's training were simply throwing themselves into their duties, hoping to spend even a little longer guarding the gates or patrolling.

Whatever the case, Black Blade did not know. They had misjudged everyone's abilities, Encrid's included, and had not even registered Krais's existence. Krais, on the other hand, recognized their stupidity and could understand it in a way.

'Fair enough. Where else would you find this many proto knight-level monsters together?'

It was not as though they were a knight order.

A lack of information. Marcus, too, had exploited it to reap considerable gains on the battlefield. And even afterward, there would have been others who continued to doubt Encrid's abilities. 'Above all, there probably haven't even been rumors about how strong the company members are.'

One proto knight-level fighter, a group of archers, and other mercenaries who knew how to fight. Even if they fell short of proto knight level, those men had at least one foot in the realm of territory-level fighters.

So the preparations were not inadequate. Black Blade simply did not know whom they were facing. 'I overprepared a little.'

Krais snapped his fingers. SNAP! Naturally, nothing happened. A finger snap could hardly carry beyond the hills. “... What?” asked Ragna, watching beside him.

“Do you need a trip to the temple, too?”

Rem joined in. Krais cleared his throat before replying. “The timing was a little off.”

Krais felt no shame. These things happened. He spoke with perfect confidence, and no sooner had he finished than a commotion broke out atop the hills. “What the fuck?”

“An ambush!”

The cries came from the enemy soldiers who had been lying in ambush. Some of the archers turned around. Their chance to loose a coordinated volley downhill was already gone.

Some of the armed troops beside them immediately turned as well, then charged the people who had somehow gotten behind them. “How dare you!”

One enemy soldier bravely stepped forward and swung his sword. He was a mercenary wielding a bastard sword. Gripping it with both hands, he cut straight down. His technique was not bad.

The man facing him was empty-handed. He ran straight toward the descending blade, closing right inside his opponent's reach. THUNK! RIP!

Sounds like those rang out. The mercenary wielding the bastard sword pitched forward, and the man pressed close against him shoved his way free. Torres wiped the blood from the dagger he had drawn on the dead man's collar. Over his gambeson, Torres wore thin leather armor bearing the Border Guard insignia.

“Oh, we're not late.” On the opposite side, another man darted into the enemy ranks with swift steps.

He drew and thrust his sword with lightning speed. Both his closing steps and the blade he drew and drove forward were so fast that by the time his movement registered, he had already pierced an enemy's throat. “Ghk!”

A mercenary clutched his throat, staggered, and dropped to his knees. Red blood streamed between his fingers. With his throat pierced, he had no hope of surviving.

Zimmer stopped after demonstrating his specialty. “Idiotic bandits.”

He spoke. The hills were low enough that their faces were plainly visible. “Hmm. Looks like it's over.”

Krais's murmur was infuriating. For a mere bandit group, assembling a force this size at short notice was impressive. It demonstrated Black Blade's resources. In particular, they had hired not some nobody, but a proto knight-level mercenary.

That was no ordinary feat. Granted, there was a gap between an actual proto knight and someone merely at that level. Still, how many fighters of that caliber were there? Perhaps only a handful in the north. They simply knew far too little about their opponents.

Well, it was hard to believe without seeing it in person. That was Krais's assessment. “That's a little disappointing,” Encrid murmured.

Krais ignored him. He habitually imagined ominous possibilities and prepared accordingly. This was what he had arranged.

The Border Guard and Martai's army began taking control of the area around the enemy ambush. Caught from behind, the Prepared Blade's archers fell into a panic. 'Fuck, they're hitting us from behind? What about the front? Is there a way out?'

There was none. Everything, starting with their choice of position, had been predicted and anticipated. As Torres moved in behind the archers, he inwardly marveled at Krais's mind.

'Big-eyes is no ordinary fellow, either.'

The Prepared Blade's arrangements atop the hills were finished. Those who had seized the high ground were the elite of the elite: the Frontier Slaughterers, overshadowed by Encrid's very existence. The Prepared Blade's face, by contrast, was expressionless. It was the mercenaries holding their ground behind him whose expressions changed from moment to moment. “Well, we're fucked.”

Some voiced anxiety. “Bullshit. We just have to kill this lot.”

Others, fighting spirit. “Shouldn't we get out of here?”

Others proposed a practical alternative. “Now, who's the moron?”

At Krais's question, deep furrows formed between the Prepared Blade's brows, breaking his expressionless mask. “We should've settled this by force from the start.”

A large man stepped up beside the Prepared Blade. A rough look behind him showed some twenty men, not one of whom was a half-baked fighter.

By ordinary soldiers' standards, of course. “Come at me if you've got the guts. I'll kill you all.”

As the man thundered forward, the maces in both his hands looked quite menacing. They only had to gain the upper hand here before the fighting on the hills began. Despite his dull-witted appearance, this mercenary thought quickly. Perhaps his long years wandering battlefields had honed an instinct for such things. “I agree with him.”

Beside him, a woman licked her lips. Her tongue looked long enough to reach her chin. Not only her tongue but her face, too, was grotesquely elongated.

The female mercenary held three throwing knives in each hand. They were imitation whistle daggers. Rem growled at the approaching enemies.

“I'm going first. Just try getting ahead of me. I'll put an axe in the back of your head.”

Encrid had been about to step forward, but told him to go ahead. The changes in his perception and discernment. The new evolution of his Sixth Sense beyond the five senses.

With all of that helping him, Encrid briefly became an idiot.

In other words, he predicted the future.

Not one of those charging them could withstand Rem's axe.