Chapter 272 - Not Everything Goes According to Plan (3)

Encrid murmured a name as he moved.

"Esther." He pressed down through his left big toe, lowered his waist, and leaned forward from his deep crouch. That one small movement let two daggers skim past him and thud into the inn wall behind him. Encrid drew his sword. The inn room was too cramped to swing a longsword, especially with the wall obstructing the entrance. His opponents were counting on that.

What good would drawing his sword do? How was he going to cut anyone here?

He could almost hear the servant saying it. Encrid pressed down on the scabbard with his left hand to angle it, turning his draw from a horizontal slash into a vertical one. He put force into the drawn sword and swept it upward, cutting the servant from his crotch to the middle of his chest. SHICK! The sound of clothing, the leather worn underneath, muscle, and bits of bone being sliced apart was like a quiet whisper. That was how fast the sword moved. Encrid had gauged the distance to his opponent and cut exactly one finger joint deep. That was enough to kill a man. All his preparations, from adjusting his sword belt to shifting his foot, had been for this single strike. He was satisfied. "Ghh, guh!"

With his lungs and vocal cords intact, the servant managed a brief scream as his death cry before collapsing in a spill of blood and entrails. "You bastard!"

The bandit who doubled as the tavern keeper shouted from behind him, drawing his shortsword. Even so, he did not step inside. He had just seen the servant killed in one stroke. Just then, a black shadow swooped down from above and struck the tavern keeper's head. RIP, THWACK! The blow partially snapped the bandit tavern keeper's neck. Three claw marks scored his face, slashing his nose bone and bursting his eyes. A predator's forepaw had struck him. Such was the strength of a Lake Panther, normally docile but terrifying in a fight. Having killed the bandit in a single blow, Esther landed beside Encrid. Her landing was light. Watching her, he thought she seemed much more agile than usual, too. That single sword draw had told Encrid how his body felt.

'I really do feel light.'

He was in good condition. Very good condition. "Hmm."

With a quiet sound of admiration, he raised his gaze to find the bushy-bearded man staring wide-eyed from behind the others. The man opened his mouth and shouted, tension, terror, fear, and excitement all mixed together.

"Kill 'im!" A splintering crash followed his words. Encrid's keen intuition immediately located its source: above and behind him. "Fuck, what is this?!"

Another man's shout followed. It came from above a bed. There were two beds, and the sound came from directly above the one Jaxon had chosen. Then came the loud rip of tearing cloth. It seemed Jaxon had tried to do something, only to be blocked by the cloth attached to the ceiling. The moment it tore, something dropped out. "Hss!"

Esther cried out at the sight. The falling object looked like a leather ball, and it promptly burst with a pop. It could hardly be called an explosion. There was no pressure wave or flash of light. Green smoke merely billowed out. Encrid felt dizzy before he even smelled anything. Poison smoke. On top of that, an arrow whistled through the window. Encrid knocked it aside with a short swing of his sword. It struck with a crack, split through the middle of the shaft, and bounced onto the floor. A stray arrow was always dangerous, but he was dodging daggers thrown right in his face. This hardly qualified as a threat. The poison smoke, however, was another matter. While his attention was drawn behind him, the bushy-bearded man slammed the door shut beyond the dead servant and tavern keeper. 'Block the door and poison me to death?'

Encrid held his breath, then turned sideways without hesitation. Arrows waited outside the window, and the bushy-bearded man held his ground beyond the door. Should he break down the door?

No. With things having gone wrong, he felt sure something would be waiting there, too. It was intuition, his Sixth Sense. And it was right. The bushy-bearded bandit had set off the prepared poison ball the moment he saw Encrid's swordsmanship. Two or three breaths of the stuff would twist a man's guts until he puked himself to death. But it spread over only a small area and had no effect unless inhaled. If Encrid pushed through the door, he intended to release more of the same in the corridor. The bushy-bearded man thought:

'Stupid bastard. Who do you think you are, barging in here?' He did not know who his opponent was. He saw only a fool who had come here without knowing any better. This village was one of the Black Blade Bandits' principal business operations. Would its guards be mere drifters? That bastard of an officer had recently gathered up the first-rate assassins and taken them away, but plenty of formidable fighters remained. Above all, this was one of their strongholds. Despite his appearance, the bushy-bearded man was a strategist who knew how to layer his schemes two and three deep. He had anticipated, assessed, and restricted his opponent's actions.

Or so he believed. Encrid did not concern himself with what the bushy-bearded man was doing, or even with what had just happened. All of that could wait. Esther's reaction alone told him the poison smoke was dangerous. But it did not spread quickly. It was heavy smoke. What weight could smoke have? Still, that was how it looked. Rather than spreading far, it rolled out in a dense mass. The problem was that the area it occupied overlapped with where Encrid stood. Then all he had to do was stop them from overlapping. He turned. There was no need even to steady his breathing. The inn was a hastily built wooden structure with thin walls. Thin enough to hear Sinar and Pin talking through them. The bandits had deliberately made sound carry easily so they could monitor their guests. Of course, Encrid had no need to know that, either. He turned and swung his sword at the wall. He did not even need Ragna's Scission. The blade sliced straight through the wall. After two more cuts, he kicked it. Several posts and wall planks broke with a crunch, leaving a hole large enough for a person. He went through it into the next room. The Fairy Company Commander and Pin should have been there, but instead he found three men with glittering eyes. "The fuck?"

One of the men muttered. They all had rather foul mouths. Encrid did not hesitate. The smoke had not reached this room, so he breathed out easily and swung his sword. SHICK, SHICK, THUNK! Two short swings cut two throats, and he pierced the last man's heart. A Frog would be horrified to see that. Setting the fleeting thought aside, Encrid punched the wall beside the window with his gloved fist. CRASH! The window frame and part of the wall shattered. Even a timber-framed building had bricks here and there, but Encrid smashed through all of it with brute strength. A few more arrows flew in from outside. He easily dodged or broke them and leaped out, landing on the roof of the neighboring house and rolling sideways. Arrows thudded into the spot he had just occupied as he rolled. One came flying toward where its shooter expected his roll to take him. Encrid slapped the roof with his palm mid-roll. The roof broke open with a bang. The recoil propelled him sideways even faster, and the arrow still struck only the spot he had passed through. Then he rolled smoothly off the roof, landed below, and leaned his back against the wall. A hand shot out of the window as though it had been waiting. Of course, he had known it was there. Without hesitation, he caught the emerging wrist and bent it. Breaking it required no special technique. He used brute force. A crisp crack rang out with a scream. CRACK! "Aaaaargh!" These men had less endurance than the assassins who had come before. Screaming over this? Encrid yanked the broken wrist forward with all his strength. A bang and a choked grunt came from beyond the wall at the same time. The man was probably unconscious or dead. Encrid released the broken wrist, shook off his hand, and stepped into the broad clearing before the inn. Things were bound to go wrong. Not everything went according to plan. That was only natural. What did you do next, then? You adapted as you went. The Black Blade Bandits guarding the village did not know it, but with Encrid's abilities, stamina, and skill, he did not actually need the troops the Fairy Company Commander had prepared. The bandits had no idea. "What the hell is that bastard? Kill him!"

Someone shouted. Encrid found himself impressed by these bastards all over again. More than one or two had shown themselves. There were at least twenty, and their numbers were still growing. Men with glittering eyes and blades in hand kept popping up from somewhere. "Well, you're awfully good at fighting..."

One of them stood blocking his way ahead: the guard whose sentences trailed off. He was the man who had most caught Encrid's attention upon entering the village. In other words, Encrid judged that this trailing-voiced guard was the best with a weapon, the most skilled man present. "Ahh... Couldn't you just be good and diiie..."

His manner of speaking did not seem to be an act. HISSS! Esther had slipped out of the inn and landed beside Encrid. "The rest of your group should be dead by nooow..."

Encrid neither smiled nor reacted to the man's words. He merely looked around, then asked,

"The whole village?" "You're quick on the uptake, too."

The reply came from behind him, accompanied by a metallic clacking. Someone stood there wearing claws on both hands. A young woman, to be precise. Each claw gleamed with three jutting blades. Encrid looked at her face and thought,

'Was that what she had hidden against her thigh?'

The claw blades were very long, long enough to pierce a person's torso. She was the woman with the unusual way of moving whom he had seen in passing. The second person to catch his attention, in other words. The third was nowhere in sight. "Where are you from? You look like a soldier. Not a mercenary. Whose orders are you following? What idiot sent you?"

The woman questioned him again. Encrid spoke.

"Every last one of you? Got a pot of honey hidden here or something?"

The woman frowned at his response. They were both answering questions with more questions. "You don't understand the situation you're in, do you?" "If it isn't a pot of honey, it must be a pot of drugs."

Encrid spoke as he surveyed his surroundings. He had not answered her question, but he had more or less finished assessing the situation. The number surrounding him had passed thirty and reached about fifty. Every one of them was light on their feet. They all knew their way around a blade.

Even so...

'They all seem worse than the visitors we get in Border Guard.' There were a few clumsy ones, too, who had only just begun handling blades. Some of their movements looked familiar. They had the same feel as the assassins who had come for him before. That was only natural. Where else would the Black Blade officer have found his first-rate assassins? They had all come from strongholds established by the Black Blade Bandits. Places they called burrows. Of course, a few exceptionally skilled fighters had remained behind to protect the village. Two of them now flanked Encrid, one in front and one behind. "That pathetic acting, those awkward mannerisms. What are you people, really?"

The woman did not lose her temper. Encrid had tried to needle her gently, but it had not worked. She was fairly good at keeping her composure. "We could kill him, or capture him and ask..."

The man who had been the guard spoke from behind him. Encrid still found these people impressive. Their swelling numbers, their current actions, the way things were unfolding. What did it all mean?

This entire village was a bandit gang. 'They turned an entire village into a bandit gang.'

It was evidence of just how powerful the Black Blade Bandits were. Where on earth did they find so many people willing to become bandits? Should that frighten him, then?

No. Encrid let out a small laugh without realizing it. Beside him, Esther glanced up.

'Why is he laughing?' Encrid was secretly delighted. Black Blade seemed to possess extraordinary strength. Obstacles, predicaments, hardships, crises, impediments, walls, death, the ferryman, even the bleak feeling of being unable to see a way forward. Encrid knew how to enjoy "difficulty." It was enjoyable because it was difficult. And because it was enjoyable, he felt eager to act again. So, if asked whether the people flanking him posed a threat...

'No, not really.'

That was Encrid's assessment.