Chapter 286 - The Ageless Madman

The words had barely left his mouth when a sharp spearhead plunged toward Rem's head. A vertical stab. Rem kicked off the ground and flung himself sideways, but the spear followed as though it had eyes, changing direction freely in midair. 'An ancestral weapon?'

Before he could voice the question, Rem swung his axes. The axe in his right hand struck the shaft, while he turned the left sideways to block the spearhead with its broad face. CLANG! CRACK! Half success, half failure. He blocked the spearhead, but the impact broke his cracked rib. Still, he had snapped the shaft, so it counted as half a success. 'Fooled me.'

It wasn't an ancestral weapon. Ancestral weapons were something like artifacts passed down in the West, though they were entirely different from what this part of the continent called artifacts. No ancestral weapon would break so easily. He had deliberately struck it believing it was one, intending to sever its "bond" with that blow. An ancestral weapon needed a bond with its owner to function. "Impressive."

That Rem had withstood the attack went unsaid. The westerner who had appeared came into view. "What the hell are you?"

Rem was incredulous. That single blow had told him enough.

'He's strong.'

Strength, speed, skill at targeting an opponent. He excelled at all of them. This was no mediocre mercenary. "We're on a battlefield, killing and getting killed. Why ask?"

His opponent answered while tapping his shoulder with that distinctive javelin, utterly at ease. His appearance was peculiar. A leather breastplate covered his chest, leather guards wrapped his legs from shin to thigh, and matching guards ran from the backs of his hands to his shoulders. He was covered in leather from head to toe. His hair was graying, but while half his face was covered in wrinkles, the other half was as pale and smooth as a child's. Anyone could see how unnatural that face was. He released the spear he had been tapping against his shoulder. Rather than fall to the ground, it stopped at knee height and floated in midair.

'What kind of bullshit is this?'

What was that supposed to be?

'A technique?' It wasn't a magical or shamanic spell. No, it certainly felt like shamanism, but he could sense no shamanic power in the spear itself. In other words, it was floating there on its own despite not being an ancestral weapon. Showing weakness would do him no good, so Rem raised his left arm to unobtrusively cover his side. Pain followed, but if he couldn't bear this much, he would have been dead a fucking long time ago. "Go quietly."

"Where? Home? Why? Got something for me?" Rem kept up his habitual patter as he hunted for an opening. Each time he prepared to hurl an axe, his opponent shifted his footing. Above all, that floating spear bothered him. It hovered within a fixed radius of the man's body, looking ready to fly at him at any moment. 'Where did this thing come crawling out of?'

Those three wolf demonic beasts had cost him a rib. Easy as it might have looked, it had been a vicious fight. Vicious enough that the Cultists' Wolf Bishop would fly into a rage over losing the beasts he had raised. But the beasts weren't the problem now. "I'll rip out your tongue." WHOOSH. A javelin flew at him before the words had finished. Not the one in front of the man's right knee. This came from his left hand, which he had slipped behind his back. Rem pictured its trajectory and swung his axe. It was the swing Encrid so often described as a flash of light. BOOM! A deafening crash erupted as the javelin ricocheted away, and the shock sent a tingling tremor through Rem's hand. The floating spear came flying after it. How could he use it like that when it wasn't an ancestral weapon? There was no finding an answer now. Rem swung his axes again and again. CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! Spearheads met axe blades, striking red sparks in the air. The flying sparks gave off heat. Sweat began running down his body, the cold seemingly forgotten. The heat of the warming stone tucked inside his clothes was becoming a nuisance. CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG-CLANG! All the while, the spears kept drawing back and stabbing. No matter how often he knocked them away, they came flying back. Around the eightieth time he blocked a spearhead, Rem stamped his left foot down, shattering a stone embedded in the ground. Fragments burst forward, one thick chunk rising between them. THUNK! A spearhead pierced the stone and stopped. With that spear's movement restricted, however briefly, he struck the remaining spearhead aside with his right-hand axe. Then he threw the axe in his left hand. It reached the enemy's head in an instant. It looked set to split his skull and lodge there as always, but instead it stopped in midair. Blade and haft trembled violently. "So that's what you've been using."

Rem had finally caught on, more or less. His opponent tilted his head.

"Only half-trained, were you?" That smooth skin, so at odds with his white hair. Rem knew who he was. In truth, he had realized it some time ago.

"The lunatic chasing eternal youth. You're the Ageless Madman, aren't you?"

"Knowing that won't save you." He spoke with a gentle smile. It was inherently grotesque, naturally enough with a face like his. Rem recalled a story he had heard back in his tribe, then put it aside. "Half-trained, never properly taught. And how many have you broken on the left there? Two? Three?"

His opponent posed the question. Pushing himself too hard with cracked ribs had broken two of them. Only bracing with his muscles had kept it to that. One small mistake and a broken bone might have punctured a lung or another organ and killed him. Nor could he dispute being called half-trained. It was true. He had reworked some of the techniques learned from his tribe into methods of his own and mastered them. But he had given up the other things he truly needed to learn and receive. That was why he was incomplete. "You haven't even properly learned the arts. Nor have you inherited a spirit." WHIRRRR. As he spoke, the man took a small metal pellet from inside his clothes. The blue shape of a beast shimmered around his left arm.

'Ah, shamanism.'

Spirit invocation, at that. The beast's strength would be dwelling in that left arm, added to his natural power. The simple pebble in his hand felt like a tremendous threat. Rem considered it for the briefest moment. Spirit invocation, shamanism, whatever the fuck it was. His ribs were broken, and blocking the two spearheads had strained his left ankle a little, but putting all that aside...

'Go all out and kill him?'

He could do it if he put his life on the line. But was there any need? He might look like a thickheaded warrior who didn't know how to retreat, but Rem lived life however he pleased. Which meant... "Hey."

He addressed the man. The Ageless Madman, the bastard who had exterminated a western tribe and fled with all its secret arts, answered.

"What?"

"See you around."

"... What?" Rem pulled two fist-sized, paper-wrapped balls from inside his clothes. WHIZ! The instant he saw them, his opponent threw a javelin. Independently of the incoming weapon, the balls Rem had produced burst with a pop. Gray smoke quickly billowed up, obscuring the view. WHOOSH! The javelin passed through the smoke, but the crash and splintering that followed announced only that it had shattered a tree.

"You little..." The ageless barbarian listened. But his opponent was too skilled a hunter to track by sound. Hunters were generally as good at hiding as they were at tracking. Still, giving up would be absurd. The Ageless Madman closed his eyes, then opened them. Blue light shone from them. Shamanism. As the spell fueled by his shamanic power took effect, his eyes pierced through obstacles.

"Run all you like."

He set off, following the trail his eyes had found. His pace was no slower than Rem's.

* * *

"Is he off having fun?"

The question was almost a remark to himself. Every member of the Company nodded as though agreeing with Encrid.

"Well, he'll come back when he's ready." Encrid wasn't worried about Rem. It wasn't because he had no time to spare for worry just now. This was Rem. The mad barbarian. The man responsible for their nickname, the Lunatic Company. "Perhaps he's gone straight back to his homeland."

Jaxon made an unnecessary remark. It sounded like wishful thinking. Those two really were fond of one another. Just look at how worried he sounded now that Rem was gone. "Right. Nothing to worry about," Encrid said as he tended his sword.

"... Me? Worried?"

Killing intent seeped from Jaxon. One wrong word now and he looked ready to stab someone. "Ho ho. Our barbarous brother must be having a nap somewhere before returning."

Audin smoothed things over, more or less. Worry? There was none. Encrid pictured Rem.

'He'll come back when he's ready.'

That was how he was. He would have his fun and return on his own. When they returned to the main army, they learned that Krais's operation had been a resounding success. Sinar had beheaded four commanders, and the Cultists had lost some of their supplies.

"Rem? Probably off having fun somewhere."

That was Krais's response to the gray-haired barbarian's absence. Even the man who was forever talking about bad feelings and anxiety reacted that way. Encrid likewise thought he should simply keep doing his job. So he did, watching and taking stock of how the situation would unfold. "The enemy?"

"Doing what we intended."

They were back in Graham's barracks. Who would win if they fought both armies head-on in the first place?

"Who else? Aspen." The ones sitting back and watching would sweep up the entire region. That was why they couldn't pull out the army deployed to Green Pearl. If anything, that army was asking them for reinforcements. Aspen's encampment must be in a position aggressive enough to warrant it. They would attack if things took the wrong turn. So this was the only option. Krais had to break up Black Blade's and the Cultists' armies with minimal losses.

'We don't need to kill them all.'

Break their morale and make them retreat. They only needed to buy time, and they had to do it while preserving as much of their own strength as possible. This was the best move to achieve that. Hurt both enemies before they attacked. Then leave them no choice but to engage in an all-out battle. Just one battle. Use it to break the enemy and drive them back. They had to make the enemy collapse and retreat on its own. These were the conditions needed. "First, we break the blade the enemy has prepared. That part is up to you, Captain."

Krais had spent days considering what he would do as Black Blade's commander or the man in charge of the Cultists. This was the answer he had reached. They were wary of the Lunatic Company. Even without knowing its exact strength, they would have prepared at least one secret weapon. Meeting it unprepared would cost them dearly. 'Make them bring it out in an all-out battle.'

Reeling from their destroyed supplies and lost commanders, the two forces would unite. They would also realize this was not a fight they could afford to drag out. And with Encrid's presence on top of that...

'That'll be more than enough to draw it out.' "Second, Viscount Tarnin has to die."

Cut away their pretext.

"Third, we have to rush to Green Pearl as soon as the battle ends."

In other words, they had to finish before Aspen moved. "If this goes wrong, we'll all be buried here," Graham said.

Krais had no intention of being buried here, come what may, but he gave a perfunctory nod. Either way, it was true that many people would be staking their lives on this fight. As Krais intended, the Cultists, deprived of some of their supplies, joined Black Blade's main force instead of requisitioning supplies from the surrounding villages. The combined armies of Black Blade and the Cultists began advancing toward the broad plain. Border Guard's standing army left its walls behind and marched out to meet them. Holding a defensive position would be tantamount to telling Aspen, "The back of my head is wide open. Hit it all you like." They had to march out. A bitter wind carried dust between the two forces. Beneath a dark sky, on dry, frozen ground, the two armies faced each other. "We have to win."

The Lunatic Company stood clustered near the center of the stage. Krais had come out with them. If the battle went badly, he would have to run anyway, so he needed to stay close to Encrid. Encrid guessed his motives but let him be. He thought it a reasonably sound principle to act on. 'Have to win, do we?'

Encrid mulled over Krais's words. If they needed a victory, he didn't think he necessarily had to be the one to win it. In the end, all they needed was to show a winning fight. Several thoughts flashed through his mind, but he said nothing to Krais. From here on, it was time for those who held swords. He was just about to step forward. CLOP-CLOP! CLOP-CLOP! An enemy rider came out and threw something roughly halfway between the two armies, just beyond arrow range.

"What's that now?"

Vengeance squinted and muttered to himself.

"Go get it."

He promptly gave the order. One of the scouts rode out and retrieved it. Soon it reached Encrid's hands. It was a familiar weapon. Ragna looked at the recovered axe.

"A memento of the late barbarian."

"Hmm. I'll dig him a grave. We can bury it with him."

Ragna and Jaxon each had something to say. They certainly worked well together at times like this. Some soldiers recognized the axe, and a few of those had noticed Rem's absence. A stir ran through part of the army.

"What? Captain Rem's dead?"

"No, they said he'd burned those Cultist bastards' barracks a few days ago..."

"He didn't come back then."

"Isn't he on another mission?"

"What could be more urgent than this?" Encrid let the surrounding voices pass through one ear and out the other as he examined the axe. Its edge was badly chipped, and it bore many ugly gouges. It had clearly seen a rough fight.

"Looks like he'll be having some fun before coming back," he said. "We could just call him dead."

This time it was Dunbachel muttering. They were all such sincere people. Every last one of them sounded deeply heartfelt. Letting their remarks go in one ear and out the other, Encrid watched the enemy. Wolf demonic beasts crowded one side, while human troops filled the other. The allied forces of Black Blade and the Cultists. From among them, Viscount Tarnin emerged in chain mail that did not suit him and shouted. "I shall personally cut off these rebels' heads and lay them before the king! Behead the scum who dared plot rebellion!"

He raised his sword high as he spoke. He had a good set of lungs. His voice was quite loud, and carried far, perhaps thanks to a magical tool. But no one moved. "That fucking idiot."

Krais cursed the pig, who was worth nothing beyond the pretext he provided.