An adventurer standing in front of Humphreys rolled to the side to dodge out of the way of the oncoming golem and the monstrous man following right behind it.
Ahh... I should have done that, too. You’re smart.
In the time it took that thought to pass through his mind, the golem horse’s half-destroyed head...didn’t hit him.
I dodged? It missed? I’m okay? No, that can’t be. I mean, look, now he’s swinging his axe!
＊
Splutch. Gaius kicked the knight’s body away, pulling his axe out of the fresh corpse’s head, then twisted his body to behead a sorcerer next to him with a backhanded swipe from the same hand. Then, using his other axe, he severed an archer’s right arm and swung down at a swordsman in front of him.
“Yipe!” The swordsman defended skillfully, diverting his blow. The fact that one of these fighters was skilled enough to block the heavy axe — even at the cost of his sword — was proof that this great slush of “adventurers” contained people of all different skill levels and abilities.
With an impressed grunt, Gaius caught his balance and decided to go after his still-galloping golem steed instead of attacking the man again. The front ranks of the group that he’d just hit were at the peak of their confusion and likely wouldn’t be able to pursue him even though almost no time had passed. He had achieved his goal.
Catching up to Claudette quickly, Gaius leapt deliberately into the line of soldiers and swung his axes around him. It appeared chaotic, but his attacks were carefully planned. He focused on the long-range attackers, swinging his blade at archers, those with magic staves, and particularly sorcerers.
“W-Waaah?!”
“My hand! My hand!”
“Help—”
With each swing, arms and heads went flying, transforming the line into a scene from Hell itself. Those who survived would later describe falling under the terrible delusion that this one man would methodically cut through each and every one of the one hundred and seventy men in their force. That was how savage a spectacle it was.
Of course, Gaius wasn’t some immortal from legend. By the time he’d rendered a dozen men dead or otherwise unable to fight, he’d been hit some four times himself. Two of the blows had been weak enough that he’d caught them on his coat of plate, but the other two had reached his skin. One slash had gone through his leather armor and upper arm and a thrust had grazed his cheek. Both attacks had come from skilled fighters.
Shouldn’t stay here any longer. As soon as Gaius thought that, his axe buried itself in an enemy’s breastplate. Feeling the blade pierce flesh and metal to lodge itself in bone, Gaius abandoned it without a second thought, determining it too difficult to remove quickly.
“Claudette! Let’s go!” Gaius called out to his trusty steed and fled into the eastern woods, kicking away any adventurer unfortunate enough to be in his path.
＊
Gaius ran through the trees, zig-zagging along a serpentine path to avoid any projectiles fired after him. An arrow whooshed past his ear, and the shouts of the adventurers followed him...but he couldn’t allow himself to escape completely. It was part of their plan, and his goal of protecting the village, for Gaius to lure the adventurers east of the riverbed and stop them there.
“Ah, how dreadful! Ohhh, dreadful! Just dreadful!” The elder popped his head out of Gaius’s rucksack, wide-eyed and yelping.
“You okay, old-timer?” Gaius asked him, still running.
“Do you always do this sort of thing?!”
“Not always, no... I’d be dead if I did.”
“You surely would!” On “would,” a magic bolt slammed into a nearby tree and the old kobold squealed in shock. “Just so you know...! In that melée back there, I got a little startled and may have wet myself a bit! Forgive me!” The old man apologized, flustered.
“Hahaha. It’s to be expected for a new recruit in his first battle. Try not to let it bother you.” Laughing, Gaius had Claudette match his pace, and he plucked a war pick from the weapons adorning her back. Now he was armed in both hands again after losing one of his battleaxes earlier. “Why, in my very first battle, I was on the receiving end of a cavalry charge. I was so scared, I shit myself! Hahaha.”
“Huh?! Shitting yourself... That’s a bit much, isn’t it...?”
“Wha...?”
“...”
“...”
“Hahaha!” The two old men laughed together.
“All right, ya big lug! Incoming message! Five quick ones are going around us to cut us off! Be ready for them!”
“Got it! We’re pushing through!”
The two men glanced to their sides. Just as they’d been warned, they could see their prey through some trees, overtaking them.
＊
Meanwhile, the assault team had led their pursuers deeper into the forest, striking them another three times as they did. Even Darke and Rain Grass were breathing hard now, and their force had lost another two of its members. One had been killed in one of their strikes and the other was heavily wounded, but they’d gotten a report that he’d managed to hide himself in a tree.
When the day had started, Darke’s attack team was twelve strong. They were down to eight now. That meant that the Kobold Kingdom’s full army of forty-nine had been reduced to forty-one now. On the other side, the adventurers had started with three hundred thirty-one, including several knights, and had been reduced to about three hundred. Looking at just the numbers, the kobolds were doing more than well for themselves, but in terms of ratio, their losses were huge. Their numbers were just too different.
The attack team was fulfilling their role, but they were becoming exhausted. Noticing Darke in particular starting to slow down, the adventurers couldn’t hide their excitement. They scrambled after her, racing to see who would be the one to take her down. Their fervor was understandable. Wyatt had put a sizable bounty on the head of every kobold warrior, using guild funds both public and private and even throwing in his personal funds to pay for them. If an adventurer took home three kobold heads, they’d be paid enough for an average commoner family to live in luxury for an entire year. This was an unprecedented bounty. They’d even get half for exterminating non-combatant villagers. And the female fighter who stood with the monsters was worth twenty of their heads. If they could take out the ringleader commanding the kobolds and conspiring against the Marquisate of Northplain, they’d receive fifty times the bounty. Wyatt had actually stood in front of them all at the guild and left a mountain of gold coins on the receptionist’s desk before they had set out, showing them that his bounty rates weren’t empty promises. This was a true once-in-a-lifetime, get-rich-quick opportunity for easy money.