“I didn’t hear anything about this, Seligman!”
There were still injured adventurers and corpses lying in the riverbed from Gaius Beldarus’s assault.
A middle-aged man with one eye and a scar running from his forehead to his jaw was yelling, enraged, at the knight who now commanded their main force. “You never said anything about the Black fucking Rose of Igris being here!” The man commanded one of the most skilled parties registered with the guild and was normally a calm, quiet person, so seeing him with so little composure was more than a little shocking to Seligman.
“This is a highly political issue. And in the first place, did you really think there would be such a vast bounty involved if it was any old bandit?!” The young knight refuted the man’s complaints with a bitter expression on his face. His tone was harsher than it needed to be, but he was shaken by having instantly lost a colleague and several soldiers, as well as irritated at their opponent having taken the initiative against them.
“Well, you’re right about that! It had better be vast! I was there, with the Allies, in the Five Year War, and I fought against that monster! Get a good look at this scar! He gave me this!”
“Ha! Well, that’s perfect! You get your chance at revenge, fifteen years later!”
“Are you an idiot?! Haven’t you heard the name ‘Slayer of Fifty’?! I was... The whole squad I was in was...”
“That’s even more reason, then. Fifty? We’ve still got almost a hundred and fifty men closing in on him. That’s three times fifty. Use your head!” Seligman used this argument as an opportunity to get a good grip on the current situation himself. “In fact, if you let him get away now, you might never get another opportunity for revenge.”
“I...”
“Now, go. Corner him, take his head, and bring it back here. It’ll make you some good money, and you’ll have your revenge, too. You’ll even become known as the man who took down the Black Rose of Igris. But if you let him get away now, all you’ll be left with is the fact that you were too scared to face him.”
The adventurer lowered his one eye to the ground and debated for a moment, but eventually he clucked his tongue and swore, gathering his party members and heading into the forest after Gaius.
Seligman watched him go and told himself: That’s right. I should think of this as good luck.
Gaius had appeared not before the guildmaster, but him. And with the death of his colleague, this was an opportunity for him to monopolize all the credit.
Seligman, the young knight who took down the Black Rose of Igris, who had fallen to being a lowly bandit. Regardless of what really happened, that was what the truth would be.
That’s right. Luck is on my side. I won’t get another chance like this.
He made himself think crass thoughts to shake off the shock of earlier. It wasn’t an admirable attitude, but it was necessary to encourage himself.
＊
“In the bush on the left there! One hiding!”
Gaius lifted his battleaxe up and threw it in response to the elder’s warning. The axe was chipped in places and starting to warp from smashing through several adventurers’ defenses, but it still succeeded in flipping through the air and slashing into the bush, drawing a short scream from the assassin hiding inside.
“Good work, old-timer!”
“Trying to ambush a kobold in the forest! Laughable! Behind you, to the right! It’s an archer!”
The Kobold King turned around and saw a bowman and crossbowman taking aim beyond some trees. “Claudette!” Before he even shouted, his golem horse got in front of him and knelt down. Gaius slid down behind the golem, and in the next instant: Whoosh! Fwoosh! Whap! Thud! Several projectiles sliced through the air above him or punctured Claudette’s body. The hardest impact to the golem’s body likely came from a crossbow bolt. These weapons packed more than enough punch to pierce infantrymen’s armor when there was no arrow-repelling magic on the battlefield, but the stones Gaius had added to Claudette’s clay and dirt body had prevented any bolts from piercing through her. This was a technique he had learned from his experience in battle.
“Oh, how dreadful! How dreadful!”
“Keep your head inside, please!”
Gaius used this opportunity to remove one of the weapons tied to Claudette’s flank, then he heard...
Rou...
...the sound of magical elements being refined, the distinct “chanting” of a sorcerer gathering energy to cast a magic spell. Two of them, actually, from the strange distortion of the sounds.
“Hey, lug! We’re cornered!”
While the two old men were running around trying to avoid their enemies, they’d been led into a crossfire the adventurers had been preparing. When he caught on, Gaius muttered “pretty impressive,” and took off running, a fresh headsman’s axe in his hand to replace the one he’d thrown into the bushes.
...aaa...eee...
When the sorcerers’ chanting finished, one magic bolt went off and missed the sprinting Gaius. He blocked the other with the wide blade of the headsman’s axe. The torrent of magical energy caused a third of the blade to shatter, and a fragment of metal nicked Gaius on the chin. The mass of iron was of course still large enough to smash skulls with, so when Gaius reached the sorcerers chanting for a second spell, he swung at one magic user with enough strength to splatter the sorcerer’s grey matter. The war pick in his other hand, its blade bent from Gaius’s rough handling, cracked into the neighboring sorcerer’s cheekbone, piercing his skull and ending their spells.
“Did you get ’em?!”
“Yep, moving on!”
Normally, he’d reunite with Claudette to replace his failing weapon, but he had no time to do so now. Crossbows took a long time to reload, but they were accurate and powerful. He had to disable the crossbowmen before they could have another chance to fire. He took off again without even taking time to catch his breath and zig-zagged through the trees to the area the earlier shots had been fired from.
The crossbowmen weren’t reloaded yet, just like he’d thought, but the archers were already loosing their next arrows. Reluctant to get any closer to them, all Gaius could do was move sideways through the trees. On top of that, there were some master archers with the adventurers who were able to aim and shoot faster than Gaius expected. He’d abandoned Claudette, who could act as his shield, and she was too far away to reach now. Loaded down with weapons and rocks as she was, she couldn’t keep up with her master’s top speed.
Stab. An arrow suddenly protruded from the leather around Gaius’s gut.
“Ugh?!”
“Hey, big guy!” The elder had been muttering something to himself, but he popped his head out of the rucksack at this.
“I’m all right, old-timer. The plate underneath stopped it.” Only Gaius’s armor, which was much thicker than a normal coat of plate, could have done that. The angle it hit at was good, too. But his good luck wouldn’t continue forever, and he couldn’t keep dodging forever, either. Plus, a crossbow bolt would definitely pierce his armor.
“Please put your head back inside. That’s not safe.”
“Just charge in, you dunderhead! I can stop them!”
His declaration seemed like it had to be a joke. He’d given no reason for Gaius to believe him, and nothing about the old kobold suggested he could back up that claim. Nevertheless, Gaius immediately responded, “Understood. I’m counting on you,” and sprung out from his hiding place, bursting forth in attack. He roared as his feet pounded the ground. Gaius didn’t doubt his partner for one second.
“Grwoooooooh!”
The archers flinched at his unexpected charge, but quickly took aim. The crossbowmen gave up on reloading and drew their close-range weapons, which was a smart decision. But at that same moment...
“Wind spirits! Answer my plea!” With the old kobold’s cry, a fierce gust assaulted the bowmen. The gust blew up a torrent of fallen leaves and pelted the archers with dirt.
“Ubh?!”
“Ack!”
“My eyes!”
It was just wind, just dust; it couldn’t hurt them. But it bought more than enough time for the mad beast rushing towards them to sink his claws into them.
The first man fell, the point of the war pick buried in his skull. The broken axe crashed into the side of the second’s head. Abandoning the damaged pick, Gaius grabbed the sword hand of one of the crossbowmen and dragged the man’s arm to plunge his blade into an archer’s throat, wielding the sword and the man as one weapon. A temporary accomplice to end the third man’s life, the crossbowman then became the fourth victim when Gaius buried his axe in the man’s face. Another crossbowman watched all this, slack-jawed, until Gaius caved that jaw in with a gauntleted blow, making him the fifth to die. The poor man next to him had gotten so much dust in his eyes that he immediately became the sixth as an axe smashed into him before he even regained his vision. The redheaded woman set to be the next in line dodged Gaius’s slash by a hair’s breadth and tossed her bow down, scrambling to run away. Gaius’s axe lodged into the trunk of a tree, and the rest of the archers gained a chance to flee as well. Shff. Gaius picked up a bow and arrow from one of the corpses and shot one of the fleeing adventurers. Seven...and the last. The rest had escaped behind trees, out of his line of fire.
Most of them had abandoned their weapons to flee as fast as they could. It was unlikely that he would again be the target of a fusillade any time soon.
Gaius panted to catch his breath as he pulled his axe from the tree, but the blade was even more chipped, its wooden handle broken in the middle. It wouldn’t survive another attack. Same with his war pick.
“Good work, old-timer. They don’t call you the Kingdom’s best shaman for nothing.”
“Well, the spirits have their own matters to attend to. Keep in mind that I can’t use that trick whenever I want.”
“I understand.” Gaius heeded the elder’s warning. Claudette finally caught up to them and trotted next to Gaius. He took his large sword, the as-yet-unused faussar, off the golem’s back. “How’s our strategy coming along?”
“Things appear to be going well for the attack team. And the little miss has messaged you to begin getting ready.”
“Guess we’ve gotta head back to the river, then.”
“Guess so. Well, you got another fight in you?”
“Indeed!” Shouldering his faussar, Gaius set off in that direction.