Ch.113Church Training (1)

Frider and Demian watched silently as the men walked out of the chapel.

Four young men. Each carrying crude iron swords and spears.

They all looked quite young, as if the elders had assigned all the troublesome tasks to the younger ones.

None of them appeared to be older than twenty-five.

Their shirt hems were carelessly crumpled, and their faces were flushed red.

It was obvious what they had been doing. Frider glared at them with disgust.

The men swung their weapons recklessly while constantly grumbling.

“Damn, it was just getting good. What’s this all about?”

“Is that really important right now, idiot? If we’ve been discovered, we need to run before we die!”

Jack, a brown-haired young man with a fierce look, snapped nervously while constantly scanning his surroundings.

Unlike the other relaxed men, he was visibly anxious.

“There are fifty people in the village. Won’t the adults handle it…?”

“That’s what I’m saying. Jack here is always worrying about useless things.”

“What the hell is wrong with you idiots? Have you ever actually seen knights or adventurers fight? You think they look easy to handle while you’re high and whining all day?”

Frustrated by their stupidity, Jack yelled angrily.

The two men flinched at his shout.

“Hey, Paul! You’ve seen knights before, right? Explain it to these bastards!”

The blond man called Paul ignored Jack’s call and stared blankly toward the village.

“Shit. Paul, what are you doing? Not answering?”

Jack grabbed Paul’s shoulder with a frown and shook him roughly, as if trying to wake him up.

Still, Paul couldn’t take his eyes off the village.

“Jack. What is that…?”

Paul muttered blankly, pointing toward the center of the village. His fingertip trembled.

“What? What are you looking at…huh?”

Jack, who was about to curse, stood with his mouth agape.

Even he, who had lived his entire life with curses on his lips, was speechless at the surreal sight in the distance.

Jack unconsciously rubbed his eyes, hoping he was seeing things wrong.

Nothing changed.

A person was flying through the air. Vertically, with fountains of blood spraying from their ankles.

It wasn’t quite right to call it flying.

The word “flying” only applies when one can move freely through the air.

A person without wings couldn’t move through the air just by flailing their limbs.

So this should be considered falling. Just in the opposite direction.

After blinking once at the unbelievable sight, the person falling toward the night sky began to return in the correct direction.

Jack nodded with relief.

Yes. Falling should properly be directed toward the ground. Falling toward the sky isn’t right.

‘Wait, what the hell am I thinking right now!’

Jack’s mind finally snapped back to reality after his confused rambling.

He hurriedly looked back.

The two men who had been relaxed earlier now wore dumbfounded expressions, having apparently witnessed the same sight.

“Hey, Jack… can knights make people fly into the sky…?”

“Of course not! It must be a mage! There must have been a mage among those who arrived today!”

Jack screamed in panic.

This was no time to waste. They needed to alert everyone and escape immediately.

‘Damn it, why a mage…! Weren’t all four of them carrying swords and bows?’

Though Jack had never seen a mage before, he’d heard that high-level mages could burn down entire villages with just a few words.

A mage who could send people flying vertically dozens of meters—what else could it be but one of those legendary high-level mages?

Considering the villagers’ capabilities, they’d likely be annihilated even by an ordinary mage.

At this rate, they would all die.

Sure enough, agonizing screams were already echoing throughout the village.

“Uh, uhh…? The villagers…!”

“Are those bastards important right now? We’re all about to die! Call everyone from below! We need to escape this village immediately…!”

Jack never imagined he would be rendered speechless twice in one day.

But the mage accomplished this quite easily by throwing burning people all around the village.

The village lit up as bright as day.

Jack gritted his teeth.

Paul collapsed as his legs gave out. Jack kicked him.

“Get up, you bastard! Run if you want to live! And you two, what are you still doing here?!”

“R-right!”

The two dazed men rushed into the building.

‘Good, according to plan!’

Instead of following them, Jack forcibly pulled Paul up and slapped him hard across the face.

Paul’s head snapped to the side, and he seemed to come to his senses as he clutched his cheek.

“J-Jack?”

“You want to live, Paul? Then listen carefully. We need to run right now. Understand?”

“Huh…? But the people in the basement…”

“If we wait for them to come out, we’ll all die! They’re bait. Bait to distract the mage while we escape! With thirty of them, they won’t notice two guys who escaped first! I’ll run to the left, you run to the right. Got it?!”

“B-but…!”

“I said go, you bastard!!”

Jack punched Paul in the face. Blood spurted from Paul’s nose.

After hesitating, Paul ran to the right.

“That’s right, run hard, you idiot.”

Jack muttered quietly.

The stupid Paul hadn’t realized that right was east. Where the flames were approaching.

Having sent off his final insurance, Jack started to run to the left.

Or rather, he tried to.

“Not stupid, I’ll give you that. Though your character is garbage.”

A cold female voice. One he would have been happy to hear in the chapel basement.

Not now, though.

Before Jack could respond, a strong hand covered his mouth and pulled him back.

It was a woman’s gloved hand.

Jack struggled desperately but couldn’t escape her grip.

His wrist snapped, and the sword he was holding fell to the ground.

‘Fuck, fuck, fuuuck!!’

Desperately searching for a way to escape, Jack remembered something he’d heard before.

When your mouth is covered, try licking the hand. Especially effective with women, they said.

Even with gloves, the instinctive disgust often makes them remove their hand and push away.

Jack followed this advice and swirled his tongue.

Indeed, it had an effect.

Frider’s brow contorted into an indescribable shape.

“You… crazy bastard…!”

Frider’s voice trembled with intense revulsion.

And Jack regretted not having heard about the side effects of this method failing.

Jack’s tongue was ripped right out.

“Graaaeek!”

Jack’s body convulsed as he let out an unintelligible scream through the gushing blood.

After tossing away the tongue, Frider sawed through Jack’s hamstrings.

Bloody flesh tore away.

Jack collapsed, his knees reduced to bone.

Unable to scream properly because of the blood flooding his throat.

Grinding her teeth, Frider violently stomped on Jack’s prone body.

“How! Dare! You! Put! That! Filthy! Tongue!! Against! Me! Disgusting! Trash! Bastard!!”

Her heel stabbed down repeatedly, mercilessly mutilating Jack’s body.

Though not at Haschal’s level, her well-trained leg strength combined with steel-reinforced heels was more than enough to destroy a human body.

Leg bones, shoulder blades, arms, even ribs crushed under pressure, breaking into pieces.

All while carefully avoiding the spine.

A rational decision.

If the nerves were damaged, he wouldn’t properly feel the pain.

Blood clots erupted from Jack’s mouth, likely from bone fragments tearing his internal organs.

Frider stopped stomping and grabbed the saw, swinging it madly.

Pieces of flesh fountained upward.

When Frider finally stopped sawing, only the scattered remains of a shattered human lay at her feet.

“Haa, haa… really…!”

Breathing heavily and trembling, Frider eventually let out a long sigh. Her anger had subsided somewhat.

‘I had things to ask him. It’s impossible to get answers now.’

Frider clicked her tongue as she looked down at the fragments that had been Jack.

She had lost control of her anger. It was shameful behavior unworthy of the Faelrun name.

But it couldn’t be helped. It was her first time encountering such a person.

Frider removed her left glove and irritably tossed aside the soiled leather glove.

‘Still, fortunate that there were two trying to escape.’

“Senior Frider?”

As she expected, Demian returned from the opposite direction, dragging someone along.

It was Paul.

“L-let me go…!”

He couldn’t resist properly, suggesting his limbs were broken.

“Ah, Demian. Welcome back.”

Frider greeted Demian while swinging her saw to shake off the congealed blood and flesh fragments.

She felt somewhat embarrassed inside.

After lecturing him like a senior should, she had failed to do her own job properly and turned someone she needed to interrogate into pieces of meat.

Fortunately, Demian didn’t seem to mind much.

More precisely, he appeared completely unfazed, showing no reaction to the bone fragments and flesh pieces floating in the sea of blood.

‘I suppose that’s fitting for Haschal’s friend…?’

Frider let out a small laugh.