Ch.61Escape Under the Moonlight (2)

The knights of the Albania Duchy were continuing their pursuit through the forest. The sun had already risen to its zenith, yet they hadn’t found any proper traces.

Perhaps this was to be expected.

They had no information to aid their pursuit.

They hadn’t even seen the intruder’s face, let alone their build or silhouette. As if a ghost had come and gone, there wasn’t a single trace left in the villa to deduce anything about the intruder. They could only guess that the intruder was a skilled Ranger or someone of similar caliber.

However, that assumption offered little comfort.

It was extremely difficult to catch a Ranger skilled enough to conceal their presence from knights, especially one determined to escape. The only consolation was that their target was accompanied by a “hostage with an injured ankle.”

‘They couldn’t have gone far.’

The ducal knight, Palaizin, walked deep into the forest. This was the forest one had to cross to reach Cambria, City of Opportunity. Taking a detour around this forest would require a long time.

The target would likely try to escape to Cambria, so there was a high probability they would pass through or try to break through this route. That’s why Palaizin and several other knights were searching the forest thoroughly.

‘The Knight Commander has gone ahead with the First Pursuit Team, cutting across the forest. If he gets ahead of the fugitive and blocks the path…’

His role was to find traces and block the retreat route.

Palaizin hadn’t forgotten his duty.

Despite the sun being at its zenith, the forest was dim, shadowed by dense vegetation. He walked through the dark forest.

Flinch.

Suddenly, Palaizin stopped in his tracks.

He narrowed his eyes and looked around. Though he didn’t sense anyone’s presence, his sharply raised instinct warned him.

Something was nearby. Not a judgment based on rational evidence, but the cry of animal instinct.

Yet looking around, he saw nothing. Just vegetation swaying in the breeze. The rustling of fallen leaves and birdsong. Was his instinct wrong? Well, it’s not often right anyway. Just as he was thinking this.

A shadow fell over his head.

In an instant, he snapped his eyes open and jerked his head upward. His hand reached for the sword at his waist. However, just as he was about to draw it, he saw.

‘…A piece of clothing?’

What was fluttering above his head was a robe.

A robe that seemed to have been thrown off. The moment Palaizin’s attention was drawn to the fluttering robe above his head. Tak! The sound of someone kicking off the ground echoed in Palaizin’s ears.

“…!”

The moment Palaizin turned his head toward the sound, it was already too late. Diverted attention, delayed response—these created a fatal opening.

Just as Palaizin was about to draw his sword, Najin was already right in front of him.

Najin stretched both hands forward. His left hand toward Palaizin’s face, and his right hand toward the sword Palaizin was trying to draw from his waist. Both outstretched hands almost simultaneously achieved their purposes.

Grab! And, Clang!

Najin’s left hand covered Palaizin’s eyes and gripped his face. His right hand struck down the sword that was about to be drawn, forcing it back into its scabbard. A surprise attack. Blocked vision. A sword that couldn’t be drawn. Yet even in this situation, Palaizin responded.

Because he was a well-trained knight.

Palaizin drew up his mana and tried to shake off the attacker gripping his face. This was the best judgment he could make at the moment, but from the moment he allowed the surprise attack and his vision was blocked, the situation was far from ideal.

Crack.

He felt an impact on his leg. The sound of armor crumpling was heard. He felt a grip strong enough to crush his head. Pain, noise, the sensation of his body tilting.

And then, Thud!

A dull impact felt at the back of his head.

Palaizin’s body shook briefly, but the impact didn’t end there. With his vision still blocked, something repeatedly struck Palaizin’s temple. The impact that shook his head came several times.

Crack, Crunch, Crunch…

His outstretched hands were knocked away, and his legs, which tried to struggle, were fixed to the ground as if stepped on. The reaction speed was different. The physical abilities were different. In the pitch-black vision, the attacker struck Palaizin’s temple over and over.

“Ugh…!”

No matter how well-trained a knight he was, he couldn’t withstand concentrated blows to the temple. Just as he was about to groan, whatever was striking his temple hit his jaw. His mouth was shut, and his scream was cut off.

A momentary blackout.

But even that blackout didn’t last long.

“…!”

Sparks flying in the black vision, pain that shook his brain through his spine—Palaizin regained consciousness. He wanted to scream, but as if something was in his mouth, no scream came out. Something was covering his eyes, so he couldn’t assess the situation.

Eventually, the presence disappeared. Palaizin removed whatever was covering his face with his barely moving hand and spat out the cloth in his mouth.

“This is insane…”

And then, he faced it.

A completely shattered greave and an ankle twisted at a strange angle. He couldn’t move. He groaned at the stinging pain from his ankle.

“Is anyone, is anyone there!”

He shouted.

There was no answer. No, that wasn’t true. There was a sound coming back. Crack, Crunch… The sound of something being struck and muffled screams.

And then, Crack.

An eerie sound echoed through the forest.

Hearing the sound from far away, Palaizin gritted his teeth and crawled on his palms. The sound echoed from all directions.

After crawling for a while, what he encountered at the source of the sound was… a knight embedded in a tree with his plate armor completely crumpled. Crawling a bit further, there was one knight sprawled on the ground foaming at the mouth, and another knight screaming while holding his ankle.

Including Palaizin, there were four knights dispatched to this forest.

All four had their ankles shattered.

Palaizin’s face turned deathly pale.

Four knights were defeated without proper resistance, each taken down individually. And their ankles were shattered. It meant that although the attacker could have killed them, they chose not to.

“What is this……”

It sent chills down his spine.

Along with fear, what he felt was confusion. Palaizin and the other three knights couldn’t understand why they were defeated or how they were subdued.

It wasn’t a defeat by an absolute level.

It felt like they had been played with from beginning to end. Their vision was diverted, they were ambushed, they allowed the initial strike, and the openings created were exploited to thoroughly trample them. They couldn’t understand the entire process.

Reaction speed beyond a Sword Expert.

Eyes that read actions and anticipated the next move.

Operational power to draw up mana in an instant.

And the bold, instantaneous judgment to strike.

Najin, who possessed all these qualities, already had no match within the same realm. Especially in a forest like this with many places to hide. Of course, the ducal knights had no way of knowing this fact.

2.

Dieta looked at Najin with incredulous eyes.

“So, you’re saying you shattered four knights and came back?”

“Yes. They were investigating the route to Cambria.”

“Why bother…? We’re not going that way.”

“That’s exactly why.”

Najin, who suddenly said he was going somewhere, kept disappearing and reappearing. And when he returned, he said he had shattered knights far away.

“The enemy won’t be certain of our destination, right? They’ll likely think we’re heading back to Cambria.”

“I… guess so?”

“Moreover, the enemy doesn’t know our position or my appearance. It’s frustrating for the pursuers. I didn’t leave any traces either.”

So he decided to create more confusion.

That’s what Najin answered.

“If knights investigating the forest we’ve already passed through are attacked, what will the enemy think? Are they nearby? Are they this close? Are they definitely escaping in this direction?”

They’ll have many thoughts.

All those speculations will have reasons. Or they might think this itself is a decoy… but nothing is certain.

“They won’t be able to make a proper judgment. And it’s an effective strategy as it can reduce the pursuit team’s strength.”

“Wait, wait a moment.”

Dieta interrupted Najin.

“For that… there are quite a few required conditions.”

She muttered, folding her fingers.

You must leave no traces, you must not expose your face or build to the knights, erasing any advantage, and you must also have the ability to quickly travel from there to here.

Each condition is absurd. However, when Najin heard these conditions, he tilted his head.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“What…?”

“I did all that, so don’t worry.”

He was calmly saying that he had maintained all those conditions during the attack. Dieta exhaled in disbelief at his words. What is this man?

Of course, for Najin, there was nothing strange about it.

After all, he was Najin, who had evaded the notorious Order’s shadow operatives for days and killed more than ten of them. Originally, if he were alone, he was confident that he would “never” be caught by knights.

Because Dieta was with him, he had to buy time and rest periodically, which is why he used such methods.

“That aside.”

Najin glanced at Dieta’s ankle.

After seating Dieta on a suitable rock, Najin carefully unwrapped the bandage around her ankle. Each time Najin’s fingers touched her skin during the process, Dieta flinched.

“Does it hurt?”

“A, a little.”

Dieta’s face was strangely flushed.

Najin, thinking he should be more careful, slowly unwrapped the bandage. The wound on her ankle, oozing with discharge, came into Najin’s view.

“Please bear with it a little.”

He wiped the discharge from the wound with a clean cloth and applied a gauze soaked in potion to the wound. During this process, Dieta flinched and gripped Najin’s clothes tightly with her head bowed. It was quite a painful process.

But it was a necessary process. If they couldn’t treat the injury, they had to at least prevent it from getting worse.

After replacing it with a clean bandage, Najin stood up. Dieta rubbed her face with her sleeve. With slightly reddened eyes, she looked at Najin.

“It still hurts quite a bit.”

“It’s understandable. It would be better to get proper treatment quickly, but…”

“Then we’d be caught. It’s okay. I can still endure it.”

Dieta smiled faintly. Najin silently looked at her, then let out a short breath.

“It’s not much of a revenge, but…”

“Huh?”

“I did shatter the knights’ ankles.”

Concerned that killing the ducal knights would make future dealings troublesome, Najin compromised by shattering their ankles. That level of injury could be recovered later.

“I could have shattered their knees too, but I thought ankles might be better while I was at it.”

Najin glanced at Dieta’s ankle.

Among the knights he attacked, there might have been one who contributed to severing the tendons in Dieta’s ankle. Thinking about it, Najin felt a bit of regret that he didn’t break them more.

Blink.

Looking at Najin, Dieta blinked several times. Then, as if she finally understood his meaning, she covered her mouth and laughed.

“Thank you. That’s a bit comforting.”

“You don’t look particularly comforted, though.”

“Well, honestly, seeing them suffer the same fate as me doesn’t really give me any benefit, so it’s not particularly satisfying.”

Dieta looked at Najin with a smile.

“But since you did it for me, I’m a bit happy.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it feels good.”

Smiling brightly, Dieta stretched her arms toward Najin.

“Shall we go then?”

Dieta had gradually gotten used to being carried on Najin’s back. At first, she felt embarrassed, but now she knew how to enjoy the ride on Najin’s quite solid back.

Clinging.

Clinging to Najin’s back and wrapping her arms around him, Dieta exclaimed with a voice tinged with laughter.

“Let’s go!”

“You seem strangely happy.”

“This escape under the moonlight, it’s more fun than I thought. It’s a bit embarrassing to say since I’m in a position of receiving help, but I can’t help enjoying it.”

“It’s actually broad daylight right now.”

“Let’s not sweat the small stuff.”

Najin chuckled and went along with Dieta’s rhythm. After all, her bright face now was more pleasant to see than the dying expression she had at the villa.

With Dieta on his back, Najin started running.

3.

Four knights were attacked.

They were found with their ankles shattered. Traces were found. The found traces were scattered. The direction couldn’t be determined. It was as if traces were left intentionally.

News kept coming in. Each time news arrived, Griffin, the Knight Commander of the Albania Duchy, frowned.

“What kind of person is this?”

He couldn’t track the direction.

The person was adept at erasing traces. Just when he thought the expected route was this way, traces would be found in unexpected places, and even knights were being attacked.

He couldn’t understand what the person was thinking.

This wasn’t the work of someone who had done this only once or twice.

But what was most incomprehensible was… the process of subduing the four knights. Knights who claimed they were individually defeated in the forest. Among those four knights, none had seen the attacker.

They were ambushed. Their vision was blocked. Something was put over their faces, they were beaten, and they lost consciousness. When they regained consciousness, their ankles were shattered…

What kind of ridiculous testimony was this?

They weren’t just anyone; they were knights. Knights who had reached the realm of Sword Expert. The Albania Duchy wasn’t a martial house, so the level of their knights wasn’t that high, but still, they were from a ducal family.

That means they were above average.

How could such knights be defeated so easily? Was it really a Sword Seeker? Only a Sword Seeker could subdue them so cleanly.

“Kaufman Theosis.”

Is it really you?

Griffin, who was suspecting the most renowned Ranger in the adventurer city, clicked his tongue. No, if it were him, he would have shot through the knights’ ankles from a distance.

“Sigh…”

More and more pursuit teams were being attached.

If they deployed more forces, rumors would start to leak outside, and suspicions would arise. With a throbbing headache, Griffin lit a cigarette.

Enough time had already been wasted. They couldn’t afford to be played with and waste more time. Just as Griffin was pondering a solution.

Tweet.

With a cry, a carrier pigeon landed beside Griffin. Griffin unfolded the letter attached to the pigeon. It was a letter written by Duke Ottoman himself.

“……”

He silently read the letter. After reading it, he briefly muttered, “As expected.”

“Ostrum County.”

“Kloepsch County.”

“Trebache Viscounty.”

Three candidate locations. The letter contained a map marking the routes to these locations and the transit points they would pass through. These were destinations that Ottoman could deduce, using exactly the same method Dieta had thought of.

Focus on the routes to these three places, not Cambria. That was Ottoman’s message.

Griffin reorganized the pursuit team and prepared to depart. After giving instructions, he mounted his warhorse and began riding toward the most likely route.

Knight Commander Griffin.

His destination was Trebache Viscounty.