Chapter 125: Thief Group (5)

This was a nightmare.

A futile nightmare that would shatter with the rooster’s crow at dawn.

Even though I knew better than anyone that this was a vain attempt at escapism, I couldn’t stop repeating it to myself.

‘Why is this happening…!!’

I asked myself internally, but no answer came.

Maybe it was just bad luck. Or perhaps crossing the barrier as soon as it fell was a mistake from the start.

If we hadn’t crossed the barrier, could we have continued our meager existence?

No, such thoughts wouldn’t change anything now. The demon chasing me wasn’t here to offer enlightenment.

After running from him for a while, I suddenly realized I couldn’t hear footsteps anymore. I turned around, but the figure that had been shadowing me was gone.

There was no way I’d lost him. Had he deemed me too pathetic to bother with?

In such situations, one might think the pursuer had shown mercy, but after witnessing the earlier carnage, that possibility was nonexistent.

“Did I… survive?”

As I muttered to myself like a person in shock, I looked up to find a blood-soaked demon waiting for me, as if drenched in blood from head to toe.

“Peekaboo!!”

“Aaaahh!!”

I instinctively threw a punch at him, but my fist cut through empty air as if striking at insubstantial mist.

“Huh…?!”

When I came to my senses after reflexively throwing the punch, he had vanished as if he’d never been there.

Had I hallucinated from fear?

‘Maybe he really let me go, and I saw things because I was too scared…’

That comforting thought shattered the next moment when I felt someone tap my shoulder.

…I couldn’t turn around.

I didn’t want to, and even if I tried, my body wouldn’t respond as if paralyzed.

“Is anyone there?!!”

In the end, I chose to do what humans often do when faced with danger – call for help.

Desperately ignoring the touch on my shoulder, I shouted, hoping someone might still be in the village.

But no matter how loudly I yelled, no one came.

Listening closely, I realized the village was wrapped in a silence as dark and cold as the night sky.

It was quiet as if no one existed here except me and that demon behind me.

“They’re all dead. Or rather, should I say I killed them all?”

He chuckled, adding that either way, it didn’t make much difference.

“Were you too focused on running to notice? I cut down everyone I saw while chasing you around the village.”

Looking around after hearing this, I realized this was the house I’d jumped from earlier. I hadn’t noticed before in my panic to escape.

The window I’d leapt from was still broken, and a dried eyeball floated in a pool of blood on the ground.

As I hesitated, my gaze locked on that eyeball, I heard heavy footsteps from the house. A girl in snow-white armor descended.

“Ian, I’m done here. From what those women said, there don’t seem to be any more in this village.”

“Then we just need to finish up here. Did you dispel the magic?”

“Yes, there’s no need to hide anymore.”

Hearing that voice, I felt as if I’d seen a ray of light in endless darkness.

‘Didn’t he say that woman was the young lady of the von Grund family?’

Unlike the nameless woman I’d grabbed earlier, this one had real value as a hostage.

He was underestimating me now, and the young lady seemed completely off guard, not expecting to be attacked.

After a streak of bad luck, it felt like fortune was finally smiling on me, if only a little.

Seizing the moment, I lunged at the young lady like an eagle, our tribe’s symbol.

However, as if she’d anticipated this, she immediately reacted, swinging a fist charged with energy towards me.

“Ugh…!!”

Her fist was heavier than I’d expected.

I managed to block it in time, but if I hadn’t used energy, it surely would have broken my arm.

Her speed and strength were above average, though not exceptional. Still, it was enough to foil my surprise attack.

As I retreated after blocking her punch, the young lady drew a hammer from her waist. I asked her:

“…For a noble lady, you seem well-trained.”

“I had a mentor who was eccentric but… decent enough.”

“Decent? You forgot to mention kind.”

“Kind? Don’t joke…”

“I’m plenty kind. Look, even now I’m holding back my urge to kill immediately, just to train you by chasing him here.”

“Chasing?”

So the reason he hadn’t killed me until now was for this moment?

“You devil…!! What do you think human lives are?!”

“…Coming from someone like you, that’s pretty infuriating.”

Saying this, he slowly approached me without drawing his sword.

He’d done this earlier too. Strangely, he didn’t keep swinging his sword once drawn, but instead resheathed it and cut down enemies by drawing and striking in one motion.

It seemed like he was showing off. The fact that he only did this to weaker opponents, not daring to try it against stronger ones, made my blood boil.

“You petty bastard…”

“What? Suddenly feel like fighting? But petty bastard?”

He tilted his head, asking this as he watched me stand up.

His feigned ignorance only fueled my anger towards this detestable man.

“You think I’ll die here?! I’ll survive no matter what!! In a place like this…!! I can’t die to a petty bastard like you!!”

“What the hell are you…”

Before he could finish, I leapt high into the air, aiming a downward kick at his head.

Like an eagle swooping down to hunt its prey with sharp talons, I intended to crush his skull. But even as my kick landed squarely, he didn’t budge an inch.

It wasn’t his head that shattered, but the ground around him. As if the earth had absorbed all the impact meant for him, cracks spread across the ground.

“W-what…!!”

“A chieftain who doesn’t even know about ley lines… The level beyond the barrier must be lower than I thought. Or… did that bastard kill all the competent ones? Something similar happened here too.”

“What are you…”

“It doesn’t matter to you anymore.”

With those final words, he drew his sword. The setting sun reflected off the blade, making it glow an even deeper red as it sliced through my body.

—Raei  Translations—

“How disappointing…”

I’d had high hopes for my first encounter with a barbarian chieftain, expecting some skill, but his abilities were on par with Jessica’s – a mere novice.

‘Was he the type to rise through cunning rather than strength?’

Or perhaps Gintokang had killed all the strong ones, lowering the overall level of the barbarians.

With the capable ones dead at his hands and only the weak surviving, even chieftain-level fighters, who were treated as formidable in novels, had become pathetically weak.

‘When the protagonist crossed the barrier to save his fiancée, there was at least one who put up a good fight, even if he lost in the end…’

Seeing this, it seemed that one hadn’t even been born yet.

“Well, Jessica, shall we get going? There’s nothing left to do here. You said that’s all the women, right?”

“Yes, it’ll be troublesome, but let’s take them to the fortress and then set out again.”

“That’s fine, but about the carriage space…”

The carriage wasn’t very large, so we’d inevitably be cramped together. I worried that the women’s pungent smell of semen might rub off on us.

Having spent days in a barbarian den, they were probably pickled in semen. If that smell got on our clothes or the carriage, it would be easy for others to misunderstand.

“The space is tight, so why don’t we just tie them to the luggage compartment or roof like we did with the bandits?”

This way, we wouldn’t have to smell the semen, and they could air out as we traveled. It seemed like a win-win solution.

“What nonsense are you spouting now… Stop talking rubbish and help me move them. Some of the women had their legs injured as an example to prevent escape attempts.”

“Haa… Should we find a cart somewhere…”

I briefly regretted not “accidentally” blowing up the whole house earlier.

As I was about to head towards the stables, remembering seeing a cart there while walking around the village, I sensed someone watching from beyond the palisade.

I paused and turned towards it.

“What’s wrong? Is there something there?”

“Yeah, there is.”

Placing my hand on Wolffang’s hilt, I called out to whoever was hiding in the bushes.

“Come out before you end up dead.”