Chapter 4: Fixing the Broken Female Knight (3)

The mercenary assembly point was a veritable anthill.

The acrid smell of sweat, rusted iron, and cheap liquor mixed into a nauseating stench that stung the nose.

All of them must be the mercenaries participating in this subjugation.

It seemed he’d put some effort into increasing his numbers after yesterday’s humiliation.

Nineteen.

They were a hastily assembled ragtag group, but their immediate show of force was respectable enough.

A man in armor, who appeared to be the leader of the subjugation force, climbed onto a wooden box and shouted.

“Regular mercenaries will receive 10 silver coins! And as a special provision, those esteemed individuals who can handle mana will be paid 1 gold coin each!”

The noisy chatter died down as if by magic.

At the mention of 1 gold coin, the breathing of a few quickened.

But that was all.

Because in this rowdy crowd, there were only two people who could read the flow of mana.

“Let’s go get our gold.”

Our combined share would be 2 gold coins.

It was an amount that surpassed the entire pay of Victor’s mercenary group, which he had scraped together with nearly twenty men.

As expected, Victor just chewed on his lip, unable to add any comment.

The displeasure in his furtive glances was blatantly obvious.

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Throughout the entire climb up the slope, which was barely worthy of being called a road, no sense of tension could be found on the mercenaries’ faces.

They looked as if they were out for a light stroll.

Victor, who was leading the way at the front, sneered and said.

“Bandit subjugation… It’s so boring it makes me yawn.”

At his words, the surrounding mercenaries also relaxed their faces and giggled along.

To them, this subjugation was not a life-or-death battle.

“It’s one of the easiest types of missions.”

It was like a picnic where they would pick up a hefty sum of silver coins after a light walk.

But that leisurely atmosphere didn’t last long.

Whiz!

What shattered the silence was a dull, scraping sound.

Behind the trees.

In the bushes.

In the shadows of the rocks.

Bandits clad in drab leather clothes revealed themselves as if sprouting from the ground.

There was none of the clumsiness of ‘starving peasants’ in their movements.

Maintaining low stances, a few formed a wall with crude shields, while others behind them thrust out long spears.

It was a crude but clear formation.

“What can you vermin do even if you form a line!”

“You vermin!”

The first mercenary to charge out brandished his sword valiantly and cut down a bandit.
But in that moment, I foresaw that mercenary’s death.

He had pushed in too deep, and swung too wide.

Just as I thought, the bandits used their fallen comrade as bait and surrounded him in a perfect triangular formation.

While one drew his attention with a shield, sharp spears from both sides pierced the mercenary’s openings.

“Keoheok!”

With a scream, the mercenary’s body turned into a porcupine.
They weren’t ‘starving peasants’.
They were ‘hunters’ who moved far more systematically than the mercenaries of this area.

It was strange.

A mere group of bandits using tactics of this level?

That three-man cell formation, the move to throw bait and exploit weaknesses… it wasn’t something a motley crew could come up with on the spot.

It was a tactic used by a regular army, or an elite mercenary corps of equivalent standing.

Who on earth, and for what purpose, had taught military tactics to bandits?

“Damn it, support! Provide support, you f*cking bastards!”

Victor shouted urgently.

‘Serves him right.’

He was a guy who couldn’t even step on my shadow before.

His family was inferior to mine…

He was practically a cast-off from his family…

I didn’t like how he was strutting around just because the situation had changed.

But if the tables were turned like this, the gold coins that were supposed to come into my hands would also vanish into thin air.

It was about time for us to step in.

“Let’s go.”

A single short phrase.
The girl standing beside me nodded without a word.

A cold, blue energy was already swirling around her sword like a mist.

There was no longer a need to hide our power, nor a reason to.

Drawing my sword, I kicked off the ground and charged forward.

I am different from Victor.

Not a half-assed noble who can’t even sense mana…

But a true noble who received and completed knight training.

A proud Sword User.

My target was the bandits’ flank, the point where they were most carelessly exposed.

“The knights are stepping up!”

A knight and a Mana User weren’t strictly the same concept, but in their eyes, it would all look the same.

And if you considered us ‘knight-level combatants’, it wasn’t entirely wrong.

I was already cutting through the bandits like a gale.

The objective was clear.

To neutralize the enemy’s command structure, or their most threatening key figures, as quickly as possible.

The girl seemed to have grasped my intentions perfectly.

As I dug deep into the right flank, she began a surprise attack from the opposite side without any signal.

It was a natural coordination, as if we had worked together for a long time.

Come to think of it, she was said to be a real ‘knight’ by birth, wasn’t she?

This didn’t seem to be her first such experience.

Our joint attack completely turned the tide of the battle.

As mana-infused sword strikes tore through the bandits’ defensive line like a storm, their flimsy formation collapsed helplessly.

Some threw down their weapons and fled.

Some fell to their knees on the spot, begging for surrender with their hands clasped together.

It was a chaotic scene mixed with the smell of blood and dust, but a definite sense of relief that we had seized victory washed over the mercenaries like a wave.

“Whew… Is it over with this?”

“The knights are truly amazing.”

The other mercenaries finally seemed to relax, letting out ragged breaths.

A few sent gazes mixed with awe and a slight fear towards me and the girl, while others cheered and began to tie up the fallen bandits with ropes.

At this rate, the bandit subjugation mission would conclude successfully without any further casualties.

Everything seemed to be going as planned, no, even better.

It was then.

“Well now….”

From the deepest part of the forest, an darkness where even sunlight couldn’t properly reach, an aura of a completely different dimension revealed itself.

The ground vibrated faintly as if a giant boulder was rolling, and a sinister shadow crept out.

A giant over 2 meters tall.
The massive twin axes held in both hands glinted ominously in the light.

That aura… knight-level?

It was a pressure one would feel from a fairly high-level knight.

“As I thought, these borderland bandit groups aren’t even worth taking as subordinates.”

“You’re right, boss.”

“What should we do?”

“Sweep them away!”

At that overwhelming presence, the battlefield, which had been bustling with cheers of victory just a moment ago, froze in an instant.

Silence.

A skin-piercing chill that seemed to freeze even the dust particles in the air dominated the battlefield.

It wasn’t simple killing intent.
It was a physical pressure, like a giant rock crushing one’s chest.

The moment they saw the giant figure finally emerge from the darkness, the source of the pressure.

An old mercenary’s eyes widened in horror.

His lips trembled, barely letting out a sound like leaking air.

“I’ve seen him on a wanted poster. That’s ‘The Bull’.”

‘The Bull’.
That one word was the fuse.

The suppressed fear exploded all at once, like a bursting dam.

“Are you talking about the Sword Expert, Bull Jack?”

“Why is that madman, whose bounty alone is worth a minor lord’s territory for a year, here!”

“We were tricked! The guild bastards drove us into a death trap!”

The color drained from the faces of the mercenaries who had been anticipating victory just moments before.

Fear spreads like a plague.

Some dropped the weapons they held.

Some collapsed on the spot, trembling uncontrollably.

The battle line collapsed in an instant.

To be honest, I too couldn’t ignore the chilling sensation creeping up my spine.

Expert.

The weight that word carried in this world was not light.

A Sword User could also use sword aura, but Experts didn’t call it that.

Mock sword aura.

But even if we were looked down upon like that, we couldn’t say a single word in front of an Expert.

Because the moment their sword auras clashed, the Sword User’s would be shattered.

That thing…

‘We can’t win.’

‘Should I run?’

If I were to abandon everything right now and flee, I could probably save my own life and the girl’s.

That was the most rational and logical decision.

There was no need to invite danger against an entity that was out of our league.

The reward?

Of course, it’s important, but not worth trading my life for, is it?

Just at that moment, when everyone was terrified and thinking only of escape, or had already taken a few steps back to size up an escape route.

The girl standing next to me took an action that no one could have anticipated.

In the midst of that extreme chaos, as all the other mercenaries instinctively stepped back to survive, she alone moved forward.

“Is she insane!”

The thought flashed through my mind as I instinctively reached out to grab her arm.

That was a suicide mission.

He was an existence of a different class, one we could not dare to face.

But before my hand could reach her, I froze on the spot.

It was because the aura I felt from her had changed.

I even had the illusion that a single, well-honed treasured sword was advancing toward the battlefield of its own will.

‘Is this… is this child’s true form?’

The shout “Wait!” that was about to burst out was swallowed back into my throat in astonishment.

Those were not the steps of someone going to their death.

It was the charge of a predator, going to hunt… that thing.

Finally, the girl’s mouth opened.
What flowed out was not the language of our kingdom.

The stiff and authoritative tongue of the Empire.

It wasn’t a language I could speak fluently, but I could clearly understand that one word.

“I’ll go catch the bug.”