Encroachment

At the end of that path, Winston’s father-in-law and village chief, Edgar, walked towards him, chuckling.

“Come on, son-in-law. Just give up now. Hehe.”

Winston looked at his Edgar with disbelief and asked,

“Why are you doing this?”

“Doing what?”

“If I’ve done something wrong, I’ll gladly accept the punishment. But I haven’t done anything wrong. There’s no reason for the villagers to denounce me.”

“It’s for a greater cause. If you just help us a little, wouldn’t it be a win-win situation?”

“How do you want me to help?”

“If you take this medicine, you’ll fall asleep for a bit and then wake up.”

The hundreds of villagers around them shouted in unison, agreeing.

“Captain Winston, take the medicine!”

“We don’t want to fight.”

“Winston, just give up!”

Winston felt like he was going crazy.

First, he needed to know if this situation was the villagers’ own will or if they were being controlled by some force.

“I can’t just take medicine without a reason. What is this great cause?! Did you create it?”

“How could someone insignificant like me create a cause? This is for our master.”

“Who is this master?”

“Our master is our god and king. The one who leads us. The one who will change the world.”

“I see it now. You’re all being controlled. If I defeat you and kill this bastard you call master, it’ll all be over.”

At that moment, the faces of the villagers, including Edgar, contorted into hideous expressions, and they shouted at Winston with rage-filled voices.

“You can’t speak so carelessly about him!”

“Watch your mouth, Winston!”

“Kuaaaak! Don’t insult our master!”

The sight of hundreds of villagers around him, their eyes filled with madness and expressing their rage, even made Winston feel disgusted.

But Winston was a veteran soldier who had survived countless life-or-death battles.

Winston sheathed his magic sword, took a half-step back with his right foot, and raised both hands to assume a basic boxing guard stance.

Winston was once called the rising star of the Hamel Empire for his martial prowess.

Winston decided to knock out all the villagers by hitting only their vital points, then capture Edgar and find out the location of this master bastard.

Winston steeled his resolve.

‘The danger of death was there in the past too. I always overcame it and I’m still alive here. This crisis is just another mountain to climb.’

Winston swayed his upper body slightly and stepped back and forth as he said,

“Come on.”

His beast-like eyes seemed to pierce through stone.

Edgar shouted with a venomous face.

“Get him!”

Hundreds of villagers screamed in unison and rushed towards Winston from all directions.

From Winston’s left, a man swung a rake quickly towards Winston’s head.

Winston moved his right foot half a step to the right and then his left foot half a step to the right, dodging the rake by a hair’s breadth.

From the right, a woman swung a club diagonally.

As the left man’s rake hit the ground with inertia, Winston charged into the man’s now-empty front and landed a right straight on the man’s jaw.

Dodging the club was a bonus!

Pajik!

With the sound of the man’s jaw cracking, the man flew backward, colliding with the villagers and causing them to fall backward in a heap.

“Kuaaak!”

“Hold on!”

The impact on his jaw shook his brain, even stunning the brain-parasitic tentacles, causing the man to pass out.

As a spear thrust at Winston from his right, Winston knocked the spear away with his right hand, deflecting its path.

Winston moved his left foot half a step to the right and quickly rotated his body around his left foot as a pivot, striking the jaw of the man holding the spear with his right elbow.

Peoeok!

The man’s jaw twisted as he flew sideways.

The villagers screamed.

“Wake up!”

“His movements are fast! Don’t just swing wildly!”

Winston dodged the occasional arrows and magic with weaving movements of his upper body.

From behind Winston, a woman stabbed a dagger towards his lungs, and from the right, another woman swung a club from above.

Before the dagger could stab him, Winston’s right foot had already landed a back kick on the back of the neck of the woman behind him.

“Kehk! Kehkehk!”

The woman flew away.

Winston twisted his center of gravity, his left foot, and his waist to the right, then lifted his right foot up and slammed it down in a Brazilian kick, striking the woman holding the club on the collarbone.

Pajik!

The woman who was struck on the collarbone dropped the club and crashed to the ground.

“Kyaaak!”

Now, a muscle pig with a height of 190cm was swinging a huge two-handed battle hammer down towards Winston’s head at tremendous speed.

He couldn’t block it, he had to dodge it quickly with a small movement.

Winston quickly moved his right foot half a step to the left and slightly rotated his body around his left foot as a pivot, getting out of the hammer’s path.

The hammer collided with the ground.

Kuaaaang!

The ground shook and a crater was created.

Winston’s body didn’t even flinch by 1mm.

When Winston briefly looked at the giant’s face, he realized it was the butcher he often visited.

‘Was it true that he used to mince Orcs when he was younger?’

The giant’s hammer now flew towards Winston’s left knee.

Winston dodged the hammer by slightly moving his left foot half a step back.

Due to the inertia of the hammer’s weight, a gap was created in the giant’s front.

Winston charged into the giant’s front and landed a left swing on the giant’s jaw.

Taang!

The giant’s jaw was pushed back, his eyes glazed over, and he collapsed.

Winston muttered.

“I’ll apologize when it’s all over.”

All of these things happened in a short amount of time.

Winston dodged or deflected the villagers’ attacks with minimal movement and knocked them out by attacking their vital points.

While Winston was fighting, he sensed a different kind of danger from behind.

A projectile was approaching Winston’s back at a very high speed.

‘If I get hit by that, I’ll die. I can’t dodge that speed, I have to deflect it.’

Winston drew his magic sword with his right hand, maintaining that speed, and slightly turned his body to deflect the projectile.

Chaeng!

The green, baseball-sized projectile bounced off and hit another villager’s chest.

The villager’s chest melted, revealing bone and internal organs.

Chik! Chiik!

“Kkeuaaaak!”

Soon, a hole was blown through him, and the villager died.

Winston was shocked.

“Crazy!”

The battle entered a lull.

Winston looked at the place where the projectile had come from, and there was Edgar.

Edgar had unbuttoned his shirt, revealing his upper body, and tentacles were coming out of his chest.

Green liquid was dripping from the ends of the tentacles.

It seemed certain that he had fired the green projectile from there.

Winston asked Edgar with a grim face.

“What are you?”

“No respect for your father-in-law.”

“Edgar is dead.”

Winston resolved to deal with that thing and moved towards Edgar with his sword.

Edgar shouted in a hurried voice.

“Charge at him all at once and overwhelm him with numbers!”

The villagers dropped their weapons and rushed towards Winston from all directions.

They were trying to overwhelm Winston from all sides and capture him.

“Uaaaaaa!”

“Press him! Press him!”

“Pin him down!”

As the villagers rushed at him like zombies, Winston was caught in the middle.

“Keuk!”

The villagers pressed down on him from all sides with their bodies.

Winston could kill them all if he unleashed his aura, but he couldn’t just kill all the villagers to catch a monster.

It hadn’t been confirmed yet whether the villagers had been completely subjugated by the monster or not.

Edgar’s stomach stretched open, and dozens of brown tentacles came out of it.

The closed flower buds at the ends of the tentacles swelled up as if they were about to burst, and then the holes at the ends opened, spraying green and yellow liquid into the air like a fountain.

Acidic poison rained down from the air.

Edgar was planning to melt Winston by sacrificing the villagers as well.

As the acidic poison was falling, Winston let out a huge roar and cast a war cry infused with aura.

“Uwoeoeeeeeeee!”

A spherical shockwave spread out from Winston’s body, blowing away the acidic poison and even the villagers.

The villagers screamed as they flew away.

“Euaaaak!”

“Kyaaaaaaaak!”

Afterward, only Winston was standing.

Winston loosened his neck and shoulders.

Pudeuk! Pududeuk!

‘Now, I’ll eliminate what used to be Edgar.’

Winston drew his sword and ran towards Edgar.

Edgar shouted urgently.

“Family!”

Pause.

Winston’s sword stopped before it could cut Edgar’s tentacles.

“What do you mean?”

“If you kill me, you won’t be able to ignore your wife and two daughters.”

Winston felt immense anger and anxiety.

“What have you done to my family!”

“They’re still safe. Hehehe. Why don’t you go home and see?”

“If anything happens to my wife and two daughters, I’ll track you and that bastard you call master to the ends of hell and grind you into pig feed!”

“Don’t insult my master. Let him go!”

As Edgar commanded, the remaining villagers stepped back, creating a path.

Winston didn’t look back and quickly ran towards his house.

Even though it was night, many people, including children, were walking around and chatting or working on the streets of Winston’s village.

The strange thing was that there had been a huge commotion, and Winston was running around urgently, but no one seemed to care.

Winston looked at this bizarre phenomenon and thought to himself.

‘This village has already been almost completely subjugated. When did this start happening? Damn it! Jazlyn and Ilya have to be safe.’

Winston arrived at his house and kicked the door open with his shoulder.

Inside the living room, his wife and two daughters were waiting for him as if nothing had happened.

Winston thought it was a relief.

‘Edgar was lying because he was afraid of dying.’

His wife asked Winston, who had an uneasy expression,

“Honey, what’s wrong?”

Jazlyn also asked Winston.

“Daddy! Why are you breathing so hard?”

“This is a real situation. Pack your bags quickly. We’re leaving here right now.”

His wife asked again.

“What’s going on?”

“Sigh… the village has been almost completely subjugated by monsters. We’ll have to walk a lot, so pack only the essentials and let’s get out of here right away.”

His two daughters started to tear up.

“Daddy… it’s my birthday today…”

“No time to joke around! We’ll all die if we stay here! Listen to me!”

“Uwaaaang!”

The two daughters started crying with tears streaming down their faces.

The two daughters were still young, so they weren’t used to this kind of situation.

Winston briefly blamed his insensitivity and started hugging and comforting his children.

“My beloved Jazlyn and Ilya. Let’s go to the capital of the Gale Kingdom. Daddy will buy you everything you want there. Stop crying now.”

His wife also understood the situation and came to comfort her two daughters.

“You have to listen to your dad.”

The moment Winston’s wife tried to bring her mouth close to Winston’s ear, Winston sensed danger and pushed his wife away.

U-dang-tang

“Kyaaak!”

“Daddy! Uwaaang!”

“Daddy got mad at Mommy. Waaah!”

There was a very small tentacle-like thing attached to his wife’s lips.

“Damn it! She’s already infected!”

Winston couldn’t bring himself to kill his family.

Winston even thought about knocking out his family, putting them in sacks, and running away from Bradon Village with them.

‘No. If I kill what used to be Edgar and that bastard called master, they’ll go back to normal.’

Winston got up from his seat and tried to go out the door.

His wife and children stopped Winston.

“Honey. We’ll die on our own if we leave this village.”

“Damn it…”

“Daddy. Please be on our side!”

“We’ll all commit suicide if Daddy leaves!”

“Damn it! Damn it!”

“Daddy. It’s my birthday today. Please be on our side!”

His wife and children kept talking to Winston so that he couldn’t go outside.

The last bastion of humanity left in Winston, who had mercilessly cut down even his subordinates, was probably ‘family’.

The strength drained from Winston’s grip, and the sword fell to the floor.

Jjaenggeureureu

The strength drained from Winston’s body.

Winston knelt down and supported himself on the floor with both hands.

Hot tears fell from Winston’s eyes to the floor.

“Sob. Sobsob. Why is this happening? Why! Would things have changed if I had come a little faster? Damn it. Sob.”

The children came and hugged their dad from both sides.

“Daddy, don’t cry.”

“Daddy is still our daddy. So be on our side!”

“Honey~ come here.”

Winston looked up at his wife.

His wife was sitting on the sofa, tapping her thigh with her hand.

It was the lap pillow that Winston had loved the most when he was young and dating his wife.

As if possessed, Winston lay down on the sofa and put his head on his wife’s lap.

His wife stroked Winston’s head with a gentle touch.

Winston recalled the memories.

‘It’s been years since I’ve had a lap pillow…’

Ilya shouted in an excited voice.

“Daddy. Let’s play doctor again after a long time!”

Jazlyn put her ear to where Winston’s heart was and said.

“Daddy’s heart is weird. Ilya, we have to examine Daddy!”

“Okay!”

Ilya and Jazlyn poked their fingers into their dad’s chest and stomach and played.

Winston closed his eyes with tears streaming down his face.

‘It’s been a long time since I’ve played with my children…’

Maybe he was being punished for not making his family happy enough.

Was this a sign from heaven to get closer to his family, even if it was like this?

Ilya asked.

“Daddy. Are you on our side now?”

“Yes. Hahaha.”

Winston lovingly stroked Ilya’s head with his hand.

He felt something being brought to his nose by his wife.

If he used his strength right now, he could break that hand, but Winston remained still.

“Kids. Does this hurt a lot?”

Ilya answered.

“No! And even if you’re on our side, you’re still our daddy!”

Jazlyn also shouted excitedly.

“Yay! If you’re on our side, are you going to give me my birthday present!”

Tears streamed endlessly from Winston’s eyes.

Winston’s expression looked as relaxed as someone who had given up everything.

Something entered his nose, and with a stinging sensation in his sinuses, Winston’s memory was cut off.