Walm was struggling with the adventurer who suddenly accelerated his movement and attack, but when his friends were injured one after another, the movement of the man in front of him clearly slowed down, and finally, the decisive end should be reached soon. Walm’s halberd pierced the shoulder of an adventurer called Al, as it was, Walm pushed him to a large tree.
“You’re not used to killing humans huh… Really, I envy you.”
“Aaaaaahhh, aaaAAAHHH!!!”
Perhaps he was a person with good companionship. As a human, he was admirable. That was why Walm felt sympathetic to him. He wasn’t suitable for the battlefield. He tried to pull out the halberd, but his cries weren’t helpful at all.
After a short break, Walm pulled out the longsword and tried to cut his neck with a single horizontal slash.
If he died, the rest would be easy.
There, Walm’s skin exposed from the armor caught the wind. It wasn’t a natural wind. The intuition that helped him survive on the battlefield until now conveyed an unprecedented sense of crisis. A storm broke out next to Walm who had barely jumped away. Its power and density were incomparable to those of a wind blade made with Mana. Walm turned over, but a sharp pain ran in his right arm. Small scratches could be seen on the armor, numerous scratches were carved on the exposed fingers and joints, and blood spilled.
“What is this magic!?”
Is this some kind of trump card? Damn it!
While cursing in his heart, Walm then searched for a magic user, and there was a girl who was about to be killed by Walm. Her frightened face he saw not long ago, wasn’t there as if it was a lie, and she was glaring at Walm with a sharp eye.
“Was it you?”
Walm was trying to close the gap, but the next shot came without a break.
“Don’t F*ck with me”
Walm jumped behind the trees. The trees involved in the attack were cut. The soldiers involved in the attack, their blood scattered in the forest. It was really an attack with tremendous power. Perhaps the rapid-shoot was effective, not only Walm but also the wind randomly overran the forest.
“It’s a ranged attack. Scatteeer!! Don’t group up!!”
At the direction of Squad Commander Duwei, the soldiers evacuated to a place where they could hide. Walm was no exception. By the time the wind stopped, adventurers and a few soldiers had begun to flee. The adventurer that Walm stuck on the big tree had also disappeared.
Walm picked up a blood-soaked halberd and realized that he failed to kill him from the amount of bleeding.
“With that great attack, even so in succession, they didn’t get killed?”
Willart said so while wiping the soil and branches on his body.
“No doubt. More than that, it was just a little more, I almost got him.”
The Squad Commander, who carried a war hammer on his shoulder, looked ashamed.
“Squad Commander, what about the chase?”
Jose, who accompanied Noor and Barito, also appeared through the gaps in the trees.
“Of course, No need. The main force of the defeated soldiers has been destroyed. The rest is only the residue of the adventurers and the Myard soldiers who are not commanded. The rest is the work of other squads. We don’t have to be so hardworking.”
“Roger. Then, I’m gonna gather the injured enemies and survivors. Oi, you guys, you didn’t help in the battle, let’s go.”
“T-that’s not true!”
Barito screamed in protest, but was poked by Jose and closed his mouth. Noor was smarter because she didn’t make unnecessary resistance.
Walm looked out over the forest while wearing a tourniquet himself. The rest would be the work of other corps. If those adventurers were lucky, they might be able to escape. Walm opened and gripped his fingers to check his numb arm. The sword the enemy used was sharp, and each blow was heavy.
The salvation was that the adventurers weren’t used to killing people, nor seeing their friends killed either. If the adventurers were accustomed to human death, it might have been Walm who was exposing the skeleton by this time. The words of the female adventurer who escaped, repeatedly crossed Walm’s mind.
“I don’t kill others because I like it.”
Without telling anyone, Walm muttered so. It might sound funny. It might sound ironic. No one would believe such words in a forest filled with corpses. In truth, as long as you fight only the monsters that were the natural enemy of humankind, you wouldn’t have to taste such a human conflict, but for Walm, who had become a soldier of the Highserk Empire, it was unavoidable.
4 more years huh…
―― Walm would be able to choose whether he would want to discharge or not, in four years. Some started their business with the salaries and loot they got in wars, and others returned to their hometowns to buy fields and settle down. Some continued to fight as soldiers, while others become adventurers. Desperate to live in the present, Walm never thought about the future.
Is it unusual for someone who just killed people, to think about himself?
―― the adventurers who mourned the injuries and deaths of their peers and raised their anger were undoubtedly more human in Walm’s eyes. Walm was aware that the better he was as a soldier, the less human he was.
By the time he was discharged, he was worried whether he would still be the same Walm as now.
SIGH!!
After Walm sighed a little, he wiped the blood from the longsword, and collected the halberd.
And so, the forest was regaining its tranquility.
◆
“Run Leethia. Or do you want to die?”
It was Fleck who carried Al and Amy on his back. He lost his right eyeball and had numerous lacerations all over his body, but he was mildly injured amongst the party. Even with Fleck, who was running around the forest with a large shield, the two adventurers were a great weight. Still, he couldn’t let go. Fleck overcame the hazy field of vision with just his fighting spirit.
“Everyone, everyone is, Lefty is…!!”
“I know!! Lefty is okay. Think of how many times he has been saved from a crisis.”
Fleck knew that even if he didn’t like it, the wrath of the Highserk soldiers might come from behind. The only salvation was that the two soldiers who had deeply injured Fleck and Al weren’t chasing. So, Lefty became a decoy to let the party members and the leftover Myard soldiers escape successfully.
Lefty, who had a bad mouth and was quick to lose money, was easily mistaken as someone ruthless, but Fleck knew that he was a man that might be saved from a disaster even if he bet his own life.
“He’s okay”
Fleck kept running, telling himself so. Blood was overflowing from the two people on his back, and their lives were at stake
