6-2. Chapter 6 (Part 2)
“Give the traitors the taste of your blade!… The first spear squad will be rewarded by Commander Berger.”
As if to respond to the voice of the commander of the Sarria battalion, the soldiers of the Sarria battalion were attacking like a demon. The first spear squad skewered a lot of guards of the ramparts, and threw them down from the top of the wall. Of course, it wasn’t without sacrifices. More than half of the first spear squads were defeated, but subsequent inflows didn’t stop. A messenger soldier ran to Walm and others who were still working at the bottom side.
“It’s a command from Liguria Battalion Commander. Don’t lag behind the Sarria battalion. Make a total attack and break through the walls.”
Walm agreed that now would be a great opportunity since many guards at the rampart had been killed.
“All forces, attack!!”
When the voice of the Liguria Battalion Commander roared on the battlefield, a signal of a mass assault was given. Grabbed the ladder, hid it in the shadow of the soldiers, and rushed to the wall all at once. The enemy’s counterattack started without hesitation, but the fire line was scarce.
“Noor, stay behind me.”
Walm ran in with the round shield on his back. A shock ran on the shield with a high-pitched sound. In addition to the arrow and stone, something hard hit the shin guard, but he couldn’t judge anything. Soldiers were climbing the hung ladder, but as more spear threw out from the wall passage, some ladder was removed from the wall, and the climbing soldiers fell.
While keeping an eye on the safe-looking ladder, walm started to climb. A soldier who stepped on a ladder in front of Walm was stabbed in the flank by an arrow shot from the side and crashed to the ground. The enemy archer tried to hang an arrow on his next prey, Walm, but an ice spear pierced his face and he began to flutter in the ramparts.
“Willart!!”
Walm knew the identity of the support.
While thanking his quiet and hairless companion, Willart, he continued to climb. Perhaps distracted by the magic, he could climb until the rampart without being noticed by enemies nearby.
As he reached the rampart, Walm momentarily thrust a longsword into the nape of the soldier in front of him. The soldier was stiff in that instant as the hole in his nape was fatal.
The soldiers around hadn’t responded yet. Walm then shook the longsword sideways and cut the head together with the armor. As the sword cut easily without any damage to the sword, he got into the high spirit.
Walm, who killed the soldier without chipping his blades, confronted a soldier who finally noticed the invasion.
“They’re climbing!!”
The soldier approached Walm, alerting their peers. He understood that this type of soldier had a lot of skill. The soldier slashed the longsword at first, but then he continued to thrust the sword. And with the fourth thrust, Walm also closed the gap as the enemy stepped in.
Walm parried the thrust with the round shield, and then he swiped the soldier’s wrist with a shield bash. The soldier was excellent as he didn’t let go of the sword, but Walm’s right arm, hidden by the round shield, was already in motion. The longsword, which was thrust at a close distance from the lower stance, broke the skull and smashed the brain when it entered through the eyeball.
Walm looked away at that moment, looking for the next enemy.
Some allies were climbing from the ladder. One of them was Noor. She was fighting with a soldier who rushed to her as soon as she climbed, but due to her inexperience and the gaps in armor, she was bleeding from one of her arms.
“Senpaiー!!”
Noor’s crying voice reached Walm’s ears. The other enemy this time was a bad match. A soldier who wore armor all over his body… he was a knight. Two Highserk soldiers had already been killed on the ramparts, and Noor might join them in less than a few seconds.
“Can’t fight other than new recruit? You damn small fry.”
Walm turned around in a hurry and threw the round shield at the knight. The knight parried it with his halberd.
“Savage as always huh, you Highserk soldier bastard!! I won’t let you step on Myard.”
The knight stepped in at once while pushing a round shield. Since they were on the rampart, a passage with limited space. It was painful for Walm to abandon his round shield, even though it was to save Noor. While gritting his teeth, Walm resolved himself. He didn’t frighten, caught the blow from the shield with his back and shoulders, and keep his feet on the spot.
Walm’s face was unknowingly distorted as he received impact more than he expected. His left arm was in throbbing pain, but it didn’t affect his movements. The halberd approached from the side. While he was parrying it with a longsword, the high-pitched sound that the metals rub against each other echoed. He just received a blow, but he had no time to rest. The next attack came soon. The round shield approached Walm again.
Swapped the pivoting foot and tilted your weight to the left while avoiding the round shield. The knight followed it and swung down the halberd. Walm didn’t have a round shield with him, so while holding the longsword with both hands, he blocked the attack. But the pressure, he couldn’t handle it all.
While pushing in the halberd, the soldier landed a hit when pulling it back, but it was only ended with a brand new wound on the armor of Walm’s shoulder. Enemy guards gathered were attacking Highserk soldiers, including Noor. In such a situation, Walm was unconsciously searching for his squad commander. But as he knew, his squad commander stood out so much at the start and so perhaps he got interfered when he tried to climb the ladder. Originally, this kind of strong enemy would be the squad commander’s dance partner. Walm then lamented his bad luck, but he couldn’t abandon his kouhai. [TN: Kouhai = junior]
The enemy’s armor got scratched, but at the same time, Walm’s armor also got scratched. He was at a disadvantage because the defense at his joints was weaker than the enemy knight. Walm tried to attack the torso, but it cannot damage the body as it was stopped by the armor. The halberd scratched his cheek.
Walm’s eyelids and forehead had been damaged too, his vision was disturbed.
Walm’s lips were very dry.
Forgot to blink and tried to predict the movement of the enemy. The armor got scratched again. This time, the halberd hooked his shoulder and a part of the shoulder was scooped out.
“It’s useless, small fry!!”
The knight shouted.
Walm attacked the torso again, but this time, it went deeper than before.
Something was different from usual. The situation wasn’t at his advantage and he was forced into it. His bloody arm lightly swung the sword. He could feel that something, something might happen. It felt like something useless in the movement was scraped off and it would flow efficiently. Hit the knight’s shin guard, the longsword went sideways at the time of pulling it back. Part of the armor was broken. Perhaps the knight felt it, he shouted at Walm again as if he was angry.
“Just, go to hell already!!”
The sword and halberd collided. Bounced back while using the recoil of the collision. Walm had the longsword over his shoulder, but he felt it wasn’t enough. He took a stance that he had never done in actual battle or training. The position where his arms reached was overhead. This kind of stance could be said as not suitable for a close-range battle.
“Don’t underestimate me. You think such a false threat will work?”
The knight stepped in while pushing the round shield again. Although the battle pattern was reflected in the field of view, Walm saw what he should see and stepped in as needed. After being sent to the battlefield, even though every day he swung his sword, it felt unfamiliar, and this time, he prepared to swing it in a familiar trajectory, the same way he did as a farmer.
The sword glowed faintly and mana was sent to the sword from the hand holding the handle.
Walm’s attack in the rampart Illustration
If this blow ended in a miss, when the enemies countered him, Walm would be fatally injured. Such a risk didn’t even come to Walm’s mind. He just wanted to leave himself to this feeling. Perhaps, it was the first time, he smiled from the bottom of his heart on the battlefield.
The blow that was swung down slashed the round shield and cut from the shoulder to the chest. Time had stopped. To be exact, it seemed to flow slowly. The knight dropped the halberd and muttered in a quivering voice.
“S-skill 《Strike》? Why, small fry, like you, can, us―― “
The knight fell into a blood clot in the rampart without finishing his words.
“N-no way, commander!?”
“Hermel-sama was killed”
Perhaps the knight that had just been killed by Walm was a knight who controlled the surrounding ramparts. The turmoil of the surrounding soldiers was unusual. As if to make it worse, after the Squad Commander Duwei finally climbed up to the rampart, he slaughtered the enemies. Every time the Squad Commander Duwei swung his sword, the enemy’s limbs were torn apart.
“I’ve climbed! Hear me, Don’t let up for a single second! Destroy all the soldiers in the rampart!!”
Even other Squad Commanders reply to Squad Commander Duwei’s words. From a place away from the ramparts, Platoon Commander Kozuru was rejoicing in securing an attack. Seeing that, Walm wondered why Squad Commander Duwei couldn’t become Platoon Leader, but now cleaning the ramparts was the more important.
Rescued Noor while picking up the Round Shield. Then, Walm checked the condition of the injury. Noor had a wound on her flank and arm, but it wasn’t deep.
“Watch out for bleeding. It’s still a crucial moment.”
“Y-Yes, Walm-san!!”
The situation was leaning towards the Highserk Empire, but there were still many soldiers trying to recapture the ramparts. Walm swung his sword at the enemy soldiers he saw before his senses fade. As before, he slashed the torso even with the armor while parrying the enemy’s sword. Walm was about to step into the realm of power beyond human knowledge.
Walm didn’t like killing, but he couldn’t help it, he wanted to try to find out how much power he had just achieved. Neither the enemy’s round shield nor armor could withstand the skill,《Strike》. An ordinary longsword turned into a blow like a giant battle-ax. He had completely made the skill 《Strike》his own.
When he noticed, he had reached the stairs of the ramparts. It wasn’t just with his power alone. Thanks to Jose, who arrived behind Walm before he knew it, he skillfully restrained the enemies with a spear. At the same time, he found that his concentration, which had been pushed to the limit, was finally cut off. His physical fatigue was also terrible, perhaps he had run out of mana due to the heavy use of 《Strike》 that he had not been accustomed to.
Enemy soldiers trying to defend the stairs didn’t try to close the gap, they only looked at him menacingly while trying to divert his attention. According to Walm’s eyes, there would still be more than 10 people. When he resolved himself and tried to step in, a reliable voice echoed from behind.
“Walm!! It seems you have acquired the skill, 《Strike》? Good. Take a break first. I’ll do the rest.”
It was Squad Commander Duwei, who was bathed in blood without any gaps in his whole body. Walm relaxed his nerves, which even an amateur could understand the meaning of it. His Squad Commander was the kind of person he wouldn’t want to meet on the battlefield.
When the Squad Commander Duwei roared with a threatening voice that resembled a scream, the enemy soldiers got slashed by him. Two soldiers disappeared from the rampart with a single stroke. It was a power that couldn’t be seen coming from the same skill as Walm. Enemy soldiers who hid in shields and tried to stop the onslaught were kicked off, and when they fall from the rampart to the ground, blood came out from their whole body like a blooming flower.
“Ah!? a, AAArgh, aaaa——”
“Shit!! Why this kind of guy here!!”
“Don’t be frightened. Don’t be frightened!”
The stairs were filled with corpses. When the soldier with a pale face was struck with a helm splitter attack by Squad Commander Duwei, the soldier’s head was split in a strange way. The remaining enemy soldiers who saw it showed their backs, and ran away.
“I’m not done yet!!”
“F*ck, even Ogre is better.”
Allies soldiers were flooding one after another from the center and left walls. You couldn’t see when the momentum would stop. Seeing it, Walm was convinced that the battle was decided.
“Collect the soldiers. It’s the climax. Before it ends, Go and grab your share!!!”
The shout was like the words of the head of a bandit. The building built in the rampart was controlled by the commander of the Duwei’s squad. The resistance was minor. The remaining enemy soldiers were either closed themselves in the left and right forts, or many were running away.
The castle gate was opened from the inside, and it was settled when more than double the number of soldiers had flooded the area. Some of the enemy soldiers who failed to escape from the fort and were cornered, showed a fighting posture, but they were all killed in a short time. The besieged fort capitulated in a short period of time.
The battle that began in the morning ended before the sunset. Still, it was just a border outpost. Walm’s work still remained. The preserved cavalry ran away from the fort, chasing the soldiers who tried to run away. Many enemy soldiers were killed by the pursuit.
TN: Here, an image of the whole Duwei’s squad without helmet
