WeTried Translations x Flame Comics
Translator/Editor: Hydrogen B
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Chapter 144: The Rebellion of the Three Counts (4)
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* * *
-Grmph, kuh-huh, kah.
A low growl accompanied by a metallic clatter came from beyond the foot of the mountain.
They’re here.
Ivan loosened his body, stiff from the chill of dawn.
-Grmph, kah-huh, kah!
Tumor’s marching song. It was a familiar tune. Roughly translated, it went like this: We are strong, we kill, we march. Then it repeated.
The domain overseen by Tumor of Mount Tai, that giant, was rage. His underlings were creatures who had traded intelligence for violence.
The pleasure they took in destruction and slaughter was their sole purpose. Compared to orcs, who retained at least a sliver of reason, Tauruses were even simpler creatures.
-Grmph, kuh-huh, kah!!
A group of Tauruses emerged through the dust. Roughly a thousand of them. Their entire force.
That was where the difference between them and humans showed. Despite having no rear supply line, an entire infiltration unit had massed.
They replenished everything they needed to sustain combat through looting alone. They were not suited for infiltration in the first place. If they split off into detached units, those units would inevitably go mad, run wild, and get cut off somewhere.
Their intelligence and tactical sense were worse than a wolf’s. They behaved no differently from beasts that fought in packs.
Yet each individual possessed mobility and martial strength comparable to a knight. That was why Tilles had suffered such terrible defeats against Tumor during the war.
Among the Seven Dragon Generals, Tumor had inflicted the greatest damage on the Allied Kingdoms through raw strength alone.
“Let’s see who the leader is.”
Nearly three meters tall, an enormous bundle of muscle on a grotesquely disproportionate frame. Sharp horns rose from a bull-like head.
When these creatures gathered and simply kicked off the ground, they made the earth tremble. The fact that their leader had managed to conduct rear infiltration and joint operations with humans using creatures like these meant that leader was no ordinary Taurus.
-Click.
Ivan raised his pistol and braced it over his left forearm. He settled it firmly against his shoulder, closed one eye, and slowly exhaled until his lungs were half empty.
He applied the slightest pressure to the finger resting on the trigger guard. Click, creak. The spring wound tight with a pleasant sound.
One.
He aimed at the Taurus directly ahead.
-Grmph! Huh!
No reaction. It lacked line-of-fire detection.
Next.
-Grmph, kah-huh, kah!
Next.
Then the next.
The barrel shifted by tiny degrees, passing over the front row one by one as he methodically aimed at each Taurus.
He poured killing intent into the muzzle as though he would fire at any moment, but kept it tightly restrained.
Then, as the barrel passed over one Taurus and aimed at the crown of its head...
-Grk!! Kah!?
Its bloodshot eyes turned directly toward the place where Ivan lay in ambush.
Through his sights, Ivan heard the Taurus’s frantic cry. It raised a huge axe with strips of flesh stuck to it and pointed it in Ivan’s direction.
A vicious aura gathered, ready to burst. The herd stopped as one, then turned and began charging straight at Ivan.
-Thududududud!!
Hooves slammed into the ground. The noise was like tens of thousands of cavalry charging at once.
There was a saying in Tilles: Cavalry are infantry’s grim reaper. On the flat plains found throughout Tilles, infantry could not stop well-trained cavalry head-on.
A charging Taurus was little different from a mounted soldier. In other words, a thousand cavalrymen, cavalrymen literally one with their mounts, were smashing through trees as they charged at him.
Unless they had walls at their backs and matched the enemy’s numbers, defeat in a field battle was inevitable. Those were wartime maxims learned from fighting the demonfolk.
Ivan was not an expert in war. His specialty was combat, and more narrowly, combat that fell under special operations.
Naturally, the common sense of war differed greatly from Ivan’s.
Holding his pistol, Ivan kicked off a tree and ran.
Just as a shepherd drove cattle with a sheepdog and whip, the Annihilation Unit knew how to drive cattle with pistols.
* * *
-Bang!!
One of the leading Tauruses threw its head back as blood burst from its eye. The small lead bullet that came with the gunshot had crushed its eyeball cleanly.
But a Taurus’s skull was like a bull’s, better than a human skull at absorbing impact. The bullet that burst its eye stopped before it reached the brain.
Its blinded eye and extreme pain only seemed to fuel its rage. Convulsing, it began to run again.
-Bang!!
Another shot rang out beyond the brush. Another Taurus’s eye burst. One shot, one target. Ivan was picking off the small eyes of the leading Tauruses one by one.
Leading the enraged Tauruses, Vargadal shook his head at the unpleasant feeling creeping over him.
Something was wrong. They were running toward the hidden pest, yet the distance was not closing. A human could not be faster than Tauruses.
The human was not even riding a horse. No horse could run through such dense woods as fast as a Taurus.
Struggling to cool his mind as rage slowly consumed it, Vargadal guided the herd toward the sound of another shot.
-Bang!!
Another gunshot. One of the Tauruses at the front sharply jerked its head up, let out a rough breath, then kept running. A glance showed it had been struck in the eye too.
If the shooter was skilled enough to hit one eye, wouldn’t it be better to blind both and block its vision completely?
With that question lingering in mind, Vargadal kept charging.
The tracking party sent after the fleeing prey had all been found dead, and the human group numbered at least sixty. Vargadal had chased them, his mouth watering at the thought.
At last, with his mind hardened by endless hunger and violence, Vargadal let out a long howl and plunged deeper into the forest.
* * *
‘By now, we’re completely off the refugees’ route.’
Even if a few broke away, they could no longer chase the refugees from Vertomang. They did not know the local terrain.
Following traces to search for prey was an extremely difficult skill. Those creatures hunted only through scent and intuition, and in a forest this deep, even that was impossible. They had reached land where human traces themselves were scarce.
The forest along the border between Vertomang and Moramdon contained a ravine along the edge of the Vernini Mountains.
It was a small basin, hardly enough to call a ravine. Only a few mountain wardens ever passed through it.
Beyond this area, once one left the forest, a broad plain leading into the Barony of Moramdon appeared.
‘The terrain is too rough to make this a main road between estates.’
It was far from major trade routes, had no large cities nearby, and was covered in dense forest that even slash-and-burn settlers would hesitate to clear.
A plain stretched beyond it, while the villages of Moramdon remained at a suitable distance.
It was exactly the sort of battlefield Ivan wanted.
It would be easy to pursue enemies scattered through the forest. Even if they passed him and dispersed, they would have to wander the plain for a while.
The small number that left the herd would only be hunted down by the army returning soon enough. That was sufficient.
If he could break most of them here, Tilles would not need to worry about further damage from demonfolk raids.
-Shing.
Ivan stopped and drew his sword. The well-honed blade shone white beneath the rising eastern sun.
Several daggers rested inside his sleeves, and his pistol was in his left hand. His final inspection had shown that everything was well maintained, enough for an immediate battle.
Unlike them, he could replenish calories even while chasing or fleeing. Considering what Ivan had eaten, he could continue fighting for around two days without trouble.
A Nutrient Bar was an advanced complete food that supplied enormous calories regardless of how full one already felt. It could even be eaten during intense movement, and it had the added advantage of producing no food smell at all.
-Thududududud!!
The earth shook beneath the thunderous noise. Trees were uprooted in the distance. The Tauruses were carving a wide road through the center of the forest.
Should he thank them for wasting their strength, or for making a new trade route?
Ivan snickered and waited. The distance vanished in an instant.
The trees directly before him snapped and broke apart. At last, the Tauruses appeared.
“There’s something I’ve always wanted to say when a moment like this comes.”
He looked at the Tauruses foaming at the mouth as they charged toward him. Their blazing red eyes burned solely with anticipation for slaughter.
It was enough to frighten any bold man. A thousand monsters, each perhaps twice Ivan’s size.
They filled the narrow ravine and stretched on without end. The sight itself was violence.
Ivan raised his sword and drew a long line across the ground.
He copied what the young Gilles Ver had done when facing a Taurus legion at a mountain fortress.
“I am Ivan Petrovich of Krasilov. I am a lieutenant colonel of the Annihilation Unit. I was a Royal Guard officer of the Krasilov Royal Guard.”
Watching the Tauruses charge to within arm’s reach, Ivan calmly wrapped himself in mana. His nerves began to run wild with a tingling sensation.
Time split into fragments. Space unfolded into a clear diagram. At that moment, he could see every fine grain of dust hanging in the air as it fell through the vibrations.
In that familiar pressure, as though trapped in the deep sea and watching everything approach slowly, Ivan calmly raised his sword and pointed it ahead.
“Beyond this line, I will kill a thousand.”
Gilles Ver had said he would kill a hundred back then. And he had succeeded.
That had been a long time ago. Ivan was confident he was at least ten times stronger than Gilles Ver had been then, so he would only be satisfied after killing ten times that number.
A strange joy slowly crept up inside him as Ivan aimed his sword. The spring in the pistol held in his left hand snapped into place.
There was no need to aim. He could hit them wherever he fired.
There was no need to control his breathing. His time already moved faster than his breath.
So he only had to raise his hand and fire.
-Bang!!
It happened on the morning after Vertomang fell.
* * *
Baron Serthe of Moramdon could not hide his confusion at the unexpected visitor. This poorly dressed man had brought dozens of refugees with him, yet only days ago, he had been the lord of a neighboring estate competing with Serthe’s.
They had crossed paths over ordinary matters, such as tax rates for traveling merchants or minor disputes between nearby farms, but Serthe had never imagined meeting him like this.
Serthe stared blankly at Noar.
“What in the world happened to you? Did magic bandits attack?”
“It is more serious than that.”
A lord whose estate had fallen would normally ask for protection in a far humbler posture. Serthe had approached with a smile, expecting exactly that, but tilted his head at Noar’s rigid expression.
The moment Noar produced the object, Baron Serthe flinched.
“Demonfolk...? Tauruses...?”
“We must gather the nobles. Tilles is under invasion.”
“How many? How many are there?”
“More than a thousand trampled my estate. They say the Duke of Etakrikh is establishing a defensive line in the Vernini Mountains.”
“How... How could this happen?”
With shaking hands, Serthe stared at the grisly heads laid out on the table.
They were Taurus skulls, their tongues hanging out in death. They had not been dead for long.
Noar could not have found these things and staged a lie. In this age, Tauruses were demonfolk rarely seen except beyond the Eastern Front.
“It is the order of His Highness, the Grand Duke of Etakrikh. We must gather as many troops as possible, establish a front near Moramdon within five days, and eliminate the scattered remnants of the enemy.”
“Who will follow such an order? It is autumn!”
The military strength of an ordinary small estate mostly consisted of conscripts. Most conscripts were serfs or tenant farmers.
Calling them up during the farming season could tear out the pillars of an estate. Even sending a few knights was difficult under such circumstances, so an order for a large-scale deployment would not be easy to follow.
But Baron Noar shook his head and spoke heavily.
“I swear on my life. His Highness said that anyone who disobeys will be treated as a traitor after the war.”
“Wouldn’t it be better to ask the Count of Vermonfort?”
“I would sooner put a sword in a pig’s hand.”
Ignoring noble etiquette, Noar snorted.
“If we ask that fellow for troops, do you think he’ll move? We’ll be fortunate if he doesn’t wait leisurely until our estates are completely ruined, then try to swallow them after we’re all dead.”
“But if it is the Grand Duke’s order...”
“Even if the Grand Duke went to command them in person, they would drag their feet for half a year. Baron Serthe, look at me. Could your estate withstand a thousand Tauruses?”
“...If Vertomang fell the day before yesterday, it wouldn’t be strange if they were already attacking my estate. Rather than gathering soldiers now, wouldn’t it be better to flee...?”
“Someone stayed behind to stop them. His Highness the Grand Duke of Etakrikh foresaw this attack and sent a knight. He said he could hold them for five days, so now we must...”
Noar continued, staring out the window with darkened eyes.
“Trust him.”
Even with six knights, fleeing had been all they could do. Even then, they had barely escaped after enough time had passed for nearly all their people to be eaten.
But that man...
What kind of life had a man lived when he could face an entire army alone without showing fear even once?
Noar knew men of that sort. Men who could confront an entire legion with the strength of one person.
Even if they could not, they were people who always stepped forward proudly in the face of death.
If they died, their names would remain as heroes who defended their nation.
If they returned alive, well.
They would be praised as Heroes, their names forever recorded in history.
Was this the difference between a grand duke and some rural baron? Sending a man of that caliber simply to stop an infiltration unit in the rear.
Regardless of the danger at the front, he had been chosen to minimize the harm suffered by the people of the inland homeland.
The Defender Duke of Etakrikh had been the shield of the Hero Party. He was the sort of man who would do such a thing. Unlike the great nobles fattened by greed, he was one of the few great knights remaining in this country.
“Five days... We can barely reach Redmieux and Demontmor in time, though I don’t know how many troops will gather even then.”
“I will go to Demontmor. Will you persuade the Baron of Redmieux?”
“I would be honored.”
The two barons, who had competed for so long, clasped each other’s hands tightly for a moment. Then they summoned their retainers, mounted their horses, and departed in separate directions.
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Footnotes:
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