WeTried Translations

Translator: Hydrogen B

Editor: Hydrogen B

Discord: https://dsc.gg/wetried

◈ Sword Master of the Fallen Kingdom

Chapter 8

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The Nameless Mercenary (8)

Leaving Veil and Katrin behind, Kyle slipped out of the clearing and ran.

Screams cut through the dark, human or monster, impossible to tell. Blood and dirt kicked up with every stride. The further he got from the clearing, the more his dormant senses woke, one by one. He gripped the sword hilt he knew better than his own hand. Eyes already adjusted to the dark, he swept the terrain in every direction, not missing a thing.

He didn't need his eyes. He could feel the monsters, vivid as a physical touch. In that same moment, he realized how badly he'd miscalculated. The number of monsters encircling the area was far greater than he'd imagined. Worse still, some were spread out further, cutting off escape routes for any humans trying to run.

What is this?

His mind raced. A goblin stepped into his path at that exact moment.

The creature held a crude dagger and grinned at him, a grin that was wrong in every way. It hadn't figured out the situation. It raised the dagger. Still at full sprint, Kyle extended his sword in a single smooth line. The chipped dagger, too short to reach his cloak, bounced off the ground alongside the severed head.

How many does that make?

He'd lost count. Over thirty, at least. Since pushing through the undergrowth at the clearing's edge, he'd been killing every monster that crossed his path. Most were goblins. The occasional orc.

Shreek. Hss.

Speak of the devil.

Something massive blocked the path ahead. An orc, roughly the same build as the one he'd killed back in the clearing.

It raised both arms. In raw physical strength, there was simply no comparison between orcs and humans. You needed to be a veteran mercenary with mana-driven body reinforcement just to hold your own, and even then you did everything possible to avoid a direct hit.

For Kyle, who couldn't use mana, even one direct hit meant instant death. Any normal person, any ordinary mercenary, would have turned without a second glance and fled the moment they saw an orc.

Kyle wasn't that.

The instant the orc's arms went up, he accelerated, driving himself straight inside its reach.

One hit meant death.

Even a graze could be fatal.

So don't get hit.

Thud!

The ground shook. Dirt and grit erupted around the orc's fist where it had buried itself in the earth. Anyone caught clean by that blow would have been reduced to pulp.

It hadn't touched him. An instant before the fist came down, Kyle planted his feet and leaped, landing on the orc's forearm and running straight up to its shoulder. The orc had been bracing for the satisfying crunch of something crushed beneath its fist. Its face went blank with confusion.

Slash!

Kyle's blade moved before the orc could react. Silver steel cut clean through the thick neck in one sweep. A dark spray shot upward.

The massive body tilted slowly, then crashed to the earth, sending dust billowing in every direction. Kyle stepped down from its belly and shook the blood from his blade, jaw tightening at the feel of it.

Only then could he be certain.

"A variant," he murmured.

Something was commanding these creatures. Something capable of coordinating goblins and orcs simultaneously. Most likely a variant. Just as extraordinary individuals could emerge through mutation among humans, the same happened, very rarely, among monsters.

Either way, it still had to die.

He confirmed the area was clear and closed his eyes. His mind went blank. Senses sharpened, he pushed his awareness further out than usual.

Found it.

He opened his eyes and sheathed his sword. With the silver blade gone, Kyle, dressed entirely in black, dissolved into the night, indistinguishable from the dark around him. He moved toward his target, killing every trace of his presence. Before long, he found something distinctly unlike any goblin he'd faced so far.

Slightly larger than a typical goblin. Strange trinkets and charms hanging all over its body. In one hand, a staff taller than itself.

A variant goblin shaman.

Kkrrk. Krrrrk?

It turned toward him. By then, Kyle was already bursting out from the undergrowth.

The shaman raised its staff. The magic stone set into it blazed to life. In the same instant, a blade at Kyle's hip caught the violet glow as it appeared.

Snap.

The variant goblin shaman's head fell from its neck.

Gyaaak!

Kkrrk! Krrrrk!

Shreek! Hss!

Every nearby monster erupted at once, wheeling toward him. Every goblin he'd grown so tired of killing, every needlessly oversized orc that had blocked his path, all of them charging as if on a shared signal. Kyle raised his sword again.

***

"Katrin!"

"I know, you don't have to say it!"

Veil swept his massive halberd in a wide horizontal arc. Katrin yanked her dagger from a goblin's skull, stepped back, and nocked an arrow to her longbow with her left hand.

"Damn it. How many of these things are there?"

"..."

Katrin muttered. Veil narrowed his eyes and scanned the area.

The clearing was a disaster.

Campfires burned in clusters around the wagons. Near each one, mercenaries stood as a barrier in front of wounded or frightened caravan members huddled behind them. The reek of monster blood stung the nose.

"Veil, I'm only saying this because now's the time."

"Don't. If you've got the energy to talk, use it to breathe."

"No, I need to say this. We've been fighting these things for a while, right? Meaning Kyle's been on his own just as long. And we still haven't heard anything, so isn't it possible something's happened to him?"

Stop talking nonsense and focus. That was what he'd been about to say. Instead, he pressed his lips together.

Truthfully, he'd been thinking the same as Katrin. Kyle had vanished into the undergrowth a while ago, and nothing had changed since.

Having personally watched Kyle take an orc's head in one clean blow only deepened the unease. Kyle was strong. If Veil's read on him was right, he was on par with knights from the great houses. Someone that strong dying meant, for people like them, it was over.

"...He'll be fine."

"Really?"

Katrin pressed him. Veil answered, a slight edge in his voice.

"He's clearly far stronger than either of us. You saw it yourself, Katrin. If anyone's dying out here, it'd be us, not Kyle. Do you think it's even possible for a mercenary to take an orc's head in one clean stroke with no mana?"

"That's... fair."

The tension left Katrin's face.

"And there's still that knight Kyle mentioned. So we'll be fine."

"Oh. Right."

Both of them glanced toward the ornate carriage in the middle of the convoy.

A single figure stood near it, keeping watch. The very knight Kyle had mentioned at noon, the one disguised as a mercenary.

"He does seem to be holding up fine."

"Two genuine knight-level fighters. Most of these monsters aren't a problem."

The other mercenaries hadn't caught on, but Kyle had given Katrin and Veil a heads-up beforehand. Every monster that came close was dispatched with minimal movement. Watch the stance and footwork closely enough, and the training was unmistakable, the kind of systematic discipline only a proper knight would carry.

Old habits were hard to shake.

"Although..."

"Ugghh, my leg, my LEEEG!"

Not far from their fire, the merchant guild leader sat clutching his leg and sobbing. His clothes, far too extravagant for the occasion, had the smallest possible trickle of blood seeping through the knee, and he was weeping fat, ugly tears over it. Even the caravan workers had stopped to stare with blank, disbelieving eyes, alongside every mercenary nearby.

The escort captain, Pol, was no different.

"Captain..."

"Ignore him. Calling it a light wound would be generous."

Pol looked down at the man with barely concealed contempt. Not even with the most charitable description could you call that wound serious. By mercenary standards, it was a scratch.

"He's quite the drama king."

"More importantly."

Pol's gaze settled on the large orc body sprawled before him.

Corpses were scattered everywhere.

The attacks had thinned out considerably compared to before. They'd killed plenty in the clearing themselves, but that alone couldn't account for it. Silver-rank Kyle.

Pol's mind went to those black eyes, black hair, the hood pulled low.

If he had the man pegged right, Kyle had gone to find the source of this attack. He didn't entertain the idea of desertion. At silver rank, guild reputation and credibility mattered as much as track record. Abandoning a contract midway could mean a rank demotion.

Besides, the skill that had felled an orc in one hit was real enough.

The monsters were hesitating now. Pol raised his voice.

"Listen up!"

"..."

"Hold and we win! Has a single one of us died yet?"

He was right. The people gathered at the campfires with their backs to the wagons had their share of wounded, but no dead. Most of them were seasoned veterans of the Rusty Blade, and Pol's quick response had kept them alive.

"True enough..."

"These bastard pieces of shit! You think you can kill us?"

"Come on then, all of you!"

One by one, the mercenaries who'd been pale-faced moments ago found their fire again. Wounded but no dead. The monster count had dropped sharply, inversely proportional to the bodies piling up around the clearing. It was looking more manageable by the moment.

"Should we push back?" one of Pol's men asked. The numbers had thinned enough.

The creatures weren't charging recklessly anymore either. If anything, they looked frightened.

"No. Hold position. Numbers are down, but we don't know how many are still in those trees. No point adding variables."

They held the campfires, a clear advantage. No reason to trade it for worse ground.

"Let's watch the situation a little longer," Pol said. The Rusty Blade members exchanged glances and nodded. Hold the line, wait until the tide had fully turned, then push. Not too late even then.

That was when the monsters started acting strangely.

Kkrrk! Krrrrrkk!

Shreeeek! Shreek!

The standoff between the clearing and the tree line had barely settled when every remaining goblin and orc erupted in a chorus of frenzied cries. The mercenaries who had just steadied themselves couldn't hide their confusion. From somewhere not far away, a sound was growing steadily louder.

Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.

The earth trembled. Tree branches rattled with a sound like crashing waves. Then, lit by the campfires, something emerged from the undergrowth. Every person watching with held breath let out a sound, somewhere between a groan and a sob.

"No... no..."

"A troll. It's a troll!"

Someone called out. The creature that emerged looked nothing like the goblins and orcs.

Pol shouted orders, but this time his people couldn't hold back their trembling. A few of them half-collapsed to the ground as if about to faint. The troll was on a different level entirely.

Far taller and broader than any orc, sharp teeth jutting past its lips, and in one hand a wooden club roughly the size of a grown person.

Trolls were better known by their other name: Knight Killer. The stubborn vitality and crushing strength behind that club surpassed the body reinforcement of most knights. Even with sword aura, piercing that tough hide to land a killing blow was no easy thing.

Why is that thing here? An orc-troll? This can't be real.

Pol's face, which had been calm and calculating until moments ago, flooded with despair. No. They couldn't win. Taking down a troll required multiple knights working in concert, and right now there wasn't a single person here capable of using sword aura. Everyone else would buy time at best, and nothing more.

The strength drained from Pol's hands.

"That's enough. Stand aside."

Someone gripped his shoulder.

"You, no, sir..."

The shift to formal speech came without thinking. It was the middle-aged mercenary who had been guarding Merchant Guild Leader Narme's carriage.

Before the caravan had set out, Merchant Guild Leader Narme had paid a fortune to hire this man alongside Pol and the Rusty Blade. A sword in his hand.

"Sword aura...?"

A faint red light ran along the blade. The words left Pol's mouth before he knew it.

"Is that sword aura?"

"Who in the world..."

"There, over there! That's real sword aura! We're going to live!"

It had been a quiet murmur, but it was enough to bring light back to the eyes of mercenaries drowning in despair. Channeling mana into sword aura-a concentrated embodiment of pure destructive force, was reserved for gold-rank mercenaries and skilled knights. It meant hope still existed.

"The other monsters are still out there, so keep holding them back. I'll handle the troll."

"Who are you, exactly?"

"Does that matter right now?"

The middle-aged man nodded toward the troll, its eyes gone wild.

"I'll be fine. I'm more capable than I look."

"But..."

"If you insist, then assist me. A few of your best fighters come with me against the troll, the rest stay by the fires and guard the caravan members and wagons."

He reached his conclusion fast.

"You all heard that!"

"Alec! Mason! Peter! The three of you move with me! Everyone else stays with the wagons and keeps those fires going! Don't push forward no matter what!"

One by one, at Pol's order, the mercenaries tightened their grips on their weapons. Even with a troll standing right before them, they hadn't given up. The sword in the middle-aged man's right hand and the red light blooming along its edge fed them a courage they hadn't known they had.

"When I give the signal, go in. I'll draw the hits from the front, you attack the blind spots."

Pol and the other three nodded without a word.

A troll's greatest weapon was its regeneration. But that wasn't absolute. Even regeneration had limits.

The remaining monsters were well within their current ability to handle. Put simply, if they could kill that one troll, the problem was solved. It would be a war of attrition, but there was no getting around that.

With two or more knights it might have been different, but this man alone cutting the troll's head off wasn't realistic. He could do it using the mercenaries as bait, but that wasn't what he wanted. Not yet.

"I'll count to three," the middle-aged man said. The standoff between the clearing and the forest began to break.

"One."

Swallowing sounds came from all around.

"Two."

The frenzied monsters suddenly went still and looked back toward the clearing.

"Now!"

The four of them were about to charge toward the approaching troll.

Whoosh!

A figure launched itself from behind the monsters, out from beyond the tree line.

Wrapped in rushing wind, it shot into the air in an instant. For one moment, a long shadow fell across the clearing.

"What...!"

Eyes went wide. The monsters were no different. Emboldened by the troll's arrival, every one of them looked upward toward the thing that had suddenly appeared behind them.

There was pure white light up there. A black cloak whipped and snapped against the moonlight at its back. The figure hung impossibly in the middle of the sky, and in its hand was a radiance of spotless white.

Sword aura shaped like moonlight.

Keeeeng,

An otherworldly sound rang across the clearing.

Boom!

With a thunderous crash, the light plunged down. The white blade swept through the troll's neck. A beat later, a violent gust of wind exploded outward in every direction. Undergrowth and trees bent flat under the force of it.

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