Chapter 106: The Meddlesome Mercenary
The sudden, unified direction of the fleeing soldiers alerted Arthur to their desperate intent.
He gently pulled the reins, slowing his pace to create distance, but in doing so, he missed the optimal window for rescue. By the time he finally rounded the sharp bend, the deserters were just dozens of paces from the traveler.
Arthur immediately understood these murderers weren't trying to take a hostage; they wanted someone to drag down with them before they died!
"Hey, behind you! Run!" Arthur shouted at the top of his lungs, slamming his legs against the horse's flanks.
His natural strength was already great, and it had become ridiculously amplified after the series of fierce battles. In his urgency, the full force of his squeeze made the warhorse roll its eyes. It furiously pawed the ground and shot forward like an arrow released from a string.
But he was too far away. Even with the horse's hooves practically striking sparks from the dirt, he couldn't possibly catch up.
"Jackbar, can you still launch a spear?" Arthur anxiously asked through the psychic network as the wind roared past his ears.
"My magic and material reserves are bottoming out. If I shoot one more, I'll have to find a place to fall asleep and recover." Jackbar's thoughts revealed undisguised fatigue in the preceding chase, it had launched over a dozen spears and was significantly depleted.
"Return to Groot. Thank you for your hard work." In a split second, hundreds of possible actions raced through Arthur's mind, but he decided to order the Treant to withdraw.
These deserters were utterly desperate men. A single spear would have a negligible impact on them, but it would put Jackbar in danger falling asleep at the forest's edge meant it could be chopped up for firewood at any time.
Though he disliked seeing an innocent person dragged into the conflict, he couldn't sacrifice the Treant's life to satisfy his own moral conscience.
"Run! Those men just murdered a caravan of merchants!" Seeing the traveler ahead completely oblivious to the rapidly approaching danger, Arthur yelled desperately.
In that moment, he wished his Dragon Shout was Whirlwind Sprint. Then he could cover those few dozen meters instantly and save the innocent from peril.
Alas, there was no if. The deserters, fueled by savage resolve, lunged at the traveler like starved feral dogs.
The foremost deserter drew the dagger from beneath his armpit, lunged for the traveler's collar, cursing in delighted surprise:
"Stop right there, you Ugh…"
He couldn't finish his sentence, as his ears were filled with the dull whuump of an iron bar slicing through the air.
Thwack.
The sound of the iron bar hitting a human body was no different from striking a wet piece of leather.
The deserter was sent flying backward by the forceful blow, the contents of his stomach spraying several feet away. He resembled a cloth sack full of straw, rolling a few times on the ground before stopping at the feet of a comrade. His bulging eyes stared fish-like at the sky, his lower body grotesquely twisted toward the ground.
The remaining four deserters froze, their eyes wide with shock. This sudden turn of events was completely unexpected. A hyena had rushed a sheep, only to discover it was a lion wearing a wool vest.
"Sigh. This world, can't even walk in peace!" the traveler muttered, yet his face showed no sign of tension or anger. If anything, he looked excited to have an opportunity to stretch his limbs:
"Come on, you scum disturbing the peace!"
The traveler planted the iron bar beside him and contemptuously waved his left hand toward the deserters, gesturing for them to bring it on.
The sudden, unified flight direction of the deserters raised a simultaneous alarm and question in Arthur's mind.
He lightly pulled the reins, slowing his horse to increase the distance, but missing the ideal moment to intervene. When he finally rounded the sharp corner, the deserters were within striking distance of the traveler.
Arthur instantly understood these psychopaths weren't trying to take a hostage; they were trying to drag someone down with them before they died!
"Agh!"
After repeatedly seeing hope only to plummet into despair, the string of sanity in the deserters' minds finally snapped. Grabbing any remaining weapon they hadn't dropped, they charged the traveler.
"Tsk, tsk, tsk. Disjointed footwork, weak sword-arm, shallow breathing, no coordination whatsoever. You think you bunch of half-wits can drag me down to hell with you?"
Facing the four men's suicidal, frantic assault, the traveler moved like a fish darting through seaweed, weaving back and forth through the thicket of blades. He was never touched, not even grazing his clothes, and still had the leisure to taunt them.
Finally, after the fight, which was less a skirmish and more a cruel jest, lasted for several minutes, the deserters, exhausted, slowed their movements. The traveler used his iron bar to smash their heads, one by one.
"It's a good thing you were the one walking this road today. If it had been an ordinary person, I dread to think what would have happened."
Arthur had arrived earlier but, seeing how easily the traveler was handling the situation and fearing that revealing himself prematurely might cause a misunderstanding, he had stood watch at the edge of the conflict, ready to intervene if needed.
Only after the traveler neatly dispatched the last deserter did Arthur finally relax and prepare to ride away, but the traveler called out:
"Hey, good-hearted lad, what was the deal with those bastards?"
"They were Verden royal soldiers. They just attacked a merchant caravan not far back, and my companions and I stumbled upon them." Arthur spread his hands, pointing to the mangled corpses on the ground: "And that's how it ended."
The traveler let out a hearty laugh, flashing a mouthful of dazzling white teeth: "Didn't expect you to be a hidden master. You actually managed to chase down the Verden Night Crows."
"Night Crows? What are those?" The unfamiliar name instantly piqued Arthur's interest.
He had planned to deal with the immediate situation, then take the physical and human evidence to Brugge to expose the Verden plot. But Arthur wasn't entirely confident he could successfully make his case. Running across a foreign border to murder people and then framing a third party? He knew the Verden authorities would never admit it.
They might even turn the tables, claiming it was a Temerian plot to destabilize Brugge though unlikely, as a sage once said, when people are desperate, they will do anything except higher mathematics.
"You should know by the name alone: they're the unit the Verden monarchy uses for its dirty work!"
The traveler casually approached a headless corpse and used his iron bar to pull open the man's tunic, revealing a tattoo on his right collarbone.
"See that wing? That's the exclusive tattoo of the Night Crows." The traveler then pointed at the dagger-like feathers on the wing tattoo: "See these blade-like feathers? Each one represents a successful mission carried out by this fellow. One, two, three, four… this guy has done dirty work for the Verden monarchy at least seven times."
Arthur listened silently, committing the details to memory. He planned to confirm this information once they reached Brugge if ordinary folk didn't know this, the King and high nobles certainly should.
"I say, aren't you even a little scared, kid?"
While Arthur was contemplating, he felt a sudden weight on his shoulder. It was the traveler resting a large hand on him.
"Why should I be scared?" Arthur failed to grasp the man's logic immediately: "I killed them all, didn't I? Are they going to turn into zombies and jump up to bite me?"
The traveler looked slightly frustrated by Arthur's naivety:
"What do you take the Night Crows for, street thugs? They do the King's dirty work. If the King of Verden finds out you killed his men, he will find a way to deal with you, whether for revenge or secrecy."