Ritzy lunged forward half a step and made to kick the fancy swordsman. The fancy swordsman reacted on reflex and took half a step back while lowering his sword to block Ritzy's leg, which never came.
Instead, Ritzy's new dagger sailed through the air toward the fancy swordsman's face. It tumbled through the air, and Ritzy felt a sense of deja vu.
The fancy swordsman looked up as he felt something. He tapped his cheek with his fingers and held them in front of his face to confirm that there was blood on them. Ritzy's dagger just barely scratched the fancy swordsman as it passed by.
It wasn't a complete miss, but it was too much of a miss for Ritzy to be safe.
However…
"Glurgle!"
The dagger had missed the fancy swordsman. It hadn't missed Mercel standing behind the fancy swordsman.
"Ah."
Ritzy realized where his feeling of deja vu came from as Mercel pulled the dagger out, and blood gushed from his neck like a fountain. It was the same as what happened in Vestor with Michmond.
"That's actually pretty funny."
The fancy swordsman, who still hadn't looked back because he knew he shouldn't take his eyes off Ritzy, couldn't resist the need as his comrades exclaimed and cried out for Mercel.
'"Boss!"'
The fancy swordsman threw a glance backward to see Mercel on his knees, clutching his bleeding throat. He instantly realized what had happened, and he turned a furious gaze toward Ritzy.
"You!"
"Me!"
Ritzy answered with gleeful excitement as he jumped back to avoid the fancy swordsman's wrathful lunge and swing. He continued retreating, and the swordsman continued advancing.
However, the swordsman's rage clouded his mind, and his attacks were too heavy. They left him almost stumbling due to the overexertion. He had lost any grace and lightness of foot that a swordsman should have in the jungle. Each horse-sized swing pulled on his momentum, and Ritzy had no problem keeping his distance.
However, the swordsman wasn't alone.
Ritzy felt the other armed men come to their senses, raise their weapons, and surround him. He was cornered.
Trying to run deeper into the forest would only end up with him running himself through with the armed men's weapons. Fortunately, it seemed they were content with hedging him in and letting the fancy swordsman finish the job.
Ritzy didn't want to stand still and let the fancy swordsman lop his head off or tear him to shreds like he had done with the big Flesh Slime.
"Look!"
Ritzy pointed at the sky behind the fancy swordsman. But the would-be victim of a practical joke didn't so much as react to Ritzy's shout. Only one of the men looked, but it wasn't enough for Ritzy to take advantage of.
"Hah! Fucking idiot. Don't blame me for not warning you."
But the swordsman was still caught in a cold-blooded murderous frenzy and didn't hear Ritzy's taunt. He was only a couple of steps away from Ritzy. He wouldn't let anything break his concentration as he neared his target with the determination of a big bulky dog with a taste for children.
Finally, Ritzy was in a spot where he could neither retreat nor advance. And the fancy swordsman was one fancy slash away from killing Ritzy. He raised his sword. But before he could lower it, Ritzy tossed his knife at him.
It was his old knife, the one he had carved his first Benin victim with, and not the one he had taken from the first guy he killed in the woods.
However, the fancy swordsman, in his steely focus, instantly raised a hand and caught the knife. He caught it by the blade, and his hand started bleeding. But he didn't even flinch. He tossed it to the ground without so much as caring about the gash in his palm.
"Hey! You got my knife dirty! Compensate me!"
Ritzy once again tried to use words to distract the fancy swordsman. But just like before, it was futile, and the fancy swordsman got ready to chop Ritzy to pieces again. He wrapped both hands around the handle and raised the sword above his head.
But the fancy swordsman didn't want to take any risks by capturing or tormenting Ritzy.
"Oh, what's that!?"
Ritzy tried again. But this time, it wasn't nothing in the air. He had realized something.
Ritzy wasn't completely alone. Although he hadn't amassed any fighting forces yet, he still had his sleeping forces. He brought the Deathbeds out of the ground and up into the air.
The Deathbeds carrying Talia, Maya, and Pile o' Bones hovered through the air like large, rectangular, bony, wingless birds.
They were large enough to catch the fancy swordsman's attention out of the corner of his eye. The others stared at the massive constructs of bone in abject horror. They weren't that massive, just slightly bigger than the average bed, maybe. But when they flew through the air above them in a circular manner, they seemed large enough to flatten them all into dust.
Mercel's men, aside from the fancy swordsman, trembled at the sight. But they didn't move from their post. They didn't forget how easily their leader had terminated the Flesh Slime, which had been more horrifying.
Through some stroke of sheer genius, that leader didn't fail them. He noticed that, despite their size and apparent weight, the Deathbeds weren't creating any shadows. He couldn't see the sun through them, which didn't match. But there were no shadows copying the Deathbed's movements.
So, when one of them got close enough, the fancy swordsman lunged out and tested his theory. He slashed right through the bed with a bare skeleton on it. The skeleton, the bed, and his sword were all unaffected. It was like they hadn't even clashed, and this was despite mana covering his blade.
"Hah!"
They were fake! Illusions! The Deathbeds couldn't do anything to them. The man turned back to Ritzy, ignoring the Deathbeds. It was a hasty conclusion, considering there were things that allowed weapons to pass through without being immaterial.
But the white-haired kid was just a Novice. All he could use were tricks.
Confident in his assessment, the fancy swordsman focused on Ritzy and only Ritzy.
Cleaving Ritzy in two was guaranteed to end him and any trouble he could cause. It would be too late since they had already lost two men, three including the first hired gun, as well as their boss.
The others understood their defacto leader and didn't interfere. Well, they also didn't dare approach Ritzy the same way their Apprentice leader did. What if he had hidden something up his sleeves? None of them wanted to catch a gooey, acidic slime ball to the face.
At least the Apprentice swordsman had the reflexes to react and catch or swat away something like that. They for sure didn't. They were content with merely herding Ritzy by using themselves, the nearby trees, stones, and other obstacles.
"Guuoh."
However, the fancy swordsman and the others had made a mistake. They had forgotten something.
Their fallen comrade wasn't Ritzy's only target of reanimation. And the hurdles they had used weren't all things like trees, branches, and stones. One of them was a certain letter-covered corpse. And it was a corpse no longer.