The two mercenaries didn't waste a single moment.
Yet, rather than charging forward to bind me in combat before I could escape, they stood their ground instead.
One of them took a step forward and lowered his center of mass, pulling down his shield that he then braced in my direction. The other one reached out to his neck and pulled on some sort of cord…
'Fuck!'
My mind exploded with warnings. Following the spike of attention, my body all tensed up before bolting ahead at my top speed.
The pressure of the wind was so hard it nearly ripped my eyelids open. I reached a near-inhumane speed, an acceleration I would come to pay dearly for later.
'I can't let him!'
My entire, physical, mystical, and mental self focused on this single purpose. Before as the mercenary pulled the cord on his neck up, a whistle revealed itself, hanging at the bottom of the thin wire.
This was the worst possible scenario.
Two mercenaries, each theoretically stronger than me, I could take on.
Contrary to the first few ranks, where one could climb his way only by pouring endless amounts of sweat and blood, the ranks above moved away from judging one's skill.
The first few ranks had to work out on their own. But it was possible for someone to be born and inherit a sixth rank right off the bat!
What's more, the upper half of the first teen ranks no longer described one's personal ability, but how capable they were at weaving mana dust into their craft.
In other words, if I didn't let those two mercenaries draw out the magic dust, their skill could very well be one if not more ranks below my own!
Such was the benefit of having a host that worked its body to the bone for long years!
And all of this honing, all of the training, all of the sacrifices my host made before my descent, I came to cash them all out at this precise moment.
'I can make it!'
A single thought exploded in my brain, pushing all other thoughts aside.
My right hand lagged behind my body, weighed down by the sword, while I flew through the length of the alley.
With my mental eye, I could already see the arc that I would draw with my blade. The path my sword would take to claim the mercenary's throat before he could pour air into his whistle.
Sadly, for people of the lower ranks like most of the mercenaries and sellswords across the continent, it was a rare chance to be born into a rank.
Most of them gained their ranks with the years of bloodshed they clawed their way through.
The mercenary at the front moved, foiling all of my plans just by shifting a few inches to the side. And he timed it perfectly, right as I pulled my right ahead, swinging the sword down on his partner's neck.
The mercenary moved and blocked my path, forcing me to desperately jerk the handle to the side to avoid getting my sword stuck in the mercenary's shield.
I saw his partner's cheeks pumping up as he gathered the air, already raising the whistle to his lips.
'Too late…' my face darkened, my last limitations coming undone.
There was a level of bodily exertion that one could perform for a long time without risking added strain. But in a few moments of a man's life, it was possible to draw strength far beyond what should be theoretically possible.
Just like my leap when the situation escalated, I would come to pay dearly for tapping deeper than I should…
Or nevermind.
As much as I hated it, as bad of a development as it was… It was too late.
Even by doing everything possible, I could no longer stop the alarm the mercenary was about to raise.
And as dark thoughts took over my entire mind, a simple solution flourished.
A solution that provided no benefit out of sheer fucking satisfaction in this hopeless moment.
Fueled by the primal, animalistic fury that arose from this realization, I swung my body forward, slamming my side against the mercenary's shield while reaching out and adding my left hand to my grip.
And then, with all the fury and helplessness I could muster, I swung diagonally down, drawing my blade down an angle the mercenary's shield couldn't intercept.
The mercenary obviously wore a chainmail and a gambeson, the near-perfect counter for any slashing weapon. Yet, when my hit connected, the high-pitched noise of metal scratching against metal mixed with another loud sound of the whistle being blown.
My face darkened.
My consciousness moved into a strange and dark place, making it hard for me to see from behind the veil of darkness that covered my eyes.
I blinked my eyes, trying to stop the blurring of my vision.
And as the other mercenary finally ran out of breath, I finished my strike, cleaving his courageous partner across the chest in the most barbaric strike one could imagine.
A low growl gathered at my guts, threatening to escape my lips at any moment.
I pushed with my sword, shoving the dead mercenary aside as I took a step toward his partner.
Once again, my shoulder slammed into the other guy. This time, however, his choice to go for the whistle proved its cost, robbing him o the little time he had to arm himself and prepare for my assault.
The mercenary fell, the resistance he initially offered allowing me to stabilize myself on my feet before pushing my right hand out and driving my already chipped sword into the unprotected throat.
"Haaa…"
Once again, I had to push myself to the limits. Thankfully, I only ever peeked over this forbidden border, without taking on the cost of actually crossing it.
Save for a short breath and a delicate tingling in my legs, I was relatively okay.
But the situation couldn't be any worse.
Feeling the strange tug of the main plotline on my soul, I raised my eyes toward the kid and the woman that held it.
I wanted to take another look, hoping that maybe my strange, blurred vision could somehow counteract whatever it was that kept the woman's face from my eyes.
Yet, regardless of how hard I wanted to peer at the black-haired woman's face, my eyes would draw towards the red-haired kid instead.
And as I was momentarily unable to move, desperately striving to regain as much strength as I could, I was forced to watch how the kid struggled to free herself from the woman's grasp.
The little girl's face and eyes were perfectly empty, giving her desperate struggle a strange sense of fakeness and making the entire situation pretty weird.
And ultimately, the little girl failed to free herself from the tight grasp of the adult woman.
'Not if I can say a word about it,' I suddenly decided, not really capable of resisting the main plotline pull while in my strange state of mind.
But the very moment I stopped my short rest and took a step towards the two, I heard the noise.
The noise that announced that once again, my time has ran out.
And a mere second later, a whole host of mercenaries swarmed the alley, pouring en masse from the very end I hoped to secure.