"Can he handle it?"
Two people walking down a hallway bathed in sunlight.
"Isn't it too soon for Lord Vlad? Wouldn't it be better to watch and learn more from other knights?"
"It will be enough."
Unlike Alicia, who had a worried expression, Joseph's face remained calm.
"From the moment we met, Sir Vlad was already the leader of the group."
"Ah."
Alicia silently nodded at Joseph's words.
Although he belonged to Hainal, after all, Vlad was Bayezid's knight.
Expressing my opinion about him in front of Joseph was something I had to be careful about.
"What happened when you first met?"
"He was a mercenary I had hired. We met during the monster subjugation that began in Varna."
Joseph looked down the hallway, thinking back to the past winter day.
A 17-year-old youth with the ID of a 31-year-old.
Even now, when I think about it, I can only laugh at the extremely audacious behavior of the boy.
"But aren't they all rough individuals? Barbarians, mercenaries, they're all new subordinates..."
"Lady Alicia."
Joseph stopped walking at Alicia's concerned opinion and looked back at her.
He nodded with a faint smile as if reassuring her.
"Why are you worried about that guy? You know him very well."
"…"
I heard it was his first war.
However, the fact that he will become the leader of a group and carry out separate missions.
Alicia was still young and wanted to stay with the other knights and be in a safe place, but Vlad had already proven to be too much to worry about.
"Fierce barbarians, rough mercenaries... They're definitely too much for a knight who isn't even 20 yet."
Joseph said those words and looked out at the scenery beyond the hallway.
A temporary garrison where soldiers from Haynal and Bayezid are gathered.
I could see a place where many people were gathered among the tents pitched there.
"But don't worry too much."
A loud noise reverberates all the way to the mansion.
With that sound, men of different affiliations and backgrounds began to mingle.
"In terms of roughness, he's not an easy opponent at all."
"Yes?"
Joseph stepped away from the window as if to take a closer look and said something that seemed incomprehensible.
"See for yourself."
Following Joseph's lead, Alicia naturally began to gaze out beyond the window.
"Huh?"
A temporary garrison where soldiers are gathered.
I don't know why, but a large circle formed among the very excited soldiers.
And two men standing inside.
"…"
Alicia blocked the sunlight with her hands and tried to make out the distant scene.
Blond hair shining in the sunlight.
There were fireflies flying around.
Even though it was midday and not night.
***
"Direct hit!"
"Come on! Knight of Deirmar!"
"Show those barbarians who we are!"
"Huff…"
It felt like my heart was pounding hard from the constant shouts coming from all directions.
However, Vlad takes a slow, deep breath and regains his composure.
Before him stood Agge, shirtless and with a grim expression.
The tattoos etched on his bulging muscles looked brutal.
"Go for it!"
Agge starts taunting Vlad with a barbaric hand gesture.
The shouts of the soldiers surrounding the circle grew louder at the sight.
"These guys are really loud."
Vlad spat harshly, seeming unhappy with the current situation.
Now as the Vlad from the alley, without his knight's standard, he slowly began to recall his old memories from Soara.
The madness of the past fills me with every breath I take.
The roughness of the alleys began to appear in the knight's blue eyes.
"…Mmm."
Agge corrected his posture without realizing it as Vlad approached.
A knight with a strange stance.
The close combat skills he directly learned from Ramund clearly masked Vlad's weaknesses.
'What kind of eyes does this kid have?'
Vlad advances with the skills of a knight and the power of an alley.
Watching, Agge unconsciously swallows.
'He's coming!'
The single-strike technique is a technique that controls the gap.
Although he didn't raise his sword, Vlad's own space was already etched into his body.
'Left!'
The fist extending swiftly is sharp.
However, Agge is a warrior who already has enough experience in close combat.
He quickly raised his right arm to cover his chin and sought an opportunity to counterattack immediately.
"Tsk!"
Suddenly, I began to feel pain starting in my right ankle.
With that, Agge's balance began to slowly collapse.
"You should have kept your eyes open."
"…!"
The left was a feint.
No, maybe it wasn't a feint, it was just fast.
Vlad, who changed his striking point based on Agge's reaction, managed to kick Agge's right ankle with a low kick.
'Damn it!'
Agge could think of it again as he looked at the smiling Vlad.
Who was the person in front of me?
The dragon hunter who led Lindworm, reached him, and finally killed him.
Vlad was a hunter who caught the biggest being he had ever seen.
"Don't bark at me again."
The momentum that started in the blue eyes formed a single line and began to run towards Agge.
"Keuuk!"
Agge rushed to attack Vlad in an attempt to reverse his momentum, but his eyes began to roll back from the continuous blows that started immediately.
Vlad's attack is relentless, as if it would never end with a single blow.
Boom! Pop-pop-!
Agge couldn't catch his breath as the hard fists continued to strike his sides and abdomen.
Each extended fist was a strong blow, as if a tree trunk were crashing down on him.
'…!'
On the surface, it seemed like he was simply acting on instinct, but he could feel the age he was dealing with.
To overcome physical differences, it is necessary to analyze them from bottom to top.
Vlad, who had been fighting opponents larger than him since he was young, was very aware of this fact and was now unleashing mercilessly the experience he had accumulated against Agge.
"Keuuk!"
Rougher than a barbarian.
More tenacious than an exhausted mercenary.
The beast that jumped from the dark alley ran towards Agge, using the skills of a knight.
"...I lost."
Vlad finally pushed the large northern man down.
Agge, feeling the cold earth on his back, looked at the hunter riding and pressing him under the blue sky.
Backlit by the sun, Vlad's face was completely dark.
"Show some respect."
"…I give up."
Vlad, who walked away from Agge, shrugged and looked at the barbarians in front of him.
"I still attack someone who is deceiving me, but this time I deal with it with my sword instead of my fists."
The barbarians simply fell silent in the face of Vlad's murderous gaze.
The barbarians who came according to the contract but said they would not bow to the people of the empire.
However, no matter what they did, they had no other choice in the face of the rules that apply in any world.
Vlad managed to make them understand through force.
"Wait a moment!"
"…What's going on now?"
Agge, who had been lying down a moment ago, shouted a few words and stood up, loudly calling out to Vlad.
"You're the leader... No, let the captain do it!"
"Do what?"
Agge's eyes began to search the scarlet hidden among the crowd.
Agge, a warrior of the Budart tribe.
He hasn't backed down completely yet.
"Not even a lieutenant!"
"…True."
As I lost, I'll follow what you say, but that doesn't mean I can give up my position as second in command.
Agge had no intention of bowing, at least not to Stephan.
"Oh, I'm going crazy."
"You two can handle that."
Stephan, noticing that Agge was pointing at him, tangled his bangs as if in pain.
In the end, Stephan stepped forward as if pushed by his subordinates.
Seeing this, the soldiers' shouts began to grow louder again.
"If you leave the position of second in command, your salary will also be reduced."
"…That guy lost a lot of strength, didn't he?"
Seeing Agge spit blood, Stephan also slowly began to clear his throat.
The fight between barbarians and mercenaries begins again.
The shouts of the soldiers, excited for another spectacle, began to resonate strongly.
"Get out of the way."
Vlad left the circle, shaking off the men approaching him from all sides.
"…"
"…"
Vlad stepped out into the quiet outdoors and made eye contact with the noble lady who was frozen in shock on the railing of the distant hallway.
Vlad tilted his head towards her with an awkward smile, but Alicia was just staring at Vlad with blank eyes, probably surprised by the confrontation of that moment.
"How is it? Do you think you'll do well in the future?"
"…Yes."
It was hard for Alicia to keep her mouth shut as she watched Vlad subdue the barbarians in an instant.
Vlad, a young knight who always showed himself to be honorable.
However, what she saw today was harsh, like a hungry animal.
"You're doing well. I think I'll do well in the future too."
And Alicia didn't feel that Vlad's unusual appearance was so bad.
Vlad walks away to the hills with a salute.
Alicia's eyes trembled slightly as she discovered the new Vlad behind him.
***
West must expand ceaselessly.
Even though they control vast land, the land they possess is nothing more than a barren field where not even a single blade of grass grows.
That's why the West has always lived by robbing and plundering what others had.
Until the fallen dragon turned its head outward.
"Baron! Baron!"
Nasau City.
A port city ruled by Baron Iznik.
Although Baron Iznik was in charge of a hub of West maritime trade, the report he heard now was enough to make him doubt his ears.
"...Everything was stolen?"
"That's..."
"All of it?"
"...Yes."
As the knight's report grew smaller, the baron's bristling mustache began to tremble.
"What kind of shit is this!"
Baron Iznik slammed the desk forcefully.
As if he couldn't contain his anger, he spoke without hesitation.
"Who the hell came in here and looted it?"
Bandits?
Or was it committed by other nearby lords?
There might have been a time when Ravnoma and Gaidar were fighting, but order had already been established in this area, so the news that supplies had been plundered was an unbelievable report for the baron.
"Who is it! I don't even know who robbed me!"
Looking at his bloodshot eyes filled with anger, the knight commander simply bowed his head.
"That is... It is said to be Hainal's troops."
"What?"
"Hainal... The one who is Lady Alicia's knight..."
The baron raised his eyes in disbelief at the knight commander's report.
"Hainal? Deirmar? No, how far is this place from there?"
This is because the distance between Deirmar and Nassau would have taken more than a week even if you had ridden non-stop.
No one could have easily imagined that Hainal's soldiers, who should have been crouching in preparation for the impending battle, would come here.
"How the hell did they crawl all the way here?"
From very far away without anyone knowing it.
And the looters who disappeared like the wind without a trace.
However, the situation had already occurred, and all the supplies the baron had sent were burned.
The only clue they left was Lady Alicia's name.
"Find them now! Find them and bring them to me!"
West, where being robbed equals death.
However, a vicious group that preys even on marauders has infiltrated the West's night skies.
Knights of the streets, Northern barbarians, and tenacious mercenaries.
It was a young and wicked attack force formed by a man with dark eyes.
War between the West and the North.
The North's first beacon against the imminent malevolence of the West belonged to Vlad, Lady Alicia's knight.
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