171. The laughter of the gnolls was just unpleasant.
"I wanted to meet you once, in good health."
Satisfaction made Enkrid's mouth move.
If he got any closer, the leader might notice him playing leader, or maybe not.
But Enkrid wanted to announce his presence.
It wasn't out of vanity or some fair fight.
What kind of competition was there with monsters?
It was simply—
'It's a test.'
He just wanted to confirm what he had built up through the repetition of today.
At the sound of Enkrid's voice, the leader, who had two mutated creatures as if they were his guards, quickly turned his head back.
But it wasn't just a turn of the head.
He raised two daggers and aimed them forward. All of this happened in the blink of an eye.
'As expected, fast.'
Enkrid admired it.
"Guuuk!"
The leader shouted. At that, the two mutated creatures standing like guards reacted.
Guwok!
This shout seemed more like something a ghoul would make. One of the mutated creatures that shouted lunged forward. At the same time, a heavy club swung from above downwards.
Enkrid raised his sword, covered in black blood, diagonally.
The heavy club came crashing down from above with a swoosh. Enkrid's gaze was unfocused.
Just before the club was about to strike his head, the sword moved.
No, his foot moved with it.
Thwack!
He twisted the blade and struck the middle of the club, then pushed it forward. The surface of the club was scraped away, as though it were being cut by a chisel.
Enkrid's sword continued forward, and he struck the mutated creature's nape.
After scraping the club's surface, the blade struck the back of its neck.
The blade cut through the mutated gnoll's muscles, bones, tendons, and half of its neck.
"Gaa, ha, gah."
As the neck was severed, the gnoll let out a deflated sound.
The gnoll, which had been gurgling, kneeled and its yellow eyes gradually faded as it collapsed forward.
Whether one of them died or not, the second gnoll charged in. Enkrid pretended to raise his sword and then swiftly moved his foot. Turning his body left, he avoided the club and executed a horizontal cut from the top.
With the grip held overhead, he spun his wrist, and the sword traced a semicircle, moving horizontally through the gnoll's head, cutting it midway.
The combination of immense strength and skill created this result.
With a snap, the mutated creature's head was sliced in half.
It looked like a pumpkin with its lid cut off.
Of course, inside it wasn't pumpkin seeds and flesh, but brain matter and black blood.
The severed half of the head fell to the ground.
"If you run, you'll get hit in the back of the head with this."
Enkrid said, shaking his hand. With a sharp whistle, a throwing dagger flew and buried itself deep into the head of a regular gnoll that had been hesitating on whether to charge.
The blade embedded so deep that it couldn't even be seen, leaving no trace of the dagger, but the blood vessels bulged.
The gnoll, knocked back by the impact, fell, and blood oozed from its head, staining the ground.
Guuuuuk!
Sensing their leader's danger, the others reacted, and Enkrid hoped the leader would charge him.
This was a road he had never taken before.
So, this was the first time he had experienced something like this.
He didn't know what would happen next. The leader might retreat.
What then? What would he do? Chase after him and decorate the leader's head with a throwing knife.
What if the leader charged instead?
'Can I survive today?'
He asked himself. The answer was still unclear.
He had hoped, prepared, and assessed the opponent.
But the outcome of a fight is always uncertain, isn't it?
Most of all, the leader—this gnoll—was the kind of creature that wouldn't show itself unless Enkrid suffered a wound serious enough to tear through his thigh, make a deep gash in it, or create a hole next to his belly button.
A leader's face only appears when movement is restricted, or a fatal wound is sustained.
'What a damn sneaky bastard.'
It was an inward compliment. Only showing himself when the outcome was certain—how clever of him.
And the leader of the gnolls did not back down. Just as Enkrid had expected, he moved.
"Grruuuuk!"
A sound, something like a pop, was heard. It was that fast.
Enkrid had anticipated it since he had experienced it before, but it was still incredibly fast.
When the gnoll leader hit the ground, its body stretched out, elongating like a shadow extending in the sunlight.
Enkrid's eyes locked onto the shadow's form. He didn't lose track of his opponent.
'Watching' was something he could do before.
The problem was how fast it was, making it difficult to defend.
The gleaming daggers in the leader's hands didn't allow even a brush against them.
They were poisoned. One touch would be the end. Then it would just be another repeat of today's struggle.
Skt, shoo!
The first slash, out of two, only grazed Enkrid's shoulder. It just brushed past him.
It didn't even touch his skin. Enkrid's armor wasn't the kind that would be split by a mere dagger slash.
Only the outer leather showed a faint scratch.
The second slash, however, was entirely avoided.
The right hand slashed while the left hand thrust forward, but the thrust missed as Enkrid turned his body, evading it.
It was an astonishing reaction speed.
The moment he saw it, his body moved.
It was similar to a Valen-style misaligned blade attack, though the rhythm was different, it was still incredibly, exceedingly fast.
'It's working.'
Just as he had anticipated, it was possible to avoid. He couldn't prevent it from even grazing, but he could avoid the skin being cut or pierced.
'The sense of evasion.'
It wasn't just a sense, though; this felt more like training to improve his reaction speed.
It felt that way.
It meant he had chosen the wrong name. The fleeting thoughts disappeared as quickly as they had appeared.
Anyway, if he could just focus on evading, keeping his body in response to that alone, wouldn't he be able to avoid even being grazed?
But was that necessary? Probably not. It was time to move forward.
The day had come when he would survive today and see the light of tomorrow.
"Krook!"
The leader of the gnolls was enraged. His red eyes reflected that anger. The yellow pupils seemed to glow with a red tint. The gnoll passed by Enkrid, then quickly turned to charge again.
This time, he lowered his stance and aimed for the thigh. It was a tricky trajectory to dodge. One of the daggers even aimed for the inside of his hip joint, so the two blades attacked in offset rhythms.
If he missed, Enkrid could have been crippled.
Enkrid did not hesitate to respond. The moment he saw and understood the attack, he immediately moved.
That was the small, but significant difference.
It was almost the first time he had used this while swinging his real sword.
It was a shift in coordination; it was reaction speed.
And that was a new world.
A step into a new realm.
At least, that's how Enkrid felt.
The difference in reaction speed led to a difference in reflexes.
His body, honed through the technique of isolation, expressed the difference in recognition in real-time.
The moment he saw it, his sword came down.
Hooong, crack, thud!
The instant the leader of the gnolls charged, the blade—like a flash of light—cut through the air vertically.
Naturally, it didn't just cut through the air.
Thud!
The leader's head was cleaved from his spine, cutting straight down through the middle of his back.
His futile gestures followed. He didn't even realize he was dead as his hands reached out.
The left hand aimlessly stabbed the air, but the right hand still targeted his hip joint, just as he had planned.
Enkrid immediately bent his knee and used the armor on his abdomen to absorb the thrust from the dead gnoll.
Thud.
A dead man's hands lose their strength.
The dagger struck the leather armor weakly and fell.
Even though the leader had been split in half, the movement continued for a moment before he crumbled apart.
His intestines and blood stained the ground. The rapid slashes had caused the blood to splatter backward in a straight line.
Enkrid had aimed to cleave the leader's skull, but the creature instinctively dodged.
So, Enkrid slashed diagonally, cutting through the shoulder and splitting the gnoll in half.
"Hooah."
Exhaling, Enkrid felt a surge of exhilaration.
'I'm moving forward.'
The joy of growth, the moment of proving it through results.
He avoided the poisoned daggers with his sense of evasion and struck with a single blow, thanks to his training in coordination and reaction speed.
Before that, he had caught the gnoll's movement with his eyes, and the heart of a beast gave him the boldness to act.
"Guuuu!"
Of course, this couldn't be the end. There were still plenty of gnolls and beasts around.
Now, the escape route was the problem.
"Hah!"
With a yell, Enkrid swung his sword powerfully, aiming at the two gnolls blocking his way.
A formal stance? There was no time for that.
He had learned the best swordsmanship for dealing with monsters.
The northern style of longsword.
The north was known for being a cold, monster-filled land.
Their swords evolved to be the best shape for cutting down beasts.
Enkrid had learned this.
Hoo, crack! Thud!
Ankle, knee, waist, shoulder, wrist.
With perfectly applied centrifugal force, the upper and lower bodies of the two gnolls were severed.
Of course, they would never meet again.
After splitting the two gnolls, Enkrid ran.
'Can I escape?'
Dodging all day? That was possible.
But dodging while exhausted from fighting?
That was difficult. He had learned several times during this ordeal that managing stamina was essential for prolonged battles.
But now, after crawling through the fight with the gnoll leader, he had to carve a path back to his original village? That was a different problem from just evading and holding on in place.
"Can we not meet again tomorrow?"
Enkrid, while evading, muttered a remark that had no effect. Naturally, the gnolls didn't respond.
The response to his words came instead from a hyena beast, lurking behind.
With its mouth wide open, the hyena aimed for his back and launched itself at him. Enkrid reacted in an instant, driving his elbow into the beast's skull.
Thud.
The one who got hit properly dropped to the ground with a thud.
Enkrid, like flowing water, drove his sword into the beast's skull.
In the meantime, two beasts and a gnoll that had rushed in were met by a horizontal slash of the sword in Enkrid's left hand.
It was a gnoll wearing something resembling leather armor. The one who got hit stumbled back a few steps.
He couldn't cleave them all at once.
His breath was shallow, and he couldn't put full power into his strikes.
His posture had collapsed, but it was also because he had fought with the strength of a beast's heart.
'This is something.'
His hands were trembling from just a little strain.
Of course, he could rest for a moment.
Now was the time to once again dance with the feeling of evasion.
"Guuuu!"
The gnoll's cry seemed to say, "Kill him, kill that human!"
Enkrid indifferently retrieved his sword and used his feet.
He dodged when he had to, and struck when he had to.
He was like a master of offense and defense.
If someone had seen this in person, they would probably think so, but from a distance, his movements were not easy to understand.
Enkrid felt a certain satisfaction from having killed the leader.
With exhilaration, it felt as if the entire plan of the ferryman had been overturned.
How could that be?
What was the original wall?
In Enkrid's mind, the wall was to fight against a hyena's head wielding a poisoned dagger while enduring injuries.
No, it was to fight and win without even brushing against the poisoned dagger.
That's what Enkrid twisted.
Was it impossible to capture the leader while bearing injuries? No, it was possible. He could have walked that path.
But he didn't want to.
Even if the wall that was originally set was that.
'That bastard's laugh is annoying.'
He didn't like the gnoll's laugh. He would praise it as clever for not showing up until a fatal injury was confirmed, but he didn't like it.
Then, what should he do?
He thought for a moment. He didn't need Krais' help.
It was too simple.
Block the door, defend the barricade, and fight the leader. Everything was intentional. That was the result.
The leader was dead, and among the settlers of the frontier village, no one had been killed by gnolls or hyena beasts.
If someone had died from a stone thrown by a slingshot, that would have been unavoidable.
At least, in Enkrid's eyes, no one died that way.
It was never about protecting the settlers of the frontier village.
It just happened to turn out this way.
If he had to give a reason, it was simply because the gnoll's laugh really annoyed him.
More than anything, fighting through injuries wasn't as efficient as this, was it?
Of course, to end it beautifully, he would need to finish things properly here.
That meant he had to survive and return.
He conserved his breath and saved his strength.
After failing to open a path with a few sword strikes, he continued with simpler attacks, but the path remained blocked.
It was one of those moments. Should he endure and wait for another variable to appear?
Or should he pour all his remaining strength into breaking through with the heart of a beast?
Neither of those options seemed very likely. Enkrid sensed that instinctively.
But there didn't seem to be another choice.
In the midst of this brief contemplation—
"Open the path!"
What was that?
It came from the direction of the village entrance. Thud, thud, the village's main gate opened. Part of the thick log barricade was cleared.
Thanks to the chaos caused by Enkrid and Esther, the gnoll group had turned back, and the ones knocking at the gate had disappeared.
Deutsch Fullman, who had been observing everything, couldn't hold himself back and stepped outside.
"Only those who will follow, come out! If you're pulling back now, get your stuff and get out!"
It was a suggestion befitting the leader of mercenaries. If you value your life, why would you be a mercenary?
Deutsch's subordinates rushed out, one after another.
Then, Deutsch Fullman, wielding his weapon, the glaive, swung it powerfully.
Following him were ten members of the vigilante group, who had endured hardships since their mercenary days.
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