Chapter 83 : Chapter 83
Duce stood atop a great stone, leaning on a single sword.
He looked to the skies.
Dark clouds hung thick, obscuring any sign of sunlight.
Duce took a deep breath, as if to inhale the dark clouds and the sunlight hidden within them.
Then he looked forward and shouted, his voice booming.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
Where Duce looked, a camp spread out below him.
Refugees were arriving on foot, on horseback, and in baggage carts.
Some refugees reaching the camp embraced their families in long hugs before walking to the center.
In the center of the camp was a pile of weapons, caked in blood, their blades chipped and broken.
Soldiers before the pile of weapons asked the arriving refugees for their place of origin, name, and family name.
When the refugees answered, the soldiers handed them a weapon from the pile. They tucked a piece of bark, carved with their origin, name, and family name, into their clothes.
The refugees who received a weapon and the piece of bark walked out of the camp, toward the stone where Duce stood.
As they formed a line, Duce shouted again.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
At his command, the twenty-first of the day, the refugees became volunteer soldiers and charged forward.
Before the charging volunteer soldiers, narrow streams spread out like the veins on a palm.
A small wooden castle sat between those streams.
And before that castle, on the plain between two of the streams, a bloody battle was raging.
“O Jershu…!”
All manner of monsters tore, smashed, and devoured the charging volunteer soldiers.
When the monsters left an opening while slaughtering the volunteers, the Ornament Knights charged in and crushed them in turn.
The surviving volunteer soldiers ran over the corpses of their comrades, charging forward again, shouting the same words at the top of their lungs.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
In the middle of this bloody battlefield, an ogre with its belly torn open, gushing blood, slammed a cart it was holding down in front of it.
The volunteer soldiers charging toward the ogre were crushed flat.
Sevha burst through the spray of blood.
He ran up the cart, along the ogre’s arm, and leaped upward. He clung to the ogre’s face and hacked at it with his handaxe.
The ogre shrieked in agony and fell backward.
As soon as it collapsed, Sevha jumped to the ground.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
He ran forward.
Ahead, goblins and volunteer soldiers were locked in a tangled melee.
As he charged through them, he passed goblins pinning down a volunteer and smashing his head with a rock.
He passed a volunteer who had just pierced a goblin’s head with a spear, only to have another goblin tear at his throat.
“Oaah!”
A large goblin, a hobgoblin wielding a human leg bone, charged at Sevha.
Sevha snatched a fallen flagpole from the ground, spun, and threw it.
The pole pierced the hobgoblin’s chest.
The flag of the Barsh Royal Family unfurled as the hobgoblin fell backward. Two white horses and a crown.
Sevha ran past the flag.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
The Ornament Knights charged around the flag, trampling goblins underhoof.
The moment the Ornament Knights overtook him, a large stone fell from the sky, smashing into a knight and sending him flying.
Sevha dodged the rolling stone and looked ahead. Beyond the volunteer soldiers fighting monsters stood the castle.
And on the castle walls, trolls were hurling massive stones.
A few wyverns were taking flight.
CRASH! CRASH! CRASH!
Sevha ran, dodging the flying stones.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
The volunteer soldiers he passed were shattered by the stones.
The monsters he pushed aside were crushed flat by them.
Each time, Sevha was splattered with debris and blood, but he did not stop running.
CRUUUNCH!
As a stone landed behind him, he saw the castle was near. An ogre stood before the empty gateway.
It was an ogre chieftain, larger than the one Sevha and Duce had hunted before.
As Sevha ran for the gateway, the ogre chieftain roared. It swung the castle gate it was holding in an upward arc.
Sevha slammed his handaxe into the gate, and his body was carried upward with it.
He pulled the handaxe free, and his body soared high into the air.
THUD!
Sevha landed on the castle wall and rolled.
He got to his feet and saw the trolls hurling their great stones.
Just as he ran toward the trolls…
Clang, clang, clang, clang.
Grappling hooks caught on the wall, and the Hunters of Anse leaped up onto the ramparts.
The Hunters closed in on the trolls, swinging their handaxes wildly.
Sevha ran along the embattled wall until he reached a tower.
He leaped up and grabbed the ledge of a tower window.
He jumped again and caught hold of a flagpole embedded in the tower.
He continued to climb until he reached the top.
Sevha took the bow from his back, nocked an arrow, and drew the string with all his might.
Creeaak…!
He fired at a wyvern flying in the sky.
The wyvern, struck by the arrow, twisted around and dove toward him.
But Sevha did not take a single step back. He fired at the wyvern’s forehead.
One shot, two shots, three, four.
Its forehead bristling with arrows, the wyvern’s eyes rolled back and crashed beside Sevha. It slid for a moment before falling from the tower.
CRASH!
As Sevha continued to harass and bring down the wyverns with his arrows, one of them let out a long cry.
As if in answer, the ogre chieftain roared.
Sevha looked toward the gateway and saw the ogre chieftain turning toward him.
He grabbed the rope-tied javelin from his back and threw it with all his strength at another tower.
Just as the javelin embedded itself, the ogre chieftain roared even louder and threw the castle gate at Sevha.
Sevha grabbed the rope, snatched up a long spear, and threw himself from the tower.
He crossed the castle courtyard at incredible speed.
The flying gate cut the rope, but at that moment, Sevha let go and flew through the air.
He came face-to-face with the ogre chieftain, colliding with it with a sickening CRACK! as he drove the long spear into its chest.
Blood erupted from the ogre chieftain’s chest, and it fell backward.
THUD!
Sevha landed on the chieftain’s corpse. He stood and looked out at the castle courtyard, which was swarming with monsters.
“O Jershu! Take your seat in Judgment Hall!”
To Sevha’s left and right, the Blanc Knights on horseback and the Broken Tusks on werewolves charged past. They crushed the monsters in the castle courtyard.
As soon as he saw this, he ran toward the castle entrance. He kept running, splattered by the flying flesh of monsters.
He threw open the castle’s main doors and entered the hall.
Growling goblins drooled blood. The floor was covered with mutilated corpses.
Sevha drew his handaxe and ran forward.
Thwok!
He smashed the head of an oncoming goblin and kept running.
Thwok!
He split the leg of a pouncing goblin and kept running.
Thwok!
He tore open the back of a fleeing goblin and kept running.
He ran on—up, up, ever upward, to the highest point of the castle.
Sevha arrived before the lord’s chambers.
He broke down the locked door and entered.
Creak, creak, creak…
The lord and his family were hanging by the neck, swaying gently.
Sevha passed between them and went out onto the terrace.
The scene before the castle came into view.
Beneath the dark, cloudy sky, the battle raged on the walls and in the courtyard.
The volunteer soldiers swarmed toward the castle, treading on the bodies of their comrades and the monsters.
Duce stood on his stone, continuing to send the volunteers charging forward.
Sevha looked at the streams that embraced the entire scene and spoke.
“Let us hunt the dragon here.”
***
The lord’s chamber in Bargon Castle.
Duce stood on the terrace, looking out. Sevha sat beside him, chewing on dried meat.
Duce looked at the endless columns of refugees streaming toward the castle and at the corpses of the volunteer soldiers scattered across the fields below.
“Sevha.”
“Hm.”
“How many of the volunteer soldiers have died?”
“Beyond count.”
“How many refugees are coming?”
“No need to count. So many will die.”
Duce felt a pang of guilt for the deaths his actions had caused and for those they would yet cause. He clenched his jaw to suppress it.
Sevha glanced at Duce’s expression and offered words that were not quite consolation.
“They made their choice.”
After Sevha had rescued him at the ranch, they had led their forces day and night, rescuing people from monsters. They persuaded the survivors to become volunteer soldiers, and with those volunteers, they rescued more people.
After repeating this cycle countless times, the common folk of the Great Hunt realized that Duce and Sevha were the only ones trying to save them.
So now, even without persuasion, countless commoners were fleeing to them. And becoming volunteer soldiers. And dying.
“Yes, they all choose to die of their own accord. But that is no reason to let them continue to die. So… can we truly hunt the dragon here?”
“We can.”
“Equipment and traps?”
“They are being made.”
“The troops?”
Sevha swallowed his mouthful of dried meat with a look of displeasure.
He answered, “Still not enough. At this rate, we might eventually gather the necessary forces, however…”
“We’ll run out of time before the dragon’s horde arrives by land.”
“Right. Which is why we need to make a gamble.”
The method Sevha had conceived to gather forces more quickly was simple.
“We have to kill one of the Four Knights.”
Angke, Michel, and Gwen were gathering large forces.
They were the focal points. If one of them died, the forces beneath them would surely scatter.
Sevha said, “Scattered forces must find a new focal point. Who would be the easiest to latch onto?”
“Us. We’ve only just appeared on the political stage and have no open enmity with their forces. They’d rather rely on us than on the others.”
Sevha nodded, rose to his feet, and looked at the cloud-filled sky.
“And when we accept them and gain a force that can’t be ignored, the king and the other knights will fear we might hunt the dragon first, and they will join our hunt.”
Duce understood the picture Sevha was painting. “If the dragon and the surviving Four Knights gather here…”
“We’ll hunt the dragon, the king, and if we have the strength to spare, the other knights as well.”
“…Which of the Four Knights do you intend to kill?”
Sevha answered without a moment’s hesitation.
“Gwen, the Knight of the Dagger. I hate to hunt accompanied by daggers—by assassins.”
“Can it be done? As you say, those who follow Gwen are assassins.”
Sevha’s expression was that of a hunter, without a trace of doubt.
“Have you forgotten? This is a hunting ground.”