Chapter 61

The knights of the Arbenia ducal family were pushing through the forest in pursuit. The sun was already high in the sky, yet they hadn’t found any significant trace.

Perhaps this was to be expected.

There was no information to aid their pursuit.

They hadn’t seen the intruder’s face, let alone his body shape or outline. As if a ghost had come and gone, there was not a single trace in the villa that could hint at the intruder’s identity. They could only speculate that the intruder might be a skilled Ranger or someone of equivalent capability.

But this speculation was of little comfort.

For a Ranger capable of hiding his presence from a knight, evading capture would be exceedingly difficult. The only slight consolation was that the target was ‘carrying an injured hostage.’

“He couldn’t have gone far.”

Knight Palaisen ventured deeper into the forest. It was the forest one must cross to reach the City of Opportunities, Cambria. Circumventing this forest would require a considerable amount of time.

It was likely that the target would attempt to pass through or bypass this checkpoint to flee to Cambria. Therefore, Palaisen, along with a few other knights, were combing through the forest as if hunting for a mouse.

“The commander of the knights went ahead with the first pursuit team across the forest. If he can block the path ahead of the pursuer…”

His role was to find traces and block the retreat.

Palaisen hadn’t forgotten his duty.

Despite the sun being high, the dense foliage cast deep shadows in the forest, making it dim. He walked through the dark woods.

Startled.

Suddenly, Palaisen stopped.

He narrowed his eyes and looked around. He hadn’t sensed any presence, but his sharp intuition warned him.

Something was near. Not a judgment based on rational evidence, but a cry from animalistic intuition.

However, looking around, there was nothing to be seen. Just the wind rustling through the trees, the crackling of fallen leaves, and the sound of birds. Was his intuition wrong? It’s not often correct. He was thinking this when…

A shadow was cast overhead.

Palaisen’s eyes widened in an instant as he jerked his head up. His hand reached for the sword at his waist. But, just as he was about to draw his sword, he saw something.

‘…A piece of clothing?’

What fluttered above him was a robe.

A discarded robe. Distracted by the robe fluttering above him, Palaisen heard a thud as something kicked the ground.

“……”

The moment Palaisen turned towards the sound, it was already too late. The stolen sight, the delayed reaction, all gave way to a fatal opening.

Just as Palaisen was about to draw his sword, Najin had already closed the gap right in front of Palaisen’s nose.

Najin extended both hands forward. His left hand towards Palaisen’s face, and his right hand towards the sword Palaisen was trying to draw from his waist. The extended hands almost simultaneously achieved their purpose.

With a grip and a clang!

Najin’s left hand covered Palaisen’s eyes, grabbing his face, while his right hand struck the emerging sword, pushing it back into its sheath. A sudden attack. Obscured vision. A sword that couldn’t be drawn. Yet, even in this situation, Palaisen responded.

He was, after all, a well-trained knight.

Palaisen gathered mana and tried to shake off the attacker gripping his face. This was the best decision he could make at the moment, but the situation had already strayed far from the best the moment the attack was allowed and his vision obscured.

With a jolt.

He felt an impact on his leg. The sound of armor crumpling was heard. An overwhelming grip felt like it would burst his head. Pain, noise, the sensation of his body tilting.

Thud!

A dull impact was felt at the back of his head.

Palaisen’s body jerked briefly, but the impact didn’t stop there. Still blinded, something repeatedly struck Palaisen’s temples. The blows that shook his head came several times.

Crack, crack, crack…

His outstretched hands were deflected by something, and the legs he tried to flail were pinned to the ground as if trampled. The difference in reaction speed was evident. The physical capabilities were different. In the pitch-black view, the attacker struck Palaisen’s temples several times.

“Ugh…!”

No matter how well-trained a knight he was, he couldn’t withstand concentrated blows to the temples. Just as he was about to groan, something striking his temples hit his jaw. His mouth closed, and the scream was cut off.

A brief blackout.

But even that blackout didn’t last long.

“……!”

Sparks flew in the pitch darkness, and pain surged up his spine and shook his brain, waking Palaisen. He wanted to scream, but something stuffed in his mouth prevented any sound. He couldn’t grasp the situation with something covering his eyes.

Eventually, the presence disappeared. Palaisen, with his barely functioning hands, removed whatever was covering his face and spat out the cloth stuffed in his mouth.

“This damn…”

And then, he faced it.

Completely ruined greaves and an ankle twisted at an odd angle. He couldn’t move. A sharp pain from his ankle made him groan.

“Is there anyone, anyone at all!”

He shouted.

No response came back. No, that wasn’t quite true. There were sounds. The sound of something being struck, suppressed screams.

And then a chilling snap.

A sinister sound echoed through the forest.

The sound coming from afar made Palaisen grit his teeth and crawl on his palms. The sound echoed from all directions.

After crawling for a while, what Palaisen faced at the source of the sound was… a knight, with his plate armor completely crushed, stuck against a tree. Crawling a bit further, he saw another knight lying on the ground foaming at the mouth, and another knight screaming while clutching his ankle.

Including Palaisen, four knights had been dispatched to this forest.

All four of them had their ankles shattered.

Palaisen’s face turned pale.

The four knights had been defeated without putting up a proper fight, each one overpowered and their ankles crushed. They could have been killed, but they weren’t, meaning…

“What in the world…”

It was chilling.

Along with fear, the question arose. Palaisen and the other three knights couldn’t understand why they lost or how they were overpowered.

It wasn’t a defeat by an absolute realm.

It felt as if they had been toyed with from start to finish. They were ambushed with their vision stolen, allowed the first strike, and from the openings created, they were thoroughly trampled. They couldn’t comprehend the series of events.

The reaction speed surpassing a Sword Expert.

The eyes that read movements and anticipated the next move.

The ability to quickly gather mana.

And the decisive judgment to strike boldly.

Najin, possessing all these, was unmatched within the same realm. Especially in a forest full of hiding places. Of course, the ducal family’s knights had no way of knowing this.

Dieta looked at Najin with disbelief.

“So, you’re saying you smashed four knights?”

“Yes. They were scouting the path to Cambria.”

“Why bother…? We’re not even going that way.”

“That’s why.”

Najin, who had said he’d be right back, disappeared and then returned, repeating this process. And upon his return, he claimed to have crushed knights far away.

“Our destination, the opponents can’t be sure of it, can they? They’ll likely think it’s highly probable we’re heading back to Cambria.”

“Guess so…”

“Moreover, the opponents don’t know our location or even what I look like. It must be frustrating for those chasing us. I didn’t leave any traces.”

So he decided to add to their confusion.

Najin replied like that.

“If knights investigating traces in a forest they thought we had already passed through were attacked, what would the opponents think? Are they nearby? Are they close? Does it confirm they’re escaping this way?”

Many thoughts would cross their minds.

All those speculations would have reasons. Or, they might think it’s all a decoy… but nothing was certain.

“They won’t be able to make a proper judgment. And, it’s an effective strategy to weaken the pursuing forces.”

“Wait, just a moment.”

Dieta interrupted Najin’s words.

“To do that… it requires a lot of conditions, doesn’t it?”

She murmured while folding her fingers. No trace should be left behind, and no advantage should be given away by revealing their faces or physiques to the knights. Moreover, the ability to ‘quickly’ traverse from there to here is also required.

Each condition was absurd. However, upon hearing these conditions, Najin simply tilted his head.

“Isn’t that obvious?”

“Eh…?”

“Don’t worry, I took care of all those conditions.”

He said it so nonchalantly as if keeping all those conditions while launching the attack was a given. Dieta sighed in disbelief. What kind of person is this man?

Of course, for Najin, this was nothing unusual.

He had escaped from that infamous sect for days and had killed more than a dozen of its members. Najin was confident that he would ‘never’ get caught by the knights if he was alone.

It was only because Dieta was with him that he had to buy time and take periodic rests, hence the use of such methods.

“That aside,”

Najin glanced at Dieta’s ankle. He carefully unwrapped the bandage around her ankle while she sat on a suitable rock. Dieta flinched every time Najin’s fingers touched her skin.

“Does it hurt?”

“A bit.”

Dieta’s face turned slightly red.

Najin thought to be more careful and slowly unwound the bandage. The wound on her ankle, oozing pus, came into Najin’s view.

“Please bear with it a little.”

He wiped the pus from the wound with a clean cloth and placed a gauze soaked in potion on the wound. Dieta flinched during the process and clutched Najin’s robe tightly, her head bowed. It was a painful procedure, but necessary.

If the injury couldn’t be healed, at least preventing it from worsening was crucial.

After changing the bandage, Najin stood up. Dieta rubbed her face with her sleeve. With slightly reddened eyes, Dieta looked at Najin.

“It does hurt a bit.”

“It’s supposed to hurt. It would be better to get proper treatment soon, but…”

“Then we’d be caught. It’s okay. I can still endure it.”

Dieta smiled faintly. Najin silently looked at her, then exhaled shortly.

“It’s not much of a revenge.”

“Excuse me?”

“I did smash the knights’ ankles.”

Concerned about the hassle of dealing with the aftermath if he killed the knights of the ducal family, Najin settled for crushing their ankles. Such injuries could be healed later.

“I could have smashed their knees, but I thought, why not the ankles while I’m at it.”

Najin glanced at Dieta’s ankle.

He wondered if any of the knights he attacked contributed to cutting the tendon in Dieta’s ankle. Thinking about it made him slightly regret not crippling them further.

Blink.

Dieta blinked several times while looking at Najin. Then, as if she finally understood the meaning of his words, she covered her mouth and chuckled.

“Thank you. It’s somewhat comforting.”

“You don’t look very comforted.”

“Well, it’s not like I gain anything from them suffering the same fate as me, so it’s not particularly thrilling.”

Dieta looked at Najin with a smile.

“But since you did it for me, I’m a bit happy.”

“Is that so?”

“Yes, it feels good.”

Dieta stretched her arms towards Najin with a bright smile.

“Shall we go then?”

Dieta was gradually getting used to being carried on Najin’s back. Although she initially felt embarrassed, she now enjoyed the ride on Najin’s sturdy back.

Click.

Dieta pressed close to Najin’s back and wrapped her arms around him, calling out with a voice tinged with laughter.

“Let’s go!”

“You seem oddly happy.”

“The nighttime escape drama is more fun than I thought. I’m in debt, so it’s a bit embarrassing to say, but I can’t help but enjoy it.”

“It’s broad daylight now.”

“Let’s overlook the minor details.”

Najin chuckled and went along with Dieta’s pace. Seeing her bright face now compared to the dying expression she had in the villa, he found this much more pleasant.

With Dieta on his back, Najin started running.

Four knights were defeated.

And they were found with their ankles shattered. Traces were discovered. The discovered traces were scattered. The direction was unclear. It seemed as if the traces were intentionally left.

News keeps coming in. With each piece of news, Griffin, the commander of the Arbenia ducal family’s knights, frowned.

“What kind of person is this?”

There’s no way to track the direction.

The skill in erasing traces was profound. Just when they thought they had an estimated route, unexpected traces would appear, and knights would even be ambushed.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

It’s impossible to understand the intent.

This isn’t a skill honed from one or two experiences.

But what was most incomprehensible was… the process of subduing the four knights. The knights who claimed to have been attacked one by one in the forest. None of the four knights had seen the appearance of the attacker.

They were ambushed. Their vision was obscured. They were beaten unconscious with something covering their faces. When they came to, their ankles were shattered…

What an absurd testimony.

They are not just any men but knights. Knights who had reached the realm of Sword Experts. The Arbenia ducal family wasn’t a martial family, so the knights’ level wasn’t exceptionally high, but it was still a ducal family.

Meaning, they were above average.

How could such knights be so easily defeated? Could they really be Sword Seekers? To subdue them so cleanly, one would have to be at least at the level of a Sword Seeker.

“Kapman Theosis.”

Is it really you?

Griffin, suspecting the most renowned Ranger in the adventurer city, inadvertently clicked his tongue. No, if it were him, he would have sniped the knights’ ankles from afar.

“Sigh…”

The pursuit team is growing.

If they continue to deploy more troops, rumors will start to spread, and suspicion will arise. With a throbbing headache, Griffin lit a cigarette.

Enough time has been wasted. They couldn’t afford to dawdle any longer. Just as Griffin was contemplating his next move…

Beep.

A messenger bird landed beside Griffin with a cry. Griffin unfolded the letter tied to the bird. It was a letter personally written by Duke Osman.

“……”

He read the letter in silence. After reading, he muttered, “As expected.”

“Count Ostrum.”

“Count Kloeppsch.”

“Duke Trebache.”

Three potential destinations. The letter contained a map marking the routes to these destinations and the waypoints they might pass through. Osman, piercing through Dieta’s strategy with precision, had narrowed down the potential destinations.

Not Cambria, but focus on the paths leading to these three places. That was Osman’s message.

Griffin reorganized the pursuit team and prepared to depart. After giving orders, he mounted his horse and headed towards the most likely route.

Knight Commander Griffin.

His destination was Duke Trebache’s residence.