Chapter 8

Chapter 8. Attacked on the First Day

Balun carefully retraced everything he had done that day.

He arrived at the city, passed inspection, entered the inn, rested for a bit, and ate a meal. After that, he was on his way to the Mercenary Guild to turn in the wanted criminal’s severed head.

And then, out of nowhere, some bastards attacked him?

‘No. This is genuinely absurd.’

Balun let out a hollow laugh. The more he thought about it, the more ridiculous it seemed.

What in that whole sequence of events could possibly have given anyone a reason to attack him? No matter how much he thought about it, there was nothing.

Still, should he rack his brain a little harder? You never knew. Maybe he had done something rude without realizing it.

No, there was nothing like that. He had not argued with anyone. Barel had handled all dealings with other people, while Balun had merely rested a little and eaten a meal.

So if this was happening to him, it could only mean one thing.

His luck was truly cursed.

‘Should I have just filled my stomach and immediately fled to another city without doing anything else?’

The thought crossed his mind for a moment, but it was nonsense.

He had finally set foot in the city of the civilized world he had dreamed of for so long, and he was supposed to just take a quick look and leave? What was this, some kind of apocalypse? Were zombies swarming the place? Was there radiation leaking everywhere?

There was so much he had to do.

And so much he wanted to do.

On the way here, Balun had even made a bucket list in his head. Some of the items on it were not difficult at all, and he could have done them here.

He wanted to look around the city, buy some proper clothes, wander the market and snack on little treats, and sit in a tavern drinking his fill while overhearing information about how the world worked…

What an innocent and wholesome bucket list it was.

It was enough to make his heart feel pitiful.

No, it still made no sense. No matter how he looked at it, he had done nothing wrong.

So yes, this really was unfair.

“Who are you?”

Balun asked. For now, he would at least try talking first. It would not be too late to decide what to do afterward.

“What the hell? That bastard speaks the Common Tongue?”

“There have been quite a few monkeys lately that know how to talk.”

“That is true, but those ones have usually been civilized a bit. That one looks like he just came over not long ago.”

“He must have learned it somewhere. Well, does it matter?”

“I suppose not.”

There was no answer for him.

They just talked among themselves, tossing words back and forth while Balun’s voice sounded again.

“Why attack me?”

At that, the man in front looked at Balun. The voice was far too booming to ignore.

“Well, the monkey bastard has quite a loud voice.”

“That is just how barbarians are.”

“You ask why we attacked you? We did not attack you. Right?”

“Ah, that is right. Why would we attack you? We are just trying to capture you.”

“Capturing a beast that runs wild is not the same as attacking it, is it?”

The bastards jeered and chuckled.

Balun stared at the two men trading remarks with narrowed eyes.

He was not glaring because he was angry.

He was doing that without thinking while trying to parse what they were saying.

They mumbled so much that how was he supposed to understand them properly…?

He had become fairly accustomed to the Language of the Ironclads by now, but it was still a foreign language to Balun. If people spoke clearly, he could understand them, but when they slurred their words like that, it was difficult.

But it seemed the attackers took his stare as obvious hostility.

“That bastard is glaring at us.”

“That is just how monkeys are.”

“He is going to start going wild any second. Hurry up and grab him. It is a pain once they get excited.”

The man behind Balun nodded and lifted something.

It looked almost like a harpoon, and there was a rope attached to the end.

The moment Balun saw it, he quickly shouted,

“Precious life.”

“What is he saying?”

“I do not want to die. Cannot live if dead!”

“Do any of you understand what the hell he is saying?”

“Who knows. Maybe he is saying he will kill us all? Sounds like he is saying he will not let us live.”

“Oh, how terrifying. Since I do not want to die, let us hurry up and catch him.”

The circle around him tightened.

Balun scratched his head furiously. Just in case, he had tried begging for his life, but apparently it was not working.

‘No, seriously, is that not too much? If someone begs this desperately, you could at least spare him.’

In his own mind, he had cried out with desperate sincerity, but Balun had no idea that to everyone else, it sounded like a savage threat delivered with murder in his eyes.

His expression already made things worse, and his word choice was not helping either.

‘Nothing for it. I'll break through.’

Balun quickly looked front and back.

This was a narrow alley.

He was surrounded on both sides.

Four in front and four in back.

And counting the ones waiting behind them, there were roughly fifteen in total.

So which way should he go? Forward? Back?

Balun did not think for long.

Front or back did not matter. He always moved in the direction that gave him the best chance of staying alive.

First, survival.

Second, survival.

Third, survival!

‘That harpoon thing looks dangerous.’

Balun had not forgotten how fast the net that had nearly caught him had flown at him, as quick as a gunshot.

There was no guarantee that the harpoon would not fly just as fast. If it did, a human belly would not withstand it. It would punch a hole right through.

‘Take that one down first.’

He immediately drew one of the hand axes from his waist and hurled it straight forward.

The hand axe flew with a vicious sound and buried itself in the chest of the man holding the harpoon.

The bastard had been about to fire it, but stopped short, let out a sharp scream, and collapsed.

The attackers’ faces went pale.

None of them had expected Balun to simply throw an axe without warning.

The distance was not even close.

Even if someone took careful aim, it would have been difficult to hit from there, yet Balun had thrown it casually and struck true.

The throwing skill was astonishing.

“Shit!”

“Get him! Hurry up and get him!”

Just then, a metallic click sounded from behind.

When Balun turned around, he saw one of the men in the rear handling another harpoon in his hands.

Balun was horrified.

‘What? There was another one?’

The man fired it at once, and the rope attached to the harpoon spread wide and tried to entangle Balun in the shape of a net.

Balun’s eyes went round.

What was that?

‘A net appeared?’

There had definitely been nothing there before. It had only looked like a harpoon with a short rope attached to it.

But when it fired, the rope trailing behind it spread open into the shape of a net, like a flower bud blooming after being tightly closed.

But the strange thing was that there had been nowhere in that harpoon for such a large net to be hidden.

The net could not have appeared out of nowhere, so that meant they had somehow compressed that huge net into that little harpoon.

Was that even possible?

No, could that really be done?

‘Is this actually a world with some kind of absurdly advanced technology?’

The net flew at him.

Balun’s mind went blank.

But his body, honed through countless battles, followed instinct.

He threw the two-handed axe in his hands straight at the net.

The large axe plunged right into the incoming mesh, and the spread net stopped dead in midair.

It lost momentum, unable to advance because of the axe.

Instead of capturing Balun, the net fell to the ground holding only the axe.

“…?”

“What the hell was that?”

The attackers could hardly believe their eyes.

What had they just seen?

In that situation, he had escaped being trapped by throwing away his own weapon to stop the net?

“Does that even make sense?”

“I-I know.”

“You bastards! Is now the time to stand around gaping? Hurry up and get him! He does not have a weapon anymore anyway!”

“What are you talking about? He still has weapons left…”

“Fuck! Then are you not going to catch him?”

At last the attackers drew their weapons and charged.

Apparently, they had no more of those bizarre compressed-net harpoons.

That, at least, reassured Balun a little.

No advanced weapons meant this was better, at least.

Honestly, those bastards looked weak as hell. They were all scrawny and unimpressive.

And this was a narrow alley. He only had to defend two directions: front and back.

‘This might actually be breakable.’

For all that he was like, Balun had a great deal of battlefield experience.

A tiny shred of the courage he had left behind in another world welled up inside him.

The little Lu Bu hidden inside his heart stretched awake.

Balun pulled out all three daggers tucked into his waist, gripped them in one hand, and threw them all at once.

The flying daggers struck more or less at random.

Thigh, torso, shoulder, in that order.

Watching the men cry out in pain, Balun clicked his tongue.

‘Damn, not a single headshot.’

Maybe it was because their weight balance was different from throwing axes, but they were not easy to aim properly.

Still, wounding them was better than nothing.

Using spoils well was enough.

Thinking that, Balun pulled out his last remaining weapon, a single hand axe.

“Die!”

By then, one of the men behind him had rushed in and swung a sword.

Balun ducked under it, then struck the man’s right hand with the flat side of the hand axe.

The impact was so strong that the bastard dropped his sword.

Taking advantage of his confusion, Balun grabbed him.

The man visibly panicked, as though he had never imagined this.

“W-What the—”

“Enemy leader captured!”

Balun shouted as he lifted the hostage he had seized.

‘Is he the leader?’

Well, it probably did not matter.

Balun forcibly twisted the man’s body around with sheer strength and pressed the hand axe to his throat.

At once, the attackers all froze.

“If you come, he dies!”

“He took a hostage? A barbarian did?”

They blinked in disbelief.

No one had ever heard of a barbarian using hostage tactics.

Barbarians were supposed to hate things like that, saying it was not the conduct of a true warrior.

Their minds were utterly blank, but the barbarian before them was no ordinary barbarian.

He was a despicable mutant of a barbarian, willing to use every underhanded method that other barbarians would never stoop to.

“Precious life! Safety measures!”

With the hostage in hand, Balun slowly moved forward.

The attackers could not act rashly.

At that point, Balun became certain of victory.

These bastards did not have the nerve to strike one of their own.

‘Thank God. They really were weak little shits. If they had ignored the hostage and attacked me anyway, I would honestly have been in danger.’

The men slowly backed away.

Balun suddenly strode up, shoved the hostage into them, and kicked him hard.

The force sent the hostage crashing into his comrades, knocking them over, and Balun did not miss that opening.

“There is only death!”

Balun’s hand axe danced, and a massacre unfolded in the alley.

He did not kill them all.

He left a few alive.

He needed to find out who they were.

***

Finding out the attackers’ identity was not difficult.

They spilled everything soon enough.

A little intimidation, and they started talking right away.

The problem was that Balun knew almost nothing, so he needed Barel’s help.

When Balun came dragging a bunch of people over while covered in blood, Barel was shocked out of his wits, but he did not panic.

For all that he looked like this, Barel was a merchant who had seen every hardship under the sun.

“They are from an organization called the Vipers. A Rogue Guild. Those men are rogues affiliated with it.”

“Vipers?”

“Yes. They are rogues, but not particularly impressive ones. In the first place, they are just a back-alley organization. There are probably not even five men in that group who could truly be called real rogues. One or two of the men you fought may have been among them.”

Balun turned Barel’s words over in his head.

Vipers. Rogue Guild.

Both were deeply unfamiliar, but he understood the general idea.

“So, gangsters?”

“Gangsters… yes, that is correct. But they are not just ordinary gangsters. No matter how third-rate they are, they are still a Rogue Guild.”

“I see. Beginner gangsters.”

Barel blinked.

He always felt it whenever he spoke with this barbarian, but the man’s choice of words was truly peculiar.

“Why did beginner gangsters attack me?”

“That is probably because you are a barba— ahem, a Barbarian.”

“Barbarian?”

“Yes. Warriors of tribes like yours, who live with nature as their companion, are called Barbarians.”

“I see.”

Balun nodded, then asked another question.

He still had not resolved the real issue.

What did being a Barbarian have to do with being attacked?

Were they trying to murder him just because they disliked barbarians?

“That makes no sense. That and attacking me have no relation. Balun did nothing wrong. Balun is an honorable warrior!”

“W-Well, the thing is…”

Barel hesitated, but in the end he spoke.

“The Vipers’ main source of income is slave trading. And among the slaves that fetch the highest prices are… ahem, Barbarians.”

“Slave? Me?”

“Yes. It seems they intended to capture you and sell you as a slave. Barbarians are strong and sturdy, worth several men. They are also good fighters, so they are easy to sell as gladiators, and they can be used as slave soldiers as well…”

Barel carefully watched Balun’s expression.

He expected him to grow angry.

What Barbarian in the world would hear such a thing and not become furious?

Every Barbarian who first entered the civilized world became angry.

At least, that was what Barel had seen.

“Hmm.”

And yet, unexpectedly—

Instead of becoming angry, Balun simply nodded with remarkable calm.

“I see. I understand.”

Barel was puzzled.

Why was he not angry?

‘He must be holding it in.’

That was the conclusion Barel reached.

It was only common sense. After all, this man was a barbarian. They lived by battle and died by battle. They hated insults more than death.

“I am sorry. I never predicted this either. I had no idea they would try to kidnap you without warning…”

“It is fine. World is cold. Frozen solid.”

“What? Frozen solid? Ah, yes. The world is indeed somewhat dangerous.”

By now, Barel was starting to become fairly fluent in “Balun-speech.”

“By the way, Balun. I am sorry, but may I ask one favor?”

“What is it?”

“The Vipers. Please… could you refrain from going to kill them?”

“The Vipers? You mean beginner gangsters?”

“Yes.”

Barel hesitated again, then spoke with an anxious look on his face.

“I know you are furious. After suffering such a grave insult, how could you possibly endure it? If you are a warrior, then naturally you must repay that insult, so of course you would go seek revenge.”

Barel remembered the past.

Over the course of his trade journeys, he had met many barbarians.

Any of them would have chosen revenge in this situation.

That was what Barbarians were.

The man before him would surely be the same.

No matter how unusual he was, he was still a Barbarian.

And how well he fought.

Barel had seen that monstrous skill with his own eyes.

Balun of the Red Fang Tribe feared nothing.

He never retreated.

He would go alone and wipe out the Vipers from top to bottom.

“I know I should not ask this, but I beg you. Please endure it.”

Barel dropped to his knees before Balun.

“You may very well be able to wipe them out. But it would be dangerous. There are people backing the Vipers. They would certainly try to kill you. So please… I beg you.”

“All right.”

“Please… W-What?”

“I will not kill them.”

“Y-You truly mean that?”

“I truly mean it. I will not kill them.”

Barel blinked.

He could scarcely believe what he had heard.

He knew it was an outrageous request, and yet this barbarian had agreed so readily?

‘He is thinking of me! He is even considering the safety of our merchant company…!’

“Th-Thank you! Thank you so much!”

Barel bowed his head.

How could he ever repay this kindness?

Of course, Balun was thinking nothing of the sort.

‘Of course I am not going. Why would I storm their hideout myself?’

With that thought, Balun nodded to himself.

He had never intended to do such a thing in the first place, but after hearing that it was dangerous, he became even less inclined to do it.

Dangerous?

Then obviously he should not do it.