Chapter 83

Chapter 83. A Troll, You Say?

Even after he had killed five Lizardmen, there were still eight Lizardmen left in this narrow alley, but they were no longer any problem. They were no longer opponents in Balun’s eyes.

They were victims for a demonstration test of his new technique!

“Come at me one by one! I will split all of you apart!”

Balun picked up Blue Moon and Crimson Moon, which he had dropped on the ground, hung them from his belt, and then began swinging Black Moon in earnest. Every time the large axe blade was swung, a Lizardman’s neck was cleanly severed with a booming sound.

One swing, one kill.

There was no resistance in the process, and it even felt as if a blockage inside him had been cleared away.

‘So this is what it means to mow enemies down. Heh heh.’

However, Balun’s excitement soon settled. It was because he had found an unexpected drawback.

‘This consumes quite a bit of stamina. I only used it nine times, but I already feel my strength draining.’

It was not severe stamina consumption, but it was not something he could ignore either.

For Balun, who considered stamina management more important than anything else, this drawback was clearly meaningful.

He would have to use it only at the right moment, during important situations.

‘If I practice reducing my force, will it consume less stamina? It is powerful anyway, so I do not think I need to put that much strength into it.’

Since he had thought of it, he decided to try it right away. After all, there were plenty of enemies to face.

BOOM!

BOOM!

It did not work as well as he had thought.

The feeling of fatigue remained the same.

Of course, because Balun’s stamina was monstrous, it was not enough to make him falter, but he could not ignore it. When such minor stamina consumption accumulated over and over, it would end up reducing his combat endurance.

‘It looks like I will have to practice this separately later.’

Balun put the new assignment off for another day and decided to focus on the task right in front of him. This was not the time to leisurely practice a technique.

SKREECH!

He saw three Lizardmen raise their scimitars and rush at him. Balun raised Black Moon and blocked the strikes of all three. The clattering sound of blades colliding was buried amid the shouts and monster cries.

The axe was visibly pushed back by the strength of the three Lizardmen. Not wanting to lose, Balun supplemented his strength with Enhancement Art, and Black Moon, which had been trembling, stopped shaking and once again held the contest evenly.

Accordingly, Balun’s face, which had turned red, regained its color.

‘Ugh, so I really cannot do without Enhancement Art. Even though I have gotten stronger, this was still too much. Tsk.’

If others heard that thought, they would think he was insane.

What human would engage in a contest of strength with monsters?

Lizardmen were more famous for their agility than their strength, but even those Lizardmen were considerably stronger than humans. Even a full-grown man with exceptional strength could not beat a single young Lizardman.

That was reality, yet he was having a contest of strength? Against three of them?

Had he lost his mind?

“Hup!”

Balun put strength into Black Moon for an instant and pushed with all his might. In that moment, the muscles in both his arms swelled, and Black Moon knocked away the three Lizardmen’s scimitars with tremendous force.

Scree?

SLASH!

He cut through the side of one of them just like that. Blood splashed onto his cheek along with the unpleasant sound of scales being sliced apart. The two beside it went wild and swung their scimitars, but they inevitably became offerings to Black Moon. Having tasted blood, Black Moon cried out.

VMMMM!

The vibration felt almost like a tank passing by.

Balun stroked the blade to shake off the blood, and the vibration grew even stronger. Finding that strange, Balun asked, “Black Moon, are you happy?”

VMMMM!

Strangely enough, he felt as if he understood what it meant.

This was definitely a sign of affirmation.

‘Good grief.’

Balun chuckled. He already knew that his three Ego Weapons liked seeing blood. However, this was the first time one had trembled so violently.

Even when he had fought the bandits of Dunmore, Black Moon had not cried out like this.

Did that mean Black Moon liked the enemies now because there was much more blood to see?

“Good. Let us go, Black Moon!”

Balun ran through the alley. The Lizardmen blocking the alley were invariably turned into lumps of scaled meat by Black Moon’s dance, and Balun’s entire body quickly became covered in the Lizardmen’s distinctive sticky blood.

‘How far have I come?’

Regulating his ragged breathing, Balun looked around. It was a complicated alley, so he could not tell where anything was. Since it was not a place he had visited before, it would have been easy to get lost.

However, he did not panic. He had known this would happen and had memorized the terrain from the watchtower.

The key was landmarks. If he remembered distinctive landmarks, he could easily find his way even in a situation like this.

‘Let us see. There was a four-story inn around here. The inn is... there.’

Balun quickly found his way. Lizardmen occupied every alley, but as he advanced while swinging Black Moon, a path opened slowly but surely.

SKREECH!

SLASH!

After cutting off the neck of a wandering Lizardman, Balun looked at the four-story inn. The entrance had collapsed, so he could not go inside. It seemed the Lizardmen had smashed it.

‘No, why are they going around smashing buildings?’

Balun clicked his tongue.

There was no helping it.

“Hooop!”

Balun inhaled with all his might, bent his legs, and leaped. In that instant, the muscles in Balun’s legs swelled, and he jumped unbelievably high, grabbing the long window on the second floor.

After that, he seized a wooden board protruding from the wall, climbed up, and successfully made it onto the fourth-floor roof.

Only after he climbed onto the roof did the surrounding scenery come into view at a glance. That was possible because this was the tallest building in the alley. It was also why Balun had remembered this inn as a landmark.

‘Found you, leader.’

The Lizardman Leader.

It was at the edge of an open space that resembled a plaza.

It was buried among the Lizardman group, but it could not deceive Balun’s eyes. He might not look it, but Balun possessed broad knowledge about most monsters.

In the Red Fang Tribe, they called this thing a cockscomb Lizardman, while in the civilized world, they called it a Lizardman Leader.

In any case, it was a monster that served as the commander of a Lizardman group.

‘Then I should go beat it to death right aw—’

Balun was about to jump down to the ground when he stopped.

It was because he had a good idea.

‘Wait. I think I can snipe that thing by throwing an axe.’

The distance from this inn to that plaza was a full four and a half blocks.

It was a distance that could never be reached by throwing an axe, but Balun somehow felt as if it might be possible.

‘If I use Enhancement Art and the new technique too, it feels like it might work... Should I try it?’

Since he had thought of it, he decided to try.

He tapped the two handaxes at his waist and spoke to them.

“Blue Moon, Crimson Moon. Which one of you should I use?”

VMMMM!

No sooner had he finished speaking than Balun’s two handaxes trembled fiercely.

They felt as if they were pestering him, like Knights desperate to go into battle.

“Good. Crimson Moon, I choose you. Your sound was a little louder.”

VMM!

Both axes trembled, but it was amusing how the feeling was different.

If Crimson Moon’s vibration was joy, then Blue Moon’s was a sigh of lament?

Lately, there had been especially many expressions like this, and if this sort of change continued, he even thought they might soon become able to speak.

“Hooop!”

He inhaled deeply.

After strengthening his body to the limit with Enhancement Art and entering his Awakened State,

“Ha!”

He threw Crimson Moon with a shout.

RUMBLE!

The thrown Crimson Moon flew in a straight line with a tearing sound like thunder.

BOOM!

With an explosive roar, it struck a Lizardman’s head precisely. The Lizardman’s head burst like a watermelon, scattering blood and pieces of flesh.

“No.”

Balun opened his mouth without realizing it.

“Did that really hit?”

It had looked to be at least two hundred meters away at the absolute least...

Even though he had done it himself, he was so dumbfounded that he stood there blankly with his mouth open for a long while before coming back to his senses.

He had thrown the axe, so he had to go pick it up.

He also had to deal with the remaining Lizardmen.

***

As he cut through Lizardmen again and opened a path to the plaza, a strange thought occurred to him.

‘Why are these lizard bastards not running away? Their leader is dead, so they should be fleeing...?’

Balun found this strange because he knew the habits of Lizardman groups well.

Ordinarily, once their leader died, Lizardmen would become helpless, unable to do this or that, and then run away with their tails between their legs.

But what was this?

Far from running away, they were still full of momentum.

Even after their leader died, the lizard monsters’ eyes remained bloodshot, and they kept pushing forward with nothing but attacks.

Balun could not hide his confusion at this absurd situation, and then a shout rang out from somewhere.

-A Troll! A Troll appeared!

That shout snapped Balun’s mind awake.

‘A Troll? Suddenly?’

Come to think of it, he had been hearing a faint thudding sound for a while now.

Because it had been noisy in every direction, he had not paid attention to it, but now that he was conscious of it, he could hear it all too clearly.

Thudding footsteps.

At the end of that direction were five massive monsters wreaking havoc without restraint.

Huh?

“Wait. Five of them?”

Trolls?

‘Is this a dream?’

Nothing changed even when he blinked. There really were five Trolls.

‘Does that make any sense?’

Balun possessed broad knowledge about monsters, but even he had never heard of five Trolls moving together in a group.

To begin with, they were monsters that lived alone.

If there were two or more Trolls in the same territory, a fight would break out without fail. That was because they took the very act of entering their territory as an attack.

In fact, it was quite common to witness Trolls fighting each other to the death.

So how could this be happening?

BWOOOO!

-It is a Monster Wave! It is a Monster Wave!

-More monsters are pushing in!

-All soldiers, retreat!

-Going out there is a pointless death!

As Balun listened to the voices bursting out here and there, there was one phrase they had in common.

Monster Wave.

‘A Monster Wave? This?’

Balun also vaguely knew what a Monster Wave was.

He had not known originally, but he had learned earlier after asking the soldier at the watchtower.

It was said to be a kind of natural phenomenon in which monsters attacked humans in groups.

Here, it seemed to be recognized as a natural disaster like an earthquake, a tsunami, or a volcanic eruption.

To be honest, he could not understand at all why that was a natural phenomenon, but if that was common knowledge, then so be it.

‘No, they are living just fine in their habitats, then suddenly they all form an alliance and come to attack humans? Does that make sense realistically?’

Honestly, he could not believe it.

But when it was the reality unfolding before his eyes, how could he not believe it?

Then was this what that was?

Was that why monsters had gathered in droves and attacked? Was that why even five Trolls were coming together as a group?

‘Even if that is the case, why are the Lizardmen still fine? They have no leader.’

It was not as if the Trolls were acting as substitute leaders.

Trolls treated Lizardmen as prey, so Lizardmen following those Trolls? That made no sense.

‘Damn it. This is a little scary. Should I run?’

His mind wavered.

It was because the situation seemed to have become more serious than he had expected.

With as many as five Trolls, and more monsters reportedly pushing in, how could he not be afraid?

‘Should I just spit out the 500 gold and run? It does not matter if I flee anyway.’

First, he decided to retrieve Crimson Moon.

Even if he ran away, he could not abandon his precious axe.

He was almost there.

There was only one block left until the plaza where the thrown Crimson Moon lay.

As he advanced while cutting through Lizardmen, he saw a group of people running across the alley.

All of them were wearing red robes.

There were two or three Knights wearing chain armor and surcoats here and there, but the majority were robed.

‘The Red Tower?’

What were the Mages of the Red Tower doing here?

Were they perhaps the Battle Mages he had only heard rumors about?

-Everyone, please retreat! The Red Tower will handle that Troll!

Ah, it seemed they had come to deal with that Troll.

Well, that had nothing to do with him.

Whatever they did, Balun’s goal was to retrieve his axe.

He had killed the Lizardman Leader anyway, so he had done his part. That was right. It had to be.

Since he had done that much, he planned to quietly slip to the outskirts and enjoy the benefits.

Could he not just test the waters a little while killing Lizardman small fry, then pull out if it seemed dangerous?

Since he had already signed a contract, it felt a bit wrong to just run away.

‘Where... Ah, there it is.’

He found it.

Crimson Moon, lying on the ground.

Balun hurriedly ran to pick up Crimson Moon, but someone called him.

“Ah, Balun-nim!”

He turned his head.

It was Oskal.

Oskal, who had led the group of Mages over, saw Balun and waved with a brightened face. His eyes sparkled like stars as he looked at Balun.

He looked extremely glad to see him.

“Balun-nim! So you were fighting here! I knew you would be! You came to take down that Troll, didn’t you? Good! With your strength, you will be a great help!”

“Huh? Ah, no?”

‘I just came to pick up my axe...?’