Chapter 17

Chapter 17.

The dawn darkness had not yet fully lifted.

Cold air lay heavy inside the barracks. The only sounds were the occasional shifting and sleep-talking of his comrades.

Rian silently raised himself from his bed. His movements carried a feather-like lightness. He set his feet on the floor without making so much as a creak.

He took the minimum amount of food and water from his own rations and put them into a small pack. A few pieces of hard, dry biscuit and a leather canteen were all he had. The lighter the load, the better.

He picked up the spear he had leaned against one side. He felt the firm wooden texture his hand knew well. Then he slung over his shoulder the old bow and quiver Kairon had thrown him. Right now, they were completely useless, but he had a reason for taking them with him.

Before leaving, he briefly swept his gaze over the faces of the sleeping squad members. Den, Thomas, and the others. Faces that had held fear and contempt, or a primal dread toward something they could not understand, looked peaceful while asleep. His gaze held no emotion. They were merely part of the scenery.

Rian opened the barracks door with catlike, soundless steps and went outside.

The cold dawn air stabbed into his lungs like a blade. Under the faint moonlight, the base’s scenery was submerged in gray silhouettes. Several sentries standing here and there were blowing out white breaths and rubbing their frozen hands.

Rian walked toward the edge of the base without hesitation. His steps were steady and unwavering. Darkness was his most familiar friend.

Before long, one sentry standing near the outer palisade spotted him. The soldier reflexively adjusted his grip on his spear and grew wary, but after confirming Rian’s face, he soon stepped aside with a stiff expression. There were no questions and no attempts to stop him. He only watched in silence.

‘Kairon must’ve made arrangements in advance.’

Thinking briefly, Rian brushed past the sentry. Kairon had been certain that he would accept this mission and move independently.

Rian silently climbed over the base’s crude wooden palisade. Then, without looking back even once, he vanished completely into the darkness of the forest.

***

Two days passed.

Deep within the dense forest, sunlight breaking through the branches made chaotic patterns across the forest floor. It was a silent space where nothing could be heard except birdsong and the sound of the wind.

Rian hid himself on the highest branch of a massive oak tree, looking down below. He did not move in the slightest, as though he were part of the tree itself. His breathing had become one with the forest’s breath.

At the end of his gaze, an imperial army unit could be seen moving along a narrow forest path. Their armor flashed in the sunlight as they marched, kicking up dust.

At the front, a boar-like man rode on horseback. A sturdy build, a rough beard, and a deep scar crossing his forehead. It was a face that matched exactly with the drawing on the parchment Kairon had handed him. Haken the Slaughterer.

More than a dozen heavily armed soldiers surrounded Haken like an iron fortress. Unlike ordinary soldiers, they radiated the air of well-honed blades. They seemed to be Haken’s bodyguards.

The formation of the entire unit was also orderly, without a single flaw. Their stride, speed, and even the intervals between ranks seemed measured with a ruler. At a glance, it was clear they were an elite unit tempered through countless battlefields.

Rian took a small notebook and a piece of charcoal from inside his clothes. He quickly drew the terrain before his eyes, the unit’s formation, the number of soldiers, and the state of their armaments on the paper. His hand moved with mechanical speed and precision. It was nothing more than the simple task of transferring the information engraved in his mind onto paper.

When the unit disappeared completely from view, he silently descended from the tree. The moment his feet touched the ground, he became a shadow of the forest once more.

Maintaining a fixed distance, he began secretly following them like a starving beast. He suppressed his footsteps, read the flow of the wind, and erased his own traces. Tracking was another one of his instincts.

***

The following evening arrived.

The imperial army chose a small basin to prepare camp. It was terrain easy to defend, surrounded on all sides by low hills. Smoke from campfires rose here and there, and the low voices of the soldiers spread on the wind.

Rian lay flat like a beast atop a cliff from which the basin could be seen at a glance. The chill of the ground seeped through his clothes, but he did not care in the slightest.

Haken’s tent was set up in the very center, in the safest place. It looked larger and sturdier than the other tents.

In front of the tent, four bodyguards stood motionless with spears in hand. Even after the sun had set, there was not the slightest disorder in their vigilance. At the outer edge of the campsite, patrol groups moved constantly, searching the darkness.

‘Approach is impossible.’

The cold conclusion passed through his mind. Penetrating that ironclad watch and infiltrating the tent would be no different from suicide.

He quietly turned away from the cliff. Any further observation was meaningless.

After settling into a safe crevice between rocks, he took a piece of hard biscuit from his pack and chewed it. The tasteless lump of grain mixed with saliva and scraped unpleasantly down his throat.

He opened his notebook and added the information he had confirmed up to today.

The route of movement, rest times, guard shift intervals, and the patrol groups’ paths. His notebook was turning black with densely packed information.

No emotions such as impatience or anxiety could be found on his face. Only the concentration of a cold hunter trying to understand every habit of his prey lingered there.

***

Another day passed. It was afternoon.

A narrow, long gorge. On both sides, steep rock walls rose toward the sky as though carved by hand. It was a place optimized for an ambush, where only a limited number of people could pass at one time.

Haken’s unit began entering the gorge in a long line. The scouts at the front advanced while carefully examining their surroundings.

‘This is the only chance.’

Rian was hiding halfway up the gorge in a thicket as tall as a man. From here, he could grasp the movements of the entire unit at a glance.

The distance to Haken passing below was roughly one hundred paces by eye. It was an awkward distance, too far to throw a spear and too high to leap down.

He carefully took out the old bow slung across his back.

The bowstave was subtly warped, perhaps from repeatedly absorbing moisture and drying out. Several strands of the string had snapped, leaving it so precarious it looked as though it might burst at any moment. Now he thought he knew why Kairon had thrown him this piece of junk.

From the quiver, he pulled out the straightest arrow, the one least bent, and set it to the string. The arrowhead had gone blunt, without a hint of sharpness to be found.

He held his breath and slowly drew the bowstring.

Creak…….

A sound rang out as though an old tree were screaming. His arm muscles trembled awkwardly. The muscles accustomed for years to gripping a spear and the muscles used to draw a bow were completely different. His body was rejecting this unfamiliar movement.

He suppressed his trembling arm and aimed at Haken’s helmet.

And at last, he released the strength from the fingers holding the string.

Twang!

It was not the sound of the bow firing, but a feeble sound, as though something had struck without force.

The arrow failed to cut through the air. It seemed to wobble forward weakly, then fell limply onto the floor of the gorge before it had even covered fifty paces. It was hardly any different from throwing a pebble.

None of Haken’s unit passing below looked up. To their ears, it must have sounded like nothing more than the noise of a small pebble rolling down. It was an attempt not even worth noticing.

Rian lowered the bow without lingering over it. There was not even disappointment on his face.

‘I’ve confirmed it.’

It was merely the result he had expected. He slung the bow and quiver over his back again. He did not throw them away. This lump of scrap metal was camouflage for Kairon, something that would show he had tried to carry out the mission.

Now his gaze turned to the spear in his hand.

Borik’s spear. The only weapon that had saved his life on countless battlefields.

‘Then what about this?’

At that moment, Borik’s experience began drawing dozens, hundreds of situations inside his mind.

The first route. Leap down from the cliff and strike Haken. Before he even landed, the sharp spears of the bodyguards escorting Haken would pierce his body like a hedgehog. Failure.

The second route. Roll a massive boulder down from above to throw the formation into chaos, then charge through the opening. Haken would immediately hide himself behind a wall of shields. Then Rian would be turned into a honeycomb by the concentrated fire of the imperial army archers after they escaped the confusion. Failure.

The third route. Infiltrate the campsite under cover of night. Even if he somehow managed to pass through the layers of security by luck, the moment he was discovered by the bodyguards guarding the front of Haken’s tent, the entire unit’s forces and attention would focus on him. There would be nowhere to run. Failure.

Every route ended the same way: death. A miserable, meaningless death.

‘Borik’s spearmanship is a method of survival on the battlefield. It isn’t assassination technique.’

A skill for suppressing opponents and surviving in one-on-one combat or a melee against a small number. A skill for securing his own space and enduring amid countless enemies. But stealthily eliminating a target guarded by dozens of elite soldiers was a completely different domain.

Rian quietly closed his eyes.

The sensation of the spear in his hand felt more foreign than ever. This was not a tool suited to his current self.

The bow slung across his back was nothing but a lump of scrap metal.

With his current means, carrying out the mission was impossible.

This was a clear fact, with no room for excuses.

Rian slowly opened his eyes. His gaze had become even colder and harder than before. There was no gap for despair or helplessness to slip in.

He no longer looked at Haken’s unit as it leisurely made its way out of the gorge. The pursuit was over.

He turned his body and looked in the exact opposite direction from the one they had come from.

His gaze was now fixed not on a specific unit or person, but on the wider battlefield where the war was being fought.

That was where countless soldiers died, and countless talents lost their owners and were buried in the ground. Like Flynn’s agility. Like Borik’s spearmanship.

‘This spear isn’t my weapon.’

‘That bow isn’t my weapon either.’

A very faint line appeared at the corner of Rian’s mouth. It was an expression far too cold and cruel to be called a smile.

‘Then it’s time to go find my weapon.’

He no longer followed Haken’s unit.

He carefully placed the notebook inside his clothes. The information contained within it would surely become useful someday.

Rian began moving in search of a new hunting ground.

His footsteps seeped soundlessly, yet without hesitation, into the darkness of the forest.

The Haken assassination mission had been suspended for the time being.

A new hunt had begun, one to obtain the true “tool” needed for this hunt, something that had to take priority over the mission.