Chapter 18

Chapter 18.

A day passed.

The sun had risen high into the middle of the sky, but the forest, hidden behind gray clouds, was still dark and gloomy. The smell of damp earth and rotting leaves hung thick in the air.

Rian was moving soundlessly along the ridge.

His steps avoided dry branches and lightly trod over wet soil, minimizing every noise. As though he were part of the forest itself, there was not a single wasted motion in his movements. Along the optimal route, with the least possible exertion.

That was when it happened.

The direction of the wind changed, and a faint smell brushed past the tip of his nose.

A foul fishy stench. The smell of blood mixed with dry dust.

Rian’s steps stopped. He raised his head and stared at the distant sky. Between the branches blocking his view, black dots were circling in the air. It was a flock of crows that looked to number at least several dozen. Greedy scavengers drawn by the smell of death.

‘A battlefield.’

No emotion appeared in his eyes. He turned without hesitation. His new hunting ground was there.

As he advanced in the direction where the flock of crows had gathered, the sounds carried on the wind gradually grew clearer.

CLANG! CLANG!

The sharp sound of metal striking metal.

And faint screams slipping in between.

Rian immediately lowered his posture. He shortened his stride and bent his upper body, using the surrounding trees and thickets as cover as he approached even more stealthily. All his senses stood on edge. The source of the sound was drawing near.

At last, with his body completely hidden behind the trunk of a thick oak, he examined the scene ahead.

A small clearing appeared between the trees. Roughly twenty soldiers were tangled together in battle, kicking up dust.

***

Holding his breath, Rian hid himself even deeper inside the dense thicket. His eyes coldly swept over the battlefield.

Familiar uniforms. It was a scouting party from the Kaien Kingdom. Five or six of them at most.

And surrounding them in a circle was an imperial army squad, recognizable at a glance from their armor and helmets. Their number looked to be more than three times that of the scouting party.

The numerical disadvantage was clear.

Half of the scouting party was already lying on the ground, bleeding. The remaining men were resisting desperately, but despair was buried in their movements.

One scout screamed and swung his spear. But his exhausted movement was far too large and full of openings. An imperial army soldier batted aside his spear with a shield as though sneering at him, and at the same time, sharply drove into his side.

Thud.

With a dull sound, the sword pierced flesh.

“Ggh......”

A short groan burst from the scout’s mouth. He looked down at the sword lodged in his side as though he could not believe it, then collapsed where he stood.

There was no change in Rian’s expression as he watched the sight. His eyes were numb, as though he were watching leaves shake in the wind. There was no anger or sadness that he ought to feel before a comrade’s death.

‘That spearmanship isn’t enough.’

The only thing that came to mind was a cold evaluation. Compared to Borik’s spearmanship, the movements were far too crude and inefficient. With skills like that, they could not survive.

Certain of their victory, the imperial army soldiers drove the remaining scouts into a corner as though playing with toys. Instead of the tension of battle, cruel smiles hung on their faces.

The encirclement grew tighter and tighter.

Now only three scouts remained. With their backs pressed together, they gasped for breath and faced the death approaching from every direction.

‘It will end soon.’

Rian quietly turned his gaze away from the battlefield. His eyes began carefully examining the surrounding terrain. Which direction the imperial army would retreat after the battle, where there were rocks or thickets where he could hide himself nearby. He took in every detail without missing a thing.

His interest was not in the outcome of the battle.

It was in finding the optimal route for himself to descend there after the battle ended.

That was when it happened.

WHIZZ!

THWACK!

A sharp and fierce tearing sound, completely different from the noise up to now, struck Rian’s ears. His gaze reflexively returned to the battlefield.

***

An arrow was lodged deep in the neck of one imperial army soldier who had been tightening the encirclement. The soldier could not even scream and collapsed, foaming at the mouth.

Rian’s eyes narrowed.

His gaze turned toward the direction from which the arrow had flown.

One of the three remaining scouts. An archer, half leaning behind a large rock.

He had a lean, wiry build and a face that had not yet fully shed its boyishness. But the hand with which he gripped his bow looked as hard and firm as stone.

Without the slightest hesitation, the archer drew the string again. There was no waste in his movements.

SWISH!

The arrow cut through the air with a short shriek.

It struck precisely into the shoulder of another imperial army soldier charging toward the archer. The imperial soldier screamed in pain and went tumbling.

Rian’s gaze fixed only on that archer. His heart began beating in a subtly different rhythm.

‘Those movements......’

The archer’s stance had not the slightest disorder. His two feet were rooted firmly into the ground, and the motion of drawing the bowstring was as smooth as flowing water. That was not movement that could be made from simple training. It was instinct carved into the body through thousands, tens of thousands of repetitions.

“That damned archer first!”

Three or four enraged imperial soldiers shouted as they rushed at the archer all at once.

The archer was calm. He pulled three arrows at the same time from the quiver at his waist. The movement was so fast it was hard to follow with the eye.

Twang, twang, twang!

Along with the successive ringing of the bowstring, three arrows were fired in an instant.

The arrows each drew a different trajectory. One struck the dirt in front of a charging soldier’s foot, another skimmed past a side, and the last lodged in the shield of the man at the front.

They were not shots meant to kill.

They were perfect suppressive shots meant to pin the enemy’s feet and disrupt their formation.

For the first time, an interested light lingered in Rian’s empty eyes. It was the sort of light a craftsman would show upon discovering a well-honed tool.

‘I found it.’

It was the “weapon” he had been searching for.

“You stupid bastards! Put the shields up front! Take that bastard out first!”

The man who seemed to be the imperial army commander shouted irritably.

At his command, soldiers with shields stepped forward, and spearmen pressed close behind them. They became a solid wall of steel and advanced toward the archer slowly, but surely.

Now the archer had no comrades left. The other two scouts had already fallen beneath the blades of the imperial army. He was completely isolated.

The archer set his last remaining arrow to the string.

His eyes were not looking at the steel wall approaching him. His gaze was fixed beyond the shield-bearers, on the commander giving orders from behind them.

Hoo.

He let out a deep breath, as though emptying all the air from his lungs. Then, drawing in a deep breath again, he pulled the string all the way to the end of his ear.

Creeeeak!

The bowstave bent as though it might break. The muscles in his arms swelled taut as if they were about to burst.

Then he released the fingers holding the string.

SHRIEEEEK!

The final arrow cut through the air with a sound like a scream.

The arrow passed just barely over the heads of the shield-bearers. It was a high trajectory, one their shields could not block.

CLANG!

With a sharp metallic sound, sparks flew from the front of the imperial army commander’s helmet. The arrow did not pierce the helmet, but from the force of the impact, the commander screamed and staggered back in shock.

It was at that very moment.

The imperial army spearmen did not miss the instant when the archer’s attention had been taken by the commander.

SQUELCH! SQUELCH!

Two spears thrust out between the shields and mercilessly pierced the archer’s body.

The archer’s body lifted into the air for a moment, then dropped limply to the ground like a puppet with its strings cut.

Even at the moment of his death, his eyes were glaring at the front, where the commander had been standing.

***

The battle was over.

In the clearing, only the languid breathing of the victors and the groans of the defeated faintly remained.

The imperial army soldiers roughly collected usable weapons and leather pouches from the corpses. The commander took off his dented helmet, checked the scrape on his forehead, and spat out a rough curse.

They did not remain long. After taking the spoils, they soon re-formed their ranks and vanished into the forest in a direction different from the path by which they had come.

Only complete silence, corpses, and the foul smell of blood remained in the clearing.

Even after the imperial army had completely vanished from sight, Rian did not move from inside the thicket for more than ten minutes. He did not rule out the possibility of an ambush or a soldier left behind.

At last, only after confirming that the only living things nearby were the flies wandering over the corpses, he quietly raised himself.

He descended from the ridge into the clearing, sliding down the hill.

He passed numbingly by the allied corpses scattered beneath his feet. A corpse with its face crushed in. A corpse with its belly split open, intestines spilling out. None of them could stop his steps.

Rian’s footsteps stopped for a moment.

He looked down in turn at Borik’s spear in his hand and the old, warped bow slung across his back. They were excellent tools, but they did not suit what he was about to do.

‘These aren’t enough.’

He raised his head again. There was not the slightest wavering in his gaze.

Without sparing another glance at any of the other corpses, he walked straight toward one place.

The corpse of the master archer lay collapsed beside the rock.

Two spears were gruesomely embedded in his body. His eyes had not closed and were staring into empty air.

Rian looked at his hands. Every joint of his fingers was knobbly with calluses formed from drawing a bowstring. They were the hands of one who had spent his entire life with a bow.

He quietly stopped in front of the corpse.

Once more, he carefully kept watch over his surroundings. The forest was silent. Only the cawing of crows could be heard eerily from far away.

Rian quietly laid the spear in his hand on the ground.

Then he knelt on one knee in front of the archer’s corpse. His eyes were not on the dead archer’s face, but on the hands that had gripped the bow.

‘This is my new weapon.’

Slowly, without hesitation, Rian reached out.