Volume 2, Chapter 31: Earl Mansion’s Raid⑥
Note: I recommend Reading this chapter while listening to “Terminator” BGM.
The undead Eunos’ blade was fast approaching Robin Hood.
But Robin Hood’s dynamic vision that has been trained to the highest limit for an archer could catch up with Eunos’ irregular movements.
「!!」
The knife was thrown from Robin Hood’s fingers.
Using Sword Dance required the user to create a movement orbit beforehand with wind magic. Only after doing so could the pattern of the movement be altered to adapt to the situation.
Since the undead could only make simple movements, like crude imitations of the real thing when they were still alive, the pattern of their movements was easy to read.
Robin Hood destroyed Eunos’ dancing sword for a moment right from the front.
The reason he threw his knife was simply that he read through Eunos’ movements. Thus, he threw his knife to the predicted trajectory.
The movement of the Sword Dance, which was possible thanks to the wind that was clad around its user’s body, couldn’t change in a moment.
As a result, the undead Eunos’ eyes saw the knife that came to his unprotected side.
And yet, he couldn’t react in time.
…And the knife pierced through Eunos’ abdomen.
Tiny blood vessels appeared in the stagnant whites of the eyes, and his eyes opened wide as if receiving a shock.
Eunos’ movements stopped for a moment, and Robin Hood used that exact moment to nock another arrow.
The place he was aiming for was undead Eunos’ right knee, left arm, and right eye.
Undead had monstrous vitality, but they were nothing more than lumps of meat once their sensory organs and joints were destroyed.
With correct timing, all Robin Hood’s arrows should hit their mark.
But right at that moment, Eunos swung his sword while turning his body to dodge the arrows.
「O Wind, Repel!」
The deployed wind barrier altered the arrows’ orbit.
One arrow didn’t get repelled and pierced through Eunos’ abdomen.
Eunos pulled out the arrow that pierced his abdomen, snapping it with his bare hands before dropping the arrows on the floor.
Seeing that, Robin Hood clicked his tongue as he got away from the undead Eunos.
‘…He is far more resilient compared to the undead that I have fought so far!’
Depending on the position, the arrow fired by Robin Hood was strong enough to pierce through the armor and put a crack on the bone where the arrow hit.
Even though Robin Hood’s arrow had already scored a hit on Eunos’ head before, far from collapsing, the latter surprisingly could react to the former’s next arrows and turn his body to avoid them.
「It might be possible for him to do that because he is undead. To think that the undead’s resilience can become this terrifying when combined with Eunos’ swordcraft and sorcery. Well, not having to see his annoying personality might be the only saving grace in this situation.」
With his left eye, Robin Hood confirmed the situation in the room while moving in a circle and looked at Eunos with his right eye.
The five 『Dancing Sword』 adventurers fought against two of the five undead that came with Manzi.
Fando led his comrades, issuing precise instructions to them and maintaining their dominance against the stupid undead.
But in Robin Hood’s eyes, he knew that those two undead were swordmasters on the same level as Eunos.
Although they managed to keep the two undead at bay, the undead had a particular resilience and undying aspect. Compared to the 『Dancing Sword』 adventurers whose movements would become sluggish with simple bleeding wounds, the result of the prolonged battle was clear.
In addition, one of the Eight Wisemen, the eerie old man Manzi, had yet to make his move.
He just looked at the progress of the battle with an eerie smile on his equally eerie face.
Flanking him were the rest of the undead who had yet to be deployed.
The battle should have ended quickly if those two undead by Manzi’s side made their move.
The reason they didn’t do so was mainly that this office was nothing more than a playground for the battle between adventurers and undead in Manzi’s eyes.
Robin Hood had long since realized that fact.
If there was something that he could do in this situation, it was looking for a chance to land many critical wounds to Manzi as he prolonged his battle with Eunos as long as possible.
But doing that was literally impossible.
On top of having the two undead as his bodyguards, there was still the invisible Hades’ spirit, the Dullahan which was summoned by using Guiref’s book.
That Dullahan was far more formidable than all the five undead brought by Eunos combined.
The invisible Dullahan had delivered a slash with god-like speed. It was something that was already beyond the realm that a human could comprehend.
Moreover, seeing Guiref’s book in Manzi’s hand, Robin Hood got this feeling that Manzi could still summon another spirit whose power rivaled that of a Dullahan.
He couldn’t see a chance to turn the tide of battle as long as Guiref’s book was still in Manzi’s hands.
‘Our side is critically lacking the manpower to defeat him… The most terrifying thing about that eerie old man is the fact that he is completely protected while he can’t move due to his lack of mana as he prepared to do large-scale necromancy or spirit summoning with Guiref’s book. If he was an ordinary man, they’d have either gone insane or been knocked out due to a lack of mana. Although I have no choice but to die while using my trump card to kill that guy… I can’t find any opening to use it on him.’
Robin Hood realized that defeating Manzi with a frontal attack was pretty much impossible.
But Robin Hood didn’t plan to prolong their life either.
「AHEHEHEHEHE!」
Eunos readied his sword, heading straight toward Robin Hood.
Robin Hood reacted by firing his arrow.
At that moment, Eunos’ speed suddenly increased, and he dodged all three arrows.
「N-No way, he can move faster than when he was alive?!」
The arrows fired by Robin Hood kept getting destroyed by Eunos’ sword.
Eunos was using his own shoulder to receive the feint arrows while charging forward, closing in the distance toward Robin Hood by making full use of his immortal body.
「Oh, it’s getting interesting over there.」
Manzi was looking at Eunos with a curious look on his face.
Robin Hood observed Eunos’ condition even closer upon hearing Manzi’s remark.
And soon, he reached a certain conclusion after seeing the movement of Eunos’ feet, arms, and mimetic muscle.
‘Rather than becoming faster, it’s more like his physical ability has been strengthened. No, maybe he simply had never gone all out from the very beginning, meaning that the current him has already mastered his move…’
「AMaZIng, WhAT AN AmaZInG POwER! AHaHahAhAhAHahAha! WiTh ThiS PoWeR, I’m ThE StrONGeST ADventuREr in BarrEiRa City!」
「His ego has returned!」
Such a thing wasn’t supposed to happen.
Swordsmen who honed their minds to the limit or high-ranking sorcerers with a great amount of mana had a high chance to regain their ego after they’d turned into undead.
But then, the result when their ego only partially returned was them screaming nonsensical words.
It seemed the Eunos undead belonged to the latter type.
「As LONg As I’Ve ThiS POWeR, I, AM INViCIBlE! AHeHeHEhehE! I-I LeAVe BeHINd My BirtHpLAce, UsINg My INgenUIty And SwoRd, Become A noble…」
「DREAM ON! YOU’RE ALREADY DEAD!」
The undead Eunos was already strong with his undead body, sorcery, and sword. Then, as his ego slowly returned, his famous skill became more and more refined.
The greatest weak point of the undead, namely their slow wit, had finally vanished as he regained his ego.
Eunos easily dodged three arrows from Robin Hood which were aiming for his vital spot with minimal movement.
Even if the arrows had hit his body, the undead Eunos would be fine as long as those arrows didn’t hit his joints or destroy a large portion of his body.
「WinD, CaRry Me.」
Eunos’ wind magic was executed at the perfect timing.
The undead Eunos’ body floating in midair. As he sped close to the ground, he dodged all the arrows fired by Robin Hood and finally arrived right in front of Robin Hood.
Since he would become the prey of Robin Hood’s dynamic vision if he was moving from far away, the rational action he took after self-reflection was to move at an extremely high speed in close range.
「FOOL!」
「THe FOoL IS YoU, DiEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!」
Robin Hood dodged Eunos’ sword dance with a backstep.
But Eunos instantly closed in again.
And finally, Eunos’ sword arrived right in front of Robin Hood’s eyes, drawing a crimson line in midair.
Robin Hood jumped back, his hand touching the wall behind him.
‘Tch, cornered with no way out, huh.’
Not wasting a moment, Eunos closed the distance immediately.
The moment Robin Hood prepared himself to welcome his death, the window of the office was smashed apart along with an explosive sound.
The thing that smashed the window was a huge man clad in full-plate armor which looked like a lump of metal.
That huge man landed right beside Robin Hood. The entire room shook as soon as he landed on the floor due to the sheer weight of his armor.
At that moment, the air in the room changed at once.
Eunos who was about to finish off Robin Hood retreated the moment that huge man in full-plate armor made his entrance.
Even the other undead and adventurers stopped fighting and took some distance from each other, looking at the intruder.
Even Manzi’s disgusting smile was replaced with a grim look.
「Who dares to disturb my sideshow?」
「Sideshow, is it? I guess there are some leftovers for me to hunt, huh.」
The man in full-plate armor knocked the floor with his greatsword.
The room shook for the second time, and soon, a huge crack formed on the floor.
「The one who will be hunted this time is you.」
Protected by his helmet, the two crimson orbs hidden in Lambert’s skull glared at Manzi.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fre𝒆webnove(l).𝐜𝐨𝗺