When everyone else was falling back.
There was only one reason the Legion soldiers had stubbornly held this line.
Even if this battlefield was brutal for now—
They believed that if Sergeant Shin Youngjun showed up, he would resolve it in an instant.
But then.
“You want me to fix this? Hm. No matter how I think about it, I don’t see an answer.”
When the man in question—Sergeant Shin Youngjun—actually said that,
the soldiers despaired.
‘Right... even Sergeant Shin must have limits.’
‘We just blindly believed that if it was Sergeant Shin, he could do it.’
The losses so far were significant.
They were about to decide they should retreat even now, when—
“So, Gwangil.”
“Yes.”
“You fix it.”
From behind Sergeant Shin Youngjun,
the man who had left with him for Yanggu County
stepped forward—Corporal Jeon Gwangil.
“Corporal Jeon...?”
Questions sprouted in the soldiers’ minds.
“Uh, that is... how should I put this.”
“Of course we know Corporal Jeon is incredibly strong, but...”
“If you ask whether he can resolve this situation... hm.”
Corporal Jeon Gwangil was strong.
But the monsters of this world were, more often than not, even stronger than he was.
Against your average monsters he showed overwhelming might,
yet against true high-level foes, he had always struggled.
One example right at hand was the Green Manes tribe that had invaded Chuncheon not long ago—
their chieftain, Hara-bal.
By contrast,
the one tearing through this field was a warrior considered the tribe’s captain-level—
the Great Warrior—who looked twice as strong as Hara-bal.
No one expected Corporal Jeon Gwangil to beat a Great Warrior like that.
‘I heard he went somewhere like a temple and learned martial arts, but...’
‘At the end of the day, it’s still just martial arts. It’s probably the equivalent of adding one more skill.’
However.
“Well. We’ll see if we watch.”
“...Hm.”
Sergeant Shin Youngjun,
watching Corporal Jeon Gwangil stride toward the battlefield, was smiling with unshakable confidence.
And moments later—
“...Huh?”
The soldiers
could clearly confirm the source of that confidence.
****
The monster who had been performing overwhelmingly against the Legion soldiers—
the Great Warrior—thought:
‘Among the natives, the only ones who truly grate on me are these guys.’
It was true that he had struggled when they attacked from all directions.
But once he had cleaned up the rear,
the only ones with the strength to properly face him were these natives in those strange-patterned clothes.
Meaning—
‘If I push these ones out, the tribe will once again reign as the dominant power in this region.’
Therefore,
the Great Warrior held nothing back and threw himself into the fight.
Of course,
even as the Great Warrior, he was laboring under the Enfeeblement Curse.
He was hardly invincible,
and there had been a few moments of danger.
‘Especially that native who came barreling in, swallowing warriors.’
He literally seemed to “eat” the enemy to temporarily gain their power.
The natives’ abilities were diverse, yes, but that was grotesquely strong.
One of them would be one thing.
But the number of natives following behind was considerable; if he had to face them all at once, even the Great Warrior could end up wounded.
Whenever it came to that, the High Shaman aided him appropriately.
‘A cowardly old man, but... his ability is useful enough.’
Once he became Great Chieftain, that one would be his subordinate.
He even felt he should treat him well going forward.
‘First, I drive these ones out, then restore our territory and ready the tribe’s strength.’
Their “fortress” was an annoyance,
but if they fully recovered and prepared before launching a campaign,
it would not be impossible to break through.
The guardians defending that fortress—he, the Great Warrior, would handle them.
But then—
Murmur, murmur...
A bit of commotion seemed to rise among the natives,
and those who had been fighting him subtly began to withdraw.
And
into that empty space,
—Hmph. A native with a death wish?
a man took his place.
A big frame for a native.
But
it was still just a single native.
The Great Warrior looked at that one native and openly scoffed.
He might have been slightly weakened compared to his prime,
but his strength had ascended to a realm that left other high-ranking warriors incomparable.
It was not baseless confidence.
The tribe’s chieftain who had felled Corporal Jeon Gwangil—Hara-bal.
Even if three Hara-bals came at him now,
the present Great Warrior could take an easy victory.
And yet here one came,
all alone?
‘Absurd.’
The slight irritation he felt at being treated with such disregard
had a simple solution.
‘Then I just cut down that fearless native as fast as possible.’
Thus,
the strongest warriors of each side—
the two of them—began to fight.
****
“Kahahahaha!!!”
Enveloped in Madness,
laughing like a lunatic as he shot his fist forward—Corporal Jeon Gwangil.
In itself, that was a sight the Legion soldiers had become somewhat used to.
But—
‘...Huh?’
Corporal Jeon Gwangil right now felt a little different.
A few sharp-eyed soldiers watched the fight and realized what felt off.
‘Corporal Jeon...’
‘Did he fight that well even while swallowed by Madness?’
Jeon Gwangil in a state of Madness was undeniably strong.
Compared to before, it was no exaggeration to say his combat power was several times higher.
But as powerful as it was,
the flaw was clear.
Excessive Madness devoured reason.
A warrior who had lost reason could not safeguard his own body.
In that state, Corporal Jeon Gwangil’s aggression was truly tremendous,
but he would get wounded faster than when he was rational.
Hence,
they had tried to tune the ratio of Madness to reason as much as possible.
However—
“Grrrk...!”
—A beast indeed...!
Corporal Jeon Gwangil now—
no matter how you looked at it, he seemed to have unleashed Madness to the maximum.
And yet—
‘...There’s discipline.’
Whoosh!
A straight, driving punch.
A movement that slipped past the opponent’s attack.
Each and every one—
was refined to a brutal degree.
‘Is that really... the look of someone who has °• N 𝑜 v 𝑒 l i g h t •° lost reason?’
And
no one felt that fact more acutely
than the Great Warrior fighting him directly.
—Tch!
He had indeed planned to cut the man down quickly and then hunt other natives.
The first twinge of caution
came when he sensed that killing intent and Madness rolling off the man.
‘Killing intent and Madness at this level...’
Even then, the Great Warrior did not consider his own defeat.
‘He seems extremely worked up.’
Rarely,
there are enemies whose fighting frenzy erupts into a mad surge of momentum.
Excessive excitement, a flood of adrenaline.
As a result,
they feel no pain when wounded
and show combat ability impossible to compare with their norm.
And such foes do not even realize they are wounded.
They sometimes keep fighting until the end even with grievous injuries.
‘The legend of the berserker... surely came from that.’
They feel their wounds only after the battle ends,
when the frenzy subsides.
Only then do they realize they’ve taken a mortal injury.
They thrash in terror and die with tears of blood.
A fairy-tale told to the tribe’s children.
The archetype of the “berserker” was likely that, too.
So thought the Great Warrior.
Of course,
a Great Warrior tempered by long wars had met such people again and again,
and knew better than anyone how to handle those who had lost their cool.
But—
—...What is this technique?
Contrary to his expectation that an overexcited enemy would make mistakes,
the foe swathed in Madness extended his attacks with a composure that made that Madness seem irrelevant.
‘Not just composed...!’
The punches and kicks he launched,
the motion of every muscle used in the process—
each and every one held a depth of subtlety the Great Warrior could not comprehend.
—Grrrk...!
It was unlike simple speed and strength,
unlike the Great Warrior’s way of driving the fight with instinct and experience.
What was moving Corporal Jeon Gwangil’s body now
was a world that had now perished—
the distilled essence of martial way, stacked up, layer upon layer, from an immeasurably distant antiquity!
Among the Green Manes, who lived by nothing but fighting and rarely reached even twenty years of age,
it was an art they could not have even attempted to accumulate—
an art of the martial way.
Martial arts.
As the fight raged on,
Corporal Jeon Gwangil was submerged in Madness—
but with the single pinch of reason left, he thought:
‘This is fun...!’
At first, the fight was more or less even.
No—
the Great Warrior might have had a slight edge.
But
as time passed,
the Great Warrior could not help but be appalled.
‘The more he’s wounded... the stronger he gets.’
The Madness shrouding that body—
it swelled as he was wounded.
As if he enjoyed the very combat that inflicted wounds.
And not only that.
“Kahahahaha!!!”
—...The thicker the Madness, the more precise the technique?
The techniques he wielded—
so complex and advanced as to defy identification—
those techniques as well
grew more and more precise as the Madness deepened.
Normally,
the more severe the Madness, the worse the accuracy should be.
What made the opposite phenomenon possible was—
[Celestial Execution Divine Art SSS+]
[Proficiency Lv.2]
Madness, which would normally be considered a curse—
this martial art thoroughly subjugated it,
and was crafted to use it.
—Nonsense. Don’t tell me... it wasn’t just a legend.
Fwoosh!
Jeon Gwangil’s hand shot out.
The Great Warrior tried to slip from its path—
—Among those natives who were so insect-like, there truly was...!
but the fist followed naturally,
as if it had always been aimed there.
“Kahahahaha!”
—A berserker...
BOOM!
That giant gauntleted fist
uppercut the Great Warrior’s jaw, and he was even larger than the one striking him.
“For the Legion’s victory—!”
The sharp spikes set into the gauntlet shredded his jaw.
The Madness sheathing his whole body lent his fist the strength to crush a jawbone harder than steel.
From that punch, the Great Warrior’s head snapped aside.
At the end of his turning gaze—
‘...Come to think of it.’
stood the one looking at him—
the High Shaman.
‘Why didn’t you help me...?’
Only then did the Great Warrior catch on.
That he had not been helping.
And—
that there was something wrong with the way he looked at him.
‘Don’t look at me... with eyes like that.’
Eyes like he was disappointed.
Eyes that saw something useless.
‘Ah. Great Chieftain.’
The thought could not continue.
The berserker’s punch rattled his skull.
The massive warrior blacked out and crashed to the ground.
‘I apologi—’
****
—Useless wretch... I thought that even if your head was dull, at least you could fight.
The High Shaman’s gaze swept the battlefield.
The Great Warrior had fallen.
Brought down by a single native, no less.
‘A berserker... was that not just a creature of fairy tales?’
Ordinarily, he would have come up with some means to aid the Great Warrior, no matter what.
But
the only one on the field fighting a losing fight was not the Great Warrior.
The overall tide was turning against them.
—I don’t know where they came from...
There was one reason.
Those who were showing overwhelming martial prowess against the tribe’s warriors.
To the eye they looked little different from other natives, but there were about ten who handled uncanny techniques.
And in addition, two strange powerhouses with the scent of beasts on them.
‘Tsk... I meant to use that man and the tribe to accomplish a great work. The whole thing has gone badly off course.’
Judging from how things were going,
the tribe did not look to have much of a chance.
The shaman himself would likely find it hard to leave this place alive.
If so...
‘I should at least take one along as a companion on the road.’
His gaze turned to the mighty warrior who had finished the Great Warrior.
He had failed, yes,
but it would be best to clear away at least one eyesore in advance.
‘For the sake of the Master who will one day descend to this world.’
The old shaman took a step.
Pointing at the Great Warrior, who was collapsing into a corpse, the High Shaman muttered:
—Spirit of Darkness... a pact.
The Green Manes commune with the Earth Spirits.
But the name they forbade themselves to ever call
spilled from the High Shaman’s lips.
Soon,
something like a black shadow wavered before his eyes.
[Desired object?]
—Among those natives, remove the one who will be the greatest threat.
[The one who will be the greatest threat? Confirmed. Price?]
—My life, and the Great Warrior’s. He’s somewhat weakened now, but his essence has considerable value. A curse worthy of the value of those two—if you please.
At his words,
the black shadow stretched out toward somewhere.
[Contract formed.]
The Great Warrior had fainted under the enemy’s blow.
When the black spirit shrouded his body,
the Great Warrior’s body split into pieces and rose into the air.
Srrrk—
And not only that.
Feeling the Spirit of Darkness shroud his own body,
he thought:
‘May my life be of the slightest use to the Master.’
And then
the shards of the Great Warrior’s corpse flew off somewhere.
“The greatest threat,” as he had said—
the attack to remove it had begun.
With the Great Chieftain gone,
those two now held the highest positions in the tribe.
A sure-kill curse wrought by staking both their lives.
Even that berserker who had felled the Great Warrior—
he would not be able to withstand this curse.
He, too, would be reduced to a body torn into pieces.
The High Shaman believed it without a shred of doubt.
‘Huh?’
Just before his own body was reduced to pieces,
something odd flickered in his eyes.
The fragments of the Great Warrior—
they should, without a doubt,
have been rushing toward that “berserker”—
—N-no, not there!
but their direction
was a little different.
The High Shaman protested in a rush—
—You have to aim for the berserker! You dim-witted spir—
Crackle—
Once his own body was torn to pieces,
he could not protest at all.
That shattered body, turned into a sure-kill curse, roared away toward somewhere.
Among the natives who had taken up position here—
“...Huh?”
among them,
toward the most threatening presence.
