Chapter 124

Chapter 124

***

The forest was a clean and mysterious place, yet simultaneously a bleak and dangerous place. Perhaps because it embraced both life and death.

Looking closely, fierce survival competitions were unfolding even among small creatures. Frogs, snakes, centipedes, ants, mushrooms, leeches, parasites...... It wasn't much different from human lives.

Eerie ghost stories like 'A demon lives in the forest' or 'A witch lives there' were common in any village. Stories about luring children to eat them, making them lose their way on purpose, things like that.

And surprisingly, such ghost stories circulated a lot in the military. Because they stood guard at dawn while tired, it was unknown whether they saw illusions or actually experienced it.

The problem was that this was a world where demons and witches actually existed. Of course, because hardly anyone had seen them directly, deciding whether it was real or fake depended on personal belief.

However, even if one didn't believe in demons and ghosts, how firm was that belief? It was difficult to ignore the fundamental fear whispering from deep inside one's heart.

Especially in the middle of the night, when darkness lay thick and stars were silent in the forest, it was even more so. Rather, the more one turned away, the more vividly fear approached.

A mercenary standing guard occasionally encountered the eyes of a beast flashing green in the pitch-black darkness.

Whether it was a rabbit, a rat, or a fox was confusing, but when encountering the eyes of that beast, it felt undoubtedly ominous and uncomfortable.

Trying hard to pretend it was nothing and looking away, this time he encountered something more heterogeneous. A pair of blazing golden lights.

Wondering what on earth that was, the mercenary squinted his face, sticking his head out and observing. But that pair of lights suddenly rushed forward.

Gasping and taking a deep breath in surprise, for a moment he felt the muscles in his whole body stiffen.

The world flipped around, and his eyes saw a fountain of blood spraying from a headless body.

By the time he realized it was his own body, the mercenary let go of the string of consciousness and sank into a world of darkness deeper than the night.

Rickart held his flaming sword and observed the enemy camp that had become a mess because of him. They said they cleaned up, but having only crudely erected pillars and pitched tents, it felt like looking at a beggar's village.

Dozens of mercenary corps or companies' flags were hanging limply, making it difficult to tell which one belonged to the commander.

Rickart stepped deep into the enemy camp for now. The enemies still hadn't realized Rickart was ambushing them.

Whether they lacked sleep or were on duty, a few mercenaries sitting by the fire were exchanging idle jokes together, then suddenly looked back at Rickart. The conversation stopped abruptly, and the mercenaries froze right there.

As Rickart quickly approached, holding the sword in one hand and swinging it long horizontally, some just sprang up, some fell back on their rumps, and some dropped face-down on the ground.

"Hiiik!"

"Heuek!"

If they tried to dodge clumsily they would have all died, but throwing away their fighting spirit without a trace left, fortunately, one person managed to survive.

Before the severed half of a corpse could even hit the ground, Rickart grabbed his sword with both hands and raised it high above his head. At that moment the person who barely managed to save his life briefly shouted.

"The Red Prince!"

Flash!

As Rickart brought the sword down, it cleaved through the person completely without the solid bones even catching the blade. But the final scream of death had already erupted, and at the word Prince, the sleeping mercenaries woke up with a flinch.

Perhaps because of the things Rickart had done since plundering the flags, there were no groggy stragglers.

Everyone hurriedly got up and tried to exit their tents or pavilions for now, but Rickart forcefully kicked them back inside, then pushed over the bonfire to set it on fire.

But soon enough, like ants robbed of their queen, mercenaries poured out en masse from everywhere. Rickart quickly ran and hid himself behind tents and pavilions, and pillars.

And while doing so, he recklessly slashed, stabbed, and cut every enemy he encountered; light flashed following the trajectory of his sword. And naturally like thread following a needle, large amounts of blood sprayed out.

"He's here!"

"Damn it!"

"Crossbow! Bring a crossbow!"

"Stay far away! Don't go near him!"

"I'm definitely killing this son of a bitch today!"

Some mercenaries trembled in fear, while some were incensed because of what had been done to them so far.

Rickart grasped the surroundings in an instant even on a chaotic battlefield where it was hard to tell what was what, and dove toward the weakest points, as well as spots that could be dangerous to himself.

Kicking off stones and pillars left as traces of the unfinished camp construction and soaring up, he dropped down onto those frantically winding their crossbows. Moonlight crystallized and flashed on the tip of his flaming sword.

Cleaving diagonally through one mercenary's body, he used that momentum to dig forward and swung his sword wildly. Slashing right, left, acting like he would push right, then left again, and then straight ahead.

Whether all those movements were improvised or thought out in advance was indiscernible, but they were natural like flowing water and intense like lightning.

"Hey you son of a bitch! Are you a human! Are you a demon!"

The somewhat brave ones stubbornly tried to do something, but Rickart abruptly grabbed onto one's face and smashed it against a large stone lying nearby.

His back of head shattered and died instantly; Rickart lifted the dead man with one hand holding him high and threw him at the swarming enemies. And then he quickly moved again.

From the mercenaries' perspective, Rickart was terrifying in itself, but the moment they lost sight of him, they couldn't tell where he was.

Frantically looking around with their eyes wide open in surprise, he always popped out from the opposite side. Like a tiger pouncing on its prey.

Rickart gritted his teeth, charged headlong into a place where a lot of mercenaries were gathered, drove his sword in like a spear thrust, and forcefully pushed forward, sprawling several people at once.

Then aiming at those tangled and fallen, he raised the sword grasped with both hands high above his head and struck down heavily. And with that, five or six people were chopped into pieces all at once.

Whether neck, torso, or arm, he slashed everything without discrimination.

Those rushing over in a panic became speechless upon witnessing the scene, and when Rickart, clenching his teeth and glaring fiercely, looked back, their legs gave out and they slumped down.

This wasn't swordsmanship or anything, but a god of battle or a demon of slaughter. It shouldn't be like this.

But on the chaotic battlefield, chaotic shouting was heard from all around beyond their vision. Many were busy trying to put out fires, and mercenaries were each doing their own things.

"Where is he! Fuck!"

"Throw the nets!"

"Bring spears! Spears!"

"Put out the fire first!"

He seemed to have killed quite a lot, but the number 5,000 was extremely large than expected. Even if slaughtering them one-sidedly, it was a number impossible to kill all before his stamina ran out.

Rickart's tactical intuition told him it was time to retreat. However conversely, his instinct was telling him to fight until death.

If it were his previous life, he might have retreated. Because achieving maximum effect considering stamina and then retreating is advantageous. But what about now?

On the boundary of composure and madness, Rickart chose madness. Because unlike when he wandered the world alone, now he carried something called responsibility on his two shoulders.

The golden flame burning along the blade blazed even fiercer. Burn more, more. Whether it be anger, or a wish.

Rickart ran deeper into the heart of the enemy camp, and the mercenaries had already gathered densely forming walls of people several layers thick.

It wasn't intentional, but a phenomenon occurring as large numbers of personnel converged to a single point.

But amidst that, some people were looking for Rickart not knowing where he was, and some discovered Rickart and sought an opportunity keeping their distance.

As Rickart boldly burrowed deep into the enemy camp, on one hand the mercenaries wondered if this guy was crazy, and on the other hand they were dumbfounded.

Rickart's room for maneuver was getting narrower. Formidable walls closed up the escape routes continuously.

Then a dense forest of spears, like a hedgehog, blocked his front and right. Several layers of people stood behind the wall too, so it wasn't a situation that could be broken through with force.

Looking back, that side still seemed chaotic. To escape, this was the last chance.

However, Rickart climbed onto a nearby stone block and, with blazing eyes of either a demon or an angel, shouted loudly.

"Come at me all at once!"

A certain level of spirit and guts is one thing, but he didn't look sane at all. He was also incredibly strong, making them even wonder if he was a demigod.

The mercenaries swallowed dryly and held their ground while trembling in fear. Just doing this was impressive. If they lacked combat experience, they would have fled long ago.

Though they were dirty, foul, and vulgar, they lived with their own resolutions.

But surprisingly, Rickart threw his body from the stone right into the forest of spears. As the mercenaries blankly watched their spears naturally raise upwards, Rickart instantaneously swung his sword in mid-air and hacked down spear shafts at random.

And then fell tangling with the mercenaries. Seeing the chance, the surrounding mercenaries tried to abruptly grab, stomp, and stab Rickart to kill him. No, they were about to.

A golden flaming blade abruptly soared piercing through someone's body, circled widely, and slashed everyone nearby, thwarting their grand challenge into an attempt.

Chwaaaack!

The mercenaries tightly packed together and unable to even move an inch, instantaneously collapsed en masse in that direction when one side fell. What is this, what happened? Did we kill him? Is he dead?

Regrettably for the mercenaries, Rickart didn't die. Like a being newly born in this world, he stood up again with his whole body soaked in red blood.

A momentary opening, that was enough. The golden flame traveling along the blade blew away the sticky blood in an instant, remaining consistently sharp.

The mercenaries didn't know what was what and couldn't break free from the shock. As Rickart, like a devil from a moonlit night, danced a blade dance, they were massacred senselessly without any viable response.

The mercenaries blocking the other side so Rickart couldn't escape, and the mercenaries joining late blankly witnessed that genuinely horrifying scene. It was like seeing a scene from hell.

After slashing and slicing a bunch, Rickart caught his breath and looked back at them. Truly his whole face and body were covered in blood to the point no other color than red could be seen.

Only a pair of burning eyes stared at the mercenaries. Upon meeting those eyes, the mercenaries felt their breath stop.

Leaving them behind, Rickart continuously ran to the heart of the enemy camp. For a while no mercenary blocked him, and he ran freely.

Then an extremely large pavilion caught his eye. Just looking, it belonged to the commander-in-chief.

And near that pavilion, a person wearing a red cape directing from the front was seen. Wearing a red cape was the tradition of the military's commander-in-chief.

He looked back at Rickart and was incredibly terrified. Completely drenched in blood with only two eyes blazing with golden flames, how could one view this as a human.

Rickart charged forward blindly without a moment to talk, stabbed the commander-in-chief's belly, and pulled the sword upward. Blood spurted, and hot internal organs spilled out in a rush.

The commanding officer-level mercenary captains nearby were horrified and fled, but Rickart didn't miss them and killed most.

The mercenaries pursuing Rickart became momentary dazed seeing that scene. Because, their commander-in-chief died and their unit captains died too.

Whether they did or not, Rickart bluntly entered the commander-in-chief's pavilion, picked up the chests at the foot of the bed, and bolted out the opposite side of the pavilion.

The weight of one chest was heavy enough that two burly adult men had to carry it, but Rickart stacked three and ran carrying them.

Exiting the camp and escaping into the forest, he momentarily lost sense of direction due to fighting so frantically. Lester appeared like a ghost and spoke.

"This way."

Rickart ran following him. Beyond the darkness, ghost-like rangers escorted Rickart.

Exiting the forest, moonlight welcomed Rickart, and the enemies were in a state of confusion unable to pursue.

Battle fatigue belatedly rushed over Rickart. His legs and hands trembled violently, and he gasped as if he was about to stop breathing.

The flame of mana burning inside his body wasn't dangerous to his physique, but seemed to scream to stop now. Otherwise, it had no choice but to burn his heart.

As Rickart hurriedly took deep breaths and caught his breath, the flame turned into a breeze, seemingly silently sinking into his blood vessels, muscles, and organs. It just felt like that, whether it actually sank in couldn't be known.

Anyway, since the enemies didn't seem to be pursuing for now, he put down the chests and opened one. Then silver coins filling it so much it made eyes roll revealed themselves under the moonlight.

"Done. With this amount, we can lure them out enough."

Rickart said delightedly. He felt the plan would work since they were mercenaries who lived for money and died for money.

Returning to the soldiers and showing the massive amount of war funds Rickart had captured, everyone's eyes grew wide and were left speechless. Whatever the plan, couldn't they just buy mercenaries with this money?

"This is just the beginning. This money will be used to defeat the enemies, so don't harbor useless thoughts. Just remember the plan. When I lure the enemies to the canyon, you hide here and push them toward the cliff."

Rickart warned the soldiers. Because one shouldn't grow complacent just because things were going well.

But the soldiers weren't complacent, they just couldn't speak because it was so unbelievable. Before that, Rickart didn't seem to know his current appearance. That was more shocking than the massive amount of money.

Everyone already knew Rickart was strong. However, he too was a human made of flesh and blood, so invading the heart of the enemy camp, killing the commander-in-chief, and returning alive made no sense.

Was it luck, a miracle of god, or skill. It was enough to make their heads spin now.

But when dawn broke the next day, Rickart's plan ended up going awry. Because things didn't flow as expected.

Having lost their commander-in-chief and even their war funds, the mercenaries simply began to scatter individually. Be it luring or whatever, they abandoned the fight itself.

Some bypassed far away to join Grantz, some just went straight to Beringen, and some came to Rickart asking to hire them. Huh? Wait a minute, what should I do in this case?

No matter how much of a genius or how much experience one had, one couldn't predict every affair in the world. Especially in war overflowing with all sorts of variables.

And inadvertently, such a rumor spread to the world. A human who single-handedly faced an army existed.

The Red Prince of Adelorn, Rickart von Kaldebern.