Chapter 27 : Everyone Has Their Own Plans

Chapter 27: Everyone Has Their Own Plans

Step.

As I took one step closer,

Clang!

Asher hastily drew his sword and locked eyes with Uksala.

Shiiing!

Uksala gave a short nod, pulled out his massive greatsword, and shouted.

“Red Warriors—!”

His thunderous roar echoed, and shortly after,

Bang! Clang!

Doors burst open and windows shattered from the houses near the Lord’s Keep, and warriors clad in crimson leather armor rushed out in droves.

Clank! Clank! Clank!

Their armor had iron plates sewn over every vital point, creating a loud clattering sound with every step they took.

I couldn’t help but let out a laugh.

“They said only three people would participate, didn’t they?”

Seriously, you can never trust the words of these outlaws in this city.

Perhaps feeling a bit more at ease with the Red Warriors’ arrival, Asher spoke again.

“Ransen! Don’t you realize that if things go on like this, we’ll all perish together?! It’s not too late! Stop this reckless bravado and…!”

Slash!

As I closed the twenty-step gap, my aura flew forth—

and a noisy head rolled to the ground.

“What the…?!”

“Just now??”

“…!!”

Uksala, Susjan, Kalserik.

The strongest among the enemies, all of them stared wide-eyed in shock.

Yeah.

You couldn’t even react, could you?

You don’t understand what just happened, do you?

Thud.

Asher’s corpse collapsed limply.

Lowering my drawn sword slowly, I spoke.

“There are two things you must be curious about. Why you couldn’t react to my strike. And how I pierced through a Peak Expert’s Aura Shield with nothing but Aura Shooting.”

Everyone’s gaze fixed on me.

Of course, you’d be curious.

It’s something beyond the reach of your common sense.

But for me, who had mastered the ancient swordsmanship and returned, it was only natural.

‘With Sword Support, the strike extends forward instantly without any preparatory movement. Of course, you couldn’t react.’

I knew well because I had experienced it firsthand. My speed was already faster, so if you couldn’t even recognize the starting point, how could you possibly block it?

‘Aura Shooting is a High-grade Expert’s technique, but if you blend it with ancient sword energy, it’s more than enough to shatter your Aura Shields.’

Exhilarating.

Four Peak Experts would be difficult even for a Swordmaster to deal with… yet right now, their necks looked so fragile to my eyes. As if I could just reach out and—snip!—they’d fall off.

Boom! Boom! Clank!

Meanwhile, the forty Red Warriors formed a battle formation.

Whoooosh—

The aura overflowing from their bodies intertwined, weaving together and covering the sky.

‘As expected, not bad.’

The countless strands of aura merged, becoming as solid as steel.

And the final stroke to complete the picture was Uksala the Great Warrior.

The moment he drew up his aura and took the lead of the formation,

as if iron armor had descended over the tightly interwoven aura—

Boooom!

The barrier of aura pressed down upon heaven and earth with crushing weight.

Even an Aura Blade would struggle to pierce through that.

‘An ordinary Swordmaster would truly have to stake his life against it.’

Uksala pointed his massive greatsword at me and spoke heavily.

“Ransen the Great Warrior. Do we truly need to settle this to the very end?”

A bead of cold sweat trickled down his brow.

I let out a faint laugh.

Because I wasn’t just some ordinary Swordmaster.

“Uncle Uksala. Just one thing. Only one. Either yield, or fight.”

I knew.

I knew why that man was acting this way.

It wasn’t as though this was the first time I’d seen it.

“When you saw my sword earlier, you lost your confidence, didn’t you? But still, you can’t just cast it all aside and kneel, because you don’t want to waste everything you’ve enjoyed until now?”

Uksala didn’t answer. He just gazed at me in silence.

Right. He couldn’t give it up.

As a warrior, he was remarkable. But his greed and lust had long crossed the line.

I could list, all day long, the families he stripped of all their wealth, and the couples who wept blood because of him.

From behind, Commander Susjan raised his voice.

“How arrogant. Do you think you can kill whomever you dislike and still survive in this city—no, in all of Roberland? And you—how clean do you think your own hands are?”

“Well, it’s not about whether I’m clean or not…”

What crossed my mind at that moment were the things that followed.

Children from ruined families. The illegitimate offspring Uksala left behind.

In this city,

orphans were born like that, again and again.

But really, what was the point of saying such things to him?

I scratched my head once and said,

“Just die.”

Kwoooom!

I kicked off the ground and charged.

Before my eyes spread out chains of aura, flowing between the warriors.

Even a Swordmaster would find it hard to break something like that.

If it had been me from not long ago—before I learned under Grand Duke Laitena—it might have been quite the struggle.

Slash!

“What??!”

Shrrrk!

“What the—!”

With each strike, with each stroke, another head fell.

What good was sturdiness?

If they couldn’t block the attack, then what was the point?

Of course, the Experts had their Aura Shields… but with a bit of sword energy mixed in, cutting through them was no different than slicing cucumbers.

Forty Red Warriors?

Honestly, laughable.

Slash-slash-slash!

Sword Support.

An attack without even a preparatory movement, the sword guiding itself forward—none of the warriors could react, and they simply offered up their necks.

‘If you don’t know, then you’ll just have to be beaten.’

That was the nature of combat.

When a new tactic emerged, the side clinging to the old ways would collapse without being able to do a thing.

Fighting only with swords, you die when you first meet an enemy in armor.

Fighting only with melee weapons, you die when you first encounter the bow.

Boasting only of infantry, you flee in terror when cavalry arrives.

For the warriors of this era, ancient swordsmanship was exactly that kind of existence.

The Red Warriors kept dying, without even understanding why they were dying.

“What, what are you all doing! Attack, all of you! That bastard Ransen intends to kill every last one of us! If we don’t join forces, we’ll all be dead!”

Sensing the crisis, Uksala shouted.

But his words weren’t aimed at the Red Warriors—they were directed at the other groups gathered in the hall.

At those words, the onlookers flinched.

I turned to them and urged them on.

“That’s right. I’ll kill all of you. So come at me.”

At my words, which almost sounded like I was helping him, Uksala’s eyebrows furrowed sharply.

“What are you trying to—!”

“What else? Exactly what I said. I’ll kill every last one of you.”

It wasn’t just empty words.

A chilling killing intent spread in every direction.

“Uwaaaah!”

Did they truly feel that if they stayed still, they’d be next?

Aside from those Seah had classified as blue, the ones marked in red and black on the Kill List let out cries that sounded like screams and charged at me all at once.

“Good.”

The Red Warriors’ formation had already been half-broken long ago. As for these new attackers, by my standard, they were nothing but rabble. I didn’t even need Aura Blade.

Shhhhhh—

Like threads unraveling from a spool, Aura Threads stretched outward, while Aura Shooting sliced the air in every direction.

Thud-thud-thud—

Heads flew like falling leaves.

They dropped like hail.

A head here.

A head there.

“You bastard!!!”

To turn the tide, Uksala the Great Warrior raised his massive greatsword and charged—

Slash.

His life ended.

A single strike.

Chilling silence swept across the noisy battlefield.

“M-madness…! Don’t tell me… a Grandmaster…?”

Was it only now that they realized the gap between us?

At Uksala’s side, Commander Susjan, who had been waiting for an opening against me, turned his back and fled.

Like I’d ever let such a big catch get away.

“Keck!”

I chased him down as he tried to hide behind the Red Warriors, and severed his head.

And once again, Aura Threads.

The Red Warriors were torn apart to shreds.

Now then, who’s next?

As I turned my gaze, I saw a burly middle-aged warrior frozen with a rigid face.

‘Ah, I almost forgot.’

The Kalserik Brotherhood.

The last Peak Expert remaining among the enemies.

As I tilted the tip of my sword and approached,

Thud.

The leader, Kalserik, suddenly dropped to his knees.

“Spare me.”

He lowered his head deeply and begged.

Huh.

I was a bit weak against developments like this.

Maybe because I had knelt a few times myself in the past…

‘…He’s not really a bad guy.’

One of the rare men in Roberland who knew a bit of romance—someone who neither betrayed his employer nor preyed on people.

Fine. I’d let him go.

“Stay there, on your knees, and raise your hands.”

At the tilt of my sword tip, Kalserik and his men quickly shot their hands into the air.

I walked past them.

Then I stood before the enemies who were watching me nervously, like a rabble without order.

‘Now… what, about seventy of them left?’

Let’s finish this.

As I advanced, stirring up Aura Threads, the seventy men stumbled backward.

“M-monster.”

So cliché.

I had already heard that kind of thing back when I was twenty.

Whoosh!

In one rush, I closed the distance.

Aura Threads wrapped around five, ten men at a time and shredded them instantly.

Blood scattered in every direction.

But none of it even touched my body.

It was shredded into nothing by the storm raised by my aura and the sword energy shooting out everywhere.

“Uwaaaa!”

“That… that’s impossible to win against.”

The enemies began to collapse.

They scattered in all directions, trying to flee.

Even the infamous Red Warriors were no exception.

But from the moment they set foot here, there had never been anywhere for them to escape to.

Swhhhk!

Thud!

Arrows flew in from somewhere, piercing into the heads of those trying to run.

“Where do you think you’re fleeing! I’ll skewer every last one of you! Archers!!!”

As Rivera Pietro rose to his feet and shouted, the archery unit hidden atop the rooftops of the houses also stood.

Creak—!

The sound of bowstrings drawing rang out, chilling and sharp.

“Don’t let a single one leave alive!”

Rivera Pietro.

Commander of Kushan City’s greatest archers—he had faithfully carried out the favor I’d asked of him yesterday.

The downpour of arrows painted the sight of the fleeing men with despair.

“Arghhh!”

“Wasn’t it supposed to be only three allowed? Uwaaaagh!”

Sorry.

In the end, I was also just another outlaw of this city.

“Kill them!”

“Don’t let them escape!!”

The organizations listed in blue, with whom we’d coordinated beforehand, also leapt into action.

They chased the scattering enemies, crushing each of them to the ground one by one.

With me blocking the front, Rivera’s archers pressing from the rear, and the blue-listed groups rampaging in between…

‘The situation’s settled.’

The battle wrapped up anticlimactically.

“Haaah…”

Amidst the strewn corpses, I cooled the heat of combat for a moment.

Step.

Small footsteps approached.

A short girl came carefully forward, skirting the corpses and the pools of blood.

Seah, with her navy-blue hair braided down one side, swept her expressionless gaze over the battlefield and let out a small sigh before speaking to me.

“You killed them all.”

“Yeah. I cleared out everyone marked red and above.”

“…Why did you?”

It wasn’t a rebuke, nor was it curiosity.

Seah simply looked at me with clear, transparent eyes.

So I answered honestly.

“Because I thought of Seon.”

Our youngest, six-year-old Seon. I had killed them all because I thought of him.

“Seon?”

“Yeah. He has a reason for being an orphan.”

“Ah…”

Seah’s lips parted slightly.

Seon’s father had wasted all their wealth in drugs before dying, and his mother, left alone, was violated by the Red Warriors and was murdered.

I hated that.

“I hate how orphans keep being born like that. I want the city we rule to be a place where kids like Seon can live with a smile.”

“Ah…”

Seah nodded, as if she understood.

“I understand your reason well. But they’re a necessary evil. They’re vermin, but if they’re gone, even more people will die.”

Her deep navy eyes fixed on me.

“No matter how strong you are, Oppa, you can’t hunt all the Demonic Beasts across such a vast land alone. And if the beasts aren’t hunted, this city will perish.”

Her expressionless face sank into deep thought.

“…I can’t think of a way. We need to gather enough power to defend the city, but in the short term… it’s impossible.”

I ruffled her hair as she fretted.

“Mmph!”

Seah quickly pulled her head out of my hand and shot me a sharp glare.

This brat. She used to like it when I did that.

“Seah. Try trusting me a little more.”

“Huh?”

“I already have something in mind.”

“…What is it?”

“What about relic excavation? Nothing brings in money and draws people like that does.”

“Relic excavation…? Don’t tell me…?”

“Yeah. I just came back from a place.”

By now the sun had set, and stars were rising into the night sky.

I picked out one among them, shining unusually bright and never shifting its place.

‘Mivabar, Goddess of Wisdom.’

One of the ancient Thirteen Gods, now forgotten.

I raised my hand and pointed toward her. I aligned myself to the angle my body still remembered.

A Swordmaster’s sharp senses did not allow even the slightest deviation.

‘A little farther north from here, maybe?’

It was still vivid.

The place where that star rose at a slightly higher angle than here.

That was where it lay.

The place where a girl once stood, every day, gazing up at the heavens and aiming at the Thirteen Gods.

The place my senior, Iodin Serom, had wanted to protect even at the cost of her life.

The city of knights, Glowingsteel.

It wasn’t far from here.

‘Did my senior… in the end, manage to protect that place and inherit Master’s sword?’

Strange, wasn’t it?

That person who had been chattering beside me just yesterday—already someone who had died and vanished ten thousand years ago.

What kind of life had she lived?

Had it been satisfying?

Could I… ever meet her again?

“Certainly.”

Seah broke into my thoughts.

“If it’s an ancient ruin, then there’s potential. But it all depends on the kind and scale. How big is it?”

Scale, huh…

“A city with a population of about two hundred thousand. The streets were filled with blacksmiths. Skilled knights gathered there in droves, so it was called the city of knights.”

“Truly…?”

Seah, always expressionless, raised her eyebrows in surprise.

I nodded toward her with full confidence.

“Of course. The place is crawling with precious ancient weapons.”

Naturally. Would I have gone on a killing spree without a plan? I had killed them all because I had already thought it through.

Once news of Glowingsteel’s excavation spread,

Every warrior in Roberland would be itching to move.

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