ocean-life Chapter 339: Bread and Dagger (37)
Chapter 339: Bread and Dagger (37)
Chapter 339: Bread and Dagger (37)
Swords were always honest.
Unlike tongues, they cannot be wielded deceitfully. Once a sword is drawn and it begins to trace its path, a silent proclamation is made.
A signal of a fight to the death.
An agreement where nothing else needs consideration beyond killing or being killed. Mercy is unnecessary and half-hearted sympathy only leads to mistakes.
At least, that’s how it was in the North.
Sir Alex seemed to have learned this truth through years of experience. Despite his heavy armor , his steps across the snow were nimble.
The thudding sound of his footsteps echoed only a few times.
It was a terrifyingly swift charge. Before long, he stood before a thick coniferous tree.
He immediately swung his word as if it were the most natural thing to do.
It was a wild trajectory—neither precise nor elegant.
But it was more than enough.
With a resounding crack, the tree’s trunk shattered completely.
Pale yellow fibers exposed themselves like raw flesh. The tree, robbed of its support, inevitably collapsed.
From atop the tree, a shrill scream escaped.
An elven scout who had been hiding among the branches, tumbled to the ground.
Sir Alex didn’t even spare him a glance.
He simply reached out with his free hand and grabbed it by the skull.
Then, came another resounding crack—and that was the end.
The elf’s face, slammed forcefully into the ground, was grotesquely shattered. There wasn’t even time for him to let out a final scream—it was a swift, clean death.
Only the blood and brain matter spilled on the pristine snow bore witness to his demise.
Sir Alex’s movements showed not a slightest hint of hesitation. If the elves were left entirely to him, not a single one would survive.
That couldn’t happen.
Not only because Aviang was watching, but because what I needed was information.
Harvesting elf heads held no meaning for me.
I already amassed countless achievements—from slaying a named beast and exterminating the demonic human hiding in the orphanage, to recently defeating an Underling of the Evil God.
Defeating a few elves would bring me no further honor.
I’d just probably end up receiving an earful from the Saintess, if anything.
In that case, capturing the elves alive was the better choice.
My dash was as swift as Sir Alex’s.
Through the gaps in my heightened senses, I picked up on a few faint presences. They were so subtle that they could easily be mistaken for part of nature itself.
Come to think of it, Aviang was like that as well.
Her lack of hostility aside, I failed to properly sense her presence when she hid behind a tree. It was a sensation I hadn’t experienced within the confines of the academy walls.
Could it be that elves become harder to detect when surrounded by nature?
I formulated this hypothesis as I stomped the ground with force.
Immediately after feeling the strong rebound from the ground beneath my feet, I found myself face-to-face with an elf who had been hiding atop a conifer. The delicate-looking woman’s eyes widened in shock.
Her disbelieving eyes betrayed a flood of thoughts passing through her mind.
This couldn’t be a typical human’s leg strength.
Impossible.
I seemed to have messed with the wrong person.
She wasn’t wrong.
I had soared several meters high with a single leap. Swordsmen who had reached the level of Expert were invariably monsters with such power.
Across the entire continent, there might only be a few hundred of such superhumans.
To have encountered not one, but two of them at once could only be explained as the elves’ worst luck to have.
The elf made a desperate, belated attempt to resist, but it was over the moment her eyes met mine.
She tried to draw her bowstring, only to shift her gaze in confusion when she felt nothing.
There was nothing where her arm should have been, only gushing blood could be seen..
“Ugh, Kug...!”
I let out a deep sigh.
And in the next instant—
Slam!—the elf’s face was slammed into the ground. At some point, my hand gripped her head and was now forcefully pressing it against the ground.
Beneath the soft moss, rock-hard ground awaited.
The sensation of her nasal bone shattering must have been the first thing she felt, followed by the agonizing difficulty of drawing breath.
As proof, the elf was writhing, flailing her arms and legs and letting out muffled cries. She fumbled to draw a dagger with her remaining hand, but that was all she managed.
I easily disarmed her, twisting her wrist as if it were a child’s.
Crack!
As her wrist broke in the process, an even more despairing scream burst out from her lips.
“UGH, AAAAAUGGGHH! AAAAHHHHH!”
Though, her cries muffled by the ground, failed to echo into the air.
I wasn’t sure how much time passed like this..
I eventually grabbed her hair and lifted her head again.
Clear fear now flickered in her eyes.
“If you stop resisting, I won’t use force. That’s a promise... But if you keep defying me, I can’t guarantee what I’ll do to you.”
After all, you’re not the only elf here.
Though unspoken, my words carried that warning.
The elf woman seemed somewhat hesitant.
If even a mere scouting party was acting like this, the depth of the conflict between humans and elves was beyond imagination.
I was contemplating whether to slam her face into the ground once more.
“Argh!”
Just then a short, low-pitched scream erupted from somewhere.
Both the elf woman and I immediately turned our gazes toward the source. There, an elf man lay collapsed, bleeding profusely.
Standing proudly before him was Sir Alex.
He held no weapon in his hands. He seemed to have dropped his sword during the fight—perhaps intentionally.
His gauntlets were drenched in blood.
Looking at the elf’s swollen and battered face, it was clear he’d been subjected to a merciless beating. As he tried to stumble backward, Sir Alex finally picked up his fallen sword.
It was clear what would happen next.
From the elven woman’s mouth, a pitiful wail escaped.
“Ma-Mathis...!”
Her tone was deeply mournful.
Even Sir Alex momentarily glanced back at the sound of her trembling voice. The elf woman was reacting more intensely than when her own life was threatened.
But Sir Alex wasn’t someone to care about that.
He prepared to swing his sword down, like an executioner releasing the guillotine.
Just then, as I hesitated briefly, someone caught my eye.
Aviang.
That small girl was desperately sprinting. Her frantic expression showed she was determined to stop Sir Alex at all costs.
Even though she was far too late.
She couldn’t use magic. Bound by restraints, if either I or Senior Neris uttered a spell, her head would explode on the spot.
Even so, the sight of her desperately running was, well...
Just as Sir Alex’s sword traced the arc of beheading, and despair filled the eyes of the elven woman and Aviang alike—
Clang—a sharp metallic clash reverberated through the air.
The impact was so strong that small sparks flew from the collision. Sir Alex momentarily staggered from the sudden shock, then quickly regained his stance.
The old knight’s eyes turned to me with a look of surprise.
It was inevitable.
Because I was the one who had stopped him.
The hatched I had thrown, to be precise.