Chapter 373
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By the time Roford’s group reached the west, Baron Mernes’s allied forces had already sealed off the castle gate.
A lot.
Even at a glance, the numbers were heavy. Siege weapons stood among them.
And at the front—ten figures who’d stepped out ahead of the mass and were studying the walls—each one looked dangerous.
Different gear. Same pressure.
Their presence alone felt wrong.
Worse, one of them was a face Roford knew.
“Defector.”
A man who’d caused trouble in the Royal Guard and fled.
The man looked up, spotted Roford, and grinned.
Idiot.
Roford’s vision swam as he read his lips.
That man was his senior. Far better than him.
Not quite a Junior Knight, but he would do anything to win—making him the most terrifying kind of opponent in a fight to the death.
And if the nine beside him were comparable—
Behind those nine stood another figure, placed as if above them all.
A helmet with pointed horns.
Matching horns on his shoulder armor, too.
Leaving skill aside, his taste was deranged.
The ten at the front were threat enough.
How were they supposed to stop the troops lined up behind them?
Defeat seeped into Roford’s chest.
“There are a lot of interesting guys.”
Dunbakel’s voice.
Then Ragna’s followed, casual as if they were watching a street performance.
“At least one of them looks useful. The rest are so-so.”
Roford nearly choked.
He couldn’t feel any urgency in either of them.
From the enemy line, a commander stepped forward and shouted.
“Open the gate! We are Baron Mernes’s army, here to capture the traitors!”
Unfamiliar face. Neat features.
He carried his helmet tucked under his left arm. A sword hung at his waist. A shield sat in his other hand, polished enough to catch the sun and glare.
The soldiers on the wall tightened with fear.
If they got pushed back here, they’d lose before the fight even started.
Willpower.
Roford reminded himself of the thing he’d just realized.
There was a wall.
And there was a heart behind it.
He wanted to protect it.
He drew a deep breath and stepped forward.
“That can’t be! The Queen has issued no such order!”
He shouted, praying he didn’t sound like a frightened dog.
“Won’t you open it nicely?”
The defector Squire spoke with a crooked smile, as if choosing words was a waste of time.
As if to say: What will you do if we block you?
Roford clenched his teeth.
“…Fall back.”
He said it anyway.
Now was the moment to stop the ones rushing in.
There were only ten at the front, but the soldiers already looked shattered.
And Ragna wasn’t the kind of commander who gathered morale with speeches.
He was better with a sword than a tongue.
So Roford decided to start it another way.
Dunbakel did the same. She simply tapped the curved swords resting neatly at her waist.
Talking wasn’t either of their strengths.
So the conversation would begin with steel.
—
The moment Ragna left, Encrid spotted One-Eye.
He was peering in, drawn by the noise.
Encrid spoke without hesitation.
“Give me a ride.”
One-Eye was a friend. Asking a favor was fine.
Encrid was already drawing the route to the Royal Palace in his head.
Fastest path. He needed a horse.
Race the same road he’d taken by carriage before.
That was the thought behind the words.
One-Eye blinked once and shifted his body aside, as if granting permission—
Ping.
A bolt whistled in.
Encrid tilted his head back. The short bolt sliced past his face.
Above the wall, familiar figures appeared.
Masks—despite the sun still being up.
More than thirty of them.
Their clothes, their air—people he’d crossed blades with more than once.
“Aren’t you tired of this?”
Encrid asked.
Why go this far?
A request alone wouldn’t make them gamble everything. He could tell at a glance.
He’d dealt with mages and assassins of every kind. The fact they still had this much manpower meant they’d poured everything they had into it.
They were risking their lives here, too.
“Do you stop working just because you’re tired?” a man on the far left replied. “We do it because we’re obligated.”
His arms hung low—so long they looked twice the length of anyone else’s.
He wasn’t slouched. He simply let them hang.
And in the center, one man stood without a mask.
Everyone else crouched or hunched along the wall.
But he stood upright, alone—white hair, monocle, clean shirt and jacket as if he’d stepped out of a salon.
He tapped the stone with a cane sword.
“I told you to stab him, but you didn’t listen,” he said. “Do you value a request that cheaply?”
His gaze slid past Encrid.
To Jaxson.
Encrid didn’t look back.
Not refusing on the spot was acceptance.
Jaxson hadn’t refused.
But he’d broken it.
Encrid was still standing there.
“No. He kept his word,” Encrid said. His voice was firm. “So you need to tell me everything you know.”
Jaxson’s mouth tightened. He looked away.
He wanted no part of this.
“What are you talking about?” The cane swordsman’s expression sharpened. “You’re still alive.”
He was one of the pillars of the assassination alliance.
It felt like every major piece had gathered here.
Their leader hid among them, disguised as a common assassin, breathing steady—her specialty was blending in, then killing with a single fatal move.
“He stabbed me,” Encrid said.
“What?”
“He stabbed me. Right here.” Encrid pointed to his left arm. “If you don’t believe me, he can stab me again right now.”
There was no open wound anymore. Only a faint scar—visible only up close.
And even that spot was usually covered by armor.
So what was he supposed to be talking about?
The alliance leader frowned. A question surfaced.
The cane swordsman reached the same conclusion and asked it.
“…You were stabbed?”
“You told him to stab me,” Encrid replied without missing a beat.
Silence.
He was told to stab. So he stabbed.
Whether Encrid died wasn’t the wording. The request was completed.
Was he serious?
Encrid kept pointing at his arm, expression making the point again and again.
The cane swordsman’s cheek twitched.
Some of the alliance leaders understood and opened their mouths in disbelief.
The rest filled with murderous intent.
That bastard was mocking them.
Jaxson sighed soundlessly behind Encrid.
He really was doing it.
“You told him to stab me. So he stabbed me.”
It had been said during sparring. Encrid wasn’t pretending he didn’t understand.
He was choosing not to bend.
He’d smiled when he answered.
“Yes. You told him to stab me.”
No room for implication. No room for slang. Just the literal words.
It was provocation—an annoyance weaponized.
And it worked.
“I was hurt,” Encrid added, voice flat. “It hurt.”
The cane swordsman clicked his tongue.
“This bastard really is a madman.”
That was when Encrid moved.
His hand flashed out as the word madman left the man’s mouth.
A whistle overlapped the insult.
Encrid threw two Whistle Daggers.
Thwack!
Both sank cleanly into two assassins’ foreheads.
Their bodies tipped backward and dropped, thudding below.
Before the impact finished echoing, Encrid and Jaxson were already moving.
“You can go first,” Jaxson said.
Encrid nodded.
They split—left and right.
Jaxson pulled up his hooded robe as he moved, tightened his belt, and slipped into the shadows near the wall.
Encrid sucked in a breath and shouted.
“Everyone attack!”
He stomped his left foot.
Bang!
The ground cracked under the force of the Heart of Monstrous Strength.
Power slammed outward.
Assassins flinched—then focused.
Their eyes snapped to Encrid, drawn by the shout and the quake.
It was part of the point.
Nonsense and noise to seize attention.
Make them wonder what the hell he was doing.
The alliance didn’t crumble under momentum.
Instead, one impatient assassin yanked out a bottle of poison—Ten Breaths.
Modified so that when it burst, it spewed green smoke.
One breath and you were done.
A poison that killed you in the time it took to take ten breaths.
He drew his arm back to throw—
Thud.
Heat flooded his throat.
Pain didn’t even arrive first. The burning spread through his body, his eyes closing as the world went black.
Then the sound of rushing water.
He died like that.
Jaxson had already silenced his presence in the shadows.
The relic helped.
A robe that muffled the life force leaking out, and a belt enchanted to swallow sound—loot from the Black Sword bandits’ village.
From below, Jaxson drove his longsword straight into the back of the poison man’s neck.
The blade punched through.
Blood spilled onto the stone.
Four assassins nearby reacted instantly, leaping back.
At the same time, darts flew—poisoned.
They struck where Jaxson had been.
He was already gone, pressed tight to the wall, moving through blind spots.
“Find him!”
The cane swordsman snapped.
A man who disappeared in an instant couldn’t be caught by ordinary senses.
Still hidden, Jaxson flicked three silent throwing knives.
Two found throats.
One was blocked.
The one who blocked it had those too-long limbs and an unnatural gleam in his eyes—magic. An implanted artificial eye with a spell inside.
“There!”
He shouted, tracking Jaxson below the wall.
Silencing sound didn’t make him invisible. Jaxson was sprinting under the parapet, using angles and blind zones.
Caught or not, he jumped, raised the longsword, and swung in a wide arc.
From above, it looked like a guillotine blade rising from beneath the wall.
Whoosh—
The vertical sweep clipped the wrist of an assassin holding a modified crossbow.
Thwack!
Not enough force to sever bone.
But the blade bit deep, half-buried in the wrist.
The assassin screamed.
“Ugh!”
“He’s there!”
Another assassin shouted.
Someone flipped down from the wall upside down and threw a dagger.
Squeak! Squeak!
A Whistle Dagger.
Jaxson halted to avoid it.
Thwack—
The dagger stuck into stone.
Jaxson tore it free as he ran, then threw it up and to the side.
The upward throw was dodged by an agile assassin.
The side throw was blocked—by a man who produced a shield from nowhere.
What kind of assassin carried a shield?
The kind who prepared for the opponent in front of them.
Daggers won’t work easily.
Jaxson decided instantly.
He climbed onto the wall where the assassins had shifted away.
One kick, one pull—up in a motion as clean as a practiced habit.
No less than Esther’s wall-climbing.
Standing on the wall, Jaxson looked around and spoke.
“Don’t follow me if you don’t want to die.”
Then he dropped off the other side and ran.
“We’ll get cut down if we get careless.”
“That’s why we came together.”
Two alliance leaders exchanged words as they watched him go.
The long-armed man had searched for Encrid in the meantime.
But Encrid was already gone.
Too agile.
Or—
No. It wasn’t preplanned. It was just how Encrid and Jaxson moved.
Encrid drew attention. Jaxson vanished.
Jaxson drew attention. Encrid did his work.
They’d only loosely coordinated after Jaxson said, “You can go first.”
They sparred and trained together every day.
This kind of teamwork didn’t require a plan.
“After that one first,” the cane swordsman said.
He pointed in the direction Jaxson had gone.
Their original purpose was to deal with the assassin from the Daggers of Gaor.
And even if Encrid reached the Royal Palace, it wouldn’t change anything.
Because inside the palace were monsters that made them look like nothing.
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