Chapter 402

“Send in the Chimera Unit.”

At Count Molsen’s order, Lierbart raised a flag. The moment the small flag went up, a messenger sprinted off and shouted.

“Advance! Advance!”

With that cry, the Count’s second prepared blade surged forward.

He had already sent the werewolf pack with the Border Guards—true werewolves, humans turned into Fiends. But that wasn’t all he’d attached to the Border Guards.

The main force was here.

Their cavalry was being pushed back, their horse archers were getting pinned down by the royal guard under Aisia, and even the infantry was losing the formation fight.

All because of an unexpected force rampaging through the Count’s infantry.

To be precise, it could all be pinned on one clueless swordsman who kept wandering into the wrong place.

Lierbart saw it, but his expression didn’t change.

Even if the fight was uglier than their forces should allow, it didn’t matter. They were being driven back.

No, they were being driven back in earnest.

And the Count only watched, unconcerned.

Losses mounted as the subordinate commanders made their own judgments.

In other words, people were dying.

Into that gap, the Chimera Unit ran.

It was a sensible choice. If your line was being pushed, you committed another force. Basic tactics.

Most of them wore tattered leather and ragged clothes full of holes.

A group dressed like they didn’t belong on a battlefield began to run. Up close, their eyes were dull and unfocused, devoid of reason. They moved only because they had been told to move.

Then, at a certain moment, they ran and changed.

Feathers burst from their bodies. Thick manes, like fur, spread over them, and their frames swelled larger.

Claws sharpened, and the haze in their eyes turned into naked killing intent.

Fiends made purely for slaughter.

Owlbears, werewolves, and werebears.

The three monsterized types charged forward, screaming.

Hoo-ooo-ooo!

Awoo-oong!

Kuh-uh-uh-ung!

The howls alone were enough to make an ordinary person shudder, stirring instinctive fear.

Howling, they threw themselves at the Kingdom army’s right flank. A pack well over a hundred strong was enough to drag the defenders into despair and frustration.

That was when it happened.

A shout from one side slammed into the beast horde. It was clearly a human voice, but the cry itself was something else.

Ororororolol!

A tongue-rolling bellow, pushed out with deep breath and carried wide across the field.

“Chase the wolves away!”

“Beast, beast. You’ve lost your way!”

Ororororolol!

Shouts and cries overlapped and echoed. From one edge of the plains, figures appeared, running with a speed no infantry should have.

They were so fast they almost matched a cavalry charge.

In other words, they were not inferior to the onrushing Fiends.

Each carried a long wooden staff or spear, and wore a brown leather cloak.

There couldn’t be many groups like this.

They were the Shepherds of the Wilds.

People who lived by herding as they ran the open wilds.

At the northernmost edge of the continent, they handled Thick-Horned Mountain Goats in the mountains and Lean Sheep—the fiercest herbivores on the continent—across the fields known as the wilds.

There were fewer than twenty of them, yet they were comparable to the royal guard.

They charged straight into the Fiend horde.

Fewer than twenty against a mass numbering over two hundred. At a glance, it looked like suicide.

It wasn’t.

“I hope you die and make the land fertile.”

At the front was a man named Pell.

He wielded Godslayer, a sword with a demon’s soul sealed inside it.

If it cut you, you died.

Like being dosed with a lethal poison. It didn’t kill the body first—it cut the soul.

He’d been warned not to use it recklessly. If he kept using it without stopping, the demon trapped inside would awaken.

But against Fiends like these, there was no reason to hesitate.

This was the shepherd and the sword that had once made Encrid repeat today.

Pell drove the blade into an Owlbear’s eye. He didn’t need to pierce its head. He only had to prick and pull out—just enough to leave a wound.

Of course, gouging out an eye was not a minor wound.

It was only minor to a shepherd.

“Oooo-ooo-ooo!”

The Owlbear screamed. Instead of dropping dead, it endured. Not because of [Will]. It was the demonic nature of a Fiend.

The sword trembled, sending a short vibration up his arm.

It didn’t like what it had just cut.

Good. That meant he could swing it as much as he wanted.

If he could draw on the demon’s power without offering up his own soul, then he simply had to cut more—slash, stab, and poke far more than he would with an ordinary blade.

If once wasn’t enough, he could cut twice.

Pell closed the distance again as fast as he’d withdrawn and stabbed the other eye.

The Owlbear raised its claws and swung a hand-like paw down.

Pell ducked, pulling the sword free as he slipped under the blow. His eyes sparkled.

Information poured in from all directions, and he moved on instinct. Pell’s rampage only grew wilder.

Then two companions stepped in around him—older shepherds.

One wore a wolf-head hat. The other wore a bear-head hat.

“Crazy Pell, don’t rampage so much.”

“Kids these days.”

One carried a long spear. The other held a long staff.

The Shepherds of the Wilds had long favored polearms—spears, staffs, and the like.

Pell was the odd one who insisted on a sword.

“Can’t you just let me do as I please?”

Pell kicked the dying Owlbear.

“You don’t want to hear nagging right now?”

“We should ask your dad why you have no manners.”

Noisy old men.

Pell answered, contrary to what he felt.

“Yes, I was wrong.”

“Just saying it, just saying it.”

“Kids these days.”

The bear-hat old man said ‘kids these days’ like a habit.

So it was fine to ignore him.

Pell would rather have a chat with the Owlbear than deal with this.

A chat was a conversation that included laughter, and he would be the only one laughing.

The dead didn’t laugh, and he wouldn’t grant a Fiend that kind of leisure.

The two old shepherds followed behind him, supporting his movements.

Then two more joined, and the five moved as one.

It was the Shepherds’ basic formation.

Five became one and struck.

A diamond spearhead, a staff capped with iron, and Pell’s sword worked together to butcher the Monsterization test subjects without mercy.

In the end, the Count’s Chimera Unit didn’t fulfill its purpose at all.

So why were the Shepherds of the Wilds here?

It was Krang’s work.

He had wandered the continent, called in a favor from shepherds he’d met by chance, and they came to repay the debt.

No, to be honest, they’d been here for years.

They hadn’t been waiting only for today.

They came because they wanted something, too.

Krang knew that, and he used it fully.

Wasn’t it basic politics to set the board by giving the other side what it wanted?

Krang did exactly that, and because of it, twenty Shepherds of the Wilds stood here now.

And it didn’t feel like just twenty.

To the soldiers, it felt like Encrid’s mad company had doubled.

To older commanders, it looked as if the royal guard had split into three and was tearing the enemy apart.

Aisia and her Squires.

The Shepherds of the Wilds.

And Encrid and the Madman Company.

Ironically, the most impressive of them were the Madman Company.

The Red Cloak Order’s destructive power was the smallest.

Even without knights, it was still an absurd situation.

—

Count Molsen was like a boil.

If left alone, it hurt. If touched carelessly, it only worsened.

A boil like that had to be cut out and burned at once.

That was why Krang made a claim that sounded absurd at first.

“We need a civil war.”

The civil war he meant was gathering all the rot inside the boil called Count Molsen, cutting it out, and burning it.

So the battle unfolding now was closer to being swept along by Krang’s intentions than by Count Molsen’s.

Then did Count Molsen not know Krang’s intentions?

Even if he wasn’t born a politician, he was still a cunning man with ambition. He knew what he needed to know.

He knew, and he answered.

That was what was happening now.

Markus’s head was spinning more than ever.

He moved the troops based on what the scouts reported.

He had to crush every tool the enemy had prepared, without leaving a single opening.

So far, he’d done it.

And as he did, he questioned the Count in his mind.

‘You didn’t think I’d go this far, did you?’

He’d brought in an armed group entirely outside the royal guard. He’d expected the enemy to be thrown off balance.

He’d heard the promise: a portion of land in exchange for bringing the Shepherds of the Wilds.

Their leader would receive the title of a low noble, and their land would become an autonomous territory.

In addition to the northern lands, they also held property scattered across various places, independent of both the Kingdom and the Empire.

But they didn’t rule those lands directly.

They only collected a share of crops from tenant farmers.

Needless to say, the Marquis of Okto had used his authority to make it happen.

Without his pull, it would’ve been impossible.

So it should have been hard to predict.

‘Try to stop it. Traitor.’

The sword that once herded sheep at the far north of the continent now tore through the enemy’s Chimera Unit.

And for some reason, Count Molsen pushed even more troops into them.

The Count’s next move was unexpected.

‘What?’

Markus frowned. What was he doing?

‘Is he going to force it through with numbers?’

They weren’t refined soldiers. The rear line surged in like a flood through the lanes opened to either side.

It was such a mass it looked like a wave, but they weren’t moving in formation at all.

They just ran.

‘Garrison soldiers?’

In peacetime, they farmed the outskirts. In wartime, they became soldiers.

Garrison soldiers still received basic military training. Those who advanced became professional soldiers, while the rest were obligated to train during peacetime.

But these weren’t garrison soldiers.

They were too busy stumbling forward in disorder to even attempt formation.

They were ordinary citizens.

People from the Count’s territory, handed a spear and shoved out.

Behind them, a group of archers stood with arrows nocked.

Those who killed fleeing soldiers to force them forward were called motivators.

The Count had created a motivator unit.

If they retreated, arrows would kill them.

If they advanced, the enemy’s swords would.

He promised land and status if they survived, giving them a reason to fight, but Markus couldn’t know that.

Markus desperately turned his mind over.

‘Is he trying to wear us down?’

It was a move he understood and still couldn’t avoid.

The Count wasn’t a fool. He was a man who had dominated an era.

In his youth, people had even called him the guardian of the territory.

As the meat shield reached the allied lines, they were cut down and ground apart. It was inevitable.

Behind them, the Count’s actual army rushed in.

The fighting didn’t stop.

Markus couldn’t read the Count’s exact intent, but one thing was certain.

As surely as rain could pour over this land, blood would flow.

—

Ragna was busy stabbing and cutting down enemies.

“Block!”

“Kill them!”

Blood sprayed. Bones cracked. Heads burst, and brains soaked into the soil. Severed limbs fell, and beside them lay corpses with eyes still open.

Ragna showed no mercy with his sword. It was more accurate to say he didn’t pay attention to those who died at all.

Instead, he honed himself.

He used this place as a training ground.

He thought, reviewed, and understood as he stabbed, cut, and swung.

All at once.

As he did, he created martial arts.

Naturally, what he already had merged and organized itself. He discarded what needed discarding and took what needed taking.

‘Cutting off the [Will] is grappling.’

He’d learned it on the spot after seeing the Junior Knight he’d fought before, but after reviewing it, it wasn’t worth keeping.

Useful against the weak, meaningless against opponents near his level.

It might startle them for a moment, but that was all.

So it was unnecessary. Ragna discarded and forgot it without hesitation.

There were more small realizations like that.

‘Stronger and faster.’

Raise overall strength and speed.

Then pour that into the basics—cutting and stabbing.

That was the point. Physical enhancement.

An enhancement to martial arts rooted in [Will], beyond mere training.

He walked without questioning whether it was the right path.

He didn’t need to ask anyone to find it. He didn’t need to tilt his head, searching constellations for answers.

That was talent.

A genius known as a heaven-sent talent.

Ragna repeated the process of building what he needed, mastering it, and practicing it on the spot.

In the middle of that, men who didn’t even know how to fight rushed at him.

They were garrison soldiers in name only.

‘Annoying.’

Reason? There was none he needed to know.

Ragna moved without hesitation, kicking off the ground as he went to find opponents who could at least wield a sword properly—men closer to professional soldiers.

Before long, he found a group worth fighting.

As Ragna approached, the unit parted, clearing a circle in the center as if inviting him in.

Ragna walked into the center of the space they’d made.

Then men holding thick, square shields closed in around him, forming a ring.

They had trained for this, like hunters closing on a beast. The feeling was unmistakable.

“Now!”

The instant he stepped inside, a net flew over his head.

Along with it, crossbow bolts and arrows came from every direction, all aimed at him alone.

Ragna raised his sword and cut the net.

It wasn’t difficult.

It also wasn’t difficult to avoid the bolts and arrows as he cut free.

He flowed like water, then swung his sword low and flat toward the shield wall.

He meant to cleave through shields and shield-bearers at once.

But—

Clang! Shatter!

For the first time, his blade was stopped.

Even though these weren’t knights or Junior Knights.

These weren’t ordinary shields.

And the men behind them weren’t ordinary either.

Heavy infantry, plated in thick iron from head to toe.

The shields they carried were five times heavier than normal, triple-layered iron blocks.

Even with the [Will of Severance], he couldn’t cut something that exceeded the sword’s physical reach.

That was the reality.

His blade bit into the shield, but the thickness prevented a full split.

The shield-bearers panted, eyes locked on Ragna.

Ragna glanced at his sword, then raised his gaze.

Beyond the shields, sharp eyes stared back.

Well-trained soldiers—afraid, yet taught to endure, trained to overcome fear.

Ragna thought it was a good chance to test the martial arts he’d just refined.

‘Faster.’

Stronger.

Cut better.

Stab better.

That was the core of what Ragna had created.

It would be a good practice, cutting and stabbing through those thick shields.