novelraw Chapter 154 : Chapter 154
Chapter 154 : Chapter 154
Chapter 154 : Zayd Aslan
“You’re denying it, even though I already know everything……”
As the blue-eyed youth with long blond hair looked down at him from his horse with cold eyes, Ronan, the captain of Raun's southern guard, wiped away his cold sweat and waved his hands.
“H-how could that be? How would I dare……. I am simply following my lord’s orders.”
At those words, the youth smirked.
“Yes, a knight must do as his lord commands. But have you forgotten who your true master is?”
Unable to meet the cold, snake-like gaze, Ronan lowered his eyes.
‘There are only four of them. But all four are knights……. Can I stop them with superior numbers? No, should I stop them?’
The worst-case scenario.
He was caught between getting on the bad side of Baron Oli Roster, the master of Raun, or the master of that baron.
Then, the youth eliminated his dilemma.
“Break through. Kill them if they resist.”
Words that sent a chill down his spine.
“Yes!”
The moment the knights lined up behind the youth moved on his command, Ronan had no choice left.
“Pass!”
He moved out of the way like lightning.
His face grew hot under the gazes of his comrades, but it couldn't be helped.
He thought this was the best compromise to avoid disobeying his lord's command as much as possible while also protecting his own life.
Fortunately, the outcome wasn’t bad.
“Should I call this wise among the foolish. Heh…….”
Togak. Togak.
He let out a sigh of relief inwardly at the sight of the youth smirking and passing by.
But his relief was premature.
Swish.
For a moment, he felt a cold sensation on his left shoulder.
A searing pain shook his mind.
Soon, he felt as if time was suddenly slowing down, and he saw his own left arm, cut off along with his armor, falling to the ground.
Only then did a scream erupt.
“Aaargh!”
He wasn’t the only one.
“Aaaaargh!”
“Ack! C-captain!”
Only then did he realize that the senior soldiers next to him had also had one of their arms cut off by the other two knights.
‘These crazy bastards!!’
Clutching his bleeding left shoulder, he tried to grab his sword, but he saw the gaze of the knight staring at him.
“This is the price for daring to block the path of Zayd, the successor of Aslan.”
His body froze with a clatter.
The cold gaze visible through the cross-shaped slit of the helmet prevented him from protesting the absurdly unjust tyranny.
Only then did reality hit him.
‘I didn’t even feel it…….’
No matter how ordinary a 2-Star knight he was, not feeling anything until his arm was cut off meant that the knights before him were powerhouses beyond his imagination.
Therefore.
“Be grateful for the generous punishment.”
He could only bow his head at that absurd sneer.
‘Damn it…….’
Until Zayd Aslan, the first prince of the Aslan ducal family, and his party disappeared from sight.
Ronan and the forces of Raun could only stand frozen, with their heads bowed, without making a sound.
And, there was someone watching from a distance.
“My, my…….”
I clicked my tongue, watching the situation.
A moment ago, I heard something about the 'Prince of Aslan' from both the south and west of Raun, so I had checked the situation at the south gate before coming to the west.
The guy I saw earlier didn't seem normal either.
‘This side is just as bad. Well, better than that second brat, though.’
The second prince and his party, who had plunged the surroundings into a sea of blood by slashing at the soldiers and knights guarding the south gate with smiling faces.
“That one and this one, they’re both psychopaths. They’re going to ruin their family.”
I, their enemy, was worried about the future of Aslan.
Well, anyway, this situation was a boon for me.
‘I can use this.’
My eyes naturally took in the party of the first prince, Zayd Aslan, who were approaching in my direction.
Just four of them. Excluding that young master, a group of only three.
‘The fact that they’re all trash puts my mind at ease.’
Unlike the second brat who brought a horde of soldiers to the south, this party was too small.
Just right for me to use.
Togak. Togak.
“If the information is not true, you will have made a trip for nothing. Wouldn’t it have been enough to just send a messenger to summon her?”
At the question from the knight Oren on their way to the inner castle, Zayd frowned slightly.
“It can’t be helped. Since that bastard Freddie moved first, I have to check, even if it might be a wasted trip.”
At those words, Oren’s face inside his helmet stiffened slightly.
‘You are being too hasty.’
The old Zayd would have gone his own way, regardless of how his brother moved.
“Prince Freddie probably came to pressure you, my lord, by coaxing that wench. After all, she knows the full story of that terror incident. But such an act will only incur the wrath of the family head.”
“That may be so.”
“Yes. Prince Freddie is also being hasty. It will surely be a mistake.”
He wanted to dissuade the prince, even if it was late, but his reaction showed it was useless.
“Still, it can’t be helped. If that information is true, I must at least avoid a situation where Freddie finds out first.”
The royal terror.
After that incident, Aslan was unable to participate in any external activities, let alone the succession war, and was eventually pushed into this situation.
Unlike the family head's prediction that they wouldn't be questioned for something done by those they had already expelled, the king's anger had soared to the extreme because those magician bastards had blown the incident out of proportion.
‘A legendary demonic beast, and the destruction of the royal castle's barrier.’
With things having come to this, there was no way a blind eye would be turned.
Amidst ominous rumors that the royal family would conduct a raid on Aslan and execute everyone involved.
It was a well-known fact that the family head was currently spending a huge amount of money in the capital to lobby to prevent that.
Added to that was a fatal rumor circulating within the family.
That the Queen Mother and the Queen were pleading with the king to prevent Aslan from being pushed into an extreme situation.
There was no need to say how serious the situation was.
Moreover, there was circumstantial evidence that was decisively disadvantageous to Zayd.
The mastermind of the terror incident at the 3rd Prince's palace, a man named 'Poison Master Chamber', was presumed to be the man named Ian who had been sucking up to him.
Since then, Zayd’s position had been extremely diminished.
“The family is in danger, yet that bastard Freddie is only thinking of pushing me out. I can’t hand over Aslan to a guy like that. Never.”
It was hard to tell if these words were the excuse of a man cornered or not.
But Oren, who had already crossed a line he couldn't turn back from, had no choice.
“Since it has come to this, I would rather that wench truly knows something.”
“She must know something to have walked in on her own accord. She even offered the Ghost’s Bow as a reward, didn’t she?”
Zayd already knew the secret Oli Roster had tried so hard to hide.
So he couldn’t help but feel more impatient.
‘The deal between the Black Knight, the Dragon Sword Duke, and the royal family……. It must be related to that Demon Cult, those magician bastards. I must find it out, strike first, and gain merit, or rather…….’
Just as Zayd was beginning to think thoughts he shouldn't.
His gaze sharpened.
A naive-looking blond youth, a fledgling who looked like a mercenary, was walking towards them from the front without any thought of getting out of the way.
Togaktogak.
‘Hmm……?’
Unbelievably, even as the party got closer, the brat was still walking straight towards them.
At first, he thought he had seen something wrong, but he hadn't.
A street where not even a shadow of a person could be seen.
All the residents of Raun had already moved far away from his path or were hiding in their houses, but that brat was approaching alone, so confidently.
‘What a strange beggar…….’
It didn't matter that the brat was looking at the ground with a thoughtful expression.
‘You dare get on my nerves?’
His anger was already piled up to the brim.
As his hand naturally went to the sword at his waist.
He saw the young mercenary who had come right in front of him flinch in surprise.
“Damn it, what was that? You scared me!”
Damn it……? What was that?
A chilling smile formed on Zayd’s face as his sword was naturally drawn.
Chaeng!
But at that moment.
“Tsk, bad luck.”
The brat, who frowned at him, suddenly darted into an alley on the side of the road.
‘Bad, what?’
His bewilderment was brief.
“Kill him.”
“Yes!”
Hiiing!
At that calm word, one of the escort knights shot into the alley like a thunderbolt.
“What a ridiculous bastard…….”
Oren expressed his bewilderment on his behalf.
- Aaargh!
Only when the scream came from the alley did Zayd put away his sword with a cold smile.
But the situation that followed was completely different from his expectation.
“Lord Zayd.”
He turned his head again at Oren’s suddenly subdued voice and saw the blond mercenary in the alley, smirking and beckoning with his hand.
‘The scream just now was then……?’
In his moment of confusion.
“He is no ordinary man. I will deal with him decisively at once.”
“……Do so.”
Even as he said that, Zayd was only filled with anger and had no great concern.
The life of a 2-Star knight whose name he couldn’t even remember, whom he had brought to do odd jobs, was worthless to him.
Even if the situation was bad, Oren was a 4-Star knight and the other, the guardsman, was a 3-Star, so he thought they could easily handle a mercenary like that.
But his expectations were shattered in an instant.
The moment Oren and the guardsman rushed towards the brat in the alley, he saw the sword the mercenary was holding shoot out like a thunderbolt.
Just as Oren dodged it and closed in, the sword suddenly bent and pierced his neck from the side.
Puuk.
“K-keuk……!”
Hwiriririk.
Jjeok.
“Wh……?”
The guardsman, who had momentarily paused at the absurd situation, had his head severed as the bending sword grazed past him.
The corpses tumbled onto the alley floor.
It was an all-too-unrealistic sight.
‘What, is this……?’
A battle that took place at a speed Zayd, a 2-Star Corporeal Arts user, could barely follow.
In a situation that felt utterly unreal, he could only stare blankly into the alley.
Until the blond monster was right in front of him, looking up at him silently.
“Zayd Aslan?”
Only after staring blankly down at the brat did fear send a shiver through his body.
This guy, he was aiming for me from the beginning.
“You’re planning to go in there, right? Let’s go together.”
“You, you dare to…… Aslan.”
Zayd tried to put on a brave face and threaten him.
“Ah, a refusal is a refusal.”
But his forced words were cut off in vain.
“If you really don’t want to, then die.”
The moment he heard the following words, his mind went blank and he couldn’t say anything more.
“What, are you thinking……?”
Zayd, who had been frozen with fear, was only able to catch his breath and open his mouth much later.
“Who the hell are you?”
At that, the blond who was walking ahead turned around and smirked.
“Ryut. Call me that.”
A simple smile that didn't seem to belong to the vicious man who had swung that mysterious sword to instantly dig up the ground in the alley and bury the bodies.
He didn't know what he was thinking, but the sight of him leading his own horse and walking ahead, instead of taking the knights’ horses, was also unsettling.
“What do you want from me…….”
“I don’t want anything from you. I’m just curious about the news of one person inside there.”
“……What?”
“Don’t try any tricks and stay quiet. Just think of it as getting a cool and strong escort. I have no interest in your life or Aslan.”
Judging by his nonsense, he didn’t seem to be in his right mind.
‘We’ll see. Once I get into the inner castle…….’
Just as Zayd was suppressing his anger and humiliation and racking his brain, the blond smirked as if he had predicted it.
“What do you think you can do to me?”
A groan-like voice escaped Zayd’s lips at the provocation.
“No matter what tricks you’ve set up, the bodies of my knights will soon be discovered, mercenary. Tying the horses like that is strange in itself…….”
“That’s none of your business. I don’t need that much time anyway.”
“Still, you’ve messed with Aslan, so you…….”
“If I sense anything suspicious, I’ll chop off your head first. You saw it earlier, right? If you’re confident you can dodge, try your tricks.”
Words that sent another chill down his spine.
‘Damn it.’
Zayd could only force a smile and nod.
Of course, his inner thoughts were different.
‘Do you think there’s only one or two ways? Besides, that place is a den of assassins. You’re walking into hell on your own.’
He tried to swallow his anger and humiliation, and smiled even more awkwardly, like a frightened person.
So that this fearless predator would not see through him.
But just then, a very familiar and unpleasant voice came from afar.
“Oh, over there…… isn’t that my dear brother?”
A voice filled with blatant ridicule.
“But what happened to all your escort knights, and why are you with a country bumpkin?”