In one corner of Kraan city…
Viscount Le Gael’s private soldiers were being hunted down, killed one by one.
Once one was killed, another could only wait for their turn.
「Um, now there’s only one left.」
Lambert shifted his attention toward the deepest part of the alley.
「I-Impossible… w-why… why can’t we beat this guy despite our overwhelming advantage?」
At the end of Lambert’s line of sight was a man who was seemingly the leader of those soldiers, holding a young boy in his arms, the hostage.
Lambert, who saved Altie and her father, then parted ways with them after he asked for all necessary information from them. As he left, he encountered a sobbing young boy who was being taken away by the soldiers.
「S-STOP RIGHT THERE! I’M GONNA KILL THIS BRAT IF YOU DARE TO TAKE ANOTHER STEP!」
The captain of those dead soldiers placed the tip of his sword at the base of the young boy’s neck, hands trembling nonstop due to his fear.
Because of his trembling hands, the blade touched the young boy’s neck.
Blood dripped down from the opened wound on that young boy’s skin.
「Dammit.」
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Lambert sprinted at once, closing the distance between him and the captain, and passed by the latter’s side in just a moment.
His greatsword drew a beautiful arc in the air, aiming toward the neck and arms of the captain while avoiding the young boy thanks to his perfect control.
The man revealed a shocked expression on his face, and then, his arms fell on the ground with a thud.
Although the young boy was also about to be pushed down as the body of the captain was crumbled down, Lambert had already pulled the young boy to his side in the next moment.
「…Complete annihilation again, huh. Is it simply because the condition is too harsh for me? Or am I simply just unlucky?」
Lambert sent a sidelong glance toward the mutilated body of the captain.
His plan was to catch Viscount Le Gael’s subordinate or the Viscount Le Gael himself once he found them to extract information about 『Devil’s Piper』.
But since the soldier himself had gone mad and almost killed the hostage, he had to behead the last surviving soldier thanks to that situation.
Although he felt disheartened, Lambert braced himself and asked the young boy he just saved.
「Are you hurt somewhere?」
「A-A-A…」
The young boy stared at Lambert with a dumbfounded look on his face, his mouth clattered nonstop, and then he passed out from fear.
To begin with, he was already mentally exhausted after being kidnapped by the soldiers, and he finally hit his limit and passed out after seeing those soldiers get slaughtered by Lambert.
The fear of a swordsman clad in bloody, full-plate armor approaching at lightning speed became the final push.
「He got scared sh*tless… even though I’ve been suppressing my miasma to the utmost limit.」
Lambert heaved a weary sigh as he muttered those words and then returned his greatsword into its scabbard.
「Poor kid…」
The current Lambert was having a harder time dealing with children than when he was still alive.
During his life, it was always the situation in which the children became so scared of Lambert and then escaped in fear, or they became extremely attached to him—both were troublesome for Lambert.
Although he wanted to avoid the situation, he didn’t seem to be able to leave the child as it was.
He then walked lightly while carrying the young boy.
‘Maybe I should bring him somewhere safe, but…’
When Lambert was walking while pondering about that, he heard someone’s footsteps approaching from behind.
Lambert dodged to the side immediately, drawing his greatsword to protect himself.
The assailant’s rapier collided with the flat side of Lambert’s greatsword.
「…You managed to defend yourself against an attack from my blindside, huh. I see, you seem to be different from the small fries from before.」
The assailant jumped back, creating some distance from Lambert.
The assailant was a slender man whose body was wrapped in a red mantle and wearing a light protector made from mithril.
The upper-half of his face was covered in a mithril helmet, and the area below his nose was completely exposed.
One could glimpse strands of silver hair peeking out from the naked lower part of his helmet.
He held a short sword in his right hand and rapier in his left hand.
「Who the hell are you?」
Lambert asked in confusion.
The man readied his rapier again as he laughed scornfully at Lambert again.
「Sorry, but I won’t introduce myself to a villain like you.」
「Me? A villain?」
「Are you deaf? The way I see it, you look like an evil knight trying to kidnap an unconscious young boy.」
「The hell are you ta—」
Lambert suddenly came to a realization in the middle of his speech.
His armor was drenched in blood, and he was walking around carrying an unconscious young boy.
He couldn’t blame anyone if he got mistaken as one of Viscount Le Gael’s lackeys when he walked around in such an appearance.
「Wait, calm down. You’re mistaken.」
「SHUT UP, YOU BASTARD!」
The man stooped forward as he charged toward Lambert.
「WAIT! THIS IS MISUNDERSTANDING!」
Lambert was desperately trying to explain the situation.
Although he realized that they met under extremely unfortunate coincidence, he had to explain the situation to the other party first to clear the misunderstanding.
Seeing the man’s acts and gestures, he guessed that the other party might not be the lackey of Viscount Le Gael.
He might be in a similar position as Lambert, and they might be working to achieve the same goal.
He wanted to avoid useless conflict as much as possible.
The moment the man entered Lambert’s range, he pushed the rapier in his left hand forward as he spun his body.
It was a deadly attack aiming at the joint in his helmet.
To deal with that, Lambert stepped forward as he let go of the greatsword in his hand.
「WHA—!」
In that moment, the man felt a sense of crisis and swung his rapier to the side immediately.
But Lambert’s body blow had already arrived in front of the man.
The man was trying to stab into the gap of the armor, and yet, he ended up running toward the charging wall of Organ.
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The moment they collided, the man got sent flying backward like a piece of paper.
「GUHA!」
「I said that you’re mistaken.」
Lambert repeated with an astonished voice.
The man who just sent flying back slouched as he tried to adjust his breathing.
His exposed lower face had clearly indicated that the man was exhausted.
「T-To be able to beat me with such ease…」
In that collision, Lambert had already held back so much to the point that if he used even a little bit more power, it would be enough to break most bones in the man’s body, effectively rendering him unable to continue in combat.
「Y-You… are not one of Viscount Le Gael’s lackeys… There’s no way, the lord of such rural area like Viscount Le Gael… could hire someone as strong as you…」
「I’ve been trying to tell you that from the very beginning…」
「I see, so you’re 『Devil’s Piper』’s lackey, huh. As I thought, the rumor about their members being insanely powerful was the truth, huh. Since that was the case, I have even more reason to not lose to you. I’m going to kill you even if it means I must sacrifice my own life!」
Only to trigger an even bigger misunderstanding.
「…How persistent.」
「Don’t look down on me, villain! I can still fight!」
The man threw the dagger in his right-hand toward Lambert.
And then, he was running after the short sword he just threw bounced back when it struck against Lambert’s armor, closing in toward Lambert.
「Are you sure that you can just throw away your weapon?」
「The short-sword in my right-hand is originally used to parry my opponent’s sword… it’s unnecessary since I had abandoned my defense! This is my resolution to kill you!」
The man unleashed a rain of thrusts as he shouted at Lambert.
Lambert placed the unconscious young boy in his left arm, and caught the tip of the man’s rapier with his remaining right-hand.
「Guh, why, why can’t I reach you…?」
The man’s sword art was completely ineffective against Lambert.
Lambert parried all of the man’s rapier thrusts with ease.
And despite going all-out, abandoning all of his defenses, he couldn’t even destroy Lambert’s stance.
「You’re too slow and light. On top of that, your movement is way too linear. Although physical strength isn’t something that you can get in a single night, your stance isn’t steady enough if you want to go to the extreme with your sword art. That’s the first problem that you must know.」
In response to the man’s monologue, Lambert gave a free lesson by pointing out the other party’s weak point.
He went to give some pointers to the man while dodging the latter’s attack just like how he gave pointers to his subordinates in the past.
But then, the man’s soliloquy was mere venting. It didn’t mean that he was asking for Lambert’s guidance.
「YOU BASTARD! ARE YOU TRYING TO MOCK ME BY SAYING THAT I DON’T EVEN KNOW THE BASICS?!」
The man then readied his rapier from outside of Lambert’s range, walking toward Lambert with gliding footwork.
‘But this man… he doesn’t seem to be the type that underestimates his foes. Calm down, remember that my sole weakness is easily getting pissed off by my opponent, even my deceased father said so. I must make him underestimate me and bring him down with the secret skill passed down in our family… 『Multi Drill』’
『Multi Drill』 was a rapier’s special move.
It was a skill that made use of the rapier’s recoil when a thrusting attack was being defended by controlling its vector, using that recoil to empower the next thrust.
In order to do that, the rapier couldn’t just be pulled back after it bounced. The user had to spin their body too in order to make sure that no force was lost.
In short, it was a counter skill that made use of the other party’s defense.
「Now, let’s see if you can still say that I’m slow after receiving my secret sword technique!」
The man then thrust his rapier along with a shout.
As expected, Lambert easily repelled that thrust, but the man pulled his rapier as he spun around at high-speed, thrusting his rapier again toward Lambert.
「It’s a continuous attack, huh.」
But he was still slower than Lambert as the latter easily parried that second thrust by diverting its trajectory with the flat-side of his greatsword.
Even though Lambert managed to stop the supposedly secret attack, the man could still smile despite his failure.
「Sure enough, you’re strong. But that’s your blunder.」
The man’s rapier returned with even greater power than before.
The most terrifying thing about 『Multi Drill』 was the fact that its power would be doubled once the second thrust got deflected.
And since it couldn’t be stopped with defense, the only way to stop that was by dodging it.
「Do you still think this is slow, take this! 『Triple Drill』!」
The man’s arms were creaking due to the burden put on his arms.
But this was a battle to the death. He couldn’t afford to lower his guard.
He had no regrets as long as he could inflict some injury.
「Um.」
But Lambert still deflected the third strike with the flat side of his sword.
His hand didn’t even flinch after receiving such a powerful thrust.
At that moment, the man already had a bad premonition in his heart.
He might be able to know the source of his bad premonition if he had the chance to ponder about this situation, but a battle didn’t give him such leeway.
Additionally, he had to think where each next strike would land.
「『Quadra Drill』!」
Against the 『Continuous Strike』 that seemingly could get stronger each time it bounced back, Lambert did nothing but defend against it.
When it reached 『Seventh Drill』, the man had finally realized that he had no idea where to attack anymore as all of his previous attacks had been blocked by Lambert.
But still, he steeled his mind and just single-mindedly unleashed thrust after thrust.
His arms had already numbed due to pain.
‘Next one, the next one is definitely going to finish him off!’
The man had such conviction.
There was no doubt about it; he was currently approaching the realm of sword god.
He could feel it.
「The way you step in is weak, and you’re still way too slow. Your movements have also become way too linear and rough. I’ve told you before, but I shall repeat again, your mental strength during the battle is way too weak.」
Lambert’s greatsword instantly crushed that man’s transient dream.
Although a strike with the flat side of his greatsword toward the man’s abdomen wouldn’t kill the latter, the attack that interrupted the man’s continuous strikes was enough to wake the man from his transient dream.
「Look, because of your weak stance, you got beaten back far too easily with such a simple attack.」
「I-Impossible… my attacks… can’t reach at all.」
The man staggered as his rapier fell from his hand. He fell on his knees and then onto his rear.
Lambert sent a glance at the boy he carried on his shoulder, feeling slightly relieved upon finding that the boy was sleeping peacefully.
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