Chapter 23

Chapter 23: Chapter 23

Real combat was always the worst. There was no such thing as a day when everything went smoothly. Someone died—or suffered a crippling injury that left them disabled.

Therefore, assuming the best-case scenario was inherently impossible. You always had to prepare for the worst—for countless variations of the worst imaginable.

Then, when the worst did happen, how were you supposed to respond?

It wasn’t something you could learn through study. Only experience—repeatedly crossing the line between life and death—could teach you that.

Rickart had that experience. More times than he could count.

Thinking about it that way seemed to calm him down a little. After all, he had probably survived dozens of situations even worse than this one.

Yet despite becoming mentally calmer, his heart was pounding as though it might burst.

Even the fear of death became familiar eventually, but for some reason, whenever he found himself in the worst possible situation, his heart always raced.

Why?

Perhaps it was excitement. Perhaps it was fear.

Or perhaps it was both.

One of his friends was gravely wounded, the rest of their allies had fled, and only Rickart and one other friend were still capable of fighting.

The more objectively Rickart assessed the situation, the harder his heart pounded.

Rickart’s strengths were one-on-one combat and surprise attacks. Yet now, he was the one who had been ambushed, and rather than facing a single opponent, he was at an overwhelming numerical disadvantage.

Then should they abandon the wounded and run?

No.

That wasn’t an option to consider. Protecting the wounded was the objective itself—an objective he absolutely had to accomplish.

Then the answer was obvious.

He had to defeat the enemy.

And to defeat them, he had to fight.

From his hiding place, Rickart cautiously raised his eyes and observed the enemies approaching them. There were roughly ten of them, while the rest appeared to be searching elsewhere.

Rickart’s mind began working as swiftly as a machine. In an instant, countless plans were formulated, discarded, and revised inside his head.

"Ricky..."

Volka called to him.

Rickart looked back and saw an exceedingly complicated expression on his face.

We have to run. No, we have to fight for our friend. But then we might die. No, we’ll definitely die. We have to run while we still can. Every second matters. We have to go now—right now. No, I can’t. I absolutely can’t...

Every bit of that internal struggle was written plainly on Volka’s face.

Rickart firmly grasped his shoulder and looked him straight in the eye without a hint of hesitation.

"Stay here and protect Molti."

"What?"

Rickart suddenly charged out, gripping his bloodstained sword.

Volka stared in horror, feeling as though his heart might leap out of his chest. There hadn’t even been time to stop him.

He knew Rickart was extraordinary for his age, but wasn’t this going far beyond reasonable?

He was going to die!

Rickart gripped the base of the blade—the ricasso—and the hilt as he charged toward the nearest enemy. The man spotted him and hurriedly backed away.

"Over here!"

Then he shouted loudly, drawing the attention of his comrades.

It took two to tango. If his opponent refused to fight, there was nothing Rickart could do about it.

But that response had already fallen within his expectations. He abruptly changed direction and charged straight toward someone else.

The man appeared to be the enemy commander.

The oldest and most conventional method of reversing a disadvantageous situation was to kill the enemy commander or leader.

The problem was how to accomplish it.

Rickart boldly plunged into the middle of the enemy formation to kill their commander.

There was no turning back now.

The enemies began forming a wide circle around him. If he failed, only death awaited him.

"You little brat!"

The enemy commander gripped his sword with both hands and swiftly slashed at Rickart. He clearly hadn’t won his position in a game of cards; the strike was vicious.

Yet Rickart’s eyes were frighteningly calm and composed.

His sword, neither particularly fast nor slow, smashed against the enemy’s blade.

Clang!

But the result was unexpected.

Rickart had clearly intended to break the man’s sword, yet it remained intact.

Was it some kind of legendary blade?

No.

However, something resembling deep-blue flames fluttered around the point of impact. The man had apparently reached some level of mastery through mana training.

But the enemy was even more shocked than Rickart. He had expected to dispatch the small boy charging at him in an instant, only for the unexpected counterattack to leave his wrist numb.

With his wrist tingling, he had difficulty launching his next attack.

Rickart didn’t let the opportunity slip away and pressed him relentlessly.

He released the hand gripping the ricasso, took the hilt in both hands, raised the sword above his head, and swung it upward from below.

It wasn’t a particularly fast attack.

But since the enemy’s wrist was still numb, he wanted to avoid another collision between their blades and took a slight step backward.

However, Rickart’s previous swing hadn’t truly been an attack.

It was a feint.

At that moment, his genius erupted like a burst of flame.

As though he had known in advance that his opponent would evade, Rickart took a long step forward. Despite the unexpected circumstances, he chose an even bolder course of action.

To achieve the best possible result in the worst possible moment.

Rickart crossed his arms, bringing the greatsword in a circle above his head. Then he used the momentum and weight of the blade to deliver a swift, heavy strike.

At that very instant, Rickart swung with all his strength toward a single point at a single precise moment.

His abdominal muscles and legs firmly supported his body, while his serratus muscles tightened. His arms merely guided the way.

His will flowed into the sword’s tip.

Unable to dodge, the enemy thrust up his blade in an attempt to block. Expecting another tremendous impact to his wrist, he clenched his teeth to keep himself from losing his grip.

How could some little brat wield a sword far too large for his body with such skill?

But no tremendous impact reached him.

Because his sword broke.

Crack—!

The blue flames scattered like a shower of falling blossoms rather than mere sparks.

They were beautiful, incongruously so given the circumstances.

Rickart glanced once at the enemies to his left, then at those on his right.

They were all so shocked that they wore blank, bewildered expressions.

What... was this?

Everything from the first attack to this moment had happened in an instant.

A young boy had suddenly leaped out, charged their commander, exchanged one or two strikes with him, and brought about this result.

Breaking an opponent’s weapon while countering their attack was an exceedingly difficult technique, though it was at least somewhat achievable.

But attacking first and breaking the defending opponent’s sword, as Rickart had just done, was on an entirely different level. It was a technique bordering on the divine.

However, the enemies weren’t skilled enough to recognize that.

Their minds had simply gone blank at the shocking sight before them.

Their commander was on his knees, his upper body leaning backward.

And he had no head.

Blood gushed from his neck.

"Enemy!"

Rickart’s sword continued through and sliced cleanly across another enemy’s neck.

The man’s head rose slightly into the air before dropping to the ground with a thud. Blood spurted like a fountain from the severed stump, and the headless body, which had remained standing, collapsed onto its knees.

Rickart planted his foot against the man’s chest and pushed him over.

A fine spray of blood splattered across his face and clothes.

Rickart held his sword in one hand. Since it was so large compared to his body, its tip touched the ground.

"Hah!"

Rickart suddenly shouted as though he were about to charge.

Everyone flinched, then turned and fled. The man who would have scolded or punished them had just lost his head while standing before them, so nothing remained to hold them back.

They simply ran for their lives.

Rickart walked through the battlefield, searching for his scabbard. Fortunately, it hadn’t fallen far away.

Among the numerous corpses, he discovered the bodies of five Beringen Academy students.

There was no time to collect spoils or recover their bodies.

All he could do was close their wide-open eyes.

Then he heard something.

"Cough... Urgh. Kuh..."

Someone was still alive.

But he was an enemy.

One of his arms had been mangled and hung limply, while a long gash stretched across the side of his abdomen, leaving his entrails exposed.

With injuries that severe, he might survive for three days at most, tormented by agony the entire time.

Worse still, wild animals might devour him alive.

Rickart approached him.

Perhaps he was begging to be saved. Perhaps he was asking for an end.

The nameless enemy looked up at Rickart and reached toward him with a trembling hand.

Rickart sat beside him, covered the man’s eyes with one hand, and spoke.

"Just as you bore me no personal grudge, neither do I bear one against you. Life is suffering, so I hope you find peace after death."

Rather than questioning why the man had tried to kill him or voicing any resentment, Rickart spoke only with quiet composure.

Then he drove his dagger into the man’s throat and slashed, ending his life in an instant.

"Cough! Guh! Urgh!"

The enemy convulsed briefly, but Rickart kept his hand pressed firmly over his eyes.

Before long, the convulsions subsided.

In the end, Rickart went around closing the eyes of every dead enemy.

They were dead now, after all...

Rickart wiped the blood from his blade on one of the enemy corpses and sheathed it. Then he gathered several ownerless swords lying on the ground and returned to Volka and Molti.

The expression Volka wore upon seeing him was even more extreme than those of the fleeing enemies.

His mouth hung open as he stared at Rickart in a daze.

"I got lucky," Rickart said.

"...Lucky? I don’t think that had anything to do with luck."

Volka sounded utterly dumbfounded.

Rickart simply ignored the remark.

"We don’t have time. I’ll carry the bags, so you carry Molti."

"Huh? Oh... But where are we going?"

"For now, heading to the rendezvous point should be safer."

"Right..."

They had already spent a night on the road before reaching this place, so returning to the academy would be even more dangerous under the present circumstances.

Rickart looked at Molti. He was sound asleep, breathing softly.

That was natural. When someone used a potion, their wounds healed rapidly, causing intense drowsiness.

Still seated, Rickart put on the bags and stood. Since they contained supplies for three people, they were nearly as heavy as a person.

With all that weight on his back, he slung his heavy sword around his neck and began walking.

Volka handed as much of his own luggage as possible to Rickart before hoisting Molti onto his back.

The two of them carried burdens almost too heavy to bear and started toward the rendezvous point.

Each individual step was difficult. After walking for several hours, sweat poured from them like rain.

The one positive thing was that their physical exhaustion left no room for fear or anxiety.

They were simply tired.

All they could think about was how desperately they wanted to sit down and rest.

Eventually, they encountered the group that had gone ahead: Ice and two of his friends, along with two female students and one male student.

Their eyes widened when they saw Rickart and Volka.

They had survived?

How?

Even Ice, whose expression rarely changed, opened his eyes wide in astonishment.

"You fucking bastards..."

Volka glared at them as though he wanted to kill them and growled.

But Rickart indifferently let the matter pass.

"Volka, enough. Hey, one of you, give us a hand."

One of the male students approached and took Molti from Volka, carrying him on his back. When Ice signaled to one of his companions with his eyes, the student stepped forward and took Rickart’s bags.

The instant Rickart handed them over, the relief in his neck and shoulders made him want to collapse on the spot.

But instead of sitting, he placed a hand against a nearby tree and leaned on it.

Just then, Volka charged at Ice and roughly seized him by the collar.

"You fucking bastard! I knew it from the start, but a piece of shit like you isn’t even human. You know that? You filthy heathen. Why don’t you give up on being an adventurer and sell that pretty face of yours as a male prostitute instead? You piece of garbage."

Abuse poured endlessly from his mouth.

He must have been absolutely furious.

Ice merely stared at Volka while the other boy held him by the collar.

Unexpectedly, Rickart was the one who stopped Volka.

"Don’t do that, Volka. It’s understandable. Who wants to die? You struggled with the decision too, didn’t you?"

Volka shouted at him as though asking how he could possibly say such a thing.

But Rickart merely shook his head.

Truthfully, Rickart also resented Ice and the students who had followed him and fled first.

However, he stopped Volka because he knew that clashing with them emotionally now would do nothing to improve their present situation.

Volka roughly released Ice’s collar.

Ice staggered back a single step but otherwise remained steady.

Then, surprisingly, he spoke.

"It wasn’t because I was afraid of death. It was to complete the commission. That’s all."

Was completing the commission truly that important?

Rickart couldn’t quite understand it.

But he had nothing in particular to say.

"Right. Sure, the commission is important. That’s what troubleshooters do. That’s what adventurers do. For now, let’s get moving. We can rest once we reach the rendezvous point."

The role of leader seemed to pass naturally to Rickart.

In an emergency like this, Rickart was the only one still capable of thinking clearly.

It was difficult to tell because his face remained so expressionless, but even Ice seemed somewhat shaken.

Otherwise, he wouldn’t have felt the need to offer an excuse like that.

"By the way, who were the people who attacked us? Do you know?"

Rickart looked at Volka as he asked.

"They were probably from either the Brabant Guild or the Rubens Guild."

The two were the Beringen Guild’s main rivals.

In the end, what Arno had said was true.

Students were being dragged into conflicts between guilds and dying because of them.

But this situation was a little different.

They had been ambushed while carrying out a commission.

No, to be precise, they had been on their way to support adventurers carrying out a commission.

It wasn’t even their commission.

"Let’s move," Rickart said.

For now, securing their safety was the priority.

Afterward, they could decide whether to continue with the mission or abandon it.

The nine Beringen Academy students set off for the rendezvous point. Those whose weapons had been broken or lost received the swords Rickart had collected.

What would have happened if Rickart hadn’t been there?

By now, they might all have scattered and fled, forgetting entirely about the commission.

Then they might have become lost in the forest and been captured by the enemy, devoured by wild beasts or monsters, or starved to death.

The students weren’t unaware of this.

Having experienced it firsthand, they understood it better than anyone.

Rickart suddenly seemed extraordinary to them.

More than merely being skilled in combat, he possessed the ability to overcome hopeless situations.

He had the sense of responsibility to never abandon a comrade, the judgment to make the correct decision amid chaos, the courage to risk danger, the boldness to gamble everything on a single decisive move, and the composure to keep his emotions from controlling him.

They understood that he was incredible, but they also couldn’t help wondering what kind of person he was.

He was only eleven years old.

Wasn’t this a bit too much?

Was this what it meant to possess the qualities of a hero?

Whatever the case, the students found themselves unconsciously drawn toward Rickart.

They felt ashamed that they had fled.

Even if they weren’t close to him, they were beginning to feel certain that he was someone they could trust.

Once the group had almost reached Griffinswald, they began searching the nearby forest for the guild’s safe house.

Since they weren’t familiar with the area, they wandered around quite a bit.

It wasn’t as though they could enter the village and ask the locals where their safe house was.

The sun began to set.

Just as they started growing anxious that they might not find the safe house at all, they discovered a cabin concealed behind trees in a secluded area.

It was the Beringen Guild’s safe house in Griffinswald.

The students approached the cabin, finally beginning to relax.

But it didn’t take long for them to fall into despair once again.

The adventurers who were supposed to guide them were now corpses scattered all around the cabin.

"This is fucking bullshit..."

Volka muttered.

This time, Rickart agreed with him.

So did every other student.

They hadn’t even caught a glimpse of the deserters, and now it seemed they were all going to be slaughtered by adventurers from a rival guild.