Chapter 59

The Mad Swordsman of the Shadow World

Chapter 59

"...They're trackers."

At those words, the guide's expression hardened.

"How many?"

"Six... no, seven. They're coming up while spread out."

"...Damn it."

With Theron's current injuries, escaping from them was impossible.

The guide looked at Theron.

"What are you planning to do?"

"...End it here."

If running away was impossible, there had only ever been one answer.

But the guide shook his head at Theron's response.

"That's insane. No matter how strong you are, those are Barkanis hunting dogs. Fighting them while you're injured... is way too reckless."

"That's exactly why we have to end it here."

Theron spoke as he gripped the handle of his black iron sword.

"If they're as good as you say, there's no way we can escape from them. Which means... right now, while they still don't know where we are, is our first and last chance."

"...You lunatic."

They held the higher ground.

The rain-soaked forest would swallow their footsteps, while the drifting mist would obscure vision.

Most importantly...

Their pursuers believed Theron and the guide were still running away.

They would never imagine that the two of them were hiding nearby and waiting.

"Stay behind that rock. Only step in if someone gets past me."

"...This is driving me crazy."

It was like escaping a pack of wolves only to run into an Ogre.

The guide scratched his head roughly.

Even so...

"Be careful."

"...Don't worry."

Theron's body disappeared into the bushes as though melting into them.

Rustle.

His feet glided over the wet fallen leaves.

It was only the incomplete form of Wandering Wind.

Still...

Fortunately, the strain isn't too bad.

The burden on his body was completely different from when he used the completed form.

At this level, he could probably use it a few times.

Theron lowered himself and hid among the bushes.

Then...

Step. Step.

The trackers climbed the slope while maintaining five steps of distance between each other.

A trained formation.

But that formation had one fatal weakness.

They could cover each other's blind spots.

But they could not watch the death creeping up behind them.

"..."

Theron held his breath and observed them.

Just as expected, they showed no sign that they had even considered the possibility of him hiding nearby.

Otherwise, they never would have moved so carelessly.

And when they passed Theron's position and continued farther uphill...

Stab.

A blade silently entered the back of the last man's neck.

Theron pulled the collapsing body into the bushes and covered his mouth.

One.

Rustle.

His next target was the man on the far right.

The wet earth swallowed Theron's footsteps, and the mist erased the shadow approaching from behind.

Slash.

It took barely a minute or two to kill two trackers.

It was an assassination bordering on the supernatural.

But just as Theron slipped behind his third target...

"...Enemy attack!"

A sharp cry tore through the forest.

Theron's brow furrowed.

He had expected to kill at least one or two more before they noticed.

They had realized that two of their companions' presences had vanished in an incredibly short amount of time.

"Close the formation! Back to back!"

The trackers instantly regrouped and watched every direction.

Theron clicked his tongue and lunged toward the nearest man.

"U-Ugh!"

One of them saw the Aura coating Theron's sword and shouted.

"A-Aura! Don't block it! Dodge!"

But before he could even finish shouting...

SLASH!

Another tracker collapsed together with his sword.

He died without even understanding how.

But the battle was not over.

"Catch him!"

Whoosh!

A dagger came flying from somewhere and grazed Theron's shoulder.

When Theron turned his head, the trackers had already split to both sides, encircling him.

They had lost four companions in an instant, yet none of them had panicked.

Theron's gaze turned cold.

They're better than the last group.

He adjusted his grip on the black iron sword and kicked off the ground.

"Don't let him escape!"

A sharp command rang out as one man stepped forward.

The captain of the tracking team.

He immediately charged at Theron.

CLANG!

Heavy.

Theron's eyes narrowed.

This strength was clearly different from that of the others he had fought.

The captain pushed down with his sword and growled.

"Do you have any idea... how much trouble you've caused us?"

"Who knows... Your wasted effort isn't really my concern."

"Let's see how long that mouth of yours stays alive."

Clang! Clang-clang!

Their swords crossed several times in quick succession.

The captain's sword was fast and precise.

Especially when aimed at Theron's right leg.

He persistently targeted the ankle wrapped in a splint.

"...Tch!"

It was the obvious thing to do, but that did not make dealing with it any less painful.

Scrape!

The tracking captain's blade skimmed across the ground before slicing through empty air.

Theron had already realized he was targeting the injured ankle, allowing him to move half a beat earlier.

But the moment Theron's balance shifted...

"You won't dodge this one!"

The captain's sword instantly changed direction and rushed toward Theron's neck.

However, at that very instant...

Theron's foot erased the boundary between steps.

Whoosh.

"...!"

Theron disappeared from the captain's sight.

The blade that he had been certain would connect cut nothing but air.

Then...

STAB!

Something cold pierced through his back.

"Ghk..."

The captain slowly looked down at the black blade protruding from his chest.

One step.

The completed form of Wandering Wind.

That single breath had decided the battle.

"H-How..."

"Your days as a hunting dog end here."

Theron pulled out his sword.

The captain slowly sank to his knees.

As his vision faded, he finally realized the truth.

From the very beginning...

This had been the wrong hunt.

They had not entered the mountain range while pursuing prey.

They had entered...

The jaws... of a monster...

Thud.

The captain's body collapsed into the mud.

Theron immediately turned around.

There were still enemies remaining.

Thud.

"...?"

Hearing a sound beside him, Theron looked over.

The guide's axe was buried in the head of the final surviving tracker.

"One of them was mine."

The remaining man had tried to escape after seeing the captain die, only to run directly toward the guide.

Theron let out a small laugh.

"Nice shot."

But then...

"Urgh...!"

Theron grimaced and dropped to the ground.

He had been forced to use it because there was no other choice, but using the completed form of Wandering Wind once more had been like swallowing poison.

Theron released a short breath.

"Still... I guess that's all of them?"

"There's still something left to do."

"...?"

Theron looked at the guide in confusion.

The guide glanced at the corpses.

"If you knew just how persistent these people are, you wouldn't be making that face."

Then he rolled up his sleeves.

"I'll handle the cleanup. You rest."

The guide first removed the boots from several corpses.

He put them on his hands and began pressing false footprints toward the western ridge.

The stride lengths and depths were all different.

It looked as though several people had passed through.

Next, he soaked a cloth with blood from the corpses and smeared droplets across rocks and branches along the western path.

They resembled bloodstains left behind by someone fleeing while wounded.

Finally, he swept away their actual footprints with branches and disturbed the grass and nearby vegetation to create additional false traces.

He covered quite a long distance, but it took him less than an hour.

In barely an hour, the entire story told by their traces had changed.

The tracking team had been wiped out after fighting their prey.

And the injured prey had fled west.

Theron let out a disbelieving laugh as he watched.

"...Hah."

In his previous life, Theron had worked in the shadows.

He was quite skilled at manipulating traces like this himself.

But the man in front of him was also highly skilled...

No.

He looked used to doing this.

Theron asked,

"Don't you have a few too many skills for an ordinary guide? Who exactly are you?"

"Let's just say I'm an exceptionally capable guide."

The guide casually dusted off his hands.

"Come on. Let's move before the smell of blood spreads."

"...I never get to rest."

The two headed east, deeper into the mountain range.

They still had something left to do.

Barkanis's southern branch.

"You're saying contact has been lost?"

The low voice of Buren, the head of the southern branch, made the air in the room feel heavy.

The subordinate standing before his desk answered carefully.

"The last message said they were entering the Makerdiran Mountain Range. Communication may simply be delayed because they're inside the mountains. If we wait a little longer, we should receive another report."

"...If there's no contact by tomorrow morning, investigate immediately."

Buren sat behind the desk and pressed his fingers against his temple.

"What about the others?"

"We have captured a few, but... they all died during the process of subduing them."

"So you're saying we haven't taken a single one alive?"

"...My apologies."

BANG!

"Damn it!"

Buren slammed his fist onto the desk.

When he said to capture them, he meant alive.

But every single one they caught ended up dead.

That meant those children were vicious enough to choose death over capture.

What in the world was he supposed to report to his superiors?

And if word of this reached that person...

Cold sweat ran down Buren's back.

"No matter what it takes, we must capture that boy named Theron. Do not let him escape!"

"Yes!"

The lieutenant hurried from the room.

Left alone, Buren glared out the dark window and ground his teeth.

BOOM!

A cave bear leaping from behind a boulder had its skull split open by the black iron sword.

"KIEEEEK!"

Three Claw Monkeys dropping from the trees had their throats cut before they even touched the ground.

Slash. Stab.

Theron dealt with each creature without even slowing his pace.

Every time, the guide merely shook his head.

His face said that he was too tired to be surprised anymore.

Eventually, they arrived at a narrow valley deep within the ridges.

Sheer rock walls rose on either side, while thick weeds covered the ground.

The moment they entered the valley, the guide's pace noticeably slowed.

He began searching for something.

Theron quietly watched him.

He did not ask what the man was looking for.

The closer they came to their destination, the more serious the guide's expression became.

Some time later...

The guide's hand froze while pushing aside a patch of brush.

"..."

Beyond it was a skeleton half-buried in the dirt.

And it was not alone.

Broken bones and decayed equipment were scattered beneath the overgrown weeds.

A rusted sword.

Torn leather armor.

And among the remains, the guide found what he had been searching for.

A well-worn bronze seal hanging from a leather cord.

He carefully picked it up.

His hand trembled as he wiped away the dirt.

"...They were my companions."

After a long silence, he finally spoke.

"Last year. Here."

That was all.

Theron did not ask anything else.

Instead, he picked up a nearby stone and placed it beside the scattered bones.

The guide turned toward him.

"...What are you doing?"

"We should at least build them a cairn."

Theron placed a second stone on top.

"Before wild animals scatter their remains even more."

"..."

The guide fell silent.

Then he wordlessly picked up a stone himself.

For a while, the two built the cairn without saying anything.

One with an injured arm.

The other with an injured leg.

Their work was slow, but neither rushed it.

Eventually, a small stone grave stood in one corner of the valley.

The guide stood before it for a long time.

His hand tightened around the bronze seal.

Theron quietly observed his expression.

The feeling of burying people in your heart when you had not even been able to recover their bodies...

Few people understood that better than Theron.

Eventually, the guide turned around.

"...Thank you for helping me."

He placed the seal inside his clothes.

"Honestly, when you got injured, I considered just turning back."

"Then why didn't you?"

"Who knows."

The guide smiled faintly.

"I thought someone like you could probably make it this far."

"..."

"Let's head down. We're finished here."

Theron nodded.

Everything he needed to do in this mountain range...

Was now finished.

It took them an entire day to descend the mountain.

Eventually, they arrived at a fork in the road.

One path led back toward Delkena.

The other led deeper into the continent.

The two stopped there.

"This is as far as I go."

Theron nodded at the guide's words.

"Yeah. Thanks to you, I finished what I came here to do."

"I should be the one saying that."

A short farewell.

That was enough for the relationship they had.

Theron was about to turn away when...

"Theron."

The guide called him back.

He had remembered the name shouted by the tracking captain during their fight.

Theron looked over.

The guide spoke.

"Thank you. Because of you, I finally put down a burden I've been carrying for a long time."

"That's good."

Theron answered calmly.

Then...

"...Hardin."

"...What?"

"That's my name. If you ever need a guide in the south, come find me. If it's a request from you, I'll go no matter what."

With those words, Hardin raised one hand in farewell and disappeared down the road toward Delkena.

Theron watched his back for a moment.

Hardin...

It sounded familiar somehow.

But unable to place the memory, Theron shook his head and began walking down the opposite path.

After some time...

"...Ah?"

Theron suddenly stopped.

He remembered.

Hardin.

It was a name Theron had definitely heard in his previous life.

Later, in the underworld...

Theron stared in the direction Hardin had disappeared.

"...I met someone more important than I expected."

A dry laugh escaped him.

No wonder the man had possessed far too many skills for an ordinary guide.

Of course, it would still be another seven or eight years before Hardin's name became famous across the continent.

For now, he was merely a highly skilled guide from Delkena.

Still...

If they happened to meet again someday...

"That could be interesting."

Theron smiled faintly and resumed walking.

Now...

One last thing.

There was still something he needed to find.

As Theron headed north, an unseen gaze seemed to follow him from somewhere behind.