38 episodes
13 The Welcome Army (3)
It was the sea.
The sea is made up of many corpses.
From end to end of sight.
A battlefield where only corpses exist without distinction between humans and monsters.
A broken spear, a bladed sword stuck to the floor, and a mangled helmet.
“… … I have a favor to ask.”
The knight whose entire lower body disappeared in the sea of such a corpse slowly opened his mouth to the man who was looking at him with such blank eyes.
“ Live the life of a captain.”
The blood is spreading and the eyes are getting fainter.
“ Now stop protecting others, stop sacrificing, and just live the life of a captain.”
The knight looks at the man and smiles.
“ I get married, have children, and do the farm I like. That’s mine, no… … This is our last request.”
With those words, the light of life completely disappears from the knight’s eyes.
“… … .”
From the mouth of the man who looked at the body of such a knight for a moment.
“ Are you going to retire soon?”
A low voice came out.
* * *
“ Uncle, tell me about your swordsmanship!”
A young girl with brown hair and blue eyes, who had just turned fifteen years old, was shouting.
The girl’s name is Perna.
Such Ferna’s eyes were looking intently at a man in his mid-30s who was planting carrots in his garden without even paying attention to his words.
“ I don’t know anything like swordsmanship.”
A man who answered without even turning his head towards the girl who cried like that.
Such a man’s eyes were fixed only on the seeds of the carrots he was planting.
“ Then, tell me about your spear or any other weapon skills. I’ll pay tuition… … .”
“ I don’t know anything about that, so go ahead.”
At the man’s answer, Ferna’s eyes changed as if it was ridiculous.
It had already been a year since the man came to this Kurdish village, but Ferna and other villagers didn’t know much about the man.
Because the man never once told the story of his past.
All I know is that the man’s name is Liam and that he likes farming.
“ Wow, that’s really expensive. If you are like me, I will try to pretend that you are worried.”
But Ferna was convinced that the man, Liam, knew how to fight.
Numerous scars carved on Liam’s body.
It was because the scars caused by the weapons were so obvious that even Ferna, who was ignorant of battle, could easily understand.
“ Uncle, why did you come to this village? To be honest, I’m not that good at it, am I? So you retire early and start farming here?”
“… … .”
I tried to provoke on purpose to see if there would be a reaction if I got angry, but it didn’t work for Liam.
“ Teach me a sword!”
“ Because I don’t know. And even if you know, I won’t teach you. So don’t bother and go. If you want to go to a city like that, study and become a civil servant.”
“ Oh, little!”
How did you fight like that?
About 10 minutes later, Ferna, who was exhausted from the weeds, finally came out of Liam’s garden with her shoulders drooping.
“ Ha… … .”
As she walked down the path from Liam’s house to the village, Ferna took a deep breath.
I’ve been going to Liam every single day for several months already and struggling, but the result is always the same as today.
It’s like talking to a wall.
“ I have to leave here… … .”
I didn’t like it.
This village is so rural that outsiders come only once every few years.
Friendly villagers who treat even such outsiders without discrimination.
A peaceful village atmosphere.
In particular, Ferna really hated the peace in these villages.
Because this peace is like glass that can be broken at any time.
The girl learned this after losing her parents in a bandit raid a few years ago.
There was no one in the village to stop the bandits, and the Empire did not send troops to these corners.
powerless
Couldn’t do anything.
The villagers bowed their heads and offered their wealth to those who killed her family, including her parents.
Please don’t kill me anymore, I begged and prayed again.
‘ Weakness is a sin.’
Since then, this thought has been deeply ingrained in Ferna’s heart and has not changed at all.
So she wanted to leave the village after getting stronger, but there was nothing she could do alone, just in her mid-teens.
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Meanwhile, it was Liam who came to the village.
“ Yeah, if you keep looking like this, you’ll get tired later, and I’ll teach you a few things.”
For now, there was no other way to become stronger than this, so I couldn’t give up.
Like I said a while ago, Liam’s skills weren’t as good as I said before, but it’s better than not learning.
at that time.
“… … uh?”
Perna’s eyes widened.
Two people walking towards this side from the other side of the path she is walking.
Because those characters were not the villagers Ferna had seen before.
‘ Outsiders?’
They were really unique people.
A man with pale skin and dark gray hair and a woman with dark hair and red eyes.
Among them, the woman who gave me a creepy feeling just by looking at it was a woman.
The appearance of a man walking in front of such a woman was making it impossible to take her eyes off her.
Even though the sun was still shining during the day, somehow the man’s surroundings seemed as dark as night.
The sense of ominousness and alienation that comes from it.
With him, the man’s languid eyes, as if looking down on everything, made her bow her head.
“… … .”
A man and a woman passing by the girl who was standing so blankly.
“ Who are you?”
Ferna couldn’t take her eyes off of them until they completely disappeared.
* * *
“ So, Master, are you saying that this phantom force appears here?”
“ Yes.”
Kurd, a village located on the outskirts of the empire, far west of Hubris.
Shion and Liusina were walking on a long path that stretched out to the outskirts of such Kurds.
“ Why do you have to be here?”
A young question in Riusina’s eyes.
She had heard something from Zion, so she knew that the phantom force was something that did not occur naturally.
However, this Kurd village is a countryside where there is nothing special about it.
There was no reason to raise a welcome army in a place like this.
“ Here is someone they need to kill.”
In answering that, Zion looked at the log house at the end of the path he was walking on.
“ They?”
When the doubts in the witch’s eyes are deepened by the unknown words.
Upon arriving at the log house, Sion saw a man planting carrot seeds in the vegetable garden next to the house.
‘ I think that’s right.’
Seeing the man who stopped what he was doing and turned his head toward this side when he and Liusina appeared, Shion smiled inwardly.
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Muscular body full of scars and short hair cut.
Even his thick beard and his eyes that seemed to never waver.
It was just as it was described in the chronicle.
‘ Liam Reiner.’
The reason the welcome army is showing up here this time is because of that man.
No matter how many hundred years ago, even if the demon had stopped all invasions on the surface, the war itself was not completely over.
At the border between the Demon and the Empire, there were still big and small skirmishes taking place.
Therefore, there were also countless troops stationed at the border all the time.
Liam Reiner was one of the commanders leading such an army and was the commander of the Exorcism Squad, which can be said to be the most elite unit in the war against daemons.
He was the greatest war hero for mankind, and at the same time reigned with infinite fear to the demons.
‘ I’m retired now.’
retired hero.
It was the most appropriate word for the current Liam Reiner.
The objects corresponding to the ‘coordinates’ of the current welcome army were in the hands of the demons.
As soon as they realize that Liam is here, they use ‘coordinates’ to create an army.
And as a result, the war hero will die in this Kurdish village.
Zion intended to change the outcome.
“ Master, can I kill you?”
“ No.”
Perhaps he was even excited by seeing a rare strong man, Sion moved towards the man, restraining Liusina from speaking with a more recalled face than usual.
“ Who are you?”
Liam, who stood up without even wiping her soiled hands, looked at Sion with emotionless eyes and asked.
At this, Sion looks into his eyes and opens his mouth.
“ Sion Agnes. It’s my name.”
Liam’s expression changed strangely at Shion’s answer.
The fact that he was related to the imperial family could be recognized the moment he saw the color of his hair.
However, he couldn’t believe the fact that the man in front of him was that ‘abandoned pure blood’.
Even if he retired, Liam didn’t live with his eyes and ears closed, so he knew some rumors about Zion Agnes.
However, the man in front of him now did not match the rumors at all.
‘ The rumors are wrong. Or maybe he was hiding his original appearance.’
Having made that decision, Liam asked Zion.
“ What did you come here for?”
Even after knowing Zion’s identity, Liam’s attitude did not change, only his tone of voice changed.
After all, he retired, and he never intended to associate with the Empire again.
Sion opened her mouth with a characteristic languid tone toward Liam.
“ Come under me.”
A sudden word that doesn’t match the tone at all.
“ I will accept that… … .”
When Liam tries to open his mouth as if he is absurd at the endless suggestion.
“ This village will soon be destroyed.”
Zion’s voice continued.
“… … !”
It was an unusual statement, but at the same time it was a natural story.
Because the phantom force couldn’t exactly kill Liam and disappear.
“ In return, I will save you and the village once.”
With those words, Zion’s still eyes turned to Liam.
“… … .”
Liam, who looked into Shion’s eyes for a moment with his mouth shut, slowly opened his mouth.
“I refuse. I don’t believe what your lord said, and if… … Even if this town really does perish, that’s all it takes if you get rid of it before that.”
Then all the villagers would die, but it didn’t matter.
The duty to protect this town didn’t exist for him.
No, the duty to protect not only the village but also anyone else didn’t exist for Liam any more.
Because he was no longer an exorcist guarding the border with demons, and all the people dear to him had already died.
“ Yeah, I see.”
Sion, who looked at Liam for a moment with eyes unable to understand his thoughts, smiled bitterly and turned around without any regrets.
“ What, didn’t you give in by force like me?”
A thousand-year-old witch follows behind her with an expression of “Kim-ssang”.
Liam’s eyes, looking at the back of the two of them getting farther apart, went to the nearby forest.
“… … I don’t have to worry about it.”
Liam turned his head without any regrets at the end of that murmur and walked back to the garden.
* * *
“ Are you really giving up like this?”
Liusina, who was walking side by side, turned her head toward Sion and asked as if curious.
“ If the owner visits him directly, he’s a pretty good guy. I didn’t expect it to come off so easily. If that’s the case, why did you tell me not to kill him?”
Shion looked at Riusina’s eyes like that.
Her red eyes are both eerie and fascinating at the same time.
Shion thought that it might be true that in the past when she was called a thousand-year-old witch, there were people who were enchanted by those eyes and gave their lives.
“ Are heroes born or are they made?”
Shion slowly opened her mouth as she turned her head forward again.
“ What do you mean? suddenly.”
At those words, Riusina looked at Zion as if she was talking nonsense.
For her, a hero was simply a being that was harder to kill than others. Because I never thought of such a thing.
“ I think the former. The fate of a hero is determined from birth.”
As if the lifespan is fixed from the moment you enter the world.
“ So you can’t go against it.”
No matter how much you try to go against it, your surroundings, or even the whole world, block it.
“ That’s why even the author can’t go against it in the end.”
“ So, the master said… … Did you mean that he was a hero a while ago?”
Shion smiled at Riusina’s question.
“ It’s already been called that.”
“ Well, if the owner said so, that would be it. So what are you going to do now?”
As if it didn’t matter what happened, Liusina shrugged her shoulders and asked Sion again.
“ Once… … .”
Shion, who suddenly stopped walking at that question, glanced around.
At the same time, I wondered if Zion would disappear like a vision.
Shrek-
It appeared in front of one of the trees rising on either side of the path.
Quad Duck!
Without hesitation, Zion’s hand pierced the center of such a tree.
“ We have to deal with the rats first.”
The moment when Shion’s eyes draw arcs with him.
Fuhwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha
Bright red blood gushed out from inside the tree.