Legend

Chapter 301

Night time. The moon had just passed its peak was was starting to sink. Rei suddenly woke up in his tent.

It might have been that he was still excited and nervous from his meeting with Elena. But, it wasn’t the only reason he had woken up.

「I’m sorry Rei-san. Are you awake?」

Yes. He had woken up because someone had come so close to the tent he was sleeping in.

Of course, Set, who was always by Rei’s side, couldn’t have missed the person as they called into Rei’s tent with a whisper so as to not disturb the surroundings.

However, since the person didn’t seem to be planning to hurt Rei directly, Set only opened his eyes thinly as he lay beside Rei’s tent instead of taking any further action.

「Rei-san, Rei-san. ……This is troubling, is he already asleep?」

As if whispering to someone else, the person tried to call into the tent again……

「What’s do you want in the middle of the night?」

Rei, dressed in the Dragon Robe as usual, appeared from inside his tent.

Rei had appeared without any signs and the man looked shocked for a moment before immediately collecting himself and speaking.

「I’m sorry. Actually, someone asked me to call for you.」

「……Me?」

Rei looked at the man in front of him.

He was wearing leather armour and had a sheathed long sword at his waist. He looked to be in his late 20’s to early 30’s, a typical adventurer.

「Who is that someone?」

「I’m sorry, it’s not someone I can tell you easily. If you don’t mind, could you please come with me?」

Rei frowned at the man’s words.

(Even if I refuse, it looks like he will pester me consistently. In that case, I’ll probably be able to go back to sleep faster if I just quickly go and talk with whoever that is. Fortunately, I’ll be leaving by carriage tomorrow, so lack of sleep won’t be an issue.)

Quickly putting his thoughts together in his head, he called out to Set, who was lying beside his tent, with some frustration.

「Set, let’s go.」

「Guru~」

When he saw Set get up from the ground, the man, who seemed to be an adventurer, shook his head in a panic.

「S-Sorry, but I would like only Rei-san to come.」

「……I can’t bring Set?」

「Yes, about that. The person who wants to see you isn’t that good with monsters. So, he would like Rei-san to come over by yourself.」

Rei looked at him for a moment and then sighed before turning to Set.

「That seems to be how it is. I’ll be going with this guy, you can keep sleeping Set.」

「Guru~?」

Will you be okay? Set seemed to ask. Rei patted Set’s head lightly.

「I’ll be fine. The war is already over so there won’t be that much danger.」

As he said that to Set, Rei had a smile on his face.

Seeing that there weren’t any problems, Set closed his eyes and lowered his head again as he was stroked.

「Well then, let’s go. Show me the way.」

「Yes, this way. Sorry to trouble you.」

Whether it was the first time the adventurer had seen a Griffon or not, hearing Rei’s words to Set, he gave a sigh of relief.

Then, leading Rei, he advanced into the darkness.

After the battle, the nobles had given out wine as part of the victory feasts. Of course, the wine of the Rowlocks army was stored inside the Misty Ring. But, many nobles had already left the Selemus Plains and there weren’t any more feasts at this point in time. With regards to the remaining nobles, soldiers and adventurers, it was already late at night and most of them were sleeping.

Of course, there were still guards as there was a chance of undead appearing, but it was undeniable that the guards were quite lax as the war was already over.

In a camp like this, Rei and the adventurer moved forward. However, it wasn’t towards the tents where the nobles stayed, but towards the outskirts of the camp where there were few people.

「……Isn’t it a noble who’s asking for me?」

He called out to the man’s back, but the only reply Rei recieved was another apology.

「I’m sorry, I was only requested to lead you to him.」

Rei frowned slightly at the man’s reply.

(There’s no doubt it’s a trap. But, it doesn’t feel like this guy is hiding anything from me, could he also have been cheated? In that case, should I protect him as a witness? ……No, if he’s an adventurer and he’s been on the battlefield, he should be able to hold his own, so I shouldn’t need to worry about him.)

In the first place, only adventurers who were rank D or higher could participate in this war. Furthermore, the man must have had considerable skill seeing that he hadn’t returned with any major injuries or even slight wounds.

Thinking about that, they finally approached their destination, a deserted place. ……To be exact, the adventurer had brought Rei to a place outside the camp where no soldiers would have been around and where undead could appear at night at any time.

「I’m sorry, but since you’re about to meet with a noble, could you hand me your weapons?」

「……In this situation? We’re already outside the camp, it wouldn’t be strange for us to be attacked by undead you know?」

As he said that, Rei felt the presence of 20 people ahead of him. With a deep sigh at the developments he expected, he took out the dagger he used to disassemble monsters from the Misty Ring within his Dragon Robe and swapped it with the Mithril Knife before camly handing it over.

「I’m sorry, but they told me to do this. We’ve secured the safety of the area. What’s more, Rei-san, who people call Crimson, shouldn’t have any issues even without weapons, right?」

The man responded to Rei’s words.

In some way, it was a natural response. The man knew how strong Rei was. Knowing this and guessing that this must be a trap, Rei would have killed the adventurer. But before he could ascertain the man’s intentions, they arrived at their destination.

And the person who was waiting for him there was……

「I’ve been waiting for you. It was rude of such a lowly person like you to keep a noble waiting. No, I suppose you are in this situation because you can’t even see your own position.」

It was a familiar face to Rei. He had a tinge of mockery in his eyes, taking for granted that he could look down on others. It was Renodis Imarhen, a noble who had past conflicts with Rei. All those around him, about 15 people, held swords, spears and bows in their hands. Those were the people Rei had sensed earlier. In addition, there were signs of 5 more people hiding in the surroundings.

All the people holding weapons around Renodis, apart from those who were hiding, had one thing in common. All of them were wearing matching suits of armour.

In meant that all the people present were part of the same group. It wasn’t difficult for Rei to guess who they were.

(Those are the knights he leads, I guess.)

Rei remembered hearing that from Elena before the battle began as he talked with the man in front of him.

He was the heir to a Marquis house and had taken part in this war with the knights he led. But……

「All things considered, your knights’ armour looks very polished. It’s almost as if they didn’t take part in the war. ……Oh, I see. Did you want to show me the place of your great success? No, if I remember correctly, after I made my attack on the enemy vanguard, you didn’t participate in the following attack?」

It was clearly a provocation. He didn’t care about making fun of other people, but Renodis, who wasn’t used to being made fun of himself, glared at Rei with anger.

「You, who do you think you’re talking to! In the first place, it was because you were so rude to me that I was given a location to be in where I couldn’t earn merit in this war!」

When Rei heard those words, he just looked at Renodis mockingly. But inside his head, started to think.

(To a location where he couldn’t earn any merit in the war? In that case……is that the result of Elena’s actions?)

That was what Rei though, but in truth, Philma was the one in charge of the Nobles faction. Philma had judged that Renodis would probably go off the rails if he let him do whatever he wanted and ended up moving him as a result. Of course, Renodis didn’t know about this. And even if he did, there was no way it would convince him that he wasn’t moved because he had lost the duel against Rei.

「Certainly, I might have lost the duel. I’ll admit that, but that was only because of the magic weapon you have. Since I have taken away that weapon, and with the differences in our numbers, you have no chance of winning right? Hey, give me the weapon you took from him.」

Renodis turned to look at the adventurer who had led Rei up to this point. He seemed to have an expression of pity as he heard Renodis’ words before calmly offering the weapon that Rei had passed to him. ……Yes, an ordinary knife that was used to disassemble monsters.

「……Hey, what’s this? Didn’t I order you to take all his weapons? Why have you only taken this piece of garbage?」

「Unfortunately, this was the only weapon he had. ……Well, I’m sorry about that. No matter what happens here from now on, none of it has any relation to me……what are you trying to do?」

The adventurer asked when he saw one of the knights by Renodis’ side point a spear tip towards him.

However, Renodis just looked at him as if he were a stone on the roadside.

「If you can’t even do this much, then I can only get rid of you. Die cursing your own incompetence.」

「……Didn’t I take Rei-san’s weapon exactly as you told me?」

「Don’t play dumb! What kind of person would take away his weapons without taking away his scythe, which is practically his signature weapon! Don’t look so proud handing over just this weapon!」

With an angry shout, Renodis threw the knife onto the ground.

「Hey, that’s one of my favourites. Don’t treat it too roughly.」

The moment Rei spoke up and told him to be careful with it, Renodis’ anger reached its peak.

「Do it, kill him! Even if he’s called Crimson, it’s only due to that magic weapon! He was only able to defeat me because he had that……」

In his fit of anger, Renodis shouted out. As he shouted, a knight holding a spear next to him was hit by something hurled at his face, which wasn’t covered by armour. The object smashed into his face and sent him flying 10m away.

Renodis……no, all the knights had no idea what had just happened. But, a series of meteor like objects continued to be thrown at them, killing a knight with each hit as if they were nothing.

Just a few seconds. More than half of the knights had been killed when Renodis finally came back to his senses and shouted out.

「Kill him, kill him!」

The moment he shouted, more things were thrown at them again. At that moment, surrounding knights, including Renodis, finally realised what they were being attacked by. Yes, they saw the cheap rusted spears in Rei’s hand.

Throwing spears was a long ranged attack that Rei liked to use. Rei’s physical strength was immense and the spears were cheap……on the other hand, even though there were on the verge of being scrapped and couldn’t be used in normal combat, if thrown, they could pierce into bodies and send them flying. Even if the targets had armour or shields, the spears would still penetrate them if they weren’t of a high enough quality. It was possible to block the spears with armour made by first class blacksmiths, but even then, the impact would still be transferred to their bodies.

「-!」

Next to Rei who was throwing spears, the adventurer quickly pulled out his sword and swung it.

In that moment, Rei and the man knocked several arrows to the ground.

The fact that the adventurer had parried 5 arrows with his sword in a single breath proved that he wasn’t ordinary.

「You-, you-!」

He had probably realised that things were no longer going the way he had been expecting them to go. Renodis started to yell……

「……What?」

The next momement, he mumbled in incredulity at the sight before him.

Yes, Rei, who had been 10m away, had somehow taken out the huge scythe from when Renodis had fought him previously. The next moment, all the knights around Renodis fell to the ground bleeding.

「Who did you think you were picking a fight with? ……Understand the consequences.」

With those words, the Death Scythe was swung, slicing right through Renodis’ armour and taking off his right arm from the shoulder. Right after, the Death Scythe was swung back down, cutting through Renodis’ armour again as it sent his left arm flying from the shoulder as well.