Haroon

Chapter 25

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《Impending Danger》

The party climbed Norflox Mountains on the slope where it wasn"t so steep. They needed to rest quite often since Briella and the two kids had weak stamina, but they were able to reach the top of the ridge in just one day. They needed to take antidotes once in awhile as they were poisoned by the wind carried from the wetland, however they didn"t encounter any monsters.

Teeno was really good at finding the path. He was able to navigate just by observing how the trees were lying or how dense the gra.s.ses were; and he was quick at spotting traces of beasts that normal people wouldn"t even notice.

With his experienced guiding, it didn"t even take two days for them to reach the point where they could see Hu"gerock. Just like Teeno said, this path was 6 days faster than the path that the Rotems took.

Hu"gerock was just a huge rock like the name suggested. Like a potato stuck on the tip of a knife, the big boulder was resting on a thin rock. The scene was quite remarkable.

"We will be arriving at the Viscounty of Paros in just 5 days," said Teeno.

"It"s been a smooth journey so far, thanks to you, Teeno."

Devron encouraged Teeno who was wiping his sweat with his sleeves. Everyone in the party knew how good of a pathfinder Teeno was, considering how they did not encounter any monsters yet.

"No-not at all," said Teeno.

Teeno was delighted and waved his hands. He couldn"t handle that situation, so he headed to Doran and Serinn to help them prepare food. He was quite the diligent man, who always tries to help the party, even when they were resting.

"Haroon, how much longer do we need to walk?"

Sepia asked, washing her face with the water she scooped up earlier from the stream. Her face was messed with sweat and dirt.

"Hang tight. I know it is tiring, but 5 more days, and we"ll be at the Viscounty of Paros." Haroon replied.

But for a ten year old girl, it was really impressive that she managed to follow the adults on a journey like this. He knew that if his old self was in a similar situation, he would"ve already given up.

"But my legs hurt."

They would. Walking on the mountain is quite tiring work for legs and knees as the slope always changes, and they vary quite often.

"Well, come and sit here."

Haroon gave a leg ma.s.sage to Sepia as he had nothing else to do. It has only been two weeks since he graduated the mercenary training basic course, but it felt like it was ages ago. Sepia even shed tears as she felt pain from the legs, but soon the ma.s.sage helped relaxing her tensed muscles which made her feel more comfortable.. With eyes shut, she enjoyed getting ma.s.saged, and at some point, she fell asleep. Haroon felt sorry to see a girl in her age that had so big muscles on her slim legs.

"Sepher, why don"t you come here too?"

"Welp, I"m fine. And you must be tired too……."

Despite what his mouth was saying, he was already sitting next to Haroon. He saw how much Sepia enjoyed the ma.s.sage.

"You need to relax your muscles more often as you are growing fast at your age. If you want to be a knight, remember this ma.s.sage and do it to yourself often."

"Okay."

His weakness was the word "knight". Doran"s childhood dream was to become a knight, so he wanted the same for Sepher. But it"s not like how it sounds, as Sepher himself wanted to be a knight too, and he had been working hard to become one.

Sepher soon fell asleep while receiving Haroon"s ma.s.sage, with a smile on his face. Haroon was pleased to see the two kids taking a good nap.

[You have learned a new skill – Ma.s.sage!]

Haroon was startled to hear the sudden UI sound, and opened his skill window.

Ma.s.sage – Basic Lv.1(6%)/Lv.3

Ma.s.sage with extra care and precision to relieve pain and fatigue. It also causes Health points and mana points to regenerate faster. Giving a ma.s.sage to injured people grants them a small boost to natural healing. With a higher level, this skill gives an extra boost of health regeneration upon casting.

"Well, I didn"t know such a skill exists."

It was very interesting, and joyful to see a skill that makes a life more alive, unlike how most of his skills harms one"s life. He was pleased to see this kind of skill as he had been worried about being emotionless about harming other people.

"And I didn"t know ESP works on ma.s.sage too."

ESP was mainly affecting his pa.s.sive skill "Sense Sword", but he found out that it was quite useful when giving someone a ma.s.sage. With that, he was able to find the spots of the muscle that were more tense, and how to relieve them.

Serinn saw the kids sleeping and made a suspicious smile.

"Boss!"

"WHY!"

Haroon knew that she was going to say something absurd, seeing how she made her unique nasal sound.

"My legs hurts too."

"Why don"t you do it on your own?!"

"My arms hurts too so I can"t do it myself. What should I do?"

"Well, I know what to do."

"Then, please."

Serinn seemed satisfied from his answer. She made a s.e.xy smile with bleary eyes.

"Hey, Gitan! Ma.s.sage her legs."

Gitan was talking with Philip about something, and when Haroon called him and said something that he didn"t expect, he opened his eyes wide and jumped up.

"Huh? What was that, Boss?"

Serinn realized what just happened and burst with anger.

"I"m fine! Who told you I want to get ma.s.saged by an ogre?"

Serinn went back while complaining. Following her, Gitan nagged about giving her a ma.s.sage, and later, he even begged.

"So Gitan likes Serinn, huh, I had no idea!" Haroon thought. "That"s another thing I can make use of. Hehehe!"

"Oh! I"m sorry if the kids bothered you."

It was Doran, ready with food.

"Let them sleep for a while. It will relieve their tiredness. We can save some food and give it to them later," said Haroon.

That made Doran smile.

"Thank you for caring about my kids. With you around, my kids have been brighter than usual."

Doran"s eyes were full of grat.i.tude. As he wasn"t able to take care of his kids in this situation, he was feeling grateful to Haroon.

To Doran, Haroon seemed like a skillful mercenary, a mysterious man that he couldn"t describe in words. This made him forget that Haroon was just a grade-D mercenary. Haroon was a man that he could trust. Haroon was treating his kids like his own biological siblings.

"Well, I came to say that the dinner is ready," Doran added.

"Sounds great!"

Haroon joined Serinn and Ritrina who were serving the food. Philip and Gitan, who were talking with Devron, already found a place to sit. Briella and Hall were coming out of their tent.

It happened when Ritrina handed Haroon a bowl of soup. As the curtain of darkness was covering the sky, he felt an unusual movement behind him.

"Hmm?"

It seemed ma.s.saging the kids has activated his ESP stats, so he was a bit more sensitive than usual. He definitely felt something approaching cautiously. As the journey had gone smooth so far, and because it was dinner time, the others were relaxed, and couldn"t have noticed whatever was behind him.

Carefully putting the bowl on the ground, Haroon withdrew three throwing knives. Hall, too, grabbed her sword, as she noticed something weird as well. When Devron and Philip acted confused upon seeing how they were acting strangely, Haroon turned his body around and threw three knives at lightning-speed with his hands.

With the slightest change in the movement of his fingers, the knives flew with different speed and angle, and cut through the darkness.

"Kugh!"

"Urgh!"

"Yikes!"

Three low cries came out from behind the tree that was 20 steps away from them.

"Ready your weapons!" Devron shouted.

Drawing his sword, Devron jumped up and ran towards the forest. Philip and Gitan followed suit, and only after that, Doran threw away his bowl of soup while drawing his sword. Hall, too, drew her rapier out and hid Briella behind her. Serinn and Ritrina stood next to her. Teeno hurriedly ran towards where the kids were, and drew some kind of skewer from his legs.

Devron had already swung his sword, and it struck the weapon that the unknown enemy was holding. The silhouette stumbled, but soon recovered the balance. Whoever he was, he was no match for Devron, but it also meant he wasn"t a mere bandit.

"Reveal yourself!" Said Devron

"Well, Well! You"ve done well avoiding our eyes and ears. I never thought you"d make it this far. We almost lost your track," replied the enemy.

Devron noticed a silver, moon-shaped symbol on the chestplate of the enemy.

"The Silver Moon, is it?” Devron asked.

"Ho, you know that much? Now you"ve made me curious who you really are. I was pretty sure there were no other forces with her, and this gramp showed up out of nowhere!"

"Why is the Silver moon here, instead of rotting in the darkness?"

"Huhu! I"m pretty sure you have a good idea about it. But I"ll let you know that we are interested in that little girl over there."

The man with silver colored armor seemed about 40 years old. From the way he talked, the party knew that he had many people working under his order.

"With that poor skill?"

"Well, This should be enough, don"t you think?"

With his words, a reasonable number of knights came out of the forest. Devron cringed his face upon seeing them. About 20 knights came out of the forest. Three of them were bleeding on their face or neck, hurt by Haroon"s throwing knives.

"You brought a whole squad," Devron cried.

"Yes, and that"s why I was surprised to find out that you came this far. We"ve got other squads ready here and there, and still, you avoided them all. If gamma squad hadn"t smashed the dregs named Rotem or whatever, we wouldn"t have known that you were heading to Hu"gerock."

"d.a.m.n it!"

Misery appeared on Devron"s face. No matter how well they fought, they wouldn"t be able to fight 20 Expert Knights. There was no time for him to hire skilled people. After all, it was his plan to move as a small group, so there were no need for them to hire more people. Even if he did, it wouldn"t be a match to Silver Moon, one of Top 5 of more than 20 Royal Knightages.

"Ah, excuse me. I"m Viscount Alpho. My pleasure to meet you."

Thinking Devron"s party as rats in the trap, Alpho greeted with ease. Devron didn"t reply, and it annoyed him. He was so conceited that that simple action hurt his pride.

"And I kept my manners to show you my grat.i.tude for kicking those officious incompetent knights and coming all the way here to give us all the credit! See what I get in return! You ill-mannered people are not worthy of my time."

"So the Rotems and the merchants are no more. And however the situation is going, these guys are the last ones."

From Viscount Alpho"s words, Haroon deduced that this pod of enemies are the last ones that form the siege ring, looking for Briella.

"Then we need to make a first strike," Haroon thought.

There were no time to wait for Devron"s order.

"But you know, we are the knights with manners. We"ll offer you the chance to surrender. We still have to kill you all, except one, but I promise that it will be clean, quick and without any pain."

Hiding behind Devron and Doran, Haroon withdrew some knives without making any sound, and summoned Brat. The UI sound told him that he got poisoned, but there was no time to deal with it. Haroon summoned Brat as quietly as possible.

"Brat, put poisons on the knives."

"Hehehe! Sounds great! Let"s do this!"

"Try to make it bounce on the impact, so each knife can hit more than one enemy. We can"t leave anyone alive.

"Who do you think I am? You? Don"t worry about it, and just take some antidotes. "Cause my poison got even stronger."

"Spirit guided throwing knives! Go!"

Haroon swung his arms, throwing 3 knives in each direction. Knives flew so fast that one couldn"t tell which one was thrown first. Brat has already put poison on the blades, and it would change its direction on impact.

With Haroon"s words, Devron started attacking Viscount Alpho. He sensed the knives pa.s.sing him. He felt at ease in his mind, as he realized there was no other choice. Haroon"s preemptive attack helped him to clear his mind.

But there was a reason why they call Experts, Experts. They sensed the throwing knives, and parried them with their swords. However, that wasn"t the end.

"Argh!"

"Kugh!"

"Po- Poison!"

The knights were surrounding the party, making a semi-circle shape. Among them, two knights fell on the ground grabbing their necks, and another one fell with violent convulsion. As they were standing next to each other, the knives that they parried has bounced off to others, and struck where their bare skins was exposed. But they didn"t know that it was what Brat planned.

"How dare you attack while someone is talking, you sneaky b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"

Viscounty Alpho couldn"t resist the anger, and shouted. He put mana in his sword. Soon enough, a blue aura covered the blade, and an aura blade the size of a palm was formed at the tip of the blade. It was the aura sword, that was popular for being able to cut every matter in the world.

But Devron was a formidable swordsman as well. His sword, too, formed an aura blade about the same size that Alpho had made. The only difference was that Devron"s aura was more yellow, than blue.

"You despicable b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!" Alpho shouted, and started swinging his sword.

"You Fool! What"s the use of talking about being sneaky in the matter of life and death!"

"Still!"

"Gah!"

Devron thrusted his sword to attack Alpho"s chest.

Alpho knew he would easily win this battle. But when the actual battle broke, he realized that wasn"t the case. Not only did Devron have more strength and mana injected into his sword, Alpho simply couldn"t keep up the pace. He began to slowly retreat..

"Yikes! You gramp….!"

Alpho bit his lips and tried his best, but Devron"s feet and sword went faster and faster. Devron"s fast sword dance that cut into openings before Alpho could even swing just once made Alpho"s blood curdle.

The knights realized that Devron wasn"t an easy person to deal with, despite how old he looks. Three more knights joined to help Alpho. They also had aura blades formed on the tip of their swords, although it was quite a bit shorter than Alpho"s or Devron"s.

The swords struck together, but Devron didn"t lose the fight. Devron"s quick feet and sword was light and as fast as the wind, but the impact was as heavy as rocks. The four knights couldn"t handle Devron"s sword dance.

"This monstrous gramp! I"ve never heard of such a thing!"

Viscount Alpho couldn"t understand. 3 low-level Experts and a mid-level Expert was attacking together, and still the old man in front of them wasn"t losing, but was actually pressing them. The old man had the eyes of an eagle, insight to prevent them attacking, and the sword dance that moves as if it would cut everything that blocks its way. Alpho couldn"t understand how he had never heard of such a man.

"Daten and I will join Sir Alphos. The others stop them from escaping!"

One of the knights ordered, so Haroon replied with his order.

"Doran, Teeno, get the kids! Philip and Gitan, open a path behind! Serinn, Ritrina, run away with Briella! Hall, Mist! Devron, into the forest!"

Fortunately, although it was a shout in the midst of great hurry, everyone understood his words. While Philip and Gitan fought with the knights to open a path for the party, Doran and Teeno ran to hold the kids up and ran into the forest.

Devron too, made a giant swing forcing the knights only to defend, and used the aftershock to jump backwards. After kicking the ground hard, his body flipped backwards. Devron saw how Hall was not moving as she couldn"t keep up with how fast the situation changed.

"Quick!" Devron shouted.

And it helped Hall to wake up from her daze.

"Mist!"

Quickly casting the magic, Hall lifted Briella up in her arms. Briella, too, was in a daze seeing how Haroon opened up a chance with his throwing knives, once again. Hall ran into the forest with Serinn and Ritrina.

"YOU b.a.s.t.a.r.dS!"

Alpho roared out of anger. First, he lost his three underlings from the daggers, and next, he suffered from an old man that he didn"t even know the name of. His eyes were burning with anger. But he still had more to suffer from frustration, as he didn"t get to move even a step.

"Brat, Poison. Spirit guided Throwing Knives!"

8 knives left Haroon"s hand, controlled by Brat. As they headed toward the knights, the knights who were about to chase the party had to stop. It was easy for them to prepare themselves to parry the knives no matter how fast they were as they saw it coming. But as the knives weren"t just ordinary knives, they didn"t just bounced off but gained more momentum and shot to the sides.

Leaving Brat to guide the knives, Haroon took an antidote and mana potion, and followed the others to escape from the site. He could hear some screams from behind, and it sounded like two of them got hit.

"What the heck happened? Who the d.a.m.ned are they?" Alpho shouted from the distance.

After entering the forest full of fog, Haroon threw some knives again. It wasn"t an effective way to attack them, but it helped to distract the knights from chasing. Since they knew Haroon was using poison, they had to move cautiously, and it earned enough time for the party to gain some distance. Throwing daggers a few more times, Haroon ran away in earnest. Soon, he was able to catch up to the party. At first, he could hear the armors clattering. The knights slowed down because of the fog, weight of the armor, and fear of the poison, so the clattering sound soon faded away.

Teeno was able to find a way to escape even in the dim moonlight. He didn"t exactly learn any swordsmanship, but he still had sharp eyes that he was born with, and experience he had from the numerous years he lived. After running for an hour, they stopped by a giant waterfall. Everyone was soaked in sweat.

"This, place, should be, safe, for, now," said Teeno, catching his breath.

At Teeno"s words, they collapse on the bare ground. They didn"t care if it was bare ground or not. Haroon, too, breathed deeply, listening to his rapid heartbeat. He realized how tired his body was. It should have been obvious, but he didn"t feel that way when he was running away.

"Hall, hand them some potions."

"Yes, sir."

Hall was feeling better than the others, at least. Ritrina, Serinn, and Hall carried Briella in turns, so they were not as tired as the male members, as they had to run with the bags.

She took some potions out of her bag and handed them to everyone. Because it was made by magicians, not by the Temple, it was not as effective as the ones Haroon had before, but it was good enough for the party to recover stamina and health. They were able to feel the energy filling their body comfortably.

"You owe us an explanation," said Philip to Devron, with a serious face.

They knew Devron wasn"t just an ordinary old man, but when they found Devron was actually a mid-level expert, it came as a great curiosity to them.

"What he said. What in the blazes was that about?"

Hot tempered Ritrina seemed quite angry. Haroon looked at Devron without any words.

"As you might have noticed, there are some people who doesn"t appreciate our existence. To be exact, Briella is their target," said Devron.

He paused for a bit, looking at the Quad w.a.n.ker"s faces, and continued.

"I can"t explain everything now, but I will tell you this. The enemy have quite a lot of power, and we are related to the Royal family. And I can guarantee that you won"t get in trouble if we arrive at our destination."

Devron shut his mouth after that. They knew that he wouldn"t talk about it anymore.

"Alright. We knew it wouldn"t be an easy task as the reward you promised us was quite excessive, but it could have been better if you had told us more about it. We were quite astonished back then," Haroon replied.

Devron opened his mouth upon hearing Haroon"s words, with an excuse reflected on his face.

"I"m truly sorry. That was only because I knew nothing good will happen if you get deeply involved with her. Please understand that I had no other intention."

At least that seemed true. Haroon never found them suspicious.

"By the way, who are you really? From the length of your aura blade, you seem to be over mid-level Expert," Philip asked.

Devron shut his eyes. Philip knew that many knights have reached such a level. But he also knew that there are not many swordsmen who reached that level other than knights, not even a chance when it comes to the one who are more skilled than a member of the royal knightages. If Devron is a mercenary, he would be over grade-A mercenary. Devron finally opened his mouth.

"I will tell you when we get to the destination. Nothing good will befall you if you"d know the details, so be patient until then."

So they couldn"t ask anymore. They scattered and looked for a place to sleep.

"I owe you once again."

Devron came, wiping his sweat.

"It"s only because they were careless."

"But I really can"t understand your throwing knife skill. I know you said you have used a spirit"s power, but how can a knife bounce off like that? And how can you throw poisoned daggers with bare hands?"

Devron was confused.

"By the way, what are we going to do now?"

As Haroon changed the subject, Devron"s face stiffened for a second.

"Hmm, well. We gotta belive in Teeno"s skill for now. He needs to find a path, more concealed than the others."

Attempting on a frontal breakthrough wasn"t an option.

"They will try to surround us, using the feudal lord around this place. It is fortunate that we are in the middle of the Norflox mountains, which means it will be hard for them to find us," said Doran.

Devron and Haroon nodded.

"They must have stopped chasing us, as the night is getting deeper and deeper. We need to take some rest too," said Teeno.

So Devron ordered at Teeno"s words.

"Like Teeno said, let"s get some sleep, even if it is going to be for just a few hours. They won"t be able to chase us in a night like this.

The party felt hungry as their dinner got ruined. They couldn"t even make a fire, or they would get spotted. Instead, they ate some bread and jerkies to soothe their stomachs, and slept for a while.

They got up before the sunrise, and left the waterfall. Briella seemed okay, but the other two kids seemed quite tired. But this was not the time to take care of kids.

Teeno found a way through boulders and trees. He said it was the path that the wild animals use. Although they had higher chance to meet the beasts, it was safe from humans. It wasn"t easy for them to take it, but n.o.body complained or showed tiredness. Without any words, they followed Teeno, preparing for any situation. Though, they knew the chase had been cut-off sometime ago.

They met some monsters like Orcs and saber-tooth tigers. They couldn"t avoid the party"s swords. Hall seemed quite frustrated about the situation, and she didn"t hesitate to kill them. In fact, she was the first one who drew her sword whenever they met monsters, even though she was just hired as a bodyguard of Briella.

Following the path for 3 more days, deeply into the middle of the mountain, they were able to reach the point where they could see Viscounty castle of Paros.

"And that"s Sordan River and Sordan field. We could say it is the last gate to castle Paros."

Everyone"s face brightened up from Teeno"s words. A river that seemed over 100 steps wide, and wide fields beyond the river came into their eyesight. There was a wooden bridge built over it, and a road, directly heading to their destination.

"We will be safe inside the Viscounty of Paros," said Doran.

Haroon nodded. There was no need for him to ask why it would be so.

"The problem is, there might be knights laying in ambush near the bridge. We can already see a guard post over there."

Doran was pointing at a temporary guard post built at the beginning of the bridge. It was quite a distance, but Haroon could see numerous people guarding it.

That wasn"t all. He looked over the riverside, and there were soldiers posted at regular intervals alongside it.

"Sun Guards? That"s the symbol of the Sun Guard Knightage!"

It was Philip. He was pointing at the symbol on the shields that the knights were holding. The party could see the knights preparing their food.

"Holy s.h.i.t! First Silver Moons, and now Sun Guards?"

Gitan drew a deep breath. Gitan originally wanted to be a knight, unlike his father who is a mercenary. There was no way for him to not recognize one of the most famous knightages.

As Haroon didn"t know the name of the Sun Guard Knightage, he was feeling calm as he didn"t know what it meant, but the others were not feeling the same way. Swords of Darkness. This was the other name for Silver Moons as their enemies were found dead the next morning. Unlike them, Sun Guards were officially Top 3 Knightage, specialized in attacking force as a group.

"By the numbers, I can tell every single member of Sunguard is deployed," said Doran, with misery on his face.

"Now I can see why Silver Moon wasn"t chasing us. By interrogating Rotem, they figured out where we were heading. It was not us who got out of their chase. It was them who intended to surround us," said Devron, nervously.

They tried their best to move as fast as possible, but the enemy was faster. Silver Moons must have contacted Sun Guards by magic, when they met the party near Hu"gerock.

The people drew a deep sigh without knowing. Crossing the river in this situation was almost impossible.

"What if we go around, down to the river?"

It was Briella, who hasn"t been talking much.

"We could. But if we go down the river, the river gets wider, and are surrounded by cliffs that are too high to climb. Gra.s.s field will show up if we go down further, but that"s the territory of Demonland, which is known as a land of demonic monsters. If we were to go around the river, we better go up, but that"s not a route we can take. Not from here," Doran explained in great detail.

He knew this place very well. As if he found Haroon"s appreciative gaze an embarra.s.sment, he whispered in a low voice.

"This place is near where I grew up."

And that explained why Doran and his kids were acting more energetic as they got closer to Paros.

"Let"s stop by here for today, and think about how we should cross the river."

On Devron"s words, the party looked for a place where they could rest.

Translated by Channy_
Edited by Tom, and Kmatt.

Footnotes:

Editor"s notes:

Channy_: Sorry about the delay, I was sick early in the last week, so I couldn"t get this chapter done in time. Still, I hope you enjoyed this chapter.

FYI, The upcoming chapter, "Unexpected cla.s.s advancement" is the last chapter of Volume 2. After releasing that one, I am thinking of going back to earlier ones and retouching them. However, that doesn"t mean Vol.3 will get delayed, and I am striving to go back to 1 chapter per 5 days schedule. I will mention this again when I"m done re-translating them. I just wanted to let you know that it might be worth going back to the earlier chapters when it is done.

Kmatt: Yay another fight scene

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