Barbarian in a Failed Game

Chapter 075: Rebellion (7)

Khan’s body burned.

The scorching sensation, as if his body was thrown into a pit of fire and rolled over, was too horrendous to even scream.

Khan, writhing and thrashing in pain, suddenly regained his senses.

The old knight, sensing something amiss with Khan, approached with murderous intent, exuding hostility.

‘Grrrrr…!’

Khan swallowed a scream inside.

The blood that had dyed his body red turned into a mist, enveloping him and gradually reducing the pain. With the newfound strength, he instantly gripped and swung his cursed sword.

“Futile effort──!”

The old knight sneered upon seeing this.

The swordplay was still clumsy. It was not enough to be considered a threat by him.

True, witnessing Khan’s strange act had instilled a sense of crisis, but the difference in skill was absolute.

The corners of the old knight’s mouth stretched into a grin.

‘For surprising me, I’ll make your death even more painful!’

Crack!

For a moment, it was as if lightning struck before his eyes. The shock far exceeded his imagination, nearly causing him to drop his sword.

‘What is this…! What’s happening!’

The shock was brief. The energy flowing within infused strength into his aged body.

The old knight, whose clarity was slowly fading, stood firm with mental fortitude honed through a lifetime of training, assuming a proper battle stance for the first time.

‘He’s become stronger! Even more so…!’

The force behind Khan’ss sword, already enhanced, seemed to have grown stronger still after being enveloped by the bloody mist.

Had he met the attack carelessly as before, the outcome would have been grim.

Realizing this, the old knight’s sword began to trace elegant curves, aiming to deflect the savage’s blow.

Thud! Crash.

“Gah.”

A painful groan escaped the old knight. Despite successfully deflecting the blow, the savage’s power had wreaked havoc inside him.

Then, the savage muttered something repeatedly.

‘Damn, that hurts a lot… You’re dead later.’

Misinterpreting the muttered foreign language as some evil spell, the old knight pressed forward, swallowing the blood welling up in his throat.

His body, strengthened by the power of his sword, was both solid and agile, enabling movements he could only have dreamed of before.

“Haaah…!”

The old knight hailed from a lineage that had protected the Elphellan Duchy for generations, mastering the family’s ancient sword techniques.

The family’s swordsmanship, having produced knights surpassing even the empire’s elite in the past, contained several secrets, and the old knight intended to replicate one of them.

‘Descending Hawk.’

Leaping high, the old knight spun tightly in the air, as if drawing a bow.

At the peak of his aerial spin,

the red energy swirling around the old knight formed a small vortex, moving like a hawk spreading its wings.

A bloody afterimage traced the shape of talons above the savage’s head.

This ultra-fast aerial flurry, ignoring the limits of the body, was the essence of the ‘Descending Hawk’ technique.

‘This is it!’

This must succeed.

The envisioned strike, deemed effective even against the empire’s elite knights, would surely cut the savage into three pieces. Anticipating the spectacle, the old knight’s face was filled with exhilaration.

“Huh?”

A dumbfounded voice escaped the old knight, unable to believe his lifetime’s best strike was so easily blocked.

‘Blocked?’

Simply being blocked wouldn’t have shocked him so much. Indeed, the fact that ‘Descending Hawk’ was blocked was shocking enough.

But not as shocking as the technique unveiled by the savage.

“You……!”

“Something like this, right?”

Hearing the casual remark, the old knight was infuriated. The fact that his ultimate move was parried and then commented on so nonchalantly drove him to rage.

“Such a sight to see.”

“Old man──!”

Responding to the knight’s rage, his sword traced a passionate arc. The dazzling swordplay made dodging or defending with the savage’s clumsy skills impossible.However, it didn’t work.

[Right, that’s the way to do it. Quite useful indeed.]

‘I heard a lot as a child that if you start young, you become good at it.’

[Here it comes again. Let’s see if it can be accurately reproduced this time.]

With ease. Khan responded to a sword strike aimed simultaneously at his thigh, left side, and right shoulder, using only his wrists.

He swatted the sword away with a short, chopping motion, slightly twisting his wrist to break the sword path. Just that was enough to block the sword strike coming from three directions.

A refined sword technique unlike anything seen before from Khan.

[You’ve lost your balance. Didn’t I tell you? The Antares’ Sword Technique should flow like water. Even if it seems about to break from bending, you must maintain your center.]

Khan grumbled, as if being lectured like a child falling behind in progress. It’s because of the blood magic that made him stronger.

“What is this mediocre swordsmanship─!”

[Mediocre? Are his eyes filled with knots?]

In a brief moment, dozens of exchanges followed.

The knight’s sword, pressing hard with brilliance and rapidity, and Khan’s sword, drawing numerous changes with a single thrust.

The two were completely opposite in their nature, and at the end of their exchanges, Khan consistently had the upper hand.

“It’s more manageable than I thought. Swordsmanship, that is.”

“Don’t get cocky─!”

Just as the knight was about to swing his sword, a sound of tearing air came from afar, and a black spear struck the knight’s side.

Though it didn’t pierce the armor, the knight staggered from the impact.

As if not to miss the opening, the magical circles controlled remotely by Jan lit up. There were three of them, each containing a spell of gray magic.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Ash-gray spears and a formless shockwave pummeled the knight.

[The Antares’ Sword Technique might seem focused on variation at a glance, but in fact, it’s not. An unwavering center is incredibly useful even in offense. The number of demons deceived by its change and perished is too great to count.]

‘So it had a dictionary feature instead of a search function. I’ll call you Namuwiki from now on.’

[What does that mean?]

At Draupnir’s question, Khan responded with a sly smile and thrust his sword at the staggering knight as if marking a dot.

Even while dazed by the shock, the knight attempted to deflect Khan’s sword strike.

[Didn’t I say? The Antares’ Sword Technique is about being unshaken.]

Yet, the straight-on thrust did not falter, and a hole as small as a grain of rice was made in the enchanted armor. A starkly different outcome from being led helplessly by the old man’s sword.

“All that cocky swordplay, looks like it’s finally over… How about using your Aura, eh? Tin can No. 1.”

*

*

*

‘Hard to believe.’

Draupnir expressed astonishment watching the battle between a madman and a bizarre cockroach-like creature.

‘To a nauseating extent.’

The reason Draupnir lent Khan the power of blood magic was merely a whim.

The ‘Blood Fire Technique’ turns the caster’s blood into flames.

This grants tremendous strength, but one must endure the most excruciating burning pain in full consciousness.

Even a mad man, inside and outside burning, couldn’t withstand the pain.

That was the expectation.

But in reality, the mad man screamed in pain.

And that was all.

‘Maintaining sanity and fighting while under the effect of the Blood Fire Technique. Even the madmen of old couldn’t do that.’

That piqued Draupnir’s curiosity.

A peculiar body that grows stronger with each battle and even more difficult to understand, a level of mental fortitude – only adding to the monster that hunts half-finished lizards.

‘If that body can be properly utilized with skill, and it grows stronger through more battles… It might truly hunt a dragon. Just like that great human.’

Teaching the Antares’ Sword Technique had that reason too.

Slaves serving dragons for generations had committed numerous slaughters with their overwhelming physicality.

Antares was a master swordsman who devised effective swords against those slaves, and Draupnir had hoped this outstanding warrior would become a dragonslayer.

‘Indeed, it was a suitable sword against the cockroach before him.’

Of course, mastering the Antares’ Sword Technique right away would be challenging.

However, the thought was that if it could be reproduced even a little, it would help in battle against the cockroach.

Yet, this madman exceeded Draupnir’s expectations once again. Even if it was just a superficial imitation, he managed to properly grasp and unfold the essence of Antares’s sword.

The movement, unbelievable for someone who did not know a thing about swordsmanship up until now.

‘An incredibly capable body that can reproduce any motion without effort, senses and reflexes so exceptional that one would be hard-pressed not to consider them inherent talents even when compared to the humans of old… To possess even one of these traits would be enough to make one a top-tier warrior. So, this is what it means to be born with it all.’

While Draupnir continued to marvel, the battle between the madman and the pesky cockroach reached its climax.

The madman, having become stronger with the Blood Fire Technique, utilized Antares’s sword to pierce four holes through the cockroach’s body.

Although the madman had the assistance of his companions, it was the decisive surge in combat power upon wielding Antares’s sword that tipped the scales.

“This should be an easy victory.”

Draupnir felt bored as the outcome of the fight became clear.

The scrappy cockroach’s swordplay was no longer effective against the madman, contributing to the dullness of a fight that seemed to offer nothing of value.

“Mad human. Finish off that cockroach. The longer you use the Blood Fire Technique, the worse the backlash…”

“Ugh!”

“Mad human?!”

Draupnir conveyed his will in a flustered voice, but there was no response from Khan.

The blood mist that had enveloped Khan’s body gradually dispersed.

His legs, which had been as firm as a great tree anchoring him to the ground, buckled.

“Ugh, so this is as far as I go.”

Unlike the startled Draupnir, the one who had fallen was calm.

Knowing his own body best, he had roughly anticipated the waning of the drug’s effects.

It was regrettable that he couldn’t finish off “Tin Can No. 1” due to its resilience, but considering what he managed to achieve with his extremely inefficient body was deemed sufficient.

“Ha… Ha… To think this monster of a man…!”

Tin Can No. 1, eyes bloodshot, staggered while pointing his sword at Khan’s neck.

“Such a clumsy swordsmanship transforming in but a moment. Yes, impossible. Unless one borrows the power of a demon…”

The ramblings of Tin Can No. 1 truly resembled that of a madman.

Not the power of a demon but of a ghost, he had borrowed.

Lacking the energy to even open his mouth, an unspoken joke passed, and Draupnir chirped as if urging him to get up.

“Silence. It’s over anyway.”

[You’re giving up here? Had I known this, I wouldn’t have passed on Antares’s sword to a weakling like you!]

“What nonsense are you talking about? Giving up?”

[If not giving up, then what? Warriors of old fought dragons without legs, biting into their scales…]

“No, I’m not saying I gave up on fighting. There’s just no need to fight anymore.”

[What does that mean…?]

“You might still be hiding some wicked trick, so I can’t take you before the grand duke.”

As Draupnir was about to demand an explanation, the elderly knight moved.

Intending to take advantage of Khan’s defenseless collapse to end his life, Draupnir was about to shout something when—

“Damn it. I was hoping never to see that face of yours again.”

An unfamiliar voice intervened, causing the elderly knight to whirl around. Despite his exhausted state, his response was incredibly swift, slashing at the air behind him.

“What is this, such a feeble sword?”

The voice’s owner clicked his tongue, clearly belittling the knight’s swordsmanship.

Infuriated by the blatant disdain, the elderly knight attempted to swing his sword, but his body wouldn’t respond.

“Why…?”

He never got the answer to his question of what wicked trick was used because—

Slice…Thud!

A sound followed, and his upper body slid to the ground, bisected diagonally.

Thus ended the life of the devoted elderly knight who had protected the grand duke all his life.

“Still an exceptional sword.”

Khan commented, observing the clean line left on the corpse.

“Hey, Khan. I specifically said to shake off any tails before coming… At this point, I should just assume you’re trying to kill me with frustration, right?”

The intruder spoke in a teasing manner, slicking back his long hair, giving off a sharp look despite the playful tone, yet somewhat resembled a disorderly mercenary with his posture.

But Khan knew.

Within the kingdom, only a handful could match this man in a fight, a killing machine capable of taking anyone’s life when it came down to true combat.

Khan managed a rueful smile.

“Well, it can’t be helped…”

The intruder was the Mercenary Guild’s guild master, overseeing everything, and a master swordsman from the empire.

TL’s Corner:

Namuwiki is the Korean Wikipedia. Namu meaning tree.

Ooh, so the guild master and Khan were acquaintances.