Chapter 138
Fish in Water, or the Unbridled Foal (1)
Berg Berten, who now defended a fortress in the southwestern part of Dotrin, had originally been a man who was guaranteed a comfortable old age. His estate was stable, his vassals loyal, and his future promised to be prosperous and peaceful.
It was a life that anyone would envy, yet he soon began to suffer a terrible lethargy.
In his opinion, he was a warrior – An unfortunate warrior born into the wrong age.
He devoted his entire life to the sword, yet he became a veteran without once drawing his blade for war.
It was an empty life.
When he heard that the empire had declared war on Dotrin, he decided to banish the void that ruled his half-life, so he settled his affairs and headed to the field of battle without a moment’s hesitation.
As he expected, he recovered his zest for life on the battlefield.
While his wrinkled shell of a body remained, his vitality rose from the inside. It was as if he had regained his lost youth. The war grew worse as time passed, and it came to be that he could not promise the survival of High Seabreeze for another day.
Nevertheless, he never once regretted his decision.
When he heard the king say that there would be no reinforcements, he promised that his bones would be buried in the fortress that he defended.
High Seabreeze would soon collapse, but before that, Berg would build a mountain of imperial corpses. He did not doubt that his end would come without regrets.
It didn’t take long for him to realize that such sentiments were a grievous old man’s selfish greed.
‘Bang!’
Dozens of spears of fire struck the fort.
“Uuhu…” Berg saw the face of a young soldier who crouched in fear as he covered his ears.
“Aah, it hurts…”
Another soldier had been scorched through exposure to the magical flames, and he shed dry tears – And died.
“Mom… Momma…”
“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”
Soldiers hiding behind the walls as they wept came into his sight, yet Berg Berten walked toward the walls with a firm face. A soldier who was screaming under a pile of rubble saw the old commander and cried out for help.
Berg started to lift a stone block by hand.
“Commander! It’s dangerous, stand back!” a loyal old knight who had followed him from the province cried in warning. Berg cared little and continued to clear away the pile of rubble.
“Be patient,” he told the soldier.
“I will. Thank you, commander,” the soldier, whose lower body was crushed and limp, expressed his gratitude in a weak voice.
‘Bang!’
At that instant, the magic of the imperial wizards bombarded the walls once more.
‘Cladunk!’ the old commander finally lifted up the large block that had lain atop the soldier. But as the magic slammed into the walls, another stone was dislodged and fell full onto the unknown soldier who Berg was trying to rescue.
“Commander!” In the next instant, Berg’s knights rushed to him, pulled him back.
The old commander looked at the fallen soldier’s twitching hand. That was all that remained of a man who had been crushed by stone, his shape no longer human.
Berg looked around himself.
“You motherfuckers, stop!” a soldier cried out, swearing, as he cleared away rubble to save his fallen comrades. Some soldiers stared at the wreckage and ruin blankly, their faces desolate, and these men caught Berg saw as well.
Atop the wall, scared and trembling soldiers were dying – Defenseless and exposed to the enemy’s magic.
“What about our wizard?” Berg demanded.
“He is giving his all to hold the fort’s gate.”
The old commander closed his eyes tightly. Where did it all go wrong?
Was it truly such a vain desire, to want to die while fighting the enemies of Dotrin as a knight?
When the imperial forces had encircled High Seabreeze, would it have been better to retreat, even if facing heavy losses by doing so? Countless thoughts passed through Berg’s head, yet he could not think for long.
Screams and wails were resounding from all quarters. Beyond the wall, the sound of marching drums was heard. When this terrible baptism of magic was over, the imperial troops would soon arrive. And as the damage mounted after repeated assaults, those imperial dogs would climb up the walls and bite into the throats of the exhausted Dotrin soldiers.
The commander opened his eyes, drew his sword, and headed for the wall. As he climbed to the ramparts, the situation was revealed with greater clarity.
The fortress had been crushed by repeated magical bombardments. Hails of arrows constantly poured down from the sky. The archers of Dotrin couldn’t even raise their heads, let alone counterfire.
The fatigue, despair, and impending doom that filled the soldiers’ faces sent shivers down Berg’s spine. Even if they got lucky and endured for one more day, they would not be able to alter the fate of the fortress. For the first time, the word ‘end’ came into Berg’s mind.
He shook his head violently and looked into the distance.
‘Dumtumdum Dumtumdum Dumtumdum~’
The sound of drums came from everywhere, and dark shadows endlessly rushed toward the burning fortress. Burg took a bow from an archer who crouched beneath the wall.
He drew the string back and let go as he loosed the arrow.
‘Pluugk!’ one of the imperial soldiers fell.
Draw, release.
Another one met his end.
An arrow rushed at Berg and struck his armor. He did not back down.
He would reduce the number of approaching imperial troops one by one, so he constantly drew and released, drew and released.
Inspired by their commander’s efforts, archers arose from all over.
“Aaouch!”
And in the next moments, many of them fell under the volleys of arrows loosed by the enemy.
Still, more archers managed to fire arrows than die under those of the enemy.
‘Ssasasak!’
This was the first time the archers could fire since the magic bombardments had started.
However, even though all the archers on the wall fired in unison, they could not slow down the enemy’s assault. The imperial archers had been firing all the while, but at some point, the rain of arrows stopped as the imperial troops neared the walls.
The archers of the fortress, who had been awaiting this moment, stood up and poured out volley after volley.
However, the time given to them was not much.
Ladders were set against the walls, and hooks were thrown. And then, the imperial army began scaling the walls. The infantrymen grabbed their axes and cut into the ropes of the hooks.
Knights expelled mana as they pushed away ladders.
However, despite these efforts, they could not prevent the imperial army from gaining the walls.
The archers set down their bows and grabbed their spears and swords. They stabbed and slashed desperately at the enemies who had ascended.
‘Chik! Chin! Klang!’
However, the enemies who had gained the walls so easily deflected the spears and parried the swords. In an instant, heads were severed, and throats were slashed.
“It is the enemy knights!” someone shouted a moment later.
The clashing of swords could be heard all over. The knights of the citadel rushed to drive off the empire’s knights. However, as their stamina and mana were already depleted, the Knights of Dotrin could not push the enemy back. All they could do was hold their ground.
The number of enemy knights on the wall was increasing.
The knights of the fortress were surrounded by two or more enemies and struggled desperately. They couldn’t even dream of aiding the soldiers in driving the foe away. They were locked in a struggle to survive. The same counted for the commander.
Berg Berten was already surrounded by imperial knights. The old knights who had come here with him from the province fought hard to protect him, yet they were suffering a heavy toll.
A forty-year-old man, a friend of Berg and his loyal knight fell onto his back, dead. A knight who had entered Berg’s service only recently, and always complained that he had not tasted battle for decades, was pierced by a sword through his chest and fell from the wall.
“Sir, fall back,” a bloody knight implored Berg to retreat.
“Where will I go if I fall back!?”
The old commander instead fixed his sword and bellowed a war cry.
Although the outcome was different from what he had hoped for, Berg was about to meet his end while fighting on the wall, as he had originally imagined himself doing.
The commander took off his helmet, threw it aside, and grasped his sword with both hands.
He slashed out vertically and then horizontally into the knights who had gained the wall.
Berg had honed his swordsmanship from his youngest age. Although he could never become a quad-chain knight due to a lack of foes and also inherent talent, the commander had never been weak.
His mastery of the blade has reached maturity, and he sliced into the necks of the imperial knights in quick succession.
“Drive the enemy off the walls!”
The knights were inspired by their commander’s struggles, and so they pushed back at the enemy knights with greater effort. The soldiers, who were prepared to die, stuck to the knights and aided them in battle.
The stubborn resistance of the imperial knights began to falter as they fell one after the other.
“Hfoo, Hfoo,” Berg caught his breath as he studied the situation on the walls.
There were not many enemies left upon the ramparts. He had believed that the fort would fall right away, but it seemed they had succeeded in stopping the imperial offensive.
His judgment was premature.
‘Baangg!’
The walls shook with a roar, and screams were heard.
“The gate is open!”
The old commander ordered that someone go find the wizard, and the answer came back that the wizard, who had endured and endured, had finally fainted due to mana reflux.
“Half remain on the wall, and the other half comes to block off the gate with me!”
Berg marshaled the knights and rushed toward the fortress gate.
Within a short span of time, half of the soldiers guarding the gate were slain. They were elite heavy infantry, with better armaments, training, and morale than the other soldiers.
They were being cut down as if they were naught but conscripts. It was natural. No matter how good the heavy infantrymen were, they were no match for the knights.
Even worse, there was a knight with an Aura Blade among the imperial knights, and his presence was too much for the defensive formation to bear. It soon collapsed.
The Imperial Paladin was distinguishable by his ornate armor, and he was slaughtering the heavy infantry.
“Imperial cur!”
The paladin had cut down two infantrymen in a single strike, yet he now turned his head as he heard Berg’s angry exclamations.
Eyes flashed from inside his helmet, and the paladin began cutting a path for himself through the heavy infantry as he approached the old commander.
“Commander! Save yourself!” the knights shouted as they interspersed themselves between Berg and the paladin.
“If I fall back, where do I go?”
Berg glared at the Imperial Paladin, and then fixed his sword before him as he tightened his grip upon the hilt. He ordered the remaining troops of Dotrin to escape the fort and somehow break through the siege lines.
The knights refused, yet their commander was determined and insistent. Eventually, the knights relented and scattered in all directions, running toward any gap in the lines they could find.
The only ones who remained were those old knights who had followed Berg from the province.
“Why aren’t you going?”
“I’ve lived long enough, so where would I go?”
“If we can give the younger ones enough time to flee, then it would be enough.”
The old knights replied in embarrassed tones to their commander’s question, yet their voices were more exhilarated than fear-filled.
Berg gave up on trying to persuade them, realizing that his old guardians had already made peace with death.
“I don’t know about anyone else, but I have to stop that paladin.”
“I don’t know if that’s possible with your old body, but we can try.”
“You don’t know, maybe that paladin is as old as us!”
By exchanging such jokes that fit well into their predicament, the old knights prepared their hearts and minds for the coming fight.
The paladin strode forward. The archers upon the walls fired down at him at once, yet no arrow could so much as scratch his body.
The paladin walked on without hesitation until he came near the old commander.
“No sense in waiting then.”
Dozens of old knights charged him from every direction. These veterans of the sword all poured in at once. However, their opponent was a knight who had transcended to a level far beyond veterancy.
The old knights fell helplessly under his blade.
Ten, eight, seven, five, four – In an instant, six knights became cold corpses as they fell to the ground. The remaining three exchanged glances as they circled the paladin.
However, the paladin stared only at Berg Berten, as if he cared nothing for the others.
“…” said the paladin, his low voice coming from his helmet.
“Hey! You guy! if you come to Dotrin, you must speak in Dotrin!” an old knight scolded the paladin.
The paladin continued to speak as if he had heard nothing.
Berg was able to grasp a few words due to the limited knowledge he had gained of True Imperial when he was in his youth. The paladin was encouraging surrender.
“There is no reason to live to this age and be cursed,” the old commander replied in broken imperial language. He didn’t know whether he had spoken properly.
However, when Berg saw the paladin summon his Aura Blade once more, he decided that his words had been understood: He was determined to die with his blade in hand.
The paladin raised his sword. The old knights lowered their postures as they prepared to move in.
‘Chin,’ the paladin moved, and the commander ignored his men and readied his sword as he watched the paladin fly straight at him.
The paladin swung his sword, a sword with decades worth of accumulated mana, and his strike was blocked, yet it still cleaved Burg’s blade in two.
The paladin was amazed, and instead of being slashed by a broken sword, a gauntleted fist punched into his nose.
“No way!” he bellowed. Berg was not one to miss a chance like this, so he roared fiercely and pulled a dagger from his waist and slashed out.
And at that moment- ‘Tluk!’ Surprisingly, the paladin’s hand was severed. Even the old commander, wielding his dagger, was amazed, dumbfounded.
“Kaahk!” the paladin bellowed as he clutched the stump of his wrist while blood spurted from it, and he retreated from the old man. Berg stared at the paladin and then glanced at the dagger he gripped.
There wasn’t a single drop of blood on the dagger, and yet, the paladin’s wrist was bleeding profusely.
Berg Berten soon knew how this could be. A sword had pierced itself into the blood-spattered ground, and blood flowed down its blade.
“Are you in charge of this fortress?”
Someone’s voice came from one side, and the commander turned his head.
An unknown man was walking toward Berg through the gate. There was a bloodied swordsman at his side, and they walked on as if taking a leisurely stroll.
The man’s helmet covered all except his lower face, and he wore leather armor of good quality. In his hand was a rough-looking sword.
As the old commander met those eyes that gleamed within the helmet, he instinctively nodded.
“You came to the right place,” said Berg.
A white-toothed smile appeared below the helm.
The man walked up to Berg and took the blade that had pierced into the ground. He shook the blood from it in a single motion, and as he held a sword in each hand, he asked, “Looks like you were preparing a retreat. Can you break through the siege?”
“I can’t guarantee that my men will break through, but there is nothing I can do about that.”
“Then cancel the retreat,” said the man.
The old commander frowned.
Whether he had noticed it or not, the unknown man spoke on.
“Because this fortress will not fall today.”
He spoke with a strangely convincing voice, and when Berg heard those words, it truly seemed as if the fortress would hold. It was an unfamiliar experience for him.
The old commander forgot about the dire situation, as he had become curious as to the identity of the man.
“Who the hell are you?”
After Berg had asked this, the man suddenly cleared his throat, and out of nowhere, he raised his swords into the air and shouted, “The Veil Mercenaries are here!”
They told Berg that they are they reinforcements from the royal city.
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