Chapter 25
When I arrived, the battle was just beginning.
Below the roughly ten-meter-tall castle walls, thousands of soldiers with sky-high morale were charging straight ahead.
The soldiers in front had already reached the base of the walls, and various siege weapons, including ladders, battering rams, and siege towers, were beginning to attach themselves to the walls.
“Waaaaaaaah!!!”
“Charge!! Forward!!”
Of course, the enemy wasn't just standing around either. When the commander directly above the gate swung his sword through the air to give a signal,
- Fwoosh!!
Countless arrows came flying in, knocking our brave soldiers down like leaves in an autumn wind.
- Rat-a-tat-tat-tat!!
“Graaagh!!”
“Damn it, graah!”
"Aaaaaaagh!! Save me!!"
The sounds of arrows striking and people screaming as they fell rang out from every direction.
I could smell the thick scent of blood and iron.
It wasn't just arrows, either.
Rocks flying from somewhere, along with oil and flames.
The enemy was desperately defending the castle too.
The situation beneath the walls was pure chaos.
'Hoo... Stay calm.'
Leaving their cries behind, I continued running forward.
I lightly deflected the arrows flying at me by spinning my spear, pushing past the hesitant soldiers as I advanced.
“Put up the ladders!!”
“Bring up the battering ram—aaagh!”
The vanguard intended to break through the gate with the battering ram, but more than half of the people carrying it had already been struck by arrows, collapsed, and caught fire from the oil and flames.
‘As expected, this won't be easy.’
I continued charging forward, leaving the deaths of my fellow soldiers behind me.
Before I knew it, I was only about fifty meters from the gate.
‘One chance.’
I sprinted forward at full speed.
- Tat-tat-tat-tat!!!
The archers who spotted me fired arrows from the walls to keep me in check, but they couldn't match my speed, and their arrows struck the ground harmlessly.
"Huh? What's that?"
"There's some strange woman over here..."
Activating all my buff skills, I gathered every ounce of strength in my body and ran—
- Flash!!
I drove my spear hard into the ground and used the recoil to jump high into the air.
Using the spear like a pole-vaulter's pole, I soared into the sky.
This was exactly why I had raised my strength to such absurd levels.
With incredible spring, my body rose to the height of the gate, and the acceleration from my running speed sent me forward even faster.
I wasn't flying slowly along a parabolic arc.
I flew at an angle that let me clear only the wall below, so from the enemy's perspective, it must have looked as though something had suddenly shot up from beneath them.
- Smack!!
I spun exactly three times in midair, then used the force of my flight to drive my elbow guard into the enemy commander's head.
It wasn't an attack where I saw him and reacted; I had already placed my elbow where the commander was standing.
The tremendous acceleration and force combined, and neither the enemy commander nor his escort knights could respond. The commander's head burst apart, killing him instantly.
"Huh?"
"Commander... sir?"
The tide had turned.
I drew in a deep breath—
“We got the enemy commander!!”
I loudly announced our victory.
...
..
.
Did that mean the siege battle was over?
Of course not.
Swords swung in from both sides.
They radiated a sinister aura and came slicing in as if to cut my body in half.
"How dare you touch our commander!!"
"Die!!!"
I was trapped between attacks from the front and back.
I bent my body completely backward to evade them.
My chest was grazed slightly, sending sparks flying.
"Ngh...!"
In that position, I narrowly slid forward and threw myself toward the dead commander's body.
I forcibly straightened his still-warm fingers and snatched away his sword.
"You wench!!!"
"How dare you take our lord's treasured sword!!!"
- Shing...
'Oh, nice sword!'
It was a treasured sword with a brilliant radiance, as though it had drunk blood.
I raised his treasured sword to block the sword descending from behind me, then quickly rolled sideways to evade the next one.
- Crunch!
"Oh no..."
The escort knight had tried to cut me, but instead he sliced open his dead lord's abdomen. The lord's blood and pieces of his entrails spattered all over the knight's face and armor.
"Graaagh!!! You wench! I won't forgive you!"
"Calion, calm down!"
The knight charged forward, swinging his sword in a wide arc.
He had lost his reason.
A knight who had not only failed to protect his lord but had also mutilated his lord's corpse with his own hands was no longer a knight.
He forgot all the swordsmanship he had learned, powered up only his aura, and charged straight at me like a brute.
That made him very easy to deal with.
I lightly stepped aside and cut him as I passed by his flank.
- Fwoosh!!
The aura coating his armor was sliced through, and the blade pierced it.
My blade cut deep enough to split open his organs.
"Guhk!!"
As I turned around to strike his neck, another knight arrived and barely blocked me.
- Wooooong~!
His sword was also wrapped in blue aura.
Mana was a force capable of creating miracles.
And when that miracle manifested as aura, it was imbued into the sword.
The sword became heavier, harder, and sharper.
It was literally the power of a miracle.
- Clang!!
The swords parted, then collided once more.
"Tch..."
As expected, it was impossible to clash head-on with aura. I guided his sword aside as though pushing it away, then retreated.
He wasn't rash.
Even though he believed his skill was superior, he prepared a perfect strategy.
"Surround her!! Be careful, and move as though you're engaging in a battle against a powerful knight."
'Tch, this is getting troublesome.'
The commander's elite guards and knights surrounded me in several layers.
'Even for me, this is a bit much...'
Perhaps because two major combatants had been taken down at once, they didn't move carelessly. Aside from a few spearmen keeping me in check, no one rushed me.
The knights, their main combat force, watched for an opening while emitting a sinister blue aura.
This was a very bad situation.
Although this treasured sword could slice through the enemy's plate armor with ease, I could just as easily be cut in half by their swords.
First, I needed to calmly break apart their formation.
I sensed a spear thrusting in from behind.
I lightly dodged to the side, caught the spear as it passed beside my ribs, and pulled it toward me.
"Ur...ugh!!"
Using the instant the spearman's body was pulled toward me, I shoved his back and sent him charging into his ally.
"Watch out!!"
"Graaagh!!"
The soldiers had been aiming their swords and spears at me, but pulled them aside for a moment so they wouldn't hurt their ally.
The instant their attention was drawn in that direction,
I broke through.
The muscles in my thighs compressed to their limit, and I charged in at maximum speed.
"Uhh..."
I charged while pushing against the torso of the spearman still tangled up with his ally.
"Now, kill her!!"
"He's one of us, wait!!"
A narrow space.
Between the soldiers hesitating because they might injure their allies,
- Shrrrraaaak!!!
The commander's treasured sword swept out wide and hard.
- Fwhaaaak!!
'This thing is fucking amazing.'
I almost wanted to take it home with me.
It cleanly sliced through the soldiers' necks.
A wide fountain of blood spread around me, and while my view was briefly obscured, I charged forward once more.
"You wench!!"
A knight's weak aura.
He must have awakened only recently.
I clashed swords with him, shattered his sword, and split his upper body in half.
Blood poured out scorching hot on both sides.
With such a good sword, there was a real pleasure to cutting.
It felt like I had returned to the old days for the first time in a while.
I gleefully tore through the gaps in the shattered enemy formation.
The corpses of soldiers and knights who had swarmed in from all directions piled up, while blood spurted into the air.
"Y-you monster...."
- Shhk!!
The soldiers hurriedly formed a phalanx, but it was easily pierced by my overwhelming strength and treasured sword.
The knights were wedged among the soldiers, unable to swing their swords properly, and died one after another.
"Tch, there are too many. Everyone fall back!!! All soldiers retreat!!"
Perhaps they had realized that their own allies were only getting in the way, because all the soldiers began retreating.
"Where do you think you're going!!"
As if I'd let them escape so easily.
I followed them, slaughtering the soldiers.
The soldiers, defenseless as they exposed their backs at the retreat order, fell with ease.
When a soldier who had looked back met my eyes, he flinched as if he had seen a ghost and tried to push his way forward, but only caused the formation to collapse further.
- Thrust!!!
I pierced the hearts of three soldiers standing in a line, skewering them like kebabs. The sensation of the sword sliding effortlessly inside was incredible.
"Damn it! We'll handle this!!"
Before I knew it, all the soldiers had retreated, and the knights came running in.
Some could use aura and some couldn't, but they were all formidable combatants regardless.
There were about twenty of them. They were by no means easy opponents.
And that man.
The escort knight giving orders in place of the dead commander, his eyes filled with tremendous anger but his composure intact.
'That guy is the problem...'
Now the real battle was beginning.
But then,
- Boom!!
A powerful pounding sound spread through the castle gate.
"What? Wait!"
The escort knight temporarily in command looked around.
A huge opening had appeared because all their elite forces were focused on Lee Do-hee.
The reinforcements were pounding the gate with a half-destroyed battering ram, while the vanguard that had climbed the walls by ladder and siege tower was nearly slaughtering the defenders unopposed.
The soldiers were confused after seeing their commander die, and with no further orders and all the elites having left to capture Lee Do-hee, their morale had hit rock bottom.
Meanwhile, the vanguard on the attacking side was burning with fervor instead.
"Save our whore!!!"
"For the whore!!!"
"Everyone, save the whore!!"
"I'll be the first to fuck her!!!"
"Whore! I'll fuck you even if you die, so don't die!"
"For the whore!!!"
"......"
'What the fuck... why am I a whore...'
I didn't know whether I should be pleased or not, but in any case, things were going well.
They were watching me kill the commander single-handedly and then struggle against the enemy.
The soldiers were killing the enemy like mad to save me, charging forward while risking their lives.
And who made up most of the vanguard?
Organized criminals, prisoners of war, violent criminals, slaves, and mercenaries who had sold themselves for money.
Every one of them had grown up in a harsh environment. Though they had received training for a short time, their nature hadn't gone anywhere.
And this was a defining trait of people like them.
They were weak before the strong, but became infinitely strong before the weak.
“Kyahahaha!! Kill them all!!”
“You pathetic bastards, I'll kill every last one of you!!”
They were the perfect example of bullies who were meek before the strong and vicious before the weak.
They brutally massacred and slaughtered the defenders, whose morale had fallen.
They became infinitely more pathetic against a regular army in formation, but in a chaotic melee like this, against enemies with shattered morale, they became stronger than anyone.
“Shit, at this rate, the castle...”
The escort knight who had taken over command in place of the dead commander.
His thoughts became tangled.
"Tch, all knights, listen!! Kill that wench first!! The rest of you defend the gate. Begin the combined attack!!"
He drew his sword himself and charged.
'He must be in a hurry.'
He intended to kill me first and deal with the rest afterward.
It was the correct decision.
That is, if I were willing to die quietly.
'Holding out is my specialty.'
The knights attacked me in a textbook encirclement from four directions.
'That's a good method... but it has one weakness.'
This wasn't the first or second time I had dealt with this in my previous life.
At the awkward moment just before the four launched their combined attack,
I moved half a beat early and pounced on the knight who looked the weakest.
- Clang!!
Then came the opening when the other three tangled with each other before hurriedly regaining their stances and trying to attack me again.
As I kicked away the knight in front of me, I used the recoil to spring backward and swing my sword in a wide arc.
A sword swung quickly backward without even looking.
Naturally, there was no way to respond.
- Shhk!
The sword's trajectory passed precisely across the knights' necks.
"Huh...?"
With a short, strangled cry, the heads of three knights went flying into the sky.
"How... did you...?"
The difference in experience. Even though my body had become a woman's, I had fought dozens, even hundreds, of battles on the Tower over ten years in which life and death hung in the balance.
"Damn it... all of you cover me, I'm going in!!"
Perhaps he had realized that these small fry weren't even enough to gauge my abilities, because the escort knight charged in himself.
His eyes were filled with rage.
The knights charged again from four directions.
First, the escort knight rushed me.
He was the sort who intended to settle things with crude, straightforward strength.
"Damn..."
I lifted my foot slightly and shifted my upper-body weight forward.
A very simple trick.
- Clang!!
His attack sent my body skidding along the ground as if across ice, making me collide with the knight coming from behind.
My body continued sliding until it struck the edge of the battlement.
He reversed his grip and stabbed right beside my neck.
"Guhk..!"
The sword pierced the neck of the knight directly behind me.
Now I faced enemies coming from three directions.
The escort knight stood before me, with knights on either side.
I pressed myself tightly against the wall, evading their swords as much as possible while buying time.
'Either way, you're the ones who will fall.'
The number of wounds on my body increased.
Perhaps he had realized that swordsmanship and swordplay alone wouldn't work, because the escort knight drove forward with sheer strength while the other knights attacked through the openings.
Sword blades grazed my side, forearm, shoulder, and cheek, drawing blood.
I hadn't suffered a fatal wound, but burning pain from slashes covered my entire body.
But that didn't last long.
- KRAAANG!!!
'Here it comes.'
The vanguard had broken through the castle gate.
“Waaaaaaaah!!!”
"Save the whore!! Where's the whore!!"
"Take back our whore!!"
"For the whore!!"
'Crazy bastards...'
At first glance, it might seem that the attacking side was at an absolute disadvantage, but it actually wasn't that badly outmatched.
It was merely difficult to take the castle because they were outnumbered and had to deal with the structure of the walls.
Because the attacking side also had fighters on the level of knights.
- KRAAANG!!!
"She's here!! The whore is in danger!!"
One man came charging over while repeatedly smashing people with a mace whose head was as large as a human torso.
"I'm first!! Whore, I'm coming!!!"
Another approached while turning people into skewers one by one with a massive spear.
"Kwahahahaha!! So this is where you brats were hiding!"
There was even a madman who charged in while crushing people's heads with his bare fists.
The basic strategy was to join forces with people who looked that powerful and stay in a corner of the battlements until the main force arrived.
Unless you attacked the commander first like I did, the elites would be gathered near him, so with a little luck, you could survive without fighting even once.
'But everything's gone strange this time... Well, good.'
All the powerful people who should have been scattered around had gathered here. The people who had climbed the walls had also all gathered above the gate at just the right time.
Even if they deployed the elite soldiers now, they would only be defeated one group at a time.
"Damn, we almost had them!!"
The defending side's elite knights and remaining soldiers were surrounded from every direction in an instant.
They had no allies left.
"Kill them!!"
"Don't bother our whore!!!"
"Wait for me, whore, I'll fuck you soon!"
They charged madly, without regard for what lay before or behind them.
Momentum.
The momentum was different. It was as though an invisible aura had covered the vanguard soldiers as they plowed through the defenders and charged forward.
The knights might have held the advantage in combat power, but they had suffered tremendous losses just to capture one woman and were covered in their comrades' blood.
Meanwhile, the brave vanguard had continued winning and was covered in the enemy's blood.
They collided.
The vanguard soldiers charged like cavalry, crashing into the enemy with brute force regardless of aura or anything else.
"Waaaaaaaah!!!"
"Kill them!!!"
They were pushed back.
The knights were pushed back.
They were outmatched in momentum, strength, and numbers.
There was nowhere for reinforcements to come from.
There was no hope in sight.
As gaps opened between one knight, then another, the knights collapsed in a heap in an instant.
They were trampled and stabbed indiscriminately.
Their bodies were brutally pierced and burst in several places as they died.
"Damn it!!!"
The siege battle was effectively over.
The ordinary soldiers had all died or fled, and the elite knights had all been surrounded and killed.
But there was still one man.
He was alive.
The sole surviving escort knight, carrying on the commander's will.
- Thud!!!
When he struck the ground with mana, the spreading shockwave forced the vanguard back for a moment.
Then his razor-sharp gaze fixed on me.
He pointed his sword straight at me and spoke.
"I am! Roteran Arteria, Knight Commander of the House of Count Servion!!! What is your name!!"
When he loudly announced his identity, the soldiers on our side didn't attack him. Instead, they looked to me for a cue.
'Ha, is this some kind of honorable knight's duel in this world?'
Fine. I'll accept.
I'm always happy to duel a strong opponent.
And it felt a little unsatisfying to end things like this.
"My name is Lee Do-hee. I have neither a family nor an affiliation."
When I finished speaking, the vanguard soldiers formed a circle around Roteran and me.
The screams and clashing weapons still rang out around us.
But everyone in this space held their breath and silently watched our duel.
We recognized from each other's eyes that we were ready,
- Tap!!
"Haaaaaaah!!"
and charged toward each other.