They practiced a sword style famous for taking life at the greatest possible speed.
That didn’t mean they could treat human lives like weeds beneath their feet.
In the end, Koloki and Ante agreed to intervene directly, and Silas thanked them sincerely.
Ante and Silas would attack from the front and draw the bandits’ attention.
The frontal assault demanded the greatest strength and carried the most pressure, so Sword Saint Ante and Silas—who was already close to Sword Saint—were the most suitable choices.
Only sending two people to create the distraction also reduced the chance that the bandits, panicking under attack, would immediately kill their captives.
Meanwhile, Nina and Jino would form one team, while Noah moved alone.
Each group would infiltrate one side of the camp, raid the tents, and rescue the hostages first.
Only after that would they focus on exterminating the bandits.
Koloki would remain hidden and ready to intervene, while specifically watching the bandit leader in case something unexpected happened.
After all, an earlier party led by an Advanced swordsman had already disappeared while attempting this request.
Koloki needed to account for the possibility that these bandits possessed a Saint-ranked fighter.
Once the plan was settled, they waited for nightfall before beginning.
Noah had no objection to his assigned role, nor did he see anything wrong with ambushing these people.
What kind of martial honor were they supposed to show a group of animals who had thrown away their humanity?
Everyone jump them together.
Sneak attacks all the way.
…
Once darkness covered the forest, the assault began.
Because of the bonfires, the closer Noah came to the camp, the more light reflected from the surrounding snow.
The noisy voices of the bandits drifted into his ears.
Suppress his presence.
Slow his heartbeat.
His feet sank into the snow without almost any sound.
After so much practice, Presence Concealment had become something Noah could activate through unconscious muscle memory.
Even at night, several sentries were posted around the perimeter.
The nearest was a thin bandit wrapped in a leather coat, clutching a sword and yawning from time to time.
He clearly wasn’t taking guard duty particularly seriously.
Noah crept to within roughly fifteen meters of the tents and stopped.
He needed to wait until Silas and Ante created enough chaos to draw more bandits away.
This was his first real battle. Follow the newest chapters on g.com.
Caution was preferable whenever possible.
It wasn’t as if he could watch an advertisement and revive after dying.
Soon, the frontal assault began.
Ante and Silas would kill several bandits, enrage the rest, then gradually retreat and pull them away—creating space and time for Noah’s group to rescue the prisoners.
“Fuck, what bastard…”
Noah faintly heard the nearest sentry curse before his voice moved farther away.
Through his perception, Noah confirmed that the surrounding scouts were converging on Silas and Ante.
He moved quickly.
There was no longer any need to obsess over silence.
The clash of weapons, shouts, and screams easily covered his footsteps.
Noah reached the outermost tent and waited beside it, holding his breath.
The sounds of fighting had already alerted whoever was inside.
A bandit quickly grabbed his weapon.
Cursing under his breath, the not particularly large man held a blade in one hand and pulled aside the hanging tent flap.
At that exact instant—
Noah’s pupils contracted.
His heartbeat suddenly accelerated.
His body moved almost entirely on instinct.
In the next moment, the flickering firelight seemed to flare brighter, throwing overlapping shadows across the tent cloth.
The bandit had only just stepped outside when a succession of sharp humming sounds poured into his ears.
Bzzzt!
Bzzzt!
Bzzzt!
Cold steel flashed downward.
Pieces fell at Noah’s feet like heavy raindrops, severed one after another from wrist to upper arm.
Wrist.
Forearm.
Shoulder.
Left arm.
Both cut apart almost simultaneously.
Cloth split with flesh, and blood erupted outward.
The man had lifted both arms in the habitual motion of pushing aside the entrance flap.
Those arms were now sliced into sections and scattered before Noah.
Blood sprayed violently from both ruined shoulders.
And everything had taken barely a single second.
The bandit, still half-blocking the tent entrance, released a scream so shrill it cut through the chaos and collapsed backward away from Noah.
But in the next instant, even that scream stopped abruptly.
A severed head flew upward from the force of the strike, bounced once, then rolled to a stop in front of another tent.
Blood continued pouring from the body.
The corpse could no longer make a sound.
The bearded head retained the same terrified, confused, agony-twisted expression it had worn at the instant of death.
Noah stood motionless and forced down the nausea rising inside him as he stared at what he’d just created.
The rolling head came to rest outside the neighboring tent.
Another bandit emerged at that exact moment.
The first thing he saw was his companion’s remarkably lifelike severed head staring upward in death.
His eyes immediately reddened with fury as he looked toward the culprit—only to discover a young child standing outside the other tent, seemingly frozen stupid by the sight before him.
The bandit instantly understood.
The kid had ambushed his companion, but the bloody scene he’d created had terrified him into a stupor.
That kind of thing happened all the time.
The first time this bandit himself had killed someone, he’d vomited on the spot and hadn’t been able to keep food down for an entire day.
Only by the second day, when hunger became unbearable, had he managed to eat again.
And that was as an adult.
This was just a child.
Blade in hand, the bandit strode rapidly toward Noah.
He would seize this chance and kill the little brat.
But Noah hadn’t frozen because of the gore.
[Killing Intent: Ember (Human Slayer: 1/100)]