I drove the spear point of my halberd into the belly of the guardsman whose head hung limp, then dragged him out into the crossroads. The startled crossbowmen fired, but the bolts struck the guardsman’s back and did me no harm at all.
Ducking as low as I could, I shoved the guardsman-turned-shield forward with all my strength, advancing right up to the crossbowmen’s line. Then in one motion I kicked the body off the spear.
The blood-soaked corpse crashed into the crossbowmen.
For a moment their movements slowed.
And then the halberd, swung horizontally like a spinning windmill, cut across the faces left exposed by the crossbowmen’s open helmets. The spear point grazed them cruelly. Behind the crossbowmen falling with screams, a long pike shot out.
But it slid off my armor and missed.
I brought the halberd down and shattered the pike in an instant. The axe blade, swung with centrifugal force, flew at the startled pikemen’s faces. Crunch! Their faces were crushed to pulp.
Aaargh!
R-run! Aaah!
Crunch! Crunch!
Having collapsed even the ranks of the crossbowmen and pikemen, I punched clean through, killing a great many guardsmen. Then my men, having cleared the first line, fell upon the soldiers milling about in confusion.
Sixteen minutes left.
There was far too little time.
"We’ll take the monster, so you hold off the enemy units!"
"B-but if we surround and attack him together!"
"Can’t you see that crest?! Move it!"
The guardsmen peeled away from me to face my men instead. Only three commanders stepped forward to block my path. Were they hoping to spare their men from throwing their lives away for nothing by facing me themselves?
These weren’t guardsmen but guard knights. Their full plate armor alone proved they were of a different rank. Even so, they were just obstacle noble-knights A, B, and C.
"Your skill is every bit as impressive as your reputation, Gale Knight."
"I’m in quite a hurry right now, so how about you step aside?"
"We answer to His Grace’s command alone!"
The guard knights, taking Vom Tag (upper stance) and Ochs (thrust) stances, rushed me all at once.
Taking on three swordsmen trained in German fencing at once was a fool’s errand, but right now my whole body was brimming with strength and courage from the doping, so the halberd I swung was ferocious.
"Never face him alone! Attack together!"
Their danger level as shown by my Manager Scouter was green. A level I could beat easily enough, but they’d committed fully to defense and combined attacks, so I couldn’t handle them that simply.
Clang! Claaang! Clang! Clang!
They’d clearly drilled together for a long time; their combinations were clean and their timing flawless. Never overconfident, they meshed organically, never once standing against me alone.
It was my first time meeting knights who coordinated like this to challenge a stronger opponent. It was fascinating, and I wanted to take my time studying their skill.
But regrettably, right now I had no time to spare.
Thirteen minutes left.
Bang!
Grk!
If three fight as one, isn’t the standard answer to split the three apart? With overwhelming force I shoved two of the guard knights away in an instant and attacked the one left alone.
I feinted a thrust, then aimed low.
The guard knight, thrown off by the feint woven into the attack, hesitated.
The knee-hook technique brings the halberd’s head down low to catch the leg joint and topple the opponent in an instant. It has the drawback of leaving the upper body wide open, which is why I mixed in a feint.
"No!"
His knee buckled, and the guard knight lost his balance and finally went down. Whoosh! The halberd’s head, spun around, came crashing down on the guard knight. But he rolled to the side just in time and dodged.
He got back up quickly, but in plate armor he was bound to be a little slow getting up. That was ample time for me to launch the next combination.
Mittelhau.
Bang!
A halberd technique derived from the horizontal cut of German fencing. Simple, but because it used centrifugal force and the strength of the waist, its power was every bit as strong as Zornhau.
The guard knight reflexively raised his longsword to block the axe blade, but he couldn’t withstand the tremendous force and pressure and slammed hard into the wall. Blood spilled from his mouth.
The guard knight expired.
His fellow knights, seeing it, flew into a rage.
"Damn it, Bant!"
"I’ll kill you!"
When you lose your temper, your breathing falls apart and your movements grow wild and wasteful. I was always calm. No, I always tried to be calm. Even under the pressure of time and the interference of skilled fighters, I never came unglued.
To the two rushing me headlong, I gifted a powerful Mittelhau (horizontal cut). One dodged by a hair, and the other overcommitted to a block, couldn’t hold, and was flung back.
At once I struck at the guard knight who’d evaded, using the back of the halberd—the hook. He rolled forward quickly and escaped. He’d dodged the axe blade of my follow-up strike by a razor-thin margin.
Being able to move so nimbly even in plate armor was proof of considerable training. Full plate is certainly heavy, but a well-trained knight can move nimbly in it.
But the same went for me.
Thanks to the 200% courage boost, I could move far more nimbly than usual.
Scheitelhau.
Crunch!
A head-cut technique adapted from the fencing move to the halberd, where bringing it down fast is what matters. It dealt a heavy blow to the breastplate of the guard knight who’d barely gotten up from his roll.
"Damn it!"
The guard knight who’d been flung back parried my descending strike with a rotation. But as if he’d been waiting for it, he attempted a winding (rotating while bound) and forced the halberd’s shaft downward.
For an instant my halberd was dragged down.
A very fine Krumphau (hooking cut).
But when I hauled the halberd back with strength, the guard knight, still entangled, was pulled forward in an instant and fell. His attempt to follow up with a thrust came to nothing.
Because I’d read it first through Fühlen. The sense called Fühlen lets you anticipate the opponent’s attack. And regrettably for him, my skill right now was boosted by 200%.
Center of gravity, the flow of the blade, and instinct.
Fühlen is what encompasses all of it.
The fallen guard knight looked up at me as if seeing a ghost. But the instant I brought the halberd down, he hastily rolled aside and got up.
Thwack!
The moment he stood, I struck him with the end of the shaft and sent him flying.
Just as I was about to press the attack, I blocked the sword of the remaining guard knight, who’d recovered from the shock.
Claaang! Clang! Clang!
The guard knight who’d lunged from my left unleashed nimble combinations and forced me onto the defensive. The halberd is hard to use nimbly, so it has the weakness of being forced onto the defensive by fast attacks.
But strength beyond a certain level chews up every weakness.
Like Leto, who swings his massive halberd like an ultimate weapon.
Boom!
As the weighty force landed, the knight staggered and drew back. Keeping my distance from his blade, I bound the halberd’s head to it, then swiftly rode the line and lowered the axe blade toward his grip.
A longsword has no ricasso to block a halberd’s axe blade from reaching the grip.
A ricasso is a safety feature built to keep the edge from reaching too close to the grip, protecting the hand holding the sword. Two-handed swords usually have one, but longswords don’t.
That was why it was hard to face a halberd with a longsword.
With his gauntlet caught on the tip of the axe blade, the guard knight had no choice but to come along as I pulled. Before another enemy could interfere, I swiftly swung the halberd and drove it into the fallen guard knight’s helmet.
Crunch!
Slash!
Hot blood sprayed in every direction.
The last guard knight let out an anguished cry.
"Lanted! Aaaaah!"
The death of his final comrade knight, with whom he’d shared everything in the guard, made the last one cast his life aside and rush me. But I wasn’t swept up in the moment and faced him calmly.
Ten minutes left.
The greater the hurry, the more you must slow down.
I heavily parried the sword of the guard knight, who’d lost all reason and swung blindly. Driven back by the powerful force, his upper body rocked hard and his stance crumbled.
Unterhau.
Unterhau is a rising cut. Changing the direction of the halberd’s head, which had dropped to the floor, I drove it precisely up into the guard knight’s armpit.
"Gaaah!"
As he screamed and toppled backward, I raised the halberd high overhead and brought it straight down on him. His eyes, full of despair, showed he had given up on everything.
Crunch!
The Zornhau combination flowing out of the Unterhau is textbook halberd technique. But it seemed the last knight’s life hadn’t been fully cut short.
Hmm, a lucky fellow.
I hadn’t wanted to kill a knight who’d fought so well.
Gasping for breath, blood foaming up, he spoke.
"K-kill me with honor. Cough, cough!"
"...You wish for death?"
"I’m a p-poor knight. Even if I live, cough, cough! I can’t pay a ransom. Grant me the honor of dying by the hand of a great knight... alongside my comrades..."
But before he even needed my hand, he breathed his last.
A knight wishes for an honorable death. That must be the final moment knights long for. But I will never choose an honorable death.
I’ll choose to live out my days in peace and quiet with Hilda and die old.