The Strange Adventure of a Broke Mercenary

Chapter 35: Discovery from Battle

“Klaus, don’t step up too far up.”

Layla’s warning rang out but Klaus ignored her, drew his sword, and continued to charge.

The undead glanced at the blade, which was shining brightly reflecting the sun’s rays, and took a step back. Seeing that, Klaus smiled.

“Zombies are no match for me!”

Since the undead had physical bodies and were able to move under the sunlight, Klaus guessed that they were zombies.

Zombies, which were one of the lowest rank undead monsters, were able to increase their numbers by biting and killing their prey, but in terms of strength copper rank adventurers could beat them easily.

For iron ranks, even if the zombies’ numbers were a few times larger than the party’s, they could exterminate them easily.

But that didn’t matter to Klaus.

He was an up-and-coming adventurer, and expected of great things.

And for a particular reason, he needed to show everyone how skilled he was.

That’s why he decided to take the lead while the other adventurers hesitated.

The girls in his party understood that, so they followed after him with no complaints.

“Go back to being dead!”

The blade flashed and struck the neck of the zombie in the front.

Since they were already slow moving, there was no way it could dodge the attack, so the blade ripped through its flesh.

But Klaus frowned at the feeling that reached his hand.

If they were zombies, their flesh should be brittle from the injuries and rotting.

But the zombie that he had just cut down looked no different from when it was alive, and he couldn’t see any traces of wounds or rotting.

He had also swung the sword with enough strength to cut a man’s head off cleanly, Klaus had felt resistance and wasn’t able to cut through.

“You!”

But Klaus was an iron rank adventurer.

As soon as he felt resistance he put in more strength and forced the blade through and kicked away the now headless body.

“They’re hard!”

Next to him, Layla swung her sword at a zombie’s shoulder, but it was stopped at the collarbone. She swept its feet from under it as it started reaching for her, pulled her sword out of its shoulder, and brought it down on its neck, twisting the blade to wrench its neck off.

“These aren’t zombies!”

At Layla’s warning, Roll folded her hands in front of her chest and mumbled a prayer, then gasped as she opened her eyes.

“Everyone, they aren’t zombies. They are revenants!”

Everyone tensed at Roll’s warning.

Revenants were ‘those who returned’, and were a type of undead.

They occurred almost the same way as zombies. Someone dying with strong attachments to the living world, made by a high ranking undead being, or magic.

The difference between them and zombies was that although zombies have quite a bit of strength, it was still about the same as the body before it died, while revenants were way stronger than the body was before it died and had some intelligence.

They were stronger than zombies, and was hard for copper ranks to face head on, and if there were enough of them, they could overpower iron ranks as well.

“Do they need reinforcements?”

Broas reached for his weapon.

After glancing at Broas and saw that his weapons were twin battle axes, and turned his attention back to Klaus.

“I don’t think so.”

Klaus’ fighting was incredible enough for Loren to give him that good of an evaluation.

Even after finding out that their enemies were revenants, Klaus didn’t flinch and continued to swing his sword at them.

Each stroke of the blade reduced a revenant to pieces, and after looking at them go, Broas lowered his hands from his weapons.

“I guess he wasn’t all talk after all.”

“I guess so.”

Loren nodded at Broas’ words.

Setting aside whether he liked Klaus or not, the skill and strength that he possessed was indeed impressive.

“You just going to be an indifferent spectator?”

“Don’t know yet. We’ll see.”

Loren replied to Broas like that, but knew that he was correct about one thing.

Loren was certain that the reason why Klaus kept butting into him was because he was participating in the quest using connections.

Loren was sure that Klaus didn’t like the fact someone without the necessary skill had managed to snag a job that wasn’t meant for them. So Loren was curious whether or not Klaus himself had the accordingly skillful and strong.

But only half of his attention was focused on the fight. The other half was focused around them. It was odd that ten to twenty undead would suddenly appear on the road.

He thought that the cause of it was lurking somewhere in the area.

There was also a possibility that whatever generated the undead was using the revenants as bait and could ambush them from somewhere.

Undead had low intelligence in general, but high rank beings that could create undead were often as intelligent or even more intelligent that humans.

One of the famous ones were vampires, and even Loren knew about them.

“Maybe I’m worrying too much.”

“Hmm?”

“Just talking to myself. Anyways, it looks like it’s going to be over soon.”

As Loren pointed out, the number of revenants that were fighting Klaus and his party were going down steadily.

Not only Klaus, but the knight named Layla was quite skilled with the sword as well, and every time the blade flashed a revenant fell, and when the priestess Roll hit them with her mace, the moving undead became the dead.

The only one that didn’t have a turn was the magician Ange, but that was something that couldn’t be helped.

Along with the fact that there was no need for her to assist her party members with magic, since they were all skilled, there was a limit to how many spells magicians could use.

Calmly assessing the situation and knowing how to not use spells when it is not necessary was also a talent.

“This is it!”

It happened when Klaus took a step towards the last remaining revenant.

As he kicked the ground, his feet and the longsword in his hand gave off a phosphorescent glow.

“What the hell is that!?”

As Broas yelled in surprise and Loren’s eyes slightly widened, Klaus’ strike that was faster than any of them before dug into the revenant’s shoulder and cut it all the way down to its waist with no resistance at all.

“Klaus!? You idiot!”

“Klaus…”

“Looks like he got carried away.”

Klaus gave Loren a smug look but was soon being scolded by the girls in his party.

“How many times have I told you not to show that for no reason!”

“B-but come on. It’s not that big of a deal…”

“Klaus, we don’t know who might be watching. We told you so many times to restrain yourself…”

“We could’ve won easily even if you didn’t use that. You’re such an idiot.”

“Ange, I was just…”

Apparently the cold words of the magician dealt the most damage, and Klaus faltered as he was trying to make an excuse.

Meanwhile, Broas stood frozen with his mouth wide open, still not able to believe what he just saw.

“What was that just now? He disappeared.”

“Your eyes couldn’t follow him, huh. Must suck to be old.”

“Piss off! Are you saying you could see him?”

“Well, yeah.”

Although that’s what he said, if he had been up against Klaus without knowing about that move, it was hard to say if he would be able to respond to it.

That’s how much faster Klaus’ movements had increased.

The sharpness of the sword he wielded was impressive as well.

It cut the hard body of a revenant into two with one strike.

It wasn’t like Loren couldn’t do the same himself, but that was with the weapon he had. An ordinary longsword would become dull before going halfway through it or even break.

“What in the world was that?”

“About that.”

Lapis joined in on their conversation.

Broas jumped in surprise at the voice behind him that crept up without him noticing, but Loren stood there unfazed and looked at Lapis suspiciously.

“You know what it is?”

“Yes, of course. I’m not a priestess of the Knowledge god for nothing, you know.”

Lapis puffed out her chest but Loren silently urged her to move on.

She let out a small sigh, looking unamused, but started to explain Klaus’ movements.

“That was probably <>.”

“Magic?”

Loren took a guess judging by its name, but Lapis shook her head.

“No. There is a spell that has a similar effect called <>. <> is a spell that amplifies the power of the person it’s casted on, but <> isn’t limited to the person himself, but it’s a ‘Gift’ that can also amplify the abilities of the user’s belongings as well.”

“That’s pretty convenient.”

If what Lapis said was true, Klaus could amplify the ability of not only his weapons and armor, but amplify the effectiveness of all his belongings and items as well.

Both Loren and Broas could understand how beneficial that was.

“It’s not something you could see every day. Most of the time, only people who have the potential to become heroes or braves can use that.”

Loren wasn’t sure what the difference between a hero and a brave was, but was certain that they were existences leagues above others. He sighed as he couldn’t help but think that it was a bother that someone like Klaus, who was something close to them, hated him.

“I guess…it could be a talent to get conceited about.”

Loren wondered why someone with such talents would be an adventurer, but stopped thinking about it as he decided that no matter what was going on with Klaus, he was unrelated to it.

“Right now he has the support of the Adventurer’s Guild, but it seems like it’s safe to say that he has the support of some country as well.”

“I don’t really care. Has nothing to do with me anyway. Probably won’t see them again after this job is done.”

Loren started walking forward as he said that.

Lapis followed him as he walked towards Klaus, who he had just said he had nothing to do with.

“What are you trying to do?”

“Nothing much, but for now…”

Instead of Klaus and the girls, who were still making a fuss, Loren turned towards the dead bodies lying all around them.

“We’ve got to bury them. We can’t just leave them in the open.”

“You’re right.”

Lapis nodded at the words that Loren had muttered.