Chapter Volume 1, 7: Bandits Gang?

Volume 1, Chapter 7: Bandits Gang③

A while later, they saw the line of buildings, indicating that they were near the village now.

「Uhm, it’s over there huh.」

「K-Knight-sama… Uhm, Are you… Really… Alright? 」

「Just leave it to me…… Was what I wanted to say, but I understand so little about the situation.」

Lambert was by no means a timid person. It was just the fact that those bandits were acting a little too strange compared to what he knew. And, that’s why Lambert wondered whether it was a trap prepared for him.

「Those thieves are staying a little too long in one place… The risk and return aren’t balanced at all. I feel it’s strange since the thieves from before were just too weak.」

「W-What do you mean…?」

Lambert stayed still. Noticing his action, the girl also stopped and turned around to face him, only to find Lambert looking at her.

「Knight-sama? 」

「… Well, I guess there’s no need to worry about that for now. After settling this matter, I’ll be able to investigate this matter properly. If the branch is rotten, the leaves on the branch must be rotten too. The best way is to sever the rotten branch before it spreads around the tree.」

「A-Are you… Talking about the village? 」

「Don’t mind it, leave everything to me.」

Lambert increased his pace without answering the girl’s question.

The village was devastated.

The weakened and thin villagers were being pushed around all over the place by the thieves. Their hands were holding scythes or whips threatened the villagers while forcing them into manual labor. The sight of the villagers cowering in fear, served as an amusement for them.

Those who erred would either get their fingers smashed with the scythe, lashed with the whip, or worse, killed on the spot. Truly unrestrained, the thieves behaved as they pleased.

In a corner of the village, corpses of five villagers were thrown disorderly.

There was no specific pattern to these corpses lying haphazardly in the corner. It comprised of men and women of various ages. These people were the ones who’d rebelled, starved to death or were accidentally killed by the occasional thieves who went too far.

The number of deaths that happened after the thieves occupied the village were close to twenty. And to deal with it, they made the villagers that were alive dig a big hole before dumping the corpses into it all at once.

The leader of the thieves was particularly nasty because he deliberately gathered the surviving villagers to watch as the dead were rudely dumped into the giant pit. It seemed like he couldn’t get enough of the expression the villagers made when they had to watch that scene.

When he arrived in the village, Lambert stopped in his tracks and took in that scene.

「I see, a cruel one indeed…」

He said out loud as he appeared in the middle of the village; without drawing his sword from its sheath.

At the time of his arrival, one of the thieves was lashing his whip at the half-naked villager who was trembling badly, at their wits end.

「HeHe, Hey you over there, You’re moving like a turtle you kno~w? You must be trying to anger me, ri~ght? NAAH! Shall I kill your daughter ne~xt? HAAH? 」

Lambert, who felt that the villager might not be able to endure another hit, directed his killing intent towards the thief. And, as if he felt a chill running through his spine, the thief raised his head, only to spot Lambert and the girl who stood slightly away from him.

「Wuzzar hell are ya! Oi, another stranger has come to this village! Someone, come help me! 」

The thief shouted.

「Splendid, feel free to gather all your comrades. It saves me the trouble of looking for those guys.」

「HAH, What are y-…」

At that moment, Lambert had closed in on the thief.

「……EH?U-UWAAAAA! 」

Startled, the thief randomly lashed at him with his whip. Lambert was unfazed with his action though. He dodged every single attack that the thief used by using peculiar footwork before he took a stance in front of the thief.

And while from the thief’s point of view the whip just passed through Lambert’s after image as his body was moving fast enough that it left a blurry image of Lambert’s body, in actuality, it was not the case. Lambert had grasped every single movement of the whip that even the user himself couldn’t do.

Lambert knew though that he didn’t need to dodge at all, but he did anyway because he wanted to show the overwhelming disparity in their power. He wanted to show himself as a threat.

「W-What the…」

And just like that, Lambert lightly tackled the thief. The thief didn’t even have the chance to take a defensive posture before he passed out from the collision with Lambert’s overwhelming mass. Furthermore, after being thrown to the ground by his shoulder, coupled with his own weight, impact, and his defenseless landing posture, it ended up with his arm being bent in an unnatural direction.

Lambert didn’t let up though because he immediately gripped the thief’s shoulder and forced him to sit upright.

「How many members does your group have, excluding you?　」

「A-AgA…… A……」

Unfortunately for Lambert, the thief couldn’t speak properly since not only his arm was dislocated, so was his jaw.

「Here I thought you were going to take a defensive posture, and yet… You guys are so brittle huh.」

Lambert stood as he drew his great sword and beheaded the thief. He then shifted his attention toward the incoming mana he felt from the five people approaching him, not bothering to sheath his great sword again.

「L-Lachis! 」

「YOU MONSTER BASTARD! KILL HIM! 」

Ignoring the thieves’ screams, Lambert set his greatsword using a lower stance, and made a beeline toward the thieves.

「F-FAS-____! 」

「ORAAAAAA! 」

And raised it again, slicing up the thief from his crotch all the way till his head.

The thief’s body that was sliced clean in two was pushed back, splashing blood and innard in its wake.

It was an instant death.

And thus the thief succumbed, long before his face full of astonishment could change to fear.

「…………… WHAT! 」

Looking at this scene, the other four thieves’s faces were dyed in fear as they stood there. Unfortunately for them, before the corpse of the first thief even fell to the ground, Lambert had already made a detour, circling by the side of the corpse and closed in on the other thieves.

Lambert used his greatsword to slash at the thieves three times, and three of the thieves were decapitated. He intentionally left one alive.

Panicked, screaming at the top of his lungs, the last thief alive from that group of five swung his wooden club that had stone attached to it.

「UWAAAAAAAAAA! 」

「Too slo~w! 」

Lambert weilded his great sword and severed both of his arms, stabbing the blade into the thief’s stomach. Then he hoisted the thief’s body. [ED: …Impaler?]

「Aaargh… Aaaarghh…」

From the place where Lambert stabbed his great sword into the thief’s abdomen, some blood and viscera spurted on him.

「Aside from the five of you, how many remain now? 」

「E-Eight…… It’s Eighteen, there’s only eighteen of us left…」

The thief said as he tried to strike at the sides of Lambert’s greatsword with what was left from his arms.

「I see, thanks a lot.」

With that said, Lambert swung down his great sword.

The thief was nothing more than a lump of flesh now. Lambert ignored that though and just pulled out his greatsword by stepping on the corpse’s abdomen with his foot.

It will be troublesome if they are to escape… I want to know their numbers first.

Lambert stopped to think after he got the answer he wanted. Then, he ran around the village, slaughtering the thieves as he went. Keeping count inside his head as he then disposed of those thieves.

「You… WHAT THE HELL ARE YOUUU! 」

One of the thieves rushed at him while screaming at the top of his lungs. Lambert easily parried the thief’s sword with his armor covered arm, seized that thief’s head and slammed him as hard as possible to the ground.

The thief’s head got smashed, blood seeping from the hole that used to be his face.

With this, ten people left… I don’t even need to draw my sword here. Both this guy and the one before… for this village that couldn’t even take care of these guys, are they really safe?

As he waved his arm to get rid of the blood stains, Lambert, who was always comparing the current era with his era, was really puzzled. Even as puzzled as he was, he still readied himself once again when he felt a few mana sources approaching him. And he felt that there were more than ten of them. And though it might be just his imagination, he felt that half of them were weaker than the rest.

Hoho… They bringing along hostages with them, huh

As he expected, the thieves appeared not next to their comrades, but with what was apparently defenseless women and children. They were hostages.

The hands of the hostages were tied with a rope, their mouths stuffed with cloth. They were being pulled about by the rope around their necks.

There were only three hostages here, each being held by a thief.

The number of thieves left are ten people according to the information I was given…these people might be all of them.

Hiding deep behind the crowds were a big bulky man with a bald head, and a slender man with cunning eyes. The big man’s eyes were just like a glass sphere and there was no emotion within them. He was currently holding on a goblet made of a human skull.