Chapter 45 A Riskier Escape, Part One

The wheels rumbled and grated against the cobblestone, vibrating our carriage with every rotation. Even with our speed, we still accelerated uncontrollably. The lemming was whipping the horses into a frenzy with a face contorted into desperation.

Finally, the first sign of opposition we encountered took the form of a makeshift barrier lined with a corps of soldiers.

"SURRENDER NOW!" a lead guardsman shouted from within the chaos. "IF YOU DO, I PROMISE TO MAKE YOUR DEATHS PAINLESS!"

"NO THANKS!" I bellowed back. "YOU COULD SURRENDER, THOUGH!"

Upon hearing my response, the lead guardsman ignored me; instead, he shouted to his subordinates to prepare themselves for a fight. "YOU HEARD THE HERO! KILL 'EM ALL!"

"YES, SIR!" Some thrust spears and longswords forward, while others frantically kited new additions to their pathetic barricade. From fruit baskets to barrels to small crates, the city guards took refuge behind them and loosed a volley of arrows to delay our advance.

I threw up my armored arms and readied myself to smash the projectiles from the air. Though I never tried swiping arrows from the sky, I've had baseballs launched at me. The premise was essentially the same, right?

'Yeah, I'll be fine,' I closed my eyes, tapping into my instincts, into the deepest depths of my core. If I was going to block a barrage of arrows, it wouldn't be while stuck in thought.

My mind emptied; my sole focus was deflecting the danger looming over the lemming and me. So I waited, and waited, and waited until they were within a perfect swiping distance.

'Now!' I internally roused myself into action. I swung my hand in a wide arc, ready to cast the arrows aside with my gauntlet and roll straight through.

Only...I missed?

Though I was planning to shove the arrows aside at an angle, I still expected wounds or even just the feeling of an impact. But I felt nothing.

I brought my hand and forearm to view. Rather than cuts and bruises, my arm was left entirely unscathed. I focused my gaze upwards, remembering a crucial detail I'd forgotten. 'We have a goddamn barrier!'

The arrows were locked in suspended animation, just like how it'd been with the window before. The arrows' shafts trembled from the force of an outstretched blue-green barrier, and their tips violently quaked in place.

Like before, the trembling soon ceased as the arrows were slungshot backward.

They whizzed through the air randomly, peppering the soldiers in front of us with a torrent of wood and iron. Smashing crates and splintering arrows sounded out amongst the soldiers' screams. The ones who survived the barrage looked on in complete shock, including the lead guardsman.

Watching them get annihilated by their own attacks, with their own carriage, no less, I couldn't help but insult them! I cackled as loudly as humanly possible. "You're a bunch of damn idiots! How could you get forget your own 'magic!'" I had to latch my arms to my seat. If I didn't, I might've fallen off laughing.

Barreling past them, we shattered their sad excuse for a barrier into two barely recognizable halves. While we bowled through with the fury of a wrecking ball, the audible crunching of wood and fiber accompanied the carriage's violent rocking.

That's when I caught a glimpse of the lead guardsman. His face was still frozen in dismay from getting overwhelmed so easily. I cast a triumphantly mocking grin in his direction. "SHOULD'VE TAKEN MY OFFER!"

Though he didn't have a verbal response, his face went red with rage as we passed him by.

Various parts of crates and other debris flew upward around us. It created a shower of vandalism that I relished in.

I know it's crazy. I know that an ordinary person would feel anxious, fearful even, at the situation. An average person would be dreading what's to come. But me? I couldn't stop the stirring of joy and excitement inside my heart.

Raising a fist to the rising Sun, I shouted, "THIS IS AMAZING!" and laughed loudly like a mad fool. I honestly felt that moment was what we all secretly longed for. To smash everything in our path and force our way through any obstacle. I was too filled with happiness to care about anything else.

However, it was time for a reality check.

Almost to meet my arrogance, there stood the knight with no equal in Blackwood. The knight who actually…genuinely instilled fear in my core.

Between us and the gate we needed to cross for freedom, he stood with arms crossed over the hilt of his sword, its blade buried into the cobblestone. Though his stance was unguarded, I couldn't shake the feeling we were riding straight into the unlatched jaws of death.

I smiled once more. However, the grin wasn't one of elation. Instead, it was born from a deep-rooted anxiety. Despite everything, he could calmly stare us down like a wolf would with cornered prey.

Even though…no…because I'm so reliant on my instincts, I knew I was no match for him.

"HEY!" the lemming shouted. "We're running straight through!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" I shrieked. Though I'm reluctant to admit it, my usual ferocity was entirely upturned. For the first time in my life, I felt an intense urge to retreat...like a coward.

I had a pit of profound angst within my gut, where a fire of zeal usually roared. I could feel my insides churning as my mind frantically told me to abandon ship and run. I was terrified.

We closed in, and the gray knight still hadn't budged an inch. He patiently waited to meet our challenge. Reinforcing him was an arsenal of soldiers bracing themselves behind wooden spiked fortifications.

My body recoiled backward in my seat. 'Are we really doing this?!' I clutched my stirring chest to calm my loudly thumping heartbeats. 'Dammit, how do I shake this off?!'

I ground my teeth together, desperately thinking about how to quell my instincts. 'How did the annoyance do it?' I wondered, thinking back on Agawa. A brief moment later, it clicked. I remembered how Agawa shook off her fear.

I clenched my jaw and let loose a beastly growl. "LIKE HELL I'LL LET YOU SHOW ME UP!" Then, I raised my fist and plunged it with fury into my gut. It was already difficult to breathe on account of the biting winds. Yet, despite that, my strike was what robbed me of my ability to inhale. Luckily, that wasn't the only thing I had stolen from me.

Thanks to my efforts, the fear poisoning my body and mind was washed away, too.

With renewed courage, I stood and bellowed a war cry. "Bring it on, you fucking mob characters!"

Arrows, spears, fire, and ice...they hurled everything they had at us in a final struggle. The arrows and spears, as expected, only ricocheted off with a vengeance in random directions.

As for the fire, once it made contact with the barrier, it plumed around us in a red-orange haze. We avoided any burns, courtesy of the barrier, but I still felt the heat of the blaze on my skin.

The horses squealed in a panic but maintained their stampede into the raging inferno. Even when we'd become enveloped by the heat, the mares loyally continued their charge forward.

Once the fire dissipated, what assailed us wasn't the immolation of flame but the chill of frost. A hailstorm of pale blue icy shards pelted the barrier around our wagon. Like glass, they fractured into slivers before being carried off by the soaring winds as nothing more than frigid particles.

After surviving so many attacks, our escape was close at hand.

'We're almost there!" is what I wanted to say, but we still had to confront our greatest obstacle. It would be the deciding factor of our fate. It was the one that merely stared with disinterest while its allies panicked and scattered.

HE would be the final trial to overcome before we crawled our way out of literal hell. Remembering his name from earlier, I decided to issue an official challenge.

"HARMONNN!" I shrieked.