Chapter 119

"William, I have an idea—a somewhat risky one." Kraft tore his gaze from the boulders blocking the path, drew a torch and handed it to William. "Don't put down that stone yet—it'll be useful right away."

"This isn't the Academy of Letters. You don't have to be so circumspect. You can drop the 'somewhat' too." William pressed the fuel-wrapped end of the torch to the flame, lit it, and hefted the long stone in his hand.

It was too heavy for one-handed use, and he couldn't swing it more than a few times—but they wouldn't get the chance to fight that thing for dozens or hundreds of rounds anyway.

"The good news is, we don't have to dig through the rock layer ourselves."

"How so?"

"There's just the right excavation expert here. I'm certain that under the right circumstances, it won't begrudge a small favor." He drew his longsword; its silver glow flowed around unknown stubborn stains—likely not human blood.

"First, those monsters who plaster themselves with human faces are everywhere, and the sounds they make are tied to the things that built these caves."

"In a way, this guidance is quite precise. Though I don't fully understand the mechanism, that doesn't stop me from using it. As long as we pass through this spot, it'll easily turn these stones into rubble."

"So how do we guarantee we don't become rubble ourselves?" The plan sounded brutally simple. William had no doubt that before that thing, rock was no different from burnt, brittle black bread.

"We can go down to the next level. Wait until it finishes this small favor, then come back up."

"You said it needs time—and the right environment." William pointed out the flaw in time. Kraft's timing was too delicate.

Suppose that thing were a stupid bull. To make it knock over a short wall behind it, you'd need the perfect position and the exact moment—not too early, not too late. Standing before the obstacle, waiting to dodge at the last second before it charges—that trick could easily get you crushed.

"And you can't expect those faces to cooperate. Why should they help you?"

"That's the risk." Kraft flexed his wrist, spun a sword flourish. "Fortunately, I have an excellent way of persuasion—even when they don't understand Nordish."

"I guess you don't mean persuasion."

"Broadly speaking, it's still about making them act according to our needs—just not necessarily through linguistic tricks."

There was some logic to it, but William still found it unreliable. Inflicting damage and then escaping after a dozens-round battle were two entirely different things. "Exactly how?"

…

【First, actively seek them out】

That wasn't hard. Deepening the cave, they didn't need to go far. At the depth where the cracks faded, they heard the sound of hard shells striking rock.

"Mutual attraction?"

A drumbeat rhythm rose from the bottomless dark. A blade-like tool lifted its body, perhaps something like a centipede to accommodate so many limbs.

Like a winter nightmare, icy rain tapped on tiles, a sound between dream and reality, echoing both inside and outside the mind. Cold dread and insects drawn by body heat crept into clothes, skin itching uncomfortably. You stared at the circular opening—like an open door, inviting something to enter.

And so it—or they—arrived as promised. The drumming of shell against rock surged, drew closer, paused at its peak, then gradually halted before the circle of light.

White emerged from the dark: a clean, aged local face, untouched by dust or skin pigment, slack and barely holding together. Like an old cloth repeatedly washed and faded, stretched taut over a wooden frame too large for it, barely retaining human form.

Yet on that face, Kraft still found a match to his memory—a resemblance to the boy who once fetched water alone, now aged by decades of maturity and toil.

Beside it was a foreigner's face: a burn scar stretching from the lower left jaw to beneath the eye utterly destroyed what little scholarly air remained. Some liquid had been splashed, burning and corroding; improper healing had pulled the brow, eyes, and nose toward the lower left, turning every attempt at expression into a more horrifying grin.

【Then, don't wait for them to strike first】

Kraft twisted the flesh on William's spine. The sharp, crushing pain, though anticipated, broke the influence—he swung the stone with all his might.

"Damn thing, go to hell!"

The stone embedded with green crystals was swung by a thick arm—a natural warclub, perfectly suited to combat. It might not be elegant, but its lethality was directly proportional to its weight.

Behind the faces, the darkness stirred. It seemed prepared. A sharp shadow detached from the deep black, formless darkness becoming tangible, coalescing behind the face's ear into an inconspicuous tuft like a lock of hair.

It excelled at this: the face was the lure, the distraction, the veil before a cruel strike.

A sharp, dull-lustered limb shot out, hooking toward William's eye. Only someone in a frenzy could even notice it—still bewildered by how a shadow could move on its own.

A sword tip pierced between them, intercepting the path. The attack meant to pierce the orbital wall and pierce the frontal lobe before William swung the stone struck the sword's ridge—steel met chitin.

Sharp barbs scraped across the metal surface, a grating noise seeping into consciousness, making teeth ache as if decayed.

But one weapon's momentum was already set—just follow inertia and swing. The other, held by an experienced hand, withdrew after blocking, then swept sideways, chopping the spine stabbing upward from below, leaving a notch.

Meanwhile, the captain's fury descended upon the most repulsive chemical-burned face.

The effect of the massive blunt weapon was extraordinary. The support behind the broad, flat face shattered and collapsed. The follow-through swept aside the nearby local face, hurling it back into darkness.

The longsword thrust out again, deflecting the counterattack now nearing William's side.

"How did you see that?" Sweat dripped. William hadn't expected to walk the edge of life and death in a single swing—yet Kraft hadn't even glanced his way. The ghostly blade seemed to have eyes, single-handedly matching the speed of attacks from the dark faster than a thrusting rapier.

"I don't need to see." The swordsman thrust at empty air. His dilated pupils, in the hazy light, had no focus. His movements had no discernible origin.

Instantly, three faces surfaced side by side, colliding with the steel blade already waiting—timing so perfect it resembled a flawless stage play, minor villains perfectly executing the hero's predetermined move. The faces split in two, peeling off like a multi-pored convex surface.

Tiny things stirred within the hollows, sinking back into darkness. More could be seen in the carved sword marks: hook-like small limbs, structures replacing facial muscles to control the stiff dead smile.

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The sight—sufficient to make a person with dense phobia immediately gouge out their eyes—deepened his revulsion toward the things in the dark. He swung the stone again—and missed.

Kraft turned, using precise swordsmanship to fill the gap, striking down the limb and giving another face a new scar.

Beyond swordsmanship, it was pure, irrational prophecy—clarifying darkness, motion preceding sight. Something inexplicable guided the blade.

"Wait until you see clearly before striking—don't mess things up!" Criticizing a teammate mid-battle was a skill mastered by an otherworldly soul. Kraft's brief command carried anger and instruction, delivered with perfect clarity.

His actual situation wasn't as effortless as it looked. Within the range of his spiritual senses, what he glimpsed was only the tip of the iceberg—barely enough for simple prediction.

The things beyond the light kept shifting. Some interference prevented their outlines from ever becoming clear. All he knew was that before them rose multiple protrusions—like skulls crowding together.

Some surfaces were covered by thin layers. Roughly, at least a dozen faces. Compared to the first encounter, the size disparity within the species far exceeded imagination. Different faces took turns appearing, trying every variation to find one they recognized.

Limbs drifted across the amorphous body, as if truly emerging from solidified darkness, sprouting like buds, dynamically growing.

The most troubling part was the limbs' tendency to converge toward them. At first, he only had to handle two or three. If he delayed further, even with three heads and six arms, he'd die here today.

But fortunately, Kraft didn't need to fight to the death.

"William, front-right!" Seizing the moment when several more faces advanced, Kraft tossed aside the torch, gripped the sword with both hands, and slashed a limb. As it writhed back in pain, he shouted to William.

The stone smashed into the invisible realm, carving a gap between the faces. The flexible parts' chitin offered limited protection. The sword plunged straight through, bypassing the honeycomb-like protrusions, sinking halfway into the body.

The mass of growing faces and limbs trembled. After a moment's buildup, a tremendous horn blast erupted. The limbs, which had begun retreating, thrashed wildly.

Kraft tried to pull his sword free for defense, but tightened tissues and chitin slowed the motion.

The correct choice would've been to let go immediately—save the man, lose the sword. But that option had never been rehearsed in his mind. His emotional bond with the weapon, companion for years, forbade him from making such a decision in an instant.

In the first instant, he reflexively kicked out a leg, drawing on training experience from fighting normal humans or beasts, using his leg to generate force and remove the obstruction, kicking away the severely injured or dead target to retrieve his weapon.

With one foot off the ground, reason reclaimed the high ground; Kraft realized that in that split second, influenced by emotion and conditioned reflex, he had committed an unassailable but extremely serious mistake—his opponent was not a normal creature, and no one knew what magnitude of risk this action entailed.

The horn sound echoed through the space, followed immediately by vibration. William saw, within the surging shadows, crippled limbs frantically scratching and cutting, while a pale, broad, flat human face simultaneously twisted into a shriveled, grotesque, inhuman form, as Kraft drew his sword from the darkness and retreated swiftly.