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“My duke!”
Luisen ran like crazy. He had roughly memorized the right path, so he just had to avoid capture. Ruger followed close behind.
‘Why is he so good at running?’
Ruger ran like a bolting deer. Luisen mustered all the strength he could access from deep within him. His face turned red and sweat flowed like rain. Luisen’s body was not used to the rough and rugged forest path, filled with tree roots and stones. Back then, he would insist on riding on a carriage if he had to walk more than three steps.
Soon after, Luisen tripped *heroically* over some jagged pebbles, and Ruger, sporting a despondent expression, grabbed Luisen’s wrist. Luisen spent what strength he had, but ultimately the chase was cut short.
“My lord, why have you needlessly wasted energy like this?” Ruger asked dispiritedly.
“……”
He knew it was pointless. Though his heart would have crossed the forest twice already, his feet could not follow. Luisen hung his head, embarrassed.
However, Ruger then suddenly stopped approaching. “Shit,” he swore softly.
“……?”
‘Did he just curse? To me?’ Luisen’s eyes became comically round. “No matter how much I lied to you, isn’t cursing just too much? I’m still your master…”
“Not, not you, my duke.”
“Huh?”
Luisen looked forward. Yellow eyes were floating in the darkness. A loud and creepy growl broke the silence.
One by one, the eyes stepped forward. Short and green-skinned, bulging eyeballs set in a bizarre face, and skinny except for a bloated stomach…a goblin appeared.
“Why is a goblin here….”
Goblin.
Monsters that lived in the forest. However, they lived in the deep and humid wetland areas of the woods and never left their designated habitat.
They were generally afraid of large groups of people, so they never appeared close to the roads… So why were they here right now?
“Hide behind me.” Ruger had already drawn his sword. Luisen dove behind his back on instinct.
Three goblins approached them, but only Ruger had a sword. Though swordsmanship was considered an aristocratic endeavor and many noblemen cultivated such an ability, the four great lords concerned themselves more with matters of governance. Luisen was different from the general aristocracy; he ruled over those who would fight for him. Since he would never use the sword in any official capacity, he had never learned swordsmanship properly. He didn’t pack a sword for travel, either.
The old him didn’t want to learn before, but now he desperately wished he’d been more studious!
His retainers would bar him from using even a letter knife, worried that he’d hurt himself. Thus, if Luisen wanted to learn swordsmanship, he would surely meet vehement protests.
Anyway, the goblins in front of them were a more pressing issue. The green monsters narrowed the distance between them, little by little. Thankfully, Ruger, counter to his usual image, was quite proficient with the sword. The situation could have been worse.
“I’ll fend them off and then follow after you. Please run to the left, towards the direction of Dubless,” Ruger said.
“….Okay.”
Kek, Kek!
The goblins all attacked simultaneously. At the same time, Ruger lunged forward, sword aimed at one of their necks. Without any extraneous movements, his sword drew a clean cut across, beheading the monster.
Keghk! A single goblin instantly extinguished with a scream. A gap formed in the goblins’ siege.
‘Now!’
Luisen immediately ran through that gap, heading towards the enemy barracks.
“Duke! Ah, damn it! To the left I said!”
“Sorry!” Luisen shouted.
Ruger couldn’t follow as he was blocked by the goblins. Similarly, the two remaining goblins couldn’t turn to follow Luisen since Ruger’s sword demanded their attention.
But as he was running through the forest, a waiting goblin suddenly appeared out of the underbrush before him. Perhaps this goblin was a straggler, as it seemed surprised to see Luisen instead of its scout mates. Immediately, it pounced on him.
“Urk!”
Luisen stepped backwards to avoid the goblin’s nails. His heart felt as if it was about to burst, his throat clogged with the smell of blood. The muscles in his thighs were spasming, and his ankle felt sore whenever his foot touched the ground–perhaps he had sprained it as he was staggering around in the forest. Regrettably, the opposing goblin was quite agile. Luisen kept running backwards to escape but eventually stumbled onto the ground.
*thud*
“My duke!”
Ruger shouted, but he was unable to come and help his master. The goblin laughed sinisterly and rushed closer to Luisen, its small, yellow eyes glistening. It’s teeth, unlike a human’s, were dense and pointed, making horrible clacking sounds as they gnashed against each other.
The sight was dirty and horrifying.
Luisen began to crawl backwards, throwing whatever he could lay hands on in the goblin’s direction.
“Go away! Don’t come any closer!”
“Kek, kek.”
Luisen’s struggles had no effect. The goblin raised its club–which was the size of its own head–high in the air. Just one swing of that club would crush Luisen’s delicate head, sending him straight to heaven. These goblins were stronger than they seemed; they weren’t called monsters for nothing.
Perhaps dying with one quick swing wouldn’t be so bad?
Rather than living a long, clumsy, and useless life, maybe it would have been better to just die immediately. How many times before had he thought it would have been better to die than to live a sinful and painful life? When the saint moistened his lips with wine while the two slowly awaited the messenger of death’s scythe, Luisen had been afraid but also slightly relieved that he would finally be freed.
He couldn’t have imagined he would be sent back to the past.
‘But…If I died here, everyone would think I perished while running away, right?’
How pathetic. He would become a lord who perished at the hands of goblins after taking the wrong road while cowardly escaping battle.
If he died here, he would suffer a far worse reputation than what he had pre-regression. His name would pass as an insult between the little ones in the kingdom.
‘I can’t die here! Think about it, Luisen! How can I deal with monsters?’
Luisen suddenly recalled the words of the one-armed pilgrim, the saint he desperately believed in.
‘The eyes!’
Luisen grabbed some soil and threw it into the goblin’s eyes. Simultaneously, he kicked at it with all his might. It was a rather powerful kick, containing all his anger and his refusal to die so helplessly. The goblin’s body flew back with a thud, and the impact caused it to start convulsing.
‘……?’
Were his kicks really that strong? Did he have some hidden ability to kill goblins with one kick?
‘I didn’t think that would work.’
Luisen blinked. When he looked at the goblin corpse again, he noticed a spear piercing its body. The moment his feet had collided with the goblin, it seemed a spear had flown in and killed it.
‘If I hadn’t fallen back and kicked the goblin…I might have also died.’
Goosebumps travelled up his trembling skin. As he observed the corpse with fearful eyes, something in the dark caught his attention.
A death knight.
A black knight of death was standing in the darkness.
He wore black armor and a black cape–even his horse was all black. It was just as if a knight’s shadow had come to life. Slowly, his horse approached Luisen.
*rattle, clink*
The armor signaled his approach, rattling at the joints and scraping against itself with every movement. The chilling ring of the iron scratched at Luisen’s ears.
‘No, the knight of death is simply my own delusion. Nothing like that actually exists. Go away!’
But then…how did a spear pierce and kill the goblin? Was the knight actually real? Luisen opened his eyes slowly, and the death knight was still there…It seemed it was not an illusion.
Luisen’s face turned pale, and his heart began to skip beats. A white fog settled within his mind.
For a moment, Luisen had forgotten he was travelling to Carlton’s barracks to surrender, to prevent a tragedy.
‘He…He’s come to judge me. You’ve been chasing me…come to tear my body to pieces and cast my soul into hell.’
Luisen tried to crawl away from the death knight, but he ended up just wriggling on the ground. He felt as if his arms and legs were paralyzed.
A completely different pressure than when he had faced the goblin weighed down on Luisen. He felt suffocated. He was entranced, bound by the knight’s gaze, and couldn’t tear his eyes away. Though the moment lasted for only a second, time felt like it was dragging by.
The death knight opened his mouth, “Luisen Anies?”
“……?”
A low pitched voice had come from the gaps of the knight’s helm–a human?
Ironically, the chilling voice snapped Luisen’s spirit back into reality.
‘Huh? He talked? He called for me?’
Only then did Luisen notice that the knight in front of him was not headless. This man was not the knight of death from legends.
“That’s me,” Luisen responded.
The knight’s voice sounded somewhat derisive. He looked down upon Luisen with disgust in his eyes.
‘Who’s this anyway?’ Luisen thought. His gaze was one he couldn’t forget. It was the same gaze he’d received from passersby when he’d been wandering as a beggar.
“You are…”
The knight did not allow Luisen to ask questions. He suddenly grabbed Luisen by the collar and dragged his body, dangling in the wind like a piece of paper, upwards. Luisen was then loaded onto the horse’s rump like a piece of luggage. The saddle dug into his soft belly.
“Ngh!”
The knight turned his horse around and started to gallop. He sped up as if he had already forgotten his bedraggled passenger. The black horse ran at an unbelievable speed, not slowed down in the slightest by the addition of the weight of another adult man.