Chapter 257
Chapter 257: Just Attack Their Weakness (2)
Kaaak!
The head Owlbear charged forward with an even more furious roar.
As the Owlbear got closer, Ghislaine suddenly stopped in his tracks.
Thud thud thud!
Due to inertia, Ghislaine’s feet left long marks on the ground as he slid toward the Owlbear.
Kaaak!
The Owlbear lifted its claws high to slam down on the approaching Ghislaine.
“Ugh!”
But Ghislaine’s movements were faster. Before he even collided with the Owlbear, his greatsword drew a wide arc.
Swish!
The monster’s head flew up into the sky. The headless body wobbled for a moment before collapsing to the ground.
Crash!
As the Owlbear fell, Ghislaine turned around and smiled brightly.
“You see? If you blow off their heads, they just die. And you get a clean hide too. Most monsters die if they lose their heads. Numbers are similar, so everyone just take one.”
“…….”
The knights had nothing to say.
Losing your head meant death for humans too. No, for most living beings, it would be the same.
If that was a weakness, then it was in essence like a dragon going around showing off its own weakness.
They wanted to refute, but there was no time for that as more Owlbears came charging.
Ghislaine dodged back and said, “Alright, everyone attack! Aim for the weak spots!”
“Tch! Let’s go! I can do that much!”
Kaor shouted boldly and rushed out. No one wanted to lose in a fight.
The knights followed behind Kaor, wielding their greatswords.
They had all trained various weapon techniques under Ghislaine’s guidance. Though spears and swords were their main weapons, training with greatswords meant they had no trouble fighting monsters.
Kaor swung his greatsword, charged with mana, at the approaching Owlbear.
Clang!
It was a bit rough, but he managed to slice cleanly through the neck in one swing. Cleaving through the thick and tough neck of the Owlbear in one go was a remarkable feat.
“Ooo!”
“Isn’t that guy amazing?”
“Really going to take them all down?”
The fleeing porters stopped in their tracks to watch.
With two of them already cleaving through Owlbear necks in one blow, they expected the remaining fifty knights to do the same.
“Ugh!”
However, the knight who swung at the Owlbear’s neck ultimately failed to sever it, getting hit and flying backwards instead.
The others experienced similar outcomes. Some knights even managed to nick only halfway through the neck, while others could barely land a hit at all.
“It’s not cutting!”
“W-wait a second!”
“What kind of monster is this tough!”
If it were just a normal attack, it might have been fine, but for these junior knights, it was tough to slice through the moving mass of the larger monster in one blow.
Keeek!
Naturally, the enraged Owlbear retaliated and dealt blows, sending them rolling.
“Let’s run! We misunderstood!”
“Quick, get on the wagon! We’re doomed!”
The concealed coachman and porters started stirring things up again, and the group hurriedly jumped onto the wagon.
At that moment, Ghislaine re-entered the fray and swung at the Owlbear’s neck while saying, “Tsk tsk, I knew this would happen. This is why you need to practice hard, right? Get up quickly. We’ll start special training as soon as we return.”
At his quiet voice, the knights scrambled to their feet.
Despite wearing armor and the Blood Python’s inner layer, they didn’t suffer major injuries. There was some shock, but they could still move.
“Hraaap!”
“Please let it be severed!”
“Die! Die!”
The Lord’s special training was frightening. The knights gathered all their strength to rain blows on the Owlbear.
The knights who had been dragged along were the weakest and laziest among them. Just a little while ago, they couldn’t even manage their mana.
Even when they exploded their mana, they couldn’t land proper hits, so the area around the Owlbear’s neck became a complete mess.
Kaaak!
The Owlbears screamed in pain. Being attacked continuously around the neck without dying only added to their agony.
In the midst of this chaotic frenzy, Ghislaine and Kaor had no choice but to keep intervening.
Of course, the knights weren’t fighting carelessly either. If they took a full hit from an Owlbear’s attack, they could easily end up majorly injured or dead.
Ghislaine shouted as he helped knights trapped in dangerous situations.
“Stand straight! Hold your sword properly!”
“You’re letting your legs go weak! What’s with this position!”
“Hey! What the hell have you been training up until now!”
Things had been busy lately, so he had let his guard down, but when it came time to be kicked into shape, Ghislaine was definitely doing the kicking.
While he was slicing through the Owlbear’s neck, he was simultaneously knocking down knights as well.
“Ugh! Lord! Right now in the middle of combat… Kaaak!”
“Can’t you wait until it’s over?”
“How can we attack first? Argh!”
Even amidst the knights’ cries, Ghislaine didn’t stop.
“You’re here because I can’t rely solely on words. The real battle is the training.”
The knights found themselves hit more often by Ghislaine disguised as training than by the Owlbear.
Seeing that, Kaor breathed a sigh of relief inwardly.
‘Phew, I’m just glad I could kill them all myself.’
It would be troublesome if someone saw them get hit like that. He had to look cool at all times.
Crash! Crash! Crash!
Thanks to Ghislaine’s frantic help, all the Owlbears were taken down. And all the knights beaten by Ghislaine also fell.
“Ugh…..”
“Seriously, I’m going to die during training…”
“I must be crazy… Should’ve run away sooner.”
The knights felt like they were on the verge of dying.
The current pain was nothing. From what was happening with the Lord, it truly seemed they’d need to kill over a hundred thousand monsters to go home.
And all the porters who witnessed this were dumbfounded.
“What’s that guy? He’s way too strong!”
“Taking down dozens of monsters and knights all by himself…”
“He’s the strongest hunter I’ve seen yet.”
As everyone gaped in admiration, Ghislaine was delightedly surveying the Owlbear corpses.
“Wow, what a lucky start. To gather so much Owlbear hide like this.”
The bodies of the Owlbears resembled bears. In other words, they had gathered plenty of bear hides.
The problem, however, was that the creatures were too large, making it incredibly inefficient to carry all of them into the mountains.
But since they hadn’t gone into the mountains yet, this issue could be easily resolved.
Ghislaine said to the coachmen, “Hey, I’ll roughly dismantle these, so take them back to the fortress and keep them safe. I’ll make sure you get extra pay for it.”
“Just leave it to us! We can handle a bit of dismantling.”
The coachmen eagerly accepted. It would be foolish to turn down free money.
With over a hundred porters and coachmen jumping in, the corpses were quickly dismantled. Though proper work had to be done in the fortress, they managed to get everything into the wagon.
“Well then, we’re off!”
The coachmen loaded the Owlbear byproducts and left.
Ghislaine led the remaining porters and knights into the mountains.
“Alright, let’s start the hunting and training again.”
With those words, a relentless hunt for monstrous creatures began.
Kaaak!
Keeeek!
Kwooo!
As befits a monster paradise, various creatures appeared from within the mountains.
There were goblins, of course, and even larger bugs resembling hyenas known as Bugbears, known for their huge stature and hideous faces.
But the results remained the same. No monster could evade Ghislaine’s sword, which aimed strictly at the “weak spots.”
While catching monsters, Ghislaine continued guiding the knights.
“What are you doing! Attack the weak points! The weak points!”
“Where’s the head!”
An unidentified round monster appeared. It was a roundish blob with limbs everywhere, making it impossible to tell where the weakness was.
Splat!
Ghislaine simply split it in two with a swipe and said, “This is a monster called Scorchi. There’s nothing to gain from killing it. From now on, if you come across a monster where you can’t tell where its head is, just slice it in half.”
“…….”
Easier said than done, but not everyone could do that.
Thus, the knights had no choice but to keep getting smacked by Ghislaine while hunting.
‘I want to go home…’
‘I should’ve practiced harder usually…’
‘Before I die by a monster, I’ll die from lord’s beating…’
Nervousness surged among the previously lax knights. Their focus had to be at peak level.
It was more painful being hit by Ghislaine than getting hit by a monster.
Splat! Splat! Boom!
The knights’ swords grew sharper and sharper. It was tough, but none of them could afford to slack off in combat.
The accompanying porters watched in awe at the scene.
The Shadow Mountain Range was so dangerous that it was even referred to as a catastrophe of the Turian Kingdom. Yet now, it seemed like a calamity had struck the monsters instead.
“Great, keep it up! Move faster!”
“Ugh! Please, slow down… Cough!”
Once Ghislaine got going, he went all out. A complaining knight got a smack and was dragged along.
Even with a hundred porters, Ghislaine’s hunting speed was so immense that the dismantling process lagged behind. Eventually, even knights had to crouch down and help dismantle the monsters.
“Um… We’ve got too much load. It’s impossible to carry more.”
Even the porters surrendered. No matter how great the hunting speed, it was beyond ridiculous.
Ghislaine clicked his tongue and collapsed into a sitting position.
“Geez, too slow. Let’s take a break for today. Dismantle it down to manage what we can take back.”
The porters diligently dismantled the corpses of the monsters. There was so much that they didn’t finish until the sun completely set.
Awooow!
“Ugh, more of them!”
Even at night, the knights couldn’t rest. They barely managed to catch their breath after fighting off the attacking Dire Wolves.
“Ah, we can’t take it all.”
Despite each porter’s and knight’s back being loaded with monster remains, plenty still remained.
“We can’t help it. Let’s come back another time.”
Ghislaine felt a bit of regret, but the porters and knights looked pleased. They were exhausted, feeling like they had hunted for an entire month in just a day.
Now there were no wagons. They had to carry heavy loads back, but just returning was a blessing.
And those who saw Ghislaine and his group entering the fortress were struck dumb.
“Insane… Did they really hunt that much in a day?”
Laborers and knights came back piled up with goods. It looked as if a large merchant group had just entered the fortress.
No party in the fortress’s history had ever hunted this many monsters in just one day. Even parties with more people than Ghislaine’s hadn’t achieved that.
People could only look on in a daze at the procession.
Hearing the murmurs from curious onlookers counting the group, one hunter spoke in disbelief.
“Not a single one… died?”
Everyone had already seen the coachmen bring back a ton of Owlbear hides. Excluding that, they seemed to have caught hundreds of monsters in a day.
It didn’t make sense that not a single person died after catching that many. To catch that volume, they would have had to fight nonstop without a break.
If a person fought without resting, it was reasonable that at least a few would die.
“Isn’t the number the same as when they left? How does that even make sense?”
“Still, everyone looks a bit injured… Why do I feel like they were hit by people?”
“Did a lot of humanoid monsters show up?”
The knights swallowed their tears after overhearing the people’s conversations. It wasn’t humanoid monsters; they got hit by a person.
No, it was certainly monsters disguised as humans.
People were struggling to believe Ghislaine and the knights’ records. But the unbelievable occurred again.
The next day, as expected, Ghislaine once again took a bunch of porters and disappeared. When he returned, he had a large load of loot similar to the previous day.
“Does this even make sense? No matter how strong you are, it would be tough without knowing the terrain and monster characteristics, right?”
“I knew he was pretty strong, but this isn’t his first hunt, is it? The speed is way too much.”
“He’s completely a veteran hunter now?”
Even the most seasoned hunters wouldn’t hunt this recklessly.
Rather, skilled hunters would usually stop hunting without getting too greedy. That was how you lasted a long time.
But the newcomers seemed unaware of that, simply annihilating monsters with sheer force.
The porters who followed him came back with proud expressions, feeling like they had played a part in the glory.
As this happened several times, hunters started getting greedy.
“That bastard must’ve hunted a ton all this time. Isn’t there a way to take it from him?”
“We can’t overpower him. Only if Doncard steps up will it make a difference. Aren’t those goods handled at the processing shop?”
“Messing with them wouldn’t benefit us.”
Hunters risk their lives in battle, but if they just killed monsters for nothing, that would be a loss. Naturally, they needed to harvest money by getting to the marrow.
This led to a thriving processing industry in the fortress. Workshops specialized in everything from butchering to tanning and even storage.
Hunters usually refrained from touching these workshops. It wasn’t just that the expenses were significant; if an attack on one workshop got out, others wouldn’t aid you either.
Ghislaine looked over the contents piled up in the storage of the workshop with a satisfied smile.
“Ah, there’s nothing better than making money while warming up.”
Each time he saw the stacked hides and bones in the warehouse, he couldn’t help but admire. Some monsters even had their innards removed separately as they were useful in medicine or as food ingredients.
Even while the knights were exhausted from fighting every day, each time they peeked into the warehouse, they were drooling.
“Wow, is all of this money?”
“Our Lord really does bring back whatever is needed, no matter what.”
“But now we have to catch a hundred thousand of these…”
When someone voiced that, everyone’s expressions turned sullen. They realized clearly why they had come here.
They had been genuinely working themselves to the bone over the past few days. In all honesty, it felt as if dying would be easier.
Getting hit by monsters was pitiful enough, but now they were also getting hit by their own teammates? The knights had long since lost their sense of humanity.
‘But… why does the speed keep increasing?’
‘Is this really effective?’
‘Thanks to the Lord, it’s super fast… But how can we achieve this speed ourselves?’
Ghislaine’s monster-hunting speed was truly beyond imagination. Not a single monster could defend against its “weaknesses.”
The knights were simply chasing after him, but at some point, they started catching monsters at a faster rate.
However, the knights didn’t feel pleased at all.
‘My skill has improved, but why do I keep crying?’
To kill a hundred thousand monsters required them to fight for their lives every day. There shouldn’t have been such a torturous training regimen.
As Ghislaine’s hunting continued, complaints began to leak out among the hunters.
“That jerk is cleaning out the hunting grounds. At first, he hunted a bit away, but now he’s all up in our business.”
“Don’t we have to take control at some point? It seems like they need to take care of it outside.”
“Who’s going to do that?”
Putting a bell on a cat’s neck. Given the displayed skill and records, it seemed daunting to provoke them.
Ultimately, the hunters’ hope rested with the powerful figure leading the strongest faction in the fortress, ‘Doncard of Ironcliff.’
“Doncard will have to make a move, right?”
“Exactly. I don’t think it’ll work out unless it’s Doncard. He has quite a few forces with him.”
“But why is Doncard just sitting still? Those guys aren’t even paying their association fees.”
“He wiped out Arnold’s gang at the inn. His hunting skills are enough to be talked about. Even Doncard would find that daunting.”
“Still, he’ll have to move eventually.”
“Yeah, they say yesterday he even messed with Doncard’s hunting ground. It’s about time something gets settled.”
Rumors began circulating inside the fortress. It was said that Doncard, the strongest force in the fortress, wouldn’t sit idly by anymore.
And so the atmosphere began to shift in that direction. After all, Doncard wouldn’t let those who encroached on his hunting ground go unpunished.
“Here comes Doncard! Doncard’s here!”
With someone’s shout, a group made their way towards the inn.
