The spear was aimed exactly at Juan’s heart, but Juan swung his short sword at the same time and split the spear in half.

Meanwhile, Jaeden couldn’t even let out a scream and stared at the spear that pierced through his chest with his eyes wide open.

“You son of a…”

Jaeden’s hand trembled as he tried to grab the spear, but it was in vain. He lifted his head up to look at the seat of the horseman.

However, there was no one there.

“Don’t let him pull out that spear!”

The moment Swallan shouted, the spear that had pierced through Jaeden’s chest got pulled back and disappeared from sight. Blood sprayed out of the hole in Jaeden’s chest like a fountain and soaked the entire carriage.

Meanwhile, the carriage began to shake, and the horses galloped frantically as they pulled a loosely shaking carriage without a horseman.

“Get off the carriage!” Juan shouted.

At the same time, the horses split into two different directions with a tree in between, and then a loud crashing sound echoed shook the forest. The carriage shattered into pieces, and Jaeden’s dead body was almost crushed against the tree.

Juan had managed to barely throw himself out of the carriage before the collision. He quickly pulled himself up in preparation for the next attack, but there was no one attacking him. Then, Juan noticed Orel wriggling, foaming at the mouth, and bleeding next to the broken carriage. When Juan pulled out his short sword and approached him, Orel pointed to Jaeden's body and groaned.

“The horseman… and that bastard… killed all of my… comrades… and…”

“And were disguising themselves. Thank you anyway,” Juan said.

Juan judged that Orel had no hope of surviving after seeing his wounds. Juan cut Orel’s throat at once and killed him, saving him from having to suffer anymore. After checking that Orel wasn’t breathing anymore, Juan searched his surroundings.

The horseman was nowhere to be seen, and Swallan was on the top of the tree that the carriage had smashed into. Her ability in being able to escape the carriage showed her agility as an elf, but her expression was pale.

“Since when did you notice that these guys were our enemies?” Swallan asked.

“Before we even arrived at the tents. I sensed the presence of two of those who had been chasing after us. They decided to wait ahead of us. I bet they were waiting for us to come after killing the comrades of this bald guy.”

“To match the numbers… right. It’s normal to wait for other people to come if there’s not enough people to fill the carriage. You should’ve told me to not get on the carriage if you knew everything in the first place.”

“I was going to kill one and spare the life of another one to interrogate him, but he was quick to run away. I should just kill them all instead of interrogating them the next time I come across them. Come to think of it, why did you tell me not to pull out the spear earlier?”

“Because mercenaries here are sensitive to the smell of blood,” Swallan said as she continued looking down at Juan from atop the tree.

Juan turned his head. He had noticed that someone was approaching them, and rustling could be heard from all directions. Juan suddenly felt very strange. Although he could hear the sounds of the forest and the trees nearby rustling, he could hardly feel anyone’s presence because their energy was extremely similar to the mana flowing in this forest.

However, it wasn’t to the extent where the presences were indistinguishable. Juan’s senses were still intact and accurate.

Grrrr…

What appeared with an inhuman sound was a group of mercenaries. The impression they gave others was messy as everyone looked exhausted and had a shaggy beard. Juan noticed that their pupils had turned purple in their sunken eyes.

“The horseman must have been planning to throw us at these guys from the very beginning,” Juan said.

Juan found it difficult to sense the horseman’s presence as many mercenaries were beginning to gather around. There were at least over fifty mercenaries surrounding Juan and Swallan. All of them were silver grades, and there were even one or two gold grades among them—they were all highly skilled warriors and centurions.

One of the mercenaries swung a huge ax and charged at Juan. Juan quickly moved back and kicked the stone on the ground toward the opponent’s face at the same time. The mercenary narrowly turned his head to dodge the rock flying directly toward his face. Juan found such a sight interesting.

‘So they’re quite different from the undead.’

Although they had gone insane and became more violent, their habits and skills from when they used to be sane still remained. Anyone would be in big trouble if they charged toward them thinking that they were no different from the undead.

“The more you cut these bastards, the stronger the smell of blood, which will attract even more mercenaries, Mr. Ten thousand gold pieces. Let’s just get out of here before we end up having to face the worst ones that don’t even look human.”

Swallan was nocking an arrow on her horn bow, but didn’t seem to want to shoot immediately. Swallan was being cautious as she was well aware that there would be more blood once the mercenaries were shot, unlike the undead.

However, Juan didn’t move a single inch.

“What are you doing? Get ready to run away and…”

“Go ahead and run away. I’m gonna stay and catch that horseman.”

As soon as Juan finished speaking, he bounced off. Blood surged up from the necks of two mercenaries who were standing in the direction where Juan was moving.

Upon seeing the sight of blood being scattered everywhere, Swallan’s face turned pale.

“Oh my goodness, what have you done…!”

As the blood scattered, even more mercenaries gathered as if they were excited. More than a dozen weapons were swung toward Juan, but none could reach Juan. Rather, some of the mercenaries tripped over the weapons that they had been swinging and thrusting, unintentionally cutting each other, and causing even more blood to spurt out, which only fed their craze.

“Ahhhhh!”

The mercenaries roared and brandished their weapons even more furiously.

It was an agonizing scene. Swallan couldn’t hide her nervousness as she watched the blood flowing out of the mercenaries’ wounds to the point where even the ground turned into bloody mud. Juan was dodging the weapons with ease, but the number of mercenaries was increasing exponentially. Swallan wondered where in the forest they had been hiding all along.

‘There… there are too many… even if it's the road where the carriage travels, isn’t it too much…?’

Realization belatedly struck her. It was clear that the horseman had set up this place in advance—he had sprayed blood around this area after killing all of Orel’s comrades, and his plan was to use the insane mercenaries of the red forest to attack Juan.

“Mr. Ten thousand gold pieces! This is a trap!”

However, it was too late.

Swallan then pierced the head of a mercenary charging at Juan from behind his back with the arrow she had been nocking on the bow.

“I know,” Juan answered with a grin.

At that moment, something that had been hiding amongst the mercenaries suddenly popped out of nowhere to stab at Juan’s back.

Everything happened in an instant without giving Juan any time to dodge.

However, the assassin attacking Juan felt like something had grabbed his dagger tightly instead of the dagger penetrating flesh.

“You’ve finally appeared,” Juan said.

Only then did the assassin come to his senses. Juan was looking back at him with a smirk, and the assassin realized that Juan’s cloak had turned liquid and covered his dagger instead of getting torn apart. The assassin freaked out and tried to let go of the dagger, but the cloak—no, the darkness had already swallowed his hand before he knew it.

“I’ve been waiting for you.”

The assassin thought that something had passed by him, and in the next instant, his lower arm fell off. The assassin’s hand quickly disappeared into Juan’s black cloak. The assassin quickly pulled back in an attempt to run away, but Juan hastily kicked him in the leg before he could escape.

The assassin, who had lost his arm, ended up losing his balance to miserably sprawl to the ground.

“I know your ways to secretly attack or stab someone behind their back. It’s simply not worth using my short sword. Nigrato’s shadow will be enough for you all.”

The mercenaries ran wildly at Juan.

“I no longer have business with you all.”

When Juan unfurled his cloak, darkness spread through the air like ink—it was a new ability gained after fusing the essence of Nigrato and Grunbalde’s gray cloak.

In an instant, the mercenaries flinched and paused their movement as the darkness covered their surroundings to obscure their vision. Juan nodded upon seeing their reaction; it was as he had suspected.

‘They are relying on their senses, since they are still alive.’

Darkness wouldn’t be an issue to the undead, but these were people that were still alive. They had no choice but to rely on sight and hearing.

Some of them lit torches to secure their vision, but that only made them the best target for Swallan to aim at.

“Take care of them,” Juan said as he looked up at Swallan.

Swallan complained, but she took out her bow without resisting.

***

Less than a few seconds later, Juan recalled the darkness that he had spread around. All that was left on the ground was a group of a lot of dead bodies—a lot of dead bodies.

After cleaning up the surroundings, Juan approached the man who had tried to assassinate him.

As expected, it was the horseman. He looked pale as he had lost too much blood. Juan placed his hand over the horseman’s wounds. Soon, the horseman trembled, while the smell of burning flesh rose from the wounded areas.

“Who are you? Where did you come from?”

Juan began to ask questions after cauterizing the horseman’s injuries. However, the horseman didn’t reply and only flinched while enduring tremendous pain. Juan grabbed the horseman’s chin and lifted his head up by force.

“I don’t torture people. If they don’t want to answer, I simply kill them. I’m not that curious,” Juan said.

The horseman looked up at Juan and grinned. Then, he opened his mouth wide as if he was mocking Juan. His tongue had already been cut almost to the root and there was nothing left inside his mouth—he was not capable of speaking in the first place.

“Thanks for the answer.”

Juan tightened his grip. With a cracking sound, the horseman’s neck broke. Juan threw away the horseman’s body carelessly.

Swallan quietly watched the scene, then opened her mouth.

“Look under his chin.”

Juan slightly raised the horseman’s chin and found a thin scar on it.

“It’s the assassination organization,” Swallan said.

“An assassination organization?”

“Yes. They don’t go by a specific name, they are just called the assassination organization. It’s the biggest contractor in the empire. I’ve heard that they can change their skeleton and figure by inserting potions and surgical instruments through that scar. I have heard that they don’t hunt for bounties, but I guess ten thousand gold pieces must be worth it, even for them. It is higher than what most commissions offer anyway.”

“All sorts of things are coming at me…” Juan muttered.

“Well, ten thousand gold pieces is a lot of money. They’re gonna have to do way better than this, though—I had heard that the assassination organization kills those on their hit-list by any means, but they have failed this time. Anyway, congratulations. One of our pursuers has been revealed now.”

Juan felt that all this was a bit ridiculous, but was relieved that one of their pursuers was gone for good. It was difficult for Juan to detect the presence of people in this forest because of the complex mana flowing in it. Furthermore, the opponent he had just faced hadn’t been an easy one; he had willingly used his comrade as a trap to catch Juan.

‘I wouldn’t have died immediately even if I was completely surrounded, but…’

If Juan hadn’t been aware of the horseman from the beginning, Juan might have been wounded even before he began fighting with the mercenaries. Furthermore, Juan had to watch out for the Templars as well.

Juan felt complicated. Although he had decided to not hide his identity and accept all the challenges as they came, he didn’t like the fact that he kept getting held back.

‘It’d be nice to have an opportunity to get rid of all the unnecessary dregs at once.’

Juan stood up and looked up at the tree where Swallan was.

“What are you doing up there? Aren’t you coming with me? I thought you said that we won’t arrive until evening even if we started walking now.”

“Um, yes. We should go.”

Juan noticed that she was a little intimidated, in spite of her tone. It looked like she had felt something from Juan after witnessing him annihilating those mercenaries in an instant.

“So. Do you still think you can take my head after we arrive at Durgal?” Juan asked.

Swallan wondered if he was asking her whether or not she had set up a trap in Durgal. Swallan tried to smile.

“To be honest, I feel a little less confident now. I feel like I’m gonna be getting the short end of the stick.”

“If you need heads, there's plenty right here,” Juan said as he kicked the body of a mercenary lying on the ground. “Didn’t they say the Lord of Durgal bought the dead bodies of the mercenaries?”

“Well, he doesn’t pay that much. He only shows off and takes credit for himself. There have been more and more incidents involving mercenaries who come to the territory of Durgal only to get killed by the insane mercenaries. To get a decent bounty, you would need to at least bring the body of…”

Thump.

At that moment, the sound of the branches breaking and leaves pouring down from the tree was heard.

Swallan blankly raised her head. Someone big enough to meet her eyes, who had been sitting on a tall tree, appeared as he snapped the entire tree to the side—it was a huge naked man with purple eyes. He was holding the lower body of one of the dead mercenaries in his mouth.

“…at least… the body of… the guy called… Jules…”

Swallan’s words ended feebly.

Meanwhile, Jules looked toward Juan and Swallan, then dropped the lower body of the mercenary he was holding in his mouth as his chest swelled up.

A loud roar shook the entire forest.