Wandering Mercenary in an Open World

Kyle’s attack was faster than Luon’s, not because his reaction was more agile or calmer. In the first place, Kyle was rushing at the tall woman even before Luon threw the dagger. The frantic rush was reborn as a wonderful surprise as it coincided with the situation of a woman embarrassed by her colleague’s death.

“Hah, hah!”

The hammer, which fell, seemed quite threatening to Luon. But the woman jumped back with light footwork and avoided the attack. The wind peeled off the hood, revealing the woman’s pointed ears.

It was an elf. Luon looked at the woman’s ears and understood her excellent movements.

“Where are you running?”

Kyle swung the hammer again. It was good to hold the end of the handle and make the most of the rotational force, but the Elf, who had already adjusted her posture, cut the hammer handle in half with a thin sword drawn from her waist.

“Ahh!”

Kyle, who was hit in the chest by the ensuing kick, collapsed. The elf could have stabbed him to death and run, but did not do so, even though he fell down without even being able to do anything. Instead, she turned her head and made eye contact with Luon.

“Are you going to keep looking at me like that?”

She seemed to be conscious of the dagger that put her colleague to death at once. Luon grinned and pulled out his holy sword.

“If you want, I’ll beat you.”

Luon stepped forward, turning his wrist lightly. The elf swordswoman also approached with a smile on her face, perhaps less worried about Luon.

There was no conversation. The two rushed at each other almost simultaneously. First, the elf, who narrowed the distance, kicked the ground and stabbed with the thin sword. It was a great quick stab.

Luon raised his holy sword upwards to deflect the stab and immediately counterattacked, but the elf’s deflected sword was faster than his counterattack. Even its speed and spacing were completely different from the previous ones.

Luon quickly retrieved the sword and prevented another stab. Although the attack went in vain twice, the opponent did not show any disappointment at all. On the contrary, her feet got faster and faster, and the dirt on the ground scattered higher and higher.

The attack of the elf swordswoman, who controlled the distance with her unusual footwork, was so variable in speed and direction that it took the soul of the viewer.

Luon did not immediately counter-attack the anomalous attack. Lowering his stance and limiting the attack range of his opponent, he calmly swung the sword clenched in both hands, concentrating on negating every attack one by one.

The attacks that led to the eyes, neck, and stomach were both fast and sophisticated, but none of them could break through Luon’s iron wall like defense.

As the fight got longer, it gradually began to shift towards Luon. The elf swordswoman momentarily stepped back, feeling impatient and fearful at the same time, because she could not find any gaps despite all the skills and techniques she could unleash. At that moment, the holy sword slipped into the gap.

Far from a sophisticated attack, a simple and powerful stab pierced the elf swordswoman’s chest in an instant.

“Uh-huh.”

The elf swordswoman, who was stepping backwards, vomited fresh blood mixed with oxygen and sat down on the floor. Luon approached her as she breathed hard, and without delay, drew the sword stuck in her. Then Kyle came running.

“Why! why! You killed the villagers! Answer me!”

The elf swordswoman replied to Kyle, who was screaming. In fact, it was more of a dying whine than an answer.

“…Bildo said that his magic was disturbed by this damn stele. I’m sure there must be something, let’s break it… I shouldn’t have listened to him.”

The life in the woman’s eyes quickly faded. With the last breath of her life, she spat out empty words.

“The Falling Moon will have its revenge.”

That was the end. When the elf swordswoman finished speaking, she did not move just like the stone.

“Shit! So what? What is this stone monument?”

Kyle jumped up and grabbed the hammer that had fallen to the floor and started hitting the stone like crazy.

Luon didn’t really stop his crazy actions. Revenge is just revenge. Because the anger that has been engulfed in his chest will still be there. For now, it seemed better to just leave him alone, even if he was angry, rather than offer some poor consolation.

‘By the way, my experience isn’t average?’

Luon smiled softly, feeling the vastly increased experience. He wasn’t satisfied with the short guy’s experience because he wasn’t that high levelled for a wizard, but the dead elf gave him several times that experience. It was remarkable growth in a short period of time.

The last words took a little while to understand, but Luon was pretty good. ‘I don’t know what the Falling Moon is, but if a fight comes, I have no intention of avoiding it.’

“What, what?”

At that moment, Kyle’s voice stammered as if embarrassed.

“What, what’s wrong with this?”

When Luon lifted his head, he saw that the part Kyle had hit with the hammer was cracking. Soon, the headstone shook unsteadily and slowly began to fall forward. ‘What?’

In the unexpected situation, Kyle ran away without looking back, and Luon also hurriedly backed away.

Koo-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gu-gung!

The headstone collapsed in an instant and swallowed the bodies of the dead Bildo and the elf swordswoman. Kyle, who stood and watched the scene from afar, muttered foolishly.

“Shit!”

After a while, as the white dust cloud subsided, an empty space was seen ruined by the rubble of a pile of stones. Something was showing its presence among the rubble. Luon went straight up to it.

It was a large round shield. The shield, with a silver border on a black background, had a boring look with no decorations or crests of the family engraved on it. There seemed to be nothing special about it except that it was light for its size.

Luon asked, turning his head.

“Do you have any idea about this? Something like a village legend related to a tombstone and a shield.”

Kyle shook his head.

“No. I have never heard of this monument, except that it has been here for a very long time…”

Luon gently pressed his toes against the remains of the headstones that were scattered on the floor. Then it easily cracked and crumbled.

“It’s not stone.”

To be precise, only the area around the shield was made of relatively weak material. It looked like someone had filled a part of the tombstone with something else to hide or store the shield.

When that part was broken by Kyle, who was pounding the headstone like a madman, Luon thought that the headstone had failed to overcome its weight and might have fallen forward.

‘Is it because of this shield that magic didn’t work?’

Luon recalled the situation where the wizard was running wild and the words that elf swordswoman muttered before her death.

He was unfamiliar with magic, but judging from the circumstances so far, it wasn’t hard to guess that the shield had the ability to block magic.

After looking at the shield for a moment, Luon handed it to Kyle.

“Here.”

Kyle, who took the shield, opened his eyes wide.

“Why me?”

“Because you found it.”

Whatever his intentions, it was Kyle who found the shield, and Kyle was the only survivor of the village. In the meantime, there was no room for clumsy greed for a shield that blocks magic.

Moreover, for Luon, who values ​​mobility, such a large shield was rather cumbersome equipment, so it was difficult to find any regrets on his face.

Rather, it was Kyle’s face that had a complicated expression. Sadness and despondency flared in his eyes as he looked down at the shield without saying a word.

“A day before, everyone would have prepared dinner at this time. Smoke would rise from the chimney, and the delicious smell would spread far away. I would have been happy to smell it and head home.”

Kyle bit his lips enough to bleed.

“But all of that was destroyed by this one shield.”

Kyle clenched his teeth and threw the shield onto the ground.

“Fuck, this shield…”

Kyle’s eyes reddened. Without even paying attention to the shield, he began to tidy up the corpses on the ground. Luon helped Kyle with that.

The two men, who had all the bodies moved to the largest house in town, faced each other in front of the house. By now, the sun was setting. Dark clouds that matched the black sky floated gloomily. Luon asked.

“Are you okay?”

Kyle nodded his head. He was holding a burning firewood in his hand.

“You can’t bury everyone in one day. I’m sure they’ll understand.”

At the end of the sentence, Kyle threw the firewood into the window. The flame that was burning the firewood swallowed the pre-sprayed oil and gradually increased in size.

Kyle, who was staring blankly at the house being swallowed by the fire in an instant, turned and looked at Luon.

“Thank you.”

Bending down, he held out a leather bag in his arms.

“It’s a small sum of money, but please accept it.”

Contrary to the saying that it was small, the bag was quite heavy. Luon, who took the bag, asked.

“What are you going to do?”

“Well, I don’t know.”

Luon had nothing else to say, so he scratched his head. Suddenly, the circular shield that had fallen to the floor caught his attention.

“Are you going to throw it away like that?”

Kyle smiled weakly.

“No. I’ll take it. After all the people that have died, that is the only thing I have left.”

Kyle staggered towards the shield. It is light for its size, but he can easily lift a shield that is quite heavy for ordinary people to lift with one hand.

It fits pretty well.

Luon, who was smiling at him, suddenly turned his head to the gaze he felt from behind. About ten steps away stood a woman in a blue robe.

The woman spoke.

“I finally found it.”

“Who are you?”

The woman smiled at Luon, who naturally grabbed the handle of his holy sword.

“You don’t have to be so cautious. Champion of Tibella.”