The Biography of Albrecht - Chapter 15

Chapter 15

Translator: Nezu

Editor: Daed

The other knight took a step back.

“I am Ernst, a loyal knight to Gottfried von Halkenburg, the Count of Halkenburg.”

“I am Albrecht von Hoenkaltern, a knight and the successor of Kaltern.”

Ernst was taken aback. He didn’t think that the other person would be a noble who was a successor to an estate. Successors hardly left their own estates. Moreover, the party behind him didn’t look like an entourage of a nobleman. It seemed strange to Ernst.

Benzel was also surprised. He had thought that Albercht was only some wanderer. Who would have thought that he was an heir of an estate?

Ernst began to use honorifics because the other was of a rank higher than him.

“Forgive me if I sound rude, but could you tell me the purpose of your party?”

Albrecht looked at Benzel.

Benzel took a step forward and answered tactfully.

“Ah, I’m—I’m a merchant. We’re on our way back to Roybeck. I run a Changguan1 business.”

It was Albrecht who Ernst had asked. However, when he heard the word ‘Changguan’, he realized that he had misunderstood the situation.

“Can I look inside the carriage?”

“Yes, of course.”

Benzel lifted the cover of the carriages and showed what was inside. Ernst looked in both carriages and nodded.

“You can pass once you pay the toll. Two silver coins per each person. Except for the Sir Knight, that is.”

Benzel, who was used to paying tolls, paid the toll for everyone except for Albrecht.

Ernst moved his head to the side to signal that the group was now allowed to pass.

As they passed through the ruined village, some of the soldiers there swayed their hips, cheered, and poured out some obscene comments at them.

Albrecht saw how many soldiers there were. There were about 20 of them. There were too many of them to keep track of.

Their equipment varied. Some wore a thick gambeson with a matching arming cap, others wore a perforated chain armor, and still more wore a layer of leather on top of a torn chain armor. They had spears, swords, axes, and wooden shields. However, most of their weapons weren’t in good shape.

The weapons all looked old. They didn’t look like they had been used for a long time. On the contrary, they seemed more like second-hand weapons that had been picked up from the battlefield.

They weren’t in a time where the people geared up for their nation or their lords. They were in a time where people had to gear up for themselves.

The sun was already setting. By the time Albrecht’s party had passed through the ruins, it was already night time. The party could not afford to choose the place they wanted, so they could only build up a camp on some flat ground by the side of the road.

They built a fire and took out a pot to prepare a meal. Albrecht began to speak as the people gathered around the fire and began to eat.

“We might get attacked tonight.”

The two mercenaries were also somewhat aware of this. Mercenaries, bandits, and thieves were all on the same wavelength so they knew how others like them would think.

Their party was a good prey. They couldn’t help feeling anxious. They only had a few people on their side who knew how to fight.

Everyone except the two mercenaries was surprised.

Benzel questioned, “But we surely paid the toll though?”

It was an overly merchant-like answer. Albrecht looked at the bonfire.

“There are too many of them. We only have three people who can fight among us. We’re good, easy, targets.”

His words gave them goosebumps. Benzel anxiously spoke.

“Then what should we do? Should we escape?”

“How? You can see everything in here once you light up a torch. They’ll be able to catch up with us in a minute.”

Albrecht instructed, “Go hide in the bushes where the light of the bonfire can’t reach. You two should protect the rest of our party. Put back a lot of the firewood. I’ll deal with this.”

They all wondered what Albrecht was saying and was surprised when they heard him say that he would deal with the situation.

Benzel said, “Sir Knight. We’ve got more than twenty opponents at most. How could you do it yourself alone…”

“Then do you have a good idea? Let’s do that if you do.”

He didn’t have one.

Everyone wondered if this would work. They were so anxious that they didn’t even know whether the food they ate went to their mouths or to their noses. After they finished their meal, they did what Albrecht told them to do. They went a long distance behind Albrecht, crouched down and held their breath.

Albrecht placed his shield and axe next to him. Because his opponents were armed, it was better to use his axe than his sword.

The crackling sound of burning firewood entered his ears. Albrecht’s blue eyes stirred as it reflected the firewood. The stars appeared one by one as if to watch the upcoming battle. A cross galaxy appeared in the eastern sky.

Albrecht’s heart pounded. Last time, he dealt with bandits who came from a merchant group and didn’t have much combat experience. But it was going to be different this time. His opponents were experienced, and armed with different equipment. Moreover, they also had a knight with them.

Nevertheless, he felt a combative spirit rise in his heart.

The people behind him began to doze off while trying to shake off their anxiety of dying.

Sounds of rustling were heard when there was only a few firewood left next to Albrecht. Soldiers approached one by one and surrounded Albrecht with weapons in hand.

“You’re alone?”

Under the light of the bonfire, Albrecht, with reddish-blond hair, looked at them. He stood up with his axe and his shield, and answered with a cold smile. “Yeah.”

The fight would end immediately once Albrecht was killed. After all, he was their number 1 target in the first place.

The soldiers shared looks and nodded at each other before they thrust their spears forward in unison.

Albrecht rushed to one side and slammed his shield against the thrusting spears. When a soldier received an unbearable force on his hand, his spear missed and his palm was torn. He panicked and moved his hand to draw a sword. Albrecht approached as swift as lightning and swung his axe. The soldier’s severed head soared up before he could even take out his sword.

Albrecht quickly slashed his axe across the body of another soldier next to him. Before the soldier could even lift his spear and adopt a stance to block Albrecht’s attack, his helmet had been split at once; he had been cut open from his skull down to his chest.

After breaking through the soldier’s encirclement, Albrecht swung his axe recklessly, killing five people instantly.

Soldiers on the other side of the opening of the encirclement continued to approach and tried to stab Albrecht from behind. He turned around and blocked three spears with his shield, avoiding their attack without fail. As quick as a flash of light, he quickly closed his distance from them and killed three more.

At this point, their encirclement had already collapsed and Albrecht had begun running wildly like a tiger in the North.

Less than a minute had passed from the moment the soldiers had thrust forward their spears, and sixteen bodies were already lying around. The rest of the soldiers abandoned their spears and fled.

Ernst, who was watching from afar, was taken aback. Knights were indeed treated like combat weapons but this one before his eyes was simply just a monster. He had thought that if Albrecht got surrounded by the soldiers and got stabbed by all those spears, he’d be seriously injured. He planned to step in then and handle it himself.

Ernst shuddered as he looked at Albrecht.

Albrecht, covered in blood and his shadow dancing to the rhythm of the bonfire, looked like a demon from hell.

He stared straight into Ernst’s eyes hidden in the dark and uttered, “Coward.”

Ernst was also a knight. Although he was scared, when he was called a coward, his legs moved forward by themselves despite his mind telling him to run away.

The two knights confronted each other near the bonfire. Ernst drew his own sword and shield. Albrecht threw his shield onto the floor.

The wind picked up slightly, causing the bonfire to flare more intensely, as if to spice things up. The shadows of the two knights danced in frenzy.

Albrecht approached in stride. Ernst lowered his posture, and lifted his shield just below his eyes to give his opponent a penetrating stare.

Albrecht didn’t seem to bother with his opponent’s defense. Instead, he held his axe with both hands as if he was preparing to throw it. Then he closed the distance between them and swung his axe. It struck the other like a bolt of lightning.

Ernst tried to block his stomach with his shield and planned to stab Albrecht in the face with his sword. Yet in a fleeting moment, Ernst suddenly had a gut feeling. He could feel the power the axe carried. It would break through his shield, split his helmet and touch his head. He was going to die.

Siegfried’s Thunder Axe cut through Ernst’s body from top to bottom. This action seemed like it was simply cutting through air.

Ernst was completely sliced vertically. His body collapsed, his brain and guts pouring out simultaneously. Steam swiftly rose from the corpse.

Albrecht, with an axe in his hand, stared down at Ernst who had collapsed miserably. Then he saw the corpses around him. An intense feeling of pleasure wrapped around his body. He raised his gaze towards the sky and saw the cross galaxy. Nothing came to his mind. He only continued looking at it.

After a while, that feeling subsided. He turned towards the direction where his party was hiding.

“Everyone, come out.”

No one came out so he repeated himself.

“I said, come out.”

Only then did the people who were hiding in the dark come out one by one. They all looked at Albrecht, covered from head to toe in blood and bearing a certain expression on his face—something humans should not see.

***

The people acted like there was some kind of a predator, like a lion or a tiger, around them. No one came near Albrecht, not even Diego.

They looked at Ernst who had been wholly sliced through vertically and wondered if this was real. Besides Ernst’s body, the corpses of the other men all looked very wretched.

Albrecht listened to the sound of the bonfire and stared at it.

He thought about his past.

He thought about that time when he fell asleep in his own room after working overtime, when his mother came to his rented room bearing side dishes, when he went to an interview with a nervous heart, when he went to college for the first time to take his entrance exam, and when he fought with his friend in middle school.

At some point, that life of his stopped and he began living as Albrecht. Remembering his memories on Earth felt like looking at photos displayed in a photo exhibition. It made him feel a bit wistful, but that was all.

He admired the photos on display one by one. Then, in front of him, there was a picture of a demon that looked exactly like him. He had blond hair and blue eyes, and was wearing a suit. The demon turned his head towards him as he was admiring the photos.

‘It was a different feeling from when you cut Eric’s ears. It felt much better. That’s what you felt too, right?’

He didn’t answer and continued to look at the devil.

‘Let’s just kill all the people in the party and leave. Doesn’t it feel burdensome?’

He stared at the devil calmly without saying a word. The devil smiled, and disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

Albrecht woke up from his thoughts when someone sat beside him. It was Martina. Then he saw a bucket and a towel.

“I’ll wipe it for you.”

Martina turned Albrecht’s head so she could look at him. Their eyes met. She soaked the towel with water and wiped his face.

She carefully wiped his forehead as well as the area around his eyes, nose, cheeks, ears, lips and neck. Albrecht looked at Martina as she wiped his face. She also made eye contact with him from time to time.

She washed the towel several times and also wiped his armor. The water in the bucket soon turned red.

Martina left to clean the towel and the bucket. Then she returned and took a seat again next to Albrecht. Elena, Anna, and Diego also came and sat down. They remained silent.

Albrecht smiled, wrapped his arms around his knees, and laid his head down to sleep.