Chapter 37 — A Reunion That Might Happen Sooner Than Expected
“Huh?”
The small Badger Beastman who had burned down Jageun Village and left was sleeping peacefully under the shade of a tree.
Then he suddenly woke up after sensing an ominous presence.
The young Badger Beastman had been born only recently, so he didn’t understand it well.
But it was definitely a familiar, instinctive scent.
It was as natural to him as breathing.
He had often smelled it when he was still living with his group.
“What is it?
Did one of the elders from the village come looking for me?”
The familiar scent drifted toward him on the wind from Jageun Village, the very village he had burned down.
The young Badger tilted his head.
It wasn’t as if he had left the group on good terms.
He had left because the rules of the group and his own way of thinking had clashed.
However, none of the members had tried to stop him.
And considering the nature of their group, they clearly didn’t care much about what he did.
So there was no reason for the elders, who should have been resting, to come looking for him.
“Hey!
Everyone, get up!”
The young Badger woke up the Goblins who got along with him and the countless monsters he had made into his subordinates along the way.
Then he decided to head back toward Jageun Village.
Something that shouldn’t exist was present in a place where it shouldn’t be.
He needed to find out what it was.
“Could those old village geezers have come to take us back?”
“No way.
Have you ever seen those humans care about something like that?”
“But the only ones who could give off this kind of atmosphere are those rotten old men from the village.”
“That’s why we’re going to check it out!
Honestly, Goblins talk too much!”
If the elders had really come to take them back, he would simply refuse.
If they became troublesome, he would simply kill them.
That was all.
The young Badger was full of youthful arrogance and confidence.
He firmly believed that even the elders of the village could never defeat him just because they were bound by those silly rules.
Unlike the older members of the group, he already had many monsters under his command.
He had personally led them to burn down a human village.
And during all of that, he hadn’t suffered a single defeat.
He was an undefeated general who knew nothing of defeat.
Surely, that description was meant for him.
He had enough confidence.
He had enough skill.
He had enough soldiers.
There was no reason for him to lose.
And he certainly had no intention of losing.
After all, he was a warrior among warriors who had endured the terrible Trial of the One-Horned, a fragment of arrogance.
As the village drew closer, the young Badger sniffed the familiar scent with his nose.
He carefully entered the village, preparing himself for a possible ambush.
Having confidence and becoming arrogant enough to let your guard down were completely different things.
There was nothing uglier than overestimating your own strength, allowing yourself to be ambushed, and then losing.
The deeper he went into the village, the more unfamiliar human scents he detected.
Along with them came an unusually strong scent that he had never smelled even within his own group.
The young Badger prepared himself for battle.
Then he saw him.
A barbarian warrior stood proudly on top of the ashes with his chest held high.
It was In-gwang.
“Oh!
Yeah, that’s him.
He’s exactly as small as I remember.”
“Who are you calling small?
Human?”
“I was talking about you, little boy.”
Ever since leaving his group, the words he had heard most often were words mocking and insulting his small body.
Words filled with ridicule.
Yet In-gwang said them so casually.
Even while facing the countless monsters in front of him, In-gwang showed no fear at all.
He simply walked toward them.
“You don’t seem afraid, human.”
“You seem pretty scared, little boy.”
“Why do you keep copying what I say?”
“Because I’m bored.”
The young Badger became furious.
There was a limit to how much someone could ignore him.
This was an insult unlike anything he had experienced before.
“There are a lot of things I want to ask you.
But let’s talk about them if I start losing.
I’ll listen to at least one answer before I die.
Okay?”
“…Attack!”
At the young Badger’s command, a Giant Boar with enormous horns roared and charged toward In-gwang.
The Giant Boars were driven purely by animal instinct.
Their charging power was not something that could be ignored.
Wherever they swept through, even sturdy buildings were reduced to little more than traces.
In-gwang knew absolutely nothing about Giant Boars.
Yet even he could clearly feel how dangerous their charge was.
But In-gwang didn’t dodge.
Instead, he wrapped chains around his own body and anchored himself to the ground.
He prepared to withstand the incoming charge.
“Idiot!
Do you really think you can withstand them with something like that?!”
“Stop talking!
I’ll do it if I can, won’t I?!”
In-gwang took a deep breath and lowered his stance to prepare for the impact.
There wasn’t even the slightest hesitation in his eyes.
There wasn’t even a hint of fear.
That was what confused the young Badger.
*What’s going on?
Is he hiding something?
Damn it.
The smell of smoke and the village is making my nose go numb.*
Two conflicting questions flashed through the Badger’s mind.
No matter how stupid or overconfident this human was, there was no way he would foolishly stand against this many enemies.
And the scent coming from this human was stronger than anything the young Badger had ever smelled within his group.
There was no way someone giving off such a scent could be an ordinary human.
The human in front of him was clearly an idiot.
Yet the atmosphere around him was overwhelming.
He was such a strange and bizarre existence that his very presence felt contradictory.
There definitely has to be something…
“Huh?”
The young Badger’s anger at In-gwang’s unprecedented insults gradually faded.
His senses became sharper.
Then he felt something strange.
His tail suddenly became heavy.
He looked at the shadow behind him.
“Ch… chain?”
A chain identical to the one In-gwang had pulled out had somehow extended through the shadow.
It was wrapped around his tail.
And the chains wrapped around In-gwang’s body were connected to In-gwang’s shadow as well.
“Long live freedom!”
Boom!
In-gwang took the Giant Boar’s charge head-on.
His body was launched into the air, drawing a beautiful arc that could almost be called artistic.
“This… this can’t be!”
At the same time, the chain holding the young Badger’s tail became taut.
Before he could even resist properly, the young Badger was pulled into the shadow.
He was dragged through darkness so deep that he couldn’t see even an inch in front of him.
The young Badger desperately struggled.
But even the red-hot chain wrapped around his tail was impossible to deal with inside that invisible darkness.
“…No…”
“Hm!”
In the thick darkness, where there was no way to tell where it began or ended, a horrifying voice could be heard.
A painful, freezing sensation gripped his heart.
A terrifying feeling ran through his entire body, making his breath catch.
Like any living creature trapped in complete darkness, the young Badger screamed in an attempt to drive away his fear.
“Wh-Who are you?!
**Who’s there?!
I know you’re there!**”
Cold sweat covered his body as he shouted into the darkness.
But no answer came.
All he could hear were eerie words that sounded like curses whispered beside his ears.
He could feel a breath colder than ice.
His body was gradually becoming colder.
*Damn it!
How much longer do I have to stay here?!
It wasn’t even that far!*
Inside the endless darkness, the young Badger became so terrified that he almost wanted to see In-gwang’s face again.
The face of the man who had just insulted him.
Swoosh.
A hand colder than ice touched the young Badger’s face.
Frozen with fear, he heard a cold voice filled with murderous intent whisper directly into his ear.
“…If you come in here one more time, I’ll melt you.”
“Eek!”
The young Badger suddenly shot out of the shadow.
But what welcomed him was the center of the Giant Boar stampede.
The boars were still running at full speed.
They hadn’t slowed down.
They hadn’t even noticed the young Badger.
He was trampled.
Hit.
Trampled again.
Although the young Badger was stronger than the Giant Boars, his body wasn’t in a condition to respond properly because of his overwhelming fear.
He wasn’t strong enough to survive such chaos easily.
“Ueeeee!
**My whole body is broken…!
Everyone, charge!!!**”
In-gwang wasn’t doing much better, either.
Perhaps that was the one thing the young Badger could consider fortunate.
Barely conscious and unable to move, the young Badger lay sprawled on the ground.
Then he heard the miserable screams of the boars and Goblins.
He hadn’t imagined that someone would be hiding beneath the ashes.
He hadn’t imagined that reserve knights of the Empire would be waiting for them.
And he certainly hadn’t imagined that survivors from the village would suddenly emerge from the ashes and restrain him.
He couldn’t have predicted any of it.
“Ah, Mister!
