Chapter 137

Leon was feeling a thrill.

While working as a hunter, he had heard rumors of a small country called the Kingdom of Eustia, where werewolves had gathered to form a village.

Though the information was vague and nothing more than a rumor, Leon decided to believe it and set his mind on searching for the werewolf village.

For months, he relied on this absurdly small rumor to gather information.

As Leon’s patience was nearing its limit, he finally stumbled upon the village he had been searching for, and the feeling was indescribably exhilarating.

With this many werewolf pelts, sitting on a pile of money would no longer be a dream.

And as they say, heaven helps those who help themselves.

Not only that, but the non-human party he had been eyeing, which Fione had whimsically let go, had stayed in the village without heeding her warning.

How much had he regretted missing out on the high-quality Lizardman pelt back then?

Fione didn’t seem interested, but to him, that Lizardman’s pelt was top-tier, even among the best.

Judging by the skin’s condition, the Lizardman appeared to be around 16 years old, with a robust build of about 2 meters tall, no noticeable scars, and skin that seemed meticulously cared for, making the pelt exceptionally high quality.

Honestly, a pelt of that quality was worth more than two or three mediocre werewolf pelts.

What a bonus.

Good things really do attract more good things.

“I’ll kill you without leaving a scratch!”

So, Leon rushed at the Lizardman first, thrusting his greatsword through the gap in its mouth.

*Thunk!*

*Thunk? Not a squish?*

Unable to contain his excitement, Leon’s reaction was uncharacteristically slow.

Leon’s sword didn’t pierce through the Lizardman’s snout and shatter its spine; instead, it stopped just an inch in front of its face.

“What, what’s this!?”

No matter how much force Leon applied, the greatsword didn’t budge.

As if it were being held by something.

As he continued to push, he soon noticed the hilt of his sword.

More precisely, just above the hilt.

Kurt was gripping the blade with his hand, right where the blade met the guard.

“How…! Catching an aura-coated sword barehanded!”

“What’s so hard about it? You just need to grab an aura-coated sword with an aura-coated hand. It’s common sense, right?”

True to his words, Kurt’s hand was thinly wrapped in a sharp, icy blue aura, even clearer than the red aura Leon had emitted.

At a glance, it seemed less than half the thickness of Leon’s aura.

But Leon knew.

The thinness of that aura wasn’t due to a lack of skill, but rather because it was compressed to an extreme level.

An aura so dense it was incomparable to his own, compressed to its limit, leaving only the thinnest layer.

*Creak…*

*Creeeak…*

Soon, Kurt crushed Leon’s greatsword with his aura-coated hand, bending the fearsome blade like an aluminum can in a press.

“This, this is impossible! The pelts are right in front of me…! This can’t be happening!”

“Whether it’s possible or not isn’t for you to decide. Only the hunter decides the fate of the prey. And here, I’m the only hunter.”

Leon screamed, throwing his sword aside, and charged at Kurt’s eyes with aura-coated fingernails.

But his desperate struggle was futile as Kurt’s other hand caught his wrist, and soon his right hand was crushed just like his beloved greatsword.

*Crunch*

“Gaaaaah!”

Leon flailed desperately, feeling his wrist being crushed, but no matter how hard he struggled, Kurt didn’t let go.

Kurt didn’t stop even after the bones in Leon’s wrist shattered, continuing to crush it until it was completely pulverized. Soon, Leon foamed at the mouth and passed out from the unbearable pain.

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While I leisurely subdued Leon, the other fight was also coming to an end.

The woman named Fione seemed more skilled than Leon, but she was up against Mari, Karina, and Serena.

Mari, who had recently reached the Expert level, had grown significantly stronger, and Karina and Serena were originally Silver-ranked adventurers.

Even if it were one-on-one, taking on three at once was no easy task.

*Clang!*

*Clang!*

“Damn it! Why are these freaks in this backwater village!?”

She fought desperately, shedding her calm facade, but Karina’s battle axe blocked her path, Mari’s arrows disrupted her every move, and Serena’s magic steadily chipped away at her advantages.

Despite this, Fione swung her twin daggers, infused with black aura, wildly.

Each swing left behind beautiful black afterimages, and even with her heavier weapon, Karina couldn’t gain the upper hand in strength.

This was because Fione’s aura was several levels above Karina’s.

*Clang!*

*Clang!*

With each clash of weapons, flashes of black and blue light illuminated the battlefield.

Unable to overpower her in strength or speed, Karina calmly blocked Fione’s attacks.

It was Fione who grew increasingly anxious.

She pressed on with her relentless assault.

Just as her dagger was about to slash Karina’s wrist, a faint blue streak—Mari’s arrow—intervened.

Mari’s arrows never missed, even in close combat.

“Again and again…! Damn non-humans!”

Fione cursed, stepping back to distance herself from Karina.

But she didn’t have the luxury to keep cursing.

Serena’s ice spike flew in, precisely targeting the opening created by her desperate dodge.

*Thud!*

She twisted her body to avoid a direct hit, but her shoulder was grazed, adding another wound to her body.

Like predators cornering their prey, the three slowly and surely drained Fione’s strength.

One by one, wounds began to cover her body, and her arms naturally slowed.

Her fighting spirit was breaking.

Of course, the fact that I had easily subdued Leon and was watching the fight likely contributed to her loss of morale.

While fighting the three, she kept glancing at me, worried I might intervene, and that hesitation proved fatal as Karina’s hand axe and Mari’s arrow pierced her arms.

And so, that night, two hunters became the hunted.

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After subduing the two human hunters, the villagers looked at us with dazed expressions, as if they had just woken up.

“Y-you….”

“Why the surprised faces? I told you, we’re pretty skilled adventurers.”

“You did say that, but I didn’t expect you to be this skilled.”

“Rather than living secretly as drifters, wouldn’t it be better to officially register with the Kingdom of Eustia? We happened to be here today to stop this, but there’s no guarantee something like this won’t happen again.”

At my words, the innkeeper spoke with a dark expression.

“H-how could we do that? We were once slaves of the Empire….”

“Does that matter?”

“What?”

“Even if you were slaves, that was in the Empire. It doesn’t matter here. You’d have to pay some taxes, but… it’s better to have the protection of the state.”

“But the state can’t be trusted… No, that’s just an excuse. You’re right. I knew in my head that the Kingdom of Eustia would accept us, even as runaway slaves. But the pain and scars from the Empire made us unable to accept it, so we hid in the forest and lived as drifters.”

The innkeeper smiled bitterly.

“But because we acted so half-heartedly, something like today happened. Thanks to you being here today, the village was saved. If not, I, the villagers, and my children would have all lost our lives today… But today, I realized that acting so indecisively will never fully erase the shadows of the Empire.”

The innkeeper’s face no longer had the timid, dark expression from when we first arrived.

Though still scarred and rough, his figure under the moonlight seemed somehow brighter.

“You’re right. I’ll convince the villagers to become official citizens of this country soon. So that hunters like these won’t come again.”

“Good thinking.”

With that conversation, my party and the villagers cleaned up after the fight.

My side didn’t have much to clean up, but the area where Fione was subdued was a mess from the intense battle.

After finishing the cleanup, we finally returned to the inn and fell into a deep sleep.

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“Take care! We’ll never forget the kindness you’ve shown our village!”

“Goodbye!”

“Farewell! Dragon sir!”

“Thank you so much!”

The next day, we set off, no longer hiding their forms, as the villagers, now in their werewolf forms, saw us off.

Though it was hard to read their expressions since they weren’t hiding their werewolf forms, at least to me, their faces no longer seemed as gloomy and wary as when we first arrived.

They were probably smiling.

And so, with the werewolf villagers seeing us off, we loaded our two captives into the carriage and headed for Astram.

The end of our long journey from Astram.