After throwing the one-eyed man in the air with one blow, Zich stared forward. Other mercenaries were rushing towards him. They looked astounded that their leader had been blown away, but there was no hesitation in their movements. It was proof that they had a lot of experience. However, the difference between their skills and Zich’s skills wasn’t something that could be compensated by experience.
‘Should I let the others have them?’ Zich thought of his disciples, but he quickly changed his mind. ‘Do I really have to give them up? I don’t think these guys would give them much experience.”
Although the amount of the experience that his disciples had gained was less than what the mercenaries had, the quality and depth of their experience was incomparably higher. Thus, there was only one thing left to do.
‘I should relieve my stress.’ Zich had been stressed from recent events anyways, and this was an opportunity to let it out. Thus, after asking the rest of his companions to let him handle the situation, he stepped forward. The mercenaries approached him. While giving off a menacing stance, they didn’t slow down. It seemed like they planned to beat Zich down with their weapons or stomp him with their horses.
‘How cute.’ Zich lightly swung Windur.
Craaash!
The weapon and arm of the guy running in front of his group broke. Then, the man flew sideways and rolled onto the ground until his movements ceased. The now ownerless horse continued to run, and Zich twisted his body slightly to avoid it. Then, he swung Windur at the next mercenary.
Bam! Bam! Bam! Bam!
A series of collisions rang, and one person was immobilized at each sound. The mercenaries’ arms and weapons were crushed as they rolled on the floor and lost consciousness. At this point, this was a phenomenon as natural as rain falling from the sky or leaves whistling from the winds. In an instant, dozens of mercenaries were rendered useless. The rest of the mercenaries turned their horses&rsquo back in shock and tried to escape. However, Zich didn’t let them.
Bam! Bam! Bam!
Loud eruptions continued to ring. Mercenaries flew off from their horses’ backs. Even if they had lost their will to fight, Zich had no mercy. He crushed each of their weapons and arms without exception. Soon, all of them lay on the ground unconscious. In comparison, not a single horse was injured. Without their owners, they neighed and stood around not knowing what to do. Zich hung Windur on his back again and Lyla approached him.
“What are you going to do with those guys now?”
“I want to just leave them be, but…” Zich clicked his tongue annoyedly and said, “Seeing how they act, it’s probably not their first time doing something like this. Since there are probably other victims, we should force information out of them.”
Hearing this, Lyla stared at him and smiled slightly.
“What are you looking at me like that for?” Zich asked.
“Well, I just thought you were really trying to play into your hero role. Before, you would have just killed or discarded them whether or not there were victims.”
Zich lifted his nose with a grunt, but he couldn’t disagree with her. Lyla laughed as if she thought this was very funny.
“Hans! Snoc!” At Zich’s call, both came rushing in. “Bind those guys’ wounds and gather them in one place so that I can interrogate them.”
Hans and Snoc moved right away. With Zich’s command, the mercenaries were gathered in one corner. The difficult task was to close their wounds. Blood continued to flow out of their wounds, and it seemed like they would die from blood loss at this rate.
“I suppose we can’t use potions, right, senior?” Snoc asked Hans.
“No need to use potions on guys like them. We don’t even have much supply left either,” Hans said and pulled out Estellade. Then, he sliced the wounded area. He did this because the men’s wounded areas were in a ragged state from Zich’s mana, and it was impossible to cure.
“Kkuaaaah!” A mercenary woke up from the pain and screamed. However, Hans and Snoc ignored him.
“Elena!”
“Yes!” Elena came running with Hans’ call.
“Burn their wounds and block them.”
“I understand.” Elena would have scowled before when she had just left her house, but now, after she gained many experiences with Zich’s group, she could complete requests like this with no complaints.
“Ah! Ah! Ahhhhh!”
Burning was one of the most painful experiences that a human could undergo, especially if the place that was burning was the area where their arm was severed. Of course, the men getting burned shrieked in pain, but no one in Zich’s group cared for their screams.
Zich approached the one-eyed man first. After his wound was cleanly burned, he had completely blacked out, but Zich had no intention of letting him go off easily. Zich knew that unlike the robed guys, the mercenaries would give him the information he needed with enough pain. Now, when Zich was about to ask the one-eyed man a question, he turned around and looked in the direction where the mercenaries had appeared.
“What is it?” Lyla asked.
“More guys are coming again.”
“Do you think they are these guys’ companions?”
“I don’t know, but it seems like they are Pialu’s troops.”
The one-eyed man felt relieved after hearing Zich’s words. It seemed like he could avoid torture for now. Of course, not everything was settled with the new troops’ arrival. If the rest of Pialu’s army and ‘that guy’ learned what he had been up to, he wouldn’t be able to get off easy. Yet, the one-eyed man thought that was preferable to losing his life after getting tortured by the mysterious traveler in front of him. Whoever this new troop was, it was clear that they would try to interrogate the group of travelers for the city.
‘I can at least buy some time. Then, I can figure out a way to get myself out of this situation in the meantime,’ the one-eyed man thought as he glared at Zich. ‘If I just get out of this mess, I’ll definitely kill him!’
The one-eyed man now knew very well that his opponent was unimaginably skilled, but it didn’t matter. Regardless of how skilled his opponent was, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t be hurt or couldn’t die. Even if his opponent was extremely skilled, there were still methods to kill him. In the past, he had also successfully killed opponents way more skilled than him in reality.
Of course, his methods would be considered underhanded and despicable, but what did it matter? The only thing that mattered in the end was winning. However, unfortunately for the one-eyed man, Zich was way crazier than he expected. Zich turned his gaze back towards the one-eyed man. The one-eyed man became instinctively nervous from his gaze, and his instincts were right on the mark.
Crunch!
“Aghhhhhh!”
Zich lightly hit the man’s shin, and with a chilling sound, the one-eyed man let out a scream. Zich looked down at the man with a cold gaze. “How many times did you do this crap?”
“Ugh, uuuugh…” The man could not reply right away because of the pain.
Of course, Zich had no intention of understanding the man’s pain; instead, he stepped on the man’s arm, which had been torn apart in the cross-section.
“Aghhhhhhhhhh!” This part of his arm was already in severe pain, so it didn’t bode well for the man. Moreover, Zich seemed to have thought that he didn’t do enough since he began moving his feet and further tore apart the man’s arm.
“Kuahh! Ack! Kyackkk!”
“I asked you, how many times did you do this?”
The one-eyed man raised his head at Zich’s question. His body trembled like mad in pain. “I-if the forces from P-Pialu see th…ackkkkkk!”
“That’s not for you to worry. Just answer my question. How many times did you do this crap?”
While hearing Zich’s cold voice, the one-eyed man was finally able to make an accurate judgment of Zich’s character.
A crazy bastard.
If a new force was approaching them, an ordinary person would have shifted their attention towards the new force, especially if highly possible that the people approaching them were the one-eyed man’s comrades. However, Zich paid no attention to the people approaching him and focused only on torturing the one-eyed man. It was definitely not a decision that a sane person would make.
The one-eyed man suddenly became very scared. He thought that he could at least live while a new force approached them, but he realized that his neck could be cut off even before the new group arrived.
“Four, four times! It was four times!” In the end, the one-eyed man could not help but tell the truth.
“Where did you drag the victims?”
“There’s a mountain near the city, and inside it, there’s a cave! I dragged them there!” The one-eyed man no longer had any courage to lie and obediently replied to Zich’s question. However, he was unable to immediately reply to Zich’s next question.
“I’m asking just in case, but where are the victims right now?”
“…”
“Well, it’s fine.” Zich did not force out a reply this time. He had asked this just in case, and he could easily predict what had happened to the victims. ‘They’re all probably dead.’
Zich was about to ask the next question when—
“Stop!” A loud voice stopped them. The forces sent from Pialu had arrived; the one-eyed man’s face brightened up. He was going to be finally free from this horrific torture, but when he saw who it was, his face stiffened.
Zich also turned around towards the sound of the voice. ‘Those guys are also mercenaries.’
The new group that arrived didn’t look much different from the one-eyed man’s group; they also might be the one-eyed man’s comrades. There seemed to be about forty of them, and there were more people than the one-eyed man’s group.
‘Hmm?’ Zich tilted his head while scanning the new group of mercenaries. The person leading the new group of mercenaries looked familiar.
‘That person is…’ Zich was able to easily identify the person in front of him. ‘That’s Zich Brave’s companion.’
Since the person looked exactly the same in Zich’s dream, it was not difficult to identify him. He was the only one of Zich Brave’s companions he hadn’t met so far. The man that Zich called the Shy Giant was right in front of him. The giant man scanned the surroundings as if to gauge the situation. His gaze momentarily stopped on the fallen mercenaries and soon shifted towards Zich and the one-eyed man.
“Did your group do this?”
“Well, yeah.” The man spoke with heavy seriousness, but Zich replied carelessly.
The underlings behind the giant man began to stir up a commotion; they put their hands on their weapons and even looked as if they were going to immediately rush towards Zich. But the giant man raised his hand and stopped them.
Yet, the giant man also seemed to be extremely angry as his voice was extremely cold. “These guys are my underlings. If you did this for no reason, I won’t stay still.”
Zich smirked, and the giant man’s mood seemed to worsen. “What are you laughing about?”
“No, because it’s funny that you’re talking about a ‘reason’ when your underlings are in this state. Of course, it might be because you are a cold and calm type of person, but after witnessing their actions, I can’t help but think of another reason.”
Zich continued brazenly, “These guys must be a pain in the ass for you too, right? Even while seeing this punk getting tortured with one arm cut off, you judged that this guy might be in the wrong.”
The giant man did not say anything. However, seeing that the mercenaries behind him scrunched up their faces, they seemed to agree with Zich’s words.
“Well, it’s fine. Rather than a fight, if you want a conversation, there’s no reason for me to maintain my silence. While we were burying the dead bodies of those who were ambushed by the monsters on this road, these guys suddenly appeared and said we looked suspicious. They said it looked like we ambushed the merchants and were trying to destroy all evidence of our actions. They also said that they received the authority from Pialu to investigate any suspicious people nearby. So that’s why I’m going to ask, did you guys really receive such authority?”
Zich let out a whistle as he saw the giant man’s face clearly twist in anger.
“As expected, it’s a lie.”