Chapter 33.1: Before Our Spring (3)
Cain’s advance was relentless.
He ignored the geography of the Lamaring Count’s castle and followed the widest path.
Kwaang━!
He smashed everything in his path.
Pweoong━.
He knocked down everything he saw.
“Seize him━!”
He didn’t draw his sword.
“T, The enemy is too strong!”
Two fists and feet were enough. Whether it was a knight or a soldier, it was fair that they fell down on the path Cain passed.
As he continued to knock down dozens of enemies, the people of the castle, not being fools, no longer charged at him.
“Who are you!”
More and more people just gathered.
They just slowly dodged as Cain walked.
“Cain Ethelred.”
He spat out a single word and grinned.
‘This many should be enough for success.’
He had caused a commotion on purpose in order to draw out the knights who would protect Count Weiss Lamaring’s two sons. However, the response was even more heated than he had anticipated.
“Ethel……red!?”
The people of Lamaring were all surprised.
It had only been a few days since word had spread that a territorial war was about to break out, and now the heir to the current Count Ethelred was here.
It was hard to believe.
“It’s a lie! Proud people of Lamaring, kill that bastard right now━.”
“It seems you only know how to call what I’m saying a lie. Whether it’s real or not, the important thing is that the enemy is here.”
Cain brushed his black hair back and cut off the pointless incitement.
At the same time, his purple eyes glittered in the magical lights that illuminated the surroundings.
He slowly looked around.
Most of them turned their eyes away, afraid to meet Cain’s gaze.
Even if they moved fast, they were so weak. There was not even a single warrior, let alone anyone who had the will to fight.
Cain clicked his tongue.
“Is this all Lamaring amounts to?”
“…….”
Another provocation.
But no one dared to charge.
“If you’re really an Ethelred, you’re a disgrace to the nobility!”
No, while they couldn’t bring themselves to attack, there was someone who could still use their mouth.
Across from Cain, a young man in fine silk clothes raised his voice.
“If you were a real nobleman, you would send a duel invitation according to etiquette, and set a time and place…….”
“Is that so?”
Cain smiled lightly and asked back, unusually short.
At that moment.
Oleciren and Isoel felt a chilling killing intent.
Sreung━.
He slowly drew the Sword of Despair, Agweska, which had been sheathed after cutting through the castle wall.
Koong.
As if he had only been toying with them until now, everything changed the moment he drew his sword.
Cain’s aura, heavy like a rock pressing down, cold like ice piercing the nape of the neck, spread through Lamaring.
The young man who had been criticizing Cain instinctively took a step back.
Koong.
He tripped over a stone and fell backward on his own.
Cain approached.
The people of Lamaring retreated like a tide before his momentum.
“You must be a baron or viscount of Lamaring, I suppose.”
Sweeet━!
A black blade that cut through the night.
“Kyaaaaaaaah!”
Blood pouring out, a scream erupting.
The young man clutched his severed arm and screamed. His forearm rolled across the Count’s castle garden.
Cain lightly brushed the blood off his sword and said.
“Think before you open your mouth next time. Next time it’ll be your neck.”
Hesitantly.
The crowd started to move further away at the sight of blood for the first time since entering the castle.
They looked like they were welcoming him, even though they should be stopping him.
War.
The people of the Airian Kingdom, who had only seen the word in history books, would become Cain, the black-haired man, if the word itself became a person.
That was the fear that everyone watching felt.
“…….”
Oleciren stared at the nameless Baron who was rolling on the ground in pain for a long time, then followed Cain.
She didn’t like it, but she didn’t say anything out of turn.
Their walk ended when they met.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen my grandson’s face. It’s so good to see, it’s heartbreaking.”
It was when they faced the elderly Count Weiss Lamaring.
He stood firm, his gnarled cane firmly in hand.
Behind him were four knights.
They were wearing helmets that only showed their eyes, so it was impossible to tell who they were, but the orange cloth tied around their arms revealed their identity.
The only place that uses orange as their family color and has their knights wear it on their arms.
Cain knew it well.
“Are they knights of the Marquis of Ross?”
Count Lamaring nodded lightly at Cain’s question.
“Yes. The Lord Marquis of Ross was gracious enough to lend them to me.”
He seemed to take pride in the fact that the knights of 〈Ross de Kaerot〉 were behind him.
Rather than a count, he seemed more like a puppy dog following Marquis Ross around.
Cain deliberately dragged out the conversation.
“For a count like yourself to be supported by a marquis’s knights…”
It was to give the people of Lamaring time and space to think about the situation.
“As a fellow count, I’m ashamed.”
“Ethelred and Lamaring are of different levels.”
“Your comment is harsh. My mother is your daughter, after all.”
Saaa━.
Count Lamaring’s expression hardened instantly.
He was puzzled.
He couldn’t be sure because it happened in such a short time, but he was sure that he had just seen ‘fear’.
A kind of emotion that a father would have difficulty having for his daughter.
Then, he frowned, his brow creased as if to dispel the darkness of the night with the bright lights of the magic lamps.
“It’s too bright. Not only do I let an enemy like this enter, but I light up my house like a scene you’d see in a cheap play.”
“If I were the protagonist of the play, you would be the villain who talks a lot and appears early in the play, Grandpa.”
“…….”
Silence fell.