Chapter 172 - The Mad Wall Enkrid
Among them was the gatekeeper who had been guarding the gates earlier this morning.
The gatekeeper had watched it all, and he was impressed.
"That guy is completely insane."
He had seen it all.
How Enkrid, covered in the blood of beasts and monsters, had acted.
"Is he crazy?"
Was he covered in blood and running away?
What about that panther?
Using the panther as bait to escape?
No, that couldn't be it.
The direction was the issue.
After crawling, Enkrid had gone deeper into enemy territory.
It was definitely a route that would not be chosen by soone who wasn't insane.
The gatekeeper also saw Enkrid kill a gnoll from behind.
After seeing everything, how could he still call him normal?
That was when he finally understood what Krais had ant.
"They call him the Madn Squad Leader in Border Guard."
A truly mad man, and because of his madness, his actions made his heart race.
Just watching it was unbearable.
The gatekeeper was sharp and quick-witted.
He understood the current situation and realized that there must be sothing like an infiltrator within the rcenary group.
"What if he hadn't acted?"
If Enkrid hadn't done sothing so insane?
What if there had been an infiltrator?
What would happen then?
What would happen to this village?
The gnoll group?
There must be hundreds of hyena beasts, could they handle it?
If no one had done anything, the worst possible outco, where no one would survive, would have awaited them.
Because Enkrid had done sothing crazy, the situation had changed.
The gnoll in the back, its movents were not ordinary.
Even from such a distance, there was an afterimage of its movent.
It was clear that it was the leader of the colony.
That crazy guy killed him.
"How many days would we have lasted?"
What if the leader of the gnolls had stayed alive and controlled the colony?
What if he had led them?
He didn't know.
What was certain was that he would have been a dead man.
Deutsch Pullman had the sa thought.
They had both watched, but how different were they?
They both agreed on two things and acted accordingly.
The fact that Enkrid was insane.
And that they couldn't let him die.
How could they?
How could they let the hero who saved them all die, even if he was mad?
Because both Deutsch Pullman and the gatekeeper shared the sa feeling, they had taken action.
In the end, their choice was the right one.
Esther's contribution, Enkrid's fighting, and Deutsch Pullman and his subordinates' response.
All of it ca together, and as they rushed outside, a rock fell from above.
"Die!"
During that ti, soone had skillfully fetched a stone and dropped it from the wall.
The round stone, about the size of a person's head, fell onto the back of a hyena beast.
Thud.
The stone crushed through bone and muscle, rolling off with a thud as the beast's ribs popped out, leaving the hyena beast sprawled on the ground.
Ugh!
A gnoll nearby also got hit on the head by a stone, and clutching his head, he collapsed.
There had been a quarry nearby and piles of stones ready, which made this possible.
"Fire!"
Then a barrage of arrows rained down on the remaining gnolls, adorning them like decorative accessories.
The gnolls, having lost their leader, began to scatter in all directions, fleeing.
"I'm alive."
Enkrid returned and spoke nonchalantly, as if he had just co back from a casual trip.
He calmly began to sort through his gear, wiping the blood off his sword and removing his armor.
There were marks and wounds scattered across his body, evidence of the efforts he had put into evading and fighting.
He had pushed himself beyond the limit, knowing that if he didn't, he wouldn't be able to carve a path forward.
For Enkrid, these were self-inflicted wounds, part of his plan.
But how would those watching perceive it?
"Damn," Deutsch Pullman muttered.
He looked at Enkrid, his tongue clicking in disbelief.
How could he be so calm?
Why was he so unbothered?
It was as if his guts had been so stretched that they were almost unrecognizable.
"I think it's ti for an explanation," Deutsch Pullman said, still sitting, his tone now acknowledging Enkrid's actions. He agreed with the fact that they had barely made it out alive.
"Yeah, guess so," Enkrid nodded.
His deanor wasn't frantic or urgent.
He seed composed and indifferent.
How could he be so calm at a mont like this?
'This guy is impossible to read.'
Deutsch Pullman thought to himself, but kept his thoughts to himself.
After all, the person in front of him had saved him and everyone else.
Enkrid was an expert at making excuses.
This wasn't the first ti he'd had to do it.
He'd done it countless tis before.
"This morning, I was doing so strength training. When I saw the faces of the two guys on the watchtower, they seed familiar," Enkrid began.
His explanation was casual.
Excuses didn't need to be perfect, just plausible.
It was already over, so who would question it?
"That's when it hit . Those guys were cultists. I'd seen them during my rcenary days, but it took too long to rember."
His words were empty, as though he were just saying whatever ca to mind.
It sounded like a lie.
Even after hearing it multiple tis, it seed like a half-hearted explanation, as if he was saying, "Just take it as it is."
Deutsch Pullman was uncomfortable, but as Enkrid had expected, he couldn't push it any further.
In the end, Enkrid's words made sense, and it was already over, so there was no point in questioning it.
It was a matter of capturing cultists, and the man before them was undoubtedly their hero.
"They're fleeing," ca a voice from the wall.
It was Krais.
How long had he been up there?
Thinking back, it made sense.
Who else but Krais could have gotten the workers and craftsn to prepare the rocks and throw them?
It wasn't the panicking watchn or the volunteers.
Krais' handiwork.
He had convinced the workers to toss the stones.
Before his words even settled, the people gathered on the wall and watchtower spoke up.
"They're retreating!"
"Ugh... we made it."
"Ah."
"Heh."
Workers, the self-defense corps, and the other villagers all united to hold back the horde of monsters and defend the walls.
They had survived by the skin of their teeth.
They had nearly fallen off the cliff but were saved when soone grabbed their sleeves.
How could they not be grateful?
They all turned their gazes toward the person who had pulled them back from the brink.
A man with black hair and blue eyes stood there.
"What? It's true," he said in a dry tone, as though justifying his own statent.
No one paid attention to his words, not even Deutsch Pullman .
"Sure, whatever," Deutsch Pullman muttered, agreeing without much thought.
What mattered wasn't his words, but that, if they weren't idiots, they all knew why they were alive.
"Who was that guy again?" asked one of the craftsn who had helped build the wall.
He had gotten friendly with Krais over the past few days.
Krais, sitting on the wall—which, if it were a fortress, would have called it a gallery—answered, his legs too weak to support himself.
"Enkrid. He's a madman."
That guy is completely insane.
How did he charge in there and fight?
"Ha-ha-ha."
At so point, Esther had joined the conversation, nodding in agreent, as though sharing the sentint.
Krais glanced at Esther.
For the first ti, their opinions aligned.
Esther, too, was equally astonished by what had happened.
Esther, still full of complaints, said with frustration:
"Asked to watch his back, and then he's fighting as if going to die. If I'd slipped up just a little, that crucial item of mine could've been damaged."
Her dissatisfaction was clear, and as she vented, the carpenter standing nearby muttered Enkrid's na.
"Enkrid, Enkrid... No, it doesn't quite roll off the tongue. Madman's Wall... yeah, that sounds good."
"Huh?" Krais turned his head at the carpenter's words.
"It's the na of the wall we'll build later," the carpenter said, eyes filled with certainty.
Was it okay to na the wall like that?
Krais briefly considered stopping him, but then decided against it.
After all, he was too exhausted, his legs too weak to put up a fight.
"Mad Wall Enkrid. This might be better."
The carpenter muttered to himself again, clearly satisfied with the suggestion.
The sun was setting, and the day was coming to an end.
anwhile, Luagarne moved quickly as soon as she heard Enkrid's words.
She headed straight to the house of the so-called "heretic."
Finding it wasn't hard—after all, soone who defied questions from a Frög was rare enough to spot.
The heretic was lounging with a woman.
Luagarne ignored this and called out to him, and the man ca out in nothing but his undergarnts.
Luagarne recognized him imdiately.
It was the man who had followed Deutsch Fulman around like a fish out of water.
"Is this him?" Luagarne asked.
The man tilted his head, clearly confused, and awkwardly responded, "Yes? What's going on?"
He gave a friendly smile, but to Luagarne's trained eye, it wasn't exactly a pleasant sight.
The man looked like a fish head—far from a handso grin.
'Is this really him?' Luagarne silently wondered, before deciding to test him.
A simple test, to judge his reaction.
She stepped forward and threw a punch—not with full force, but enough to test him.
Considering the man could be a heretic, Luagarne put a bit of power into the blow.
It was just a test, after all.
Of course, to the man, it was completely different.
This wasn't just any punch—it was a strike from Frög, a battle-born race, intent on delivering a devastating blow.
With a twist of her right ankle, the Frög launched her fist forward, faster than lightning, the kind of hit that could crush a skull on impact.
The man sensed it instinctively.
The mont his life was threatened, his instincts kicked in, and his hidden strength reacted without hesitation.
Woom.
A brief vibrating sound.
Thud!
At that mont, Luagarne's hand was stopped—blocked by a translucent barrier.
The shield was milky white, yet murky, and not an ordinary magic barrier.
It wasn't a spell.
Luagarne had dealt with heretics more than any inquisitor, and she was familiar with their defenses.
This was the signature defensive power of a heretic.
And the answer was clear.
"Got you."
The Frög's cheeks puffed up as she grinned, a mixture of joy, excitent, and expectation spreading across her face.
"How did you know?!"
The heretic, realizing his true identity had been exposed, imdiately took action.
He tapped the ground twice with his left foot, an unspoken ritual.
Despite being branded a heretic by the False Sanctum, his followers continued to grow in number.
Why was that?
Because they gained power so easily, their lives transford in an instant.
The mont the man beca a priest, he tapped into powers that gave him strength beyond ordinary ans.
With a second stomp, the man's form vanished.
Shwoooosh!
Luagarne's whip flew into the space where the man had been, slashing the ground deeply.
The earth was gouged, leaving a mark as deep as a finger's length.
'This bastard!'
Luagarne thought, frustrated.
Not only did the man rely on his barrier, but he imdiately ran after being found out?
It wasn't teleportation.
Such high-level magic wouldn't activate so easily.
What the man had used was a power that accelerated his movents instantly.
This, too, was sothing Luagarne had seen before.
In the past, it was her job to capture such individuals.
"Pfft, a Frög dares?"
The voice echoed through the air.
It was roughly ten steps away, maybe even a little farther.
"I am a priest. Do you want to die? Co then. I'll make you fertilizer for the expansion of the faith."
Grrrrk.
Fine, let him try.
If he attacks, it will only make things easier for .
The frög, Luagarne responded to the priest's defiant shout not with words but with action.
Her feet struck the ground.
Boom!
A charge, a rush.
The priest of the False Sanctum quickly shifted his weight and stomped twice with his right foot.
This ti, it was the power of levitation.
Whir!
Speed and levitation—thanks to those abilities.
He narrowly avoided Luagarne's whip, which sliced through the air with a loud whip as it missed its target.
"Hmm. When I catch you, I'll start by pulling out your tongue."
Luagarne spoke casually, her cheeks puffing slightly as she grinned.
The priest, realizing he had to move quickly, took flight.
Luagarne followed, hot on his heels. It was almost like a ga of cat and mouse, with Luagarne chasing the priest all day long.
In the end, Luagarne lost him.
After chasing for nearly a full day, the priest had one last trick up his sleeve.
Summoning magic.
A truly annoying bastard.
Because of the creatures he summoned, Luagarne had no choice but to abandon the chase.
"You'll be seeing again!"
The priest's words, though they ca as he fled, carried a certain sincerity.
Now that Luagarne knew what tricks the priest had up his sleeve...
'Next ti, I'll break his legs first.'
That was the only resolution that changed in her mind.
And so, the Frög returned in the deep of the night.
She had circled the quarry and finally ca across signs of battle near the frontier village.
What was this?
The traces alone were enough to tell her that sothing serious had happened here.
Signs of a battle, the land soaked in blood, the scent of excited humans, and the stench of death filled the air.
The atmosphere was strange, though—dark, yet not entirely oppressive.
In that very mont, Luagarne realized she should've returned earlier, but she hadn't.
And there, in front of her, was the man she had been searching for.
The man known as Enkrid.
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