The Amber Sword

Chapter 16 – Bucce’s guards

(TL: There are three grades of army here. The highest grade currently is the Kingdom’s army, then the Guards, then the militia. It’s kind of hard to spot the differences, so there might be some mistakes here and there from me. Just know that the people Brendel is about to meet are the ‘Guards’ which is considered as a formal army compared to the militia. And if you are able to think of better middle-ages terms to replace ‘Guards’, feel free to comment.)

Brendel dodged sideways and allowed the skeleton to pass by him. He had nearly forgotten about the skeleton in the ‘Room of Solitude’. But he was no longer injured like before and his hand was already on the sword’s hilt.

A flash of light streaked across the passageway as the body of the ‘Thorn of Light’ glimmered with white light. The skeleton’s upper body flew into the air. Brendel watched the remaining bones gradually turn into dust. The ‘Thorn of Light’ was indeed a Holy sword as it even had a ‘Purification’ effect.

One golden light entered into Brendel’s chest.

Weapons with the ‘Purification’ effect did double damage to undead, which was no wonder why Brendel did not feel any resistance when he cleaved the skeleton into two. It was like a hot knife cutting through butter.

[A divine weapon.]

Brendel instantly graded this sword. Well, although it was not really one, it was just as good under his current situation.

But he was very worried about Freya and Irene’s safety, so he immediately kicked away the lower body and ran outside. His 2 OZ worth of agility could finally be used without any problems and it showed off his true speed. His strength, agility and physique crossed 2 OZ, and he ran like a speeding truck.

Brendel traced his original route back, and the dark passageway twists and turns did not cause him any obstructions at all. He jumped out from the shrine’s destroyed wall, and his powerful lifeforce immediately attracted the nearby wandering undead. Two skeletons walked over to him with clacking sounds, but what awaited them were two silver flashes of light.

Two XP instantly went into Brendel’s chest. He looked over to the direction of the farmhouse, his pupils dilating when he discovered that there were flames from the building igniting the night sky.

And in his line of sight, hundreds of skeletons were starting to surround the building. He knew that these undead with low intelligence would not act on their own, which meant there was a necromancer nearby who had discovered something.

“Freya, Irene!” Brendel’s heart dropped like a rock. But when he was prepared to rush over there, he heard a cold and shrilling voice behind him:

“There’s a human over there, kill him!”

Brendel looked back from his shoulder, and discovered a necromancer commanding six skeletons that formed into a line advancing towards him.

The necromancer raised the staff in its hand.

But Brendel reacted and moved faster than him. His ‘Charge’ skill instantly activated and lunged at it so swiftly that he appeared to be like a blurry shadow. “Stop him!” The necromancer was startled and shrieked loudly.

The first skeleton soldier raised its sword, but Brendel’s cold eyes appeared before him. A voice yelled out in his mind clearly, and it was as if the feelings of the original owner of this body had been poured into it:

“You Madara fuckers, you are all going to burn into ashes!”

He did not even care to use any technique and simply crashed his own sword against the skeleton’s. A deafening crash pierced through his ears as the skeleton’s steel sword bent and broke off from the immense impact, and the sword continued to slice past the skeleton.

Brendel’s charge did not stop at all, and the skeleton soldiers that were left behind from his speed were quartered equally into four pieces before they realized it. At this moment, there were no more obstacles between him and the necromancer.

The frightening visage of the necromancer was twisted into an expression of disbelief and its mouth was wild open.

“This sword, is for Brendel!”

He roared, and his sword pierced into the necromancer’s left rib cage, piercing through the other end of the third ribcage bone. The ‘Thorn of Light’ flashed brightly as he glared at the necromancer’s green flames in its eyesockets. He then swung the blade free upwards.

The flames in the necromancer’s eye flickered unsteadily and immediately died down. A clanking sound could be heard as the staff from its hand dropped down. The necromancer was starting to turn into ashes from the ‘Purifying’ effect.

Three golden lights flew from the necromancer into his chest.

When he turned back, there were two more skeleton soldiers that had approached towards him. Brendel raised his sword upwards.

The first skeleton’s arm was immediately cut off, and the sword turned its direction and the skull flew up into the sky. He kicked the skeleton’s ribcage out and it flew towards the other skeleton.

It immediately swung its sword to defend against it, but before it could recover from the swing, a flash of bright light swept down across its body and sundered it into two. The chain armor’s rings seemed to rain everywhere.

Another two golden lights flew into him.

Brendel silently called out to his character stats window in his mind. The green fonts appeared across his retina. He chose one of the categories, and said in his mind: “Profession and XP.”

XP: 11 (Commoner level 1 ———, Civilian Soldier level 2, 6/10, Mercenary level 1, 0/10)

More skeletons started to approach him and he casually blocked one of the incoming sword, and said in his mind: “11 XP into the Mercenary profession.”

XP: 0 (Commoner level 1 ———, Civilian Soldier level 2, 6/10, Mercenary level 2, 11/30)

Brendel pushed the skeleton back and checked his own stats. His strength and physique was raised by another 0.2 OZ, his agility and perception had increased by 0.1 OZ. But the most important thing was he had 25 AP, and this point alone made the militia profession lose its value.

Very good. He had 2.3 strength, 2.1 Agility, and 2.2 Physique. His overall power rating was 8.0. He had completely surpassed a starting player’s attributes and had began to take his first step to a Grade 1 rank.

Brendel’s mind had cooled down from the necromancer’s fight. He looked at the three skeletons in front of him like they were air.

Yes, he was finally back to Aouine.

..........................................................................................................

Ten minutes was enough to let the dust settle down from a battleground. The sounds of hooves could be heard from afar.

Two riders.

The youths on the horses rode together on the long street. They let their horses stop as they surveyed the surroundings, and looked on in surprise as they saw the remnants of dust and bones. They did not speak for a while.

“Zeta, you’re seeing this right?”

“It looks like it’s only one person who did all this. Do you think it’s from the Fortress Riedon’s army?”

“There’s a necromancer here, Mother Marsha above! Zeta, can you fight against four by yourself?”

“No, I can’t. This must be the work of a veteran soldier.” The lithe young man quietly looked at the surroundings, and disbelief gradually showed in his expression: “Ryan, there are six more skeleton soldiers over there.”

A pause.

“Erm, you mean seven?”

“Seven.”

“We need to inform the vice captain of this event here. What is your guess? From the Kingdom’s army? Or a traveling knight?” Ryan immediately looked back at his friend and asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine, Ryan. But I agree with your suggestions.”

............................................................

When Brendel reached the farmhouse, it had already turned into a sea of flames. The burning structure was like a scene from the movies, and there were occasional sounds of the building collapsing from within, but he did not see the undead army chasing Freya and Irene.

Conversely, he only saw the newly raised undead running away from the flames. These fiery flames are the natural enemy of these undead, and their weak Soul Fire were trembling from the strong light. They were almost close to being purified into ashes.

The building’s flames were not blue. In the game, the Madara’s armies would only use the cold Soul Fire, and thus this was certainly not done by the undead here. Could have Freya and Irene set the fire? He shook his head as he did not think they would be so decisive.

He suddenly turned to a direction from his sharp senses, and happened to see a platoon of skeleton soldiers moving quickly to somewhere. He squinted as he saw a pulsating darkness from them. Was there a necromancer nearby?

He pulled out the sword with the ‘Thorn of Light’ shimmering lightly. He advanced into that direction, and the blundering skeletons that came into contact with him quickly turned into 7 XP.

But before the youth was able to approach, he suddenly heard a loud crash from the corner in front. Countless bone fragments and chainmail rings rained everywhere, and two or three skeletons hurtled through the air into the nearby fire.

Brendel got startled.

That was probably a Grade 1 strength. Who was the person behind the sea of flames? Human? Fortress Riedon’s Kingdom army? But they did not appear here in history.

He subconsciously took a defensive posture, and coincidentally saw a squadron of riders as they emerged from the flames. There were like an unstoppable torrent that rushed out, and the leader of the riders rode towards him. He raised his long sword and the riders reined their horses and neatly formed together.

“Who are you?” A rider asked coldly. His voice appeared to be a young man. But there was a momentary pause from him. Brendel could not see his expression, but he felt as if the young man knew him.

[No, to be more precise he knew the former Brendel.]

There were whispers amongst the riders from behind him:

“I’m betting that’s a militia.”

“I know him.”

“But you are not wrong, he’s merely a militia.”

Brendel frowned. When he gradually adjusted to the bright light, he finally saw the attire of these men clearly. A blue woolen coat, dragonscale armor, shining white steel helmet and a knight’s sword. There was the silver white background with black pine leaves symbol on the shoulder as well.

Bucce’s regular army.

“Brendel, why are you here?” The leader of the riders changed into a tone of superiority.

“I have the same question.” Brendel searched through his memories and found this person’s name: Bretton. He was also a Bruglas citizen, and he had shown excellent promise in the militia training and recruited into the regular army. He was later sent to Bucce’s border to train........

However, this was just how it looked on paper. No matter how good Bretton was, he could not have been better than the former Brendel who was the best swordsman in their batch. The truth was Bretton had a father who was a local offical who spoke up for him, and he naturally had a smooth transition from then onwards.

The current Brendel knew the enmity between them, no, it could not really be described as enmity. At most they looked down on each other.

And as expected, Bretton followed up with: “This militia over here, I’m ordering you as the vice captain of the Bucce’s regular army to immediately report to me why you have appeared in this area?

The bunch of knights immediately snickered, as they knew Bretton just wanted to find a bit of trouble with this fellow from his hometown. Report or whatever, that was just an excuse.

Brendel raised his head, with the flames from the burning wreck reflected in his eyes.

TL: Please inform me of any Engrish mistakes.

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