"Damn it, this is a scam."
Sacrifice in war is inevitable. It is something beyond one's control.
It's like playing chess— sacrificing the knight to capture the bishop, sacrificing the bishop to capture the rook, and sacrificing the rook to capture the queen.
A victory without sacrifice was always a distant dream.
Therefore, Finn had entered the mission with her own sacrifice in mind. That's what her role was in this battle. No, she believed that's what it was, and she thought it was only natural.
'If a wandering bard were to turn this into a story, what would I become?'
There would be many fallen soldiers, but the victory of the battle belonged to their side.
Would she be one of the dead in the sentence, "The fallen soldiers were many, but the victory was ours"?
A storyteller skilled enough might have drawn a more detailed picture of the ranger unit's achievements, but one thing was clear. Finn had accepted her death.
Sacrifice was unavoidable, and someone had to take on that role, and this time was simply her turn.
Having made this resolve, she recognized the inevitability of her situation. That was when it happened.
'Huh?'
Suddenly, she was left speechless. Finn blinked her eyes. If any attack had come, she would have reacted. Her training was ingrained in her body. But her mind was frozen.
What was this?
Something impossible had occurred within her understanding.
Was it a dream? No, it wasn't a dream. The pain from the wounds scattered across her body confirmed that she was in reality.
The blade that had cut across her shoulder caused blood to stream down her arm, stinging and burning with sharp sensation. The sense of reality was undeniable.
'So, what was this?'
Naturally, her gaze turned to Jaxen. Her subordinates also looked the same way. At some point, the group of fairies they were fighting had disappeared, and in their place stood a lone, madman-like soldier.
'Reinforcements?'
It didn't seem like just one person. But this didn't make sense.
They were on Pen-Hanil Mountains. To travel half a day's distance at full speed would have caused a great disturbance. Monsters and beasts would have been following relentlessly, like chasing after someone suffering from paranoia.
But it didn't end there. The subtle malice that the fairies had been emitting had vanished entirely.
If they hadn't suddenly fallen in love with peace and love, or if they hadn't reconciled and left quietly it was clear they were now meeting with the God of Death, having a chat.
'Did he kill all of them in such a short time?'
The very enemies that they struggled to handle?
Finn didn't even realize when it had happened. It wasn't just the ability to kill the fairies—this quiet, efficient handling of everything was impossible to believe.
It should have been loud, chaotic and messy. That was her calculation, based on her abilities. But this person, whether they had fallen from the sky or emerged from the earth, had suddenly appeared and quietly cleaned everything up.
They appeared out of nowhere and swiftly cleared the area.
Finn stopped swinging her sword, exhausted her limbs were trembling. If she had kept moving she wouldn't have had time to think. But now that she wasn't moving, her eyes started to absorbed visual information, and her mind began processing it.
She felt a sense of cognitive dissonance. But Finn overcame it.
A well-trained soldier always does their job, no matter the situation.
If that wasn't the case, how could they charge to the front line knowing they would likely die?
After years of training, particularly the hellish training under Audin and Shinar, Finn's mind accepted reality as it was, and she immediately deduced what was needed in this situation.
'So, is this bad?'
That couldn't be right.
"The enemy commander had a bow, and the fairies fought in an unfamiliar way. I believe this group is not all there is."
Finn spoke the necessary words. Jaxen remained silent.
He stood quietly, his breath so soft that it was barely audible even to her, his gaze fixed forward, but strangely it felt as though he was looking at her, even though from Finn's position she could only see the back of his head.
"I hope no one on our side dies."
Enkrid had said, and Jaxen didn't find it hard to accept that request. If it was impossible there was nothing that could be done, but they could at least try. If a small elite force could win without a full-scale battle, it would be possible.
If they fought at the right time in the right way, they could minimize their side's casualties.
Calculating that way, it made sense.
Of course, saying they wouldn't lose a single person was probably a bit excessive.
"It's war, after all."
Jaxen couldn't help but respond with a retort to such an unrealistic goal.
"Well, if it doesn't work, it doesn't work," Enkrid replied in a light tone.
Though his voice was light, the determination behind it wasn't.
In other words, he wanted no one on their side to die in war.
How absurd was that?
And yet, he intended to make it happen.
Even if it wasn't him, Enkrid would still try to make it happen.
There was resolve in his words.
'He's always has been reckless, so it's not surprising he'd come this far.'
For Enkrid, this would be no different. Jaxen however found it strange that he, an expert in killing would one day be the one trying to save others.
But then again, hadn't he already changed his mind when he had to modify Geogr's dagger?
"Can't we just act like greedy bastards? Win without killing anyone? Why? Why can't we do that?"
This was something Enkrid had said before heading out.
Teasing, Enkrid asked repeatedly, and Jaxen didn't answer with words merely shaking his head. Deep inside he had already given his answer.
"The mad-headed knight... what do you think? It seems like a fitting nickname."
Rarely, the barbarian next to him said something he actually liked.
At any rate, Jaxen was acting according to Enkrid's wishes.
He had killed the moonlight fairies that had been seen trailing them and was now searching for the archer who had disappeared as soon as Jaxen began his work.
The enemy was good at hiding their presence—no sound, no trace.
Jaxen had purposefully revealed himself.
He hadn't done things like this before, but that didn't mean he was sloppy. It was a new experience, but it wasn't something he couldn't handle.
He had once used himself as bait to kill a target, but this was different.
While all of this happened, Finn spoke up, and although Jaxen heard her, he didn't react.
He had already assessed the situation and made his own decisions.
He wasn't the type to fight recklessly or to rush blindly into battle.
He was calm and deliberate, and that's how he prepared for his next move.
"Don't move."
Jaxen spoke again. Finn and the reconnaissance team held their breath.
If necessary they could even stop breathing, but there was no need for that.
The archer wasn't a knight, but a tricky opponent.
Jaxen had a strange feeling, as though he had encountered this archer before.
'Falcon's claw?'
The name popped into Jaxen's mind. When was it? Back when their captain had been kicked by that Frog in the battlefield?
Could it be that archer? No, it seemed like someone higher up. His instincts told him.
Jaxen didn't know it, but the archer known as Falcon's Claw had already met his end at Rem's axe, crossing over the Black River long ago. The one hiding now was the master of Falcon's Claw. Her blood was half fairy, half human.
By activating the talent embedded in her blood and instincts, she had hidden herself.
None of this was something Jaxen needed to know. No matter how it happened the opponent was hiding, and he just needed to find them.
That's how assassination works.
All you had to do was stick a metal stick into a person's body, but finding the target is the tricky part.
Well, if the target were a Frog, one strike with a knife wouldn't end it. They are a safety-first species who wear their armor on their heart even while sleeping. In fact, the Frogs are sensitive to the word "heart" from the start, so that's normal for them. If it weren't a Frog, what's the most troublesome part of an assassination?
It's finding those who hide.
Some would burrow like moles, and others would sleep in different rooms of their mansion every night. Geogr's dagger were skilled in gathering intelligence, and there were times when he used the information to locate a target, but to Jaxen when such a situation occurred he would make up for the lack of information with his own abilities.
He used the talent he had to do so, and once a former master who had once taught him said this:
"Damn, that's cheating."
It wasn't cheating, though.
Cheating was something you say when you see someone like the captain.
'Endless Will?'
That's what makes a fight unfair. Was it just Fel who was shocked when he saw Enkrid awakened? Jaxen was also stimulated by it.
Because of this stimulation, he might have agreed to the unreasonable demand to save everyone on his side.
'Even if the sky turns its back on you and talent is nowhere to be found, one can still become a knight.'
"Why can't I say that I won't let a single one of my comrades die on the battlefield?"
Enkrid's words lingered in his ears.
Small thoughts overlapped, and concepts merged to form will, and that is Will.
To Jaxen, who had sensitive senses from a young age, Will was also something that could be felt.
While the fairy Shinar discussed Will through vital energy, and Rem accepted it as part of his magical power, to Jaxen it was simply something he sensed.
Just because it's invisible doesn't mean it's not there.
Jaxen visualized his senses and embedded his will within it.
He shrank the large circle he had spread around him and deepened its color.
Some used Will to cut through anything with a blade.
Others moved Will to send invisible blades flying.
Jaxen didn't have such skills.
Instead, his talent taught him how to put Will onto his five senses. The sharp leaves of a tree shading his head through the sunlight, the dark shade, a shadow lighter than the shade, the scent in the air, the direction of the wind. The five senses combined, opening the door to sixth sense Intuition. With Will layered over his sensory techniques, Jaxen could perceive everything within the visualized circle. The anxiety of his comrades behind him.
The presence of an archer, who had already nocked an arrow on the bow atop a tree.
*Thwip*
Despite the distance, the sound of the string being pulled was heard first.
Then, the arrow transformed into a beam of light and flew toward them.
The arrow was aimed at Finn, not Jaxen.
In the meantime, the archer had used his mind to target Finn hoping to exploit a gap in defense. Jaxen grabbed Finn's wrist and pulled her to the side.
With a thud, the arrow embedded itself in the dirt, and a nearby stone bounced away.
The stone landed with a light thump on the ground, and Finn who was pulled away by Jaxen's grip felt the force on her wrist vanish for a moment, which was when Jaxen disappeared again.
Like smoke vanishing, he was outside of Finn's field of perception.
At the same time, the archer also lost track of Jaxen.
Ateroz's mother was a fairy, and her father was human.
Her father had abandoned both Ateroz and her mother, but Ateroz was fortunately accepted by fairy society.
Around that time, a transformation was needed in fairy society and she was fortunate enough to contribute to the formation of the Moonlight Fairy combat squad.
After going through various experiences and gaining power, she set a goal.
'Let's kill my father.'
Every man who recklessly spread his seed was her enemy. After killing her own father, she set an even greater goal. She would kill those who fathered bastards.
To achieve this, she sought the power of Aspen and killed her father. In the process, she made several oaths and formed a combat squad with some of the Moonlight Fairies. When part of the fairy squad was attacked, Ateroz immediately hid and took up her bow. Then she shot an arrow at the woman who seemed to be the commander among the survivors.
'The gap.'
What she hoped for was a chance to see a terrifying monster suddenly appear.
But no such thing appeared.
When the arrow flew and missed its target, Ateroz hid her presence again.
Since childhood, she had entrusted herself to the shade and shadows that had protected her, but now she felt the touch of a blade on her back.
Instinctively, she tried to swing her bow to strike but the blade first sank deep between her shoulder blades.
Her opponent was someone specialized in killing.
Every death has a story.
The hybrid fairy who had sided with Aspen also had a story.
But death is the end.
Thus, one of the hybrid fairy who had once been obsessed with killing the men who fathered bastards was now dead.
It wasn't the time for sentimental thoughts.
'Was she the bait?'
As soon as he killed the archer, Jaxen could feel a gaze directed at him.
His senses told him that this wasn't the end.
Beyond that, he felt a presence similar to the hybrid fairy he had just killed.
This presence was three times stronger than the previous opponents.
Dozens of fairy sword fighters.
'She must've been the bait.'
By seeing their allies fall, the enemy had altered their tactics making the archer the bait. Jaxen revealed his position again to kill the archer and also demonstrated some of his abilities.
He twisted his wrist and loosened his joints.
Earlier, it had been a warm-up, but now he intended to use real strength.
The fairy sword fighters didn't rush in.
Instead, they began to disperse into groups, which Jaxen recognized as a tactical formation. Even if the archer had been bait, who was it that made him into bait just now?
The movements of the fairy sword fighters indicated that there was a proper commander among them.
Jaxen recognized the existence of this commander and located their position, but he judged that charging in directly would be difficult.
The fairy sword fighters formed a barrier in front of the commander.
This meant that the time had truly come to show his full strength.
The enemy had likely underestimated Jaxen as someone who just sneaks around and makes a few cuts.
Naturally that was a misjudgment, a big misjudgment.

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