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EP.40 Don't... abandon me, Eugene...?4
One who walks alone, that is another nickname for a Sword Expert.
As a realm of complete transcendence,
That is why one of them has combat power equivalent to an average mercenary group or knight order.
'Expert, Eugene... has become a Sword Expert...!'
Though Jeanne's eyes were hazy from losing a lot of blood,
Even to her eyes, the situation before her was clearly visible.
The blue sword aura haze rising from Eugene's greatsword that had blown off Lucas's head,
Sword User Alpha Eugene Schneider, who had become like a serpent waiting for time due to the imbalance of awakening abilities, thus became a Sword Expert, a being called "one who walks alone".
Thud!
Lucas's head with disheveled yellow hair,
That miserable form cut off by Eugene's greatsword
Fell to the ground with a dull sound.
Splurt!!
And from his neck with a clean cut surface, a fountain of blood belatedly burst forth.
'Blood... human blood gushing out...'
Sword Expert Eugene Schneider stared at that sight with subtle eyes, as if frozen.
Crash!!
Then Lucas's body clad in heavy armor also collapsed to the ground,
Thud! Thud! Thud!
Eugene's footsteps, having somehow retrieved his swung sword, moved elsewhere.
"Ugh! Cough! Cough!"
Where his footsteps were heading,
Jason was sprawled out, unable to pull out the broken blade stuck between his shoulder and neck, collapsed and vomiting blood.
Thud!
Though his eyes were still flashing red, the previous mad dog-like momentum had disappeared,
Eugene Schneider stopped in front of Jason like that.
"Tell me. The identity of that drug that turned you guys into mad dogs."
Swish...!
Then Eugene looked down at Jason with a face so cold it didn't even feel like killing intent.
Then he pointed with the tip of his greatsword at the drug vial fallen on the ground and asked.
"Kukuk! That reaction, seems I'm right. I heard the first Jedi had a son with demon blood mixed in, looks like you're that guy. Kukuk cough!"
Eugene's expression was beyond mere curiosity.
So Jason turned his consistent sense of déjà vu into certainty.
The first Jedi of the Sophist sword order,
None other than Eugene Schneider's father, Ulysses Schneider.
Ulysses took a demon woman as his wife
And miraculously had a child with her.
But conscious of the inevitable situation between demons and the empire
He hid the secret of his son's birth as much as possible.
Even within the Sophists, only his closest confidants who had assisted him for a long time knew that fact,
And externally only close friends like Antoine de Sel Orléans were made aware.
So to the current Sophist leadership, the son of the first Jedi Ulysses remains a mystery-like conspiracy theory.
Stab!!
"Guh!!"
"I'll ask again."
Though the mad dog momentum was broken, Jason's appearance of acting arrogant as if knowing Eugene's identity,
However, Eugene did not react to Jason's babbling
And stabbed Jason's thigh, the target of his interrogation, with the tip of his greatsword still emitting sword aura.
Because of that, Jason's mouth, which had been sneering until just before, twisted sharply and let out a miserable scream.
"The drug, was it made within the Sophists?"
Looking down at that appearance, Eugene asked again about the identity and source of the drug.
"Fuck... this bastard looks down too easily on the Sophists' Claymores... Kuk! We've already thrown away our lives on the battlefield since receiving swords from the Jedi. This mouth won't open no matter how much you cut me up!"
Despite his face twisted in pain, Jason did not give up his sneering towards Eugene until the end.
"Rather, I'll choose death myself."
Crunch!
And as if to show it wasn't just empty bravado,
Sophist intermediate monk Claymore Jason grasped the broken sword fragment stuck in his shoulder.
Squelch! Splurt!
"Gaaah!!"
Then he pulled it out without hesitation.
Because of that, a dark red stream of blood spurted out like a fountain from where the sword had been embedded.
"The demon blood, take good care of it. It's connected to berserkers, so it's not an ordinary troublesome thing."
Grin...!
It was an endless gush of dark red blood.
A sight too miserable for words,
But as if that was truly befitting of the mystical order Sophists,
Jason once again smiled like a mad dog and pointed the sword fragment pulled from his shoulder at his own neck.
With the intention of silencing himself through suicide,
Then he poured out words of warning mixed with curses that could hardly be seen as last words to Eugene.
"Glory to the Jedi!!!!"
Jason shouting a loyalty oath to the Jedi with bloodshot eyes just before taking his own life
Slash!!!
However, the sound that pierced Jason's neck afterwards
Was much heavier than that of the sword fragment.
"The Sophists have become a cult of fanatics."
What cut Jason's neck in two was none other than Eugene's greatsword,
He did not allow Jason the final free will of suicide.
"Eugene, you saved me...?"
"Yeah, that's how it turned out."
"Hah... I was useless as an older sister again..."
"Are you okay, Jeanne?"
"I'm not okay, I can barely see your face..."
"You seem fine if you can say that."
That was the entirety of the conversation that passed between the two
As Eugene supported Jeanne and came out of the cave.
Too many things happened densely in a short moment,
So neither of the two dared to touch that seemingly sensitive thread.
Eugene just focused on saving Jeanne who had been hit by an arrow,
And Jeanne tried not to lose consciousness.
"It's the Captain!! The Captain and Assault Captain are coming out together!!!!"
"Woooah!!! We've won!!!"
When they reached the end of the dark cave,
What greeted Eugene and Jeanne were the silhouettes of their comrades backlit against the light.
And the joyful shout of a familiar sword soldier rang out as if welcoming them.
As that shout echoed, the other comrades then let out cheers of quest completion.
"Oh no! The Captain's been hit by an arrow! Quickly call the medic! Sophia too!!"
But those cheers soon changed to a commotion.
Because they saw the injured state of Jeanne walking out supported by Eugene.
Shield axeman Ivan quickly ran over to help support her,
And Thomas, who had come out first according to the promised time, began taking orderly measures.
"Big bro Eugene! Are you injured anywhere?"
After finishing giving urgent situation handling orders, Thomas supported Eugene.
Though Eugene had no visible injuries,
He clearly looked tired as if slightly drained.
"I'm fine. Not injured. Just... tired. I'll be better after resting."
Smile...!
Eugene forced a smile
At Thomas who was looking up at him with a worried expression while supporting him.
"....."
About an hour later,
Eugene, who hadn't even taken off his armor yet,
Was sitting blankly on a bench outside the church in Jebodang village.
"The villagers prepared lodging, you should go rest there, bro."
"Ah, I'm worried about the Captain. How's her treatment going?"
Because Jeanne's treatment was being done in the church.
"Uncle Peter removed the arrow very cleanly. Then Sister Sophia went in to heal her. The first round of healing went well. Now they just need to do the second round for external wound treatment. So thanks to that, the Captain has fallen asleep."
"That's a relief. Really a relief."
Thud...!
As Thomas gave a detailed report on Jeanne's treatment progress,
Eugene finally let out a sigh of relief and leaned back against the wall.
"But the arrow stuck in the Captain wasn't from goblins, did you perhaps encounter the Sophists? The Claymores the villagers had spotted?"
Thomas, feeling the urgent fire of the situation had been put out,
Carefully asked about what had happened to Eugene and Jeanne.
Since Thomas had also faced the crossbows used by goblins,
He could tell the crossbow arrow stuck in Jeanne's upper chest was certainly not from goblins.
So what crossed the quick-witted Thomas's mind
Was ultimately the Sophists that had been noticed outside Jebodang village.
"That's right. Seems we encountered the ones the villagers spotted. Doesn't seem like they were targeting us from the start, it's just speculation but I think they entered the cave aiming for the crimson-haired shaman goblin and discovered us."
"Ah... I see... Then they must have entered through a hidden passage in the grass. There was another hole we didn't know about. Priscilla caught the shaman goblin trying to escape through there."
Eugene only told Thomas as much as he could at the moment.
From those words, Thomas made his own deductions about how the Sophists were able to penetrate
The Red Fox Mercenary Group's vision surrounding the goblin cave.
"We'll collect the goblin corpses and Sophist corpses. You should rest well at the village lodging, bro."
"Alright, then I'll head in first. Thanks for your hard work."
Swish...!
After exchanging a rough overview of the situation, Eugene got up from his seat.
'For 12 years, that's how I remembered it.'
Eugene headed towards the lodging next to Jebodang village's central hall.
It's a building rented in advance to celebrate if the quest is completed successfully.
Eugene's footsteps heading there were
Different from when he came out supporting Jeanne,
And different from when he walked in front of Thomas, they were dragging.
'One day I heard news of my father's death, and confirmed it through his broken sword.'
Because the memories of the past that he had suppressed for about an hour and a half to focus on Jeanne began to dominate his mind again.
'Even I couldn't understand my own reaction. I accepted his death too easily without even seeing my father's body.'
Nine-year-old Eugene Schneider hiding in the Schneider family's secret villa on that fateful day,
That day he received news of his father's death from Ulysses Schneider's close friend Antoine de Sel Orléans.
Antoine said he couldn't show Ulysses' body because it was too damaged from such an intense battle.
He only showed Eugene the broken form of the sword symbolizing the sword saint Ulysses,
And his blood-stained armor.
Nine-year-old Eugene Schneider immediately accepted that, to the point that even the few people around him found it strange.
Then as time passed and he entered adolescence, Eugene himself suddenly recalled that time and questioned his reaction back then.
'I struggled to erase my father who had turned into a murderous demon from my mind, but couldn't completely delete it. So I already knew my father would have to die. That's why I could only react that way.'
The reason for easily accepting it,
Nine-year-old Eugene Schneider had already faced
His father who had turned into a murderous demon before that fateful day.
Before Ulysses Schneider caused an uproar in the world as a murderous demon,
His first murderous act took place in the Schneider mansion.
In that incident, Eugene saw his father standing amidst a hell of corpses
With red glowing eyes and skin covered in burst blood vessels.
Moreover, he came face to face with him
And directly confronted the fallen sword saint who charged at his son with sword raised, consumed by madness.
'It was my father who sent me to the secret villa.'
The sight of his terrified son right before his eyes,
That grabbed hold of Ulysses Schneider's last thread of reason.
But Eugene Schneider, to protect himself from those unbelievable memories of that day,
Ended up completely sealing away his father's final appearances.
Thud!
Having reached the lodging, Eugene collapsed onto the bed as if falling.
'Why did father become like that, why... how... the man praised as a sword saint becoming a bloodthirsty murderous demon...'
Eugene, who likely wanted to deny and carve out so many things from that day's memories through defense mechanisms,
Perhaps what Eugene most wanted to deny and reject
Was the fact that his father may have chosen the path of a murderous demon himself.
That's why he asked Jason if the source of the drug that made him change like a demon was from within the Sophists.
Drooop...!
With that unanswerable question filling his mind,
Eugene Schneider's eyelids, utterly exhausted, slowly closed as if collapsing.
"Huh? Didn't they say there were definitely four corpses? There are only two???"
The next morning,
After finishing collecting the goblin corpses, Red Fox Mercenary Group shield soldiers were sent into the Dark Forest goblin cave to collect the Sophist corpses.
But at the site where Eugene and the Sophists had fought, there were only two Sophist corpses left, not four.
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