It was dark, very dark. If I hadn't heard Caravaggio crunching the ground beneath his hooves, Paul wouldn't have even realized Laws was beside him
The corpses of the bandits lay before me, and two figures had appeared from the shadows.
Nucklegard the North King.
Paul had heard the rumors before: two swordsmen fighting as one.
They were famous and deadly mercenaries.
Paul had no doubts anymore. Someone wanted him dead, and there's only one person who would go to such lengths just to kill him.
But a smile formed on Paul's face, a smile of self-deprecation for not having been more careful, for not having trained harder when he could have.
If only he were a little stronger...
Paul looked at Laws next to him.
He was injured. There was a dagger in his shoulder, but it hadn't pierced too far, so he had already removed the dagger and applied first aid.
"Laws... get back to the village as quickly as you can..."
"No, I can't leave you here!" the half-elf protested.
"Laws, do it if you don't want to return to a village with its entire population dead! We're in the wooded area along the road," he spoke briefly. "You shouldn't be so loud in a situation like this. You're a hunter," he continued.
"It's fine... I trust you," Laws murmured with concern.
The clouds parted, and the moon shone through them, illuminating the surrounding area.
There Paul saw them.
Black shadows moving in the darkness, barely visible in the light.
"Laws! Duck down!" Paul shouted, and the black figure moved to the side of the road.
"Huh?!" Laws's eyes were filled with fear at Paul's sudden shout, but he couldn't pay attention.
Paul couldn't even react in time before the figure split in two.
On impulse, Paul pulled Laws away from Caravaggio, but he arrived too late.
"Ugh!"
The flash of a sword passed by them, and Paul saw an arm fly.
The two figures lunged at him, their swords slashing at Paul's neck.
Luckily for him, he had a quick draw.
Metal clashed with metal, and sparks flew. Paul knew instantly that the strength of a single individual wasn't too much for him.
Still, both of them simultaneously had enough power to throw him backward, even with the added weight of carrying Laws in his left hand.
Paul couldn't even see their appearance during that brief kiss with death.
All he could make out, thanks to the brief interaction and the light from the sparks, was their black armor and bunny ears—both were Mildetts.
Caravaggio whinnied and ran away after the clash of blades.
"P-Paul? My arm is...!" Laws gasped as he hyperventilated. He clutched the spot where his arm had been.
His eyes were wide with fear and panic, as all he found was a stump and a hole that was bleeding profusely.
It didn't take long for him to bleed out. This meant Paul didn't have time to waste on those two any longer than necessary.
"Try to pull yourself together, Laws..." Before Paul could finish speaking, Laws relaxed and didn't make a sound. He looked at the wound and his unconscious state.
"Fuck! He passed out from shock..." Paul had nowhere to run, and he couldn't leave Laws abandoned.
He had no choice but to fight.
"It's an honor to see you, Sir Paul," the swordsmen said in unison.
Without looking away, Paul tore off a piece of Laws's shirt and hurriedly tied a tourniquet.
"Yeah, who cares! The nerve of you to come out of nowhere like that!" Paul needed to size them up quickly and end this quickly if he wanted Laws to survive.
They both nodded in sync as they each raised their swords. "We are one of the Three Swords of the God of the North! We are the North King, Nuckelgard, the 'Twin Swords,' and we are here to end your life!"
"Paul Greyrat, advanced in all three sword styles. I'll skip the formalities! Looks like I'll kill you today!" Paul knew that in a face-to-face fight, he would lose.
He'd probably end up dead anyway. He couldn't face a King in the North alone as he was now, but that didn't mean he could back down either.
There was a man who trusted him, and he had to protect him.
Paul had a family he needed to keep safe.
He had to be the first to act. He lunged. Neither man moved, but Paul noticed they were watching him. Paul wasn't fast enough that Nuckelgard couldn't keep up.
"I wish I could use the Longsword of Light like Ghislaine..." Paul thought. However, he couldn't, so he had to settle for his "Longsword of Silence" for this fight.
He could win if he could land a solid blow on either of them. He planted his front foot and lunged forward.
His sword flew out as it slashed horizontally. All that followed was absolute silence as he soared through the air.
His sword met resistance, however. Instead of slicing one of the Mildetts in half, the one Paul intended to cleave used both hands to block his sword with his own, while the other slipped away.
The next instant, Paul felt a stabbing pain in his right calf.
Frantic, Paul thrashed, and the two fled at full speed.
"This isn't right... They're used to fighting together; I can't charge in like this. I have to slow down!" Paul thought as he watched them disappear with the light as the clouds covered the moon.
Paul quickly adopted the Water God stance.
They were using the color of their armor to their advantage; he should have expected no less from a practitioner of the North God.
Paul heard movement. It was fast.
Then, a twig snapped in front of him, and the earth crunched behind him.
"Both ways?! Shit, they're going for a pincer!"
The clouds parted briefly, and he could see them both for a split second.
Both were closing in fast, brandishing their swords and ready to slice him in two in an instant, but they couldn't even compare to Ghislaine's speed when she meant business.
Sure, they were quick on their feet, but Paul could handle this, at least. With a simple 'Flow,' he deflected the man in front of him, and with the motion of the technique, he moved to his side, and one of Nuckel's—or Gard's—hands shot into the air.
"Cut the bastard, Paul!" He stomped and put all his strength into his arms as his sword slashed downward.
Once again, another blow stopped his blade, throwing Paul's sword to the side, completely missing his target.
A dull pain shot through his leg as he staggered to the ground.
"The bastard behind me didn't try a strike?" Paul thought.
It all happened in an instant. The swordsman behind him stepped aside to stay in his blind spot, slammed his own sword down Paul's back, and kicked at the wound.
A moment later, searing pain shot through Paul's back.
The sensation was one he knew all too well. From the pain alone, he could tell he'd made a large gash along his back. It was careless. He was rushing it.
The sword he'd parried was already coming down, ready to slice the knight in two.
"Move, Paul! You haven't trained all these guys to come out like this—move!" He braced himself and ducked under the blade the instant it made contact. Both assassins were stunned.
At that moment, Paul used that brief window of time to slam his sword down at the one in front of him, planting his hands on the ground and pushing off with all the strength in his arms.
As he bounced off the ground, he felt the satisfying impact of his left foot hitting a solid surface.
Then he heard a scream and, at a glance, saw a fairly serious wound over the eye of the man in front of him.
Paul's sword was quickly thrown away by the now-injured man. With a kick, he kicked the other and landed a short distance away.
They were both clearly angry.
Paul managed to partially blind one, but only landed a rather hard kick on the other.
"Yuck! Every time I try a hit, the other guy just corners it!" Paul thought.
It didn't help that it was two against one.
Paul quickly realized they weren't anything special, but together they were a mess.
"Will I even be able to get out of this?" Caravaggio fled at the start of the fight, and now Paul had just thrown the only weapon he had.
"Wait, Laws has a sword! If only I could..."
The world spun around in his head as he tried to move.
"Was I falling?" "Had I lost too much blood?"
"No, impossible. They only cut me twice, and although they were serious, they certainly weren't enough to finish me off!"
"Did these bastards poison their swords? Yes, that had to be it. Damn it, I hate the swordsman of the North God..."
His vision darkened as he fell.
"I'm sorry I'm such a shitty husband, Zenith. I'm sorry for what I did to you, Lilia," Paul muttered weakly.
He saw the two men talking for a moment before they approached.
"I'm sorry I couldn't help you, Rudy... I'm sorry your father is such a bad father..." He lost consciousness, and darkness invaded his mind.
Paul supposed dying by a King of the North wasn't the worst way to go.
...
This job was proving exceptionally easy.
He went to the Good Village, a remote spot in the Fittoa Region, and murdered a family and their magical guardian.
It was a job far below their pay grade, but they wouldn't complain. If anything, it just meant easy money for the pair.
So, upon arrival, they waited just as instructed.
Nuckelgard didn't even know what had happened, but the outcome was precisely what Nuckelgard had wanted.
Paul Greyrat was leaving the village and separating from the magician.
Now, it was just a matter of killing the man and returning to finish off the rest of the family. To be fair, Nuckelgard had expected this, but they believed the knight would at least present some kind of challenge.
Their fight was messy and spirited, but nothing more.
They had the advantage, an advantage they had planned to exploit from the beginning.
Dressed in black armor, they attacked the knight and his friend at night. From then on, the entire operation went smoothly.
The elf was bleeding out, and the knight fainted. Apparently, they gave him too much credit.
They hadn't even poisoned his swords, but he fainted easily after just two wounds.
They assumed he must be afraid of blood or something.
"Fuck, that hurt." Gard brought his hand up to the eye that had been stabbed.
"We'll heal you later, so stop being a coward." Nuckel didn't show much sympathy for his brother. They'd been through this before, so it wasn't anything new.
You could expect to get into a fight with a swordsman of notable skill and come out unscathed.
"Still, why would a swordsman like him just faint like that?" They walked slowly toward the unconscious man to finish the job.
"What the hell would I know? Maybe he just freaked out mid-movie or something..." Nuckel trailed off as a chill ran down his spine.
They both momentarily braced themselves as they heard the approaching footsteps.
The brothers weren't the kind to be surprised, but even they sensed something was wrong in the air. So, to them, something was seriously wrong.
And suddenly, they both felt fear, a fear so immense they'd never felt before.
"Tch...what the hell is going on?!" Gard hissed angrily as he held his sword tightly.
"You've done enough, Paul Greyrat...I'll take over now." A voice echoed from the forest. For the two swordsmen, it was like a voice from hell itself.
and From the forest, a man appeared.
Both swordsmen froze in place. They had never seen such a terrifying figure before, and they never would again.
The man wore a white leather coat, his eyes were yellow like a reptile's, and his hair was silver like metal.
Neither Nuckel nor Gard had ever seen him before, but they both immediately realized that this man would be the one to take them to their graves.