Swiss Arms
Chapter 130
-VB-
Hans von Fluelaberg
"So he's dead."
It was the morning after the night ambush and the death of Louis von Wittelsbach at my hands.
Yeah, I've altered the timeline irrevocably this time, considering that the duke I killed by accident during the fight was supposed to become the next Holy Roman Empire.
Yes, I killed him by accident.
"So you're the one who's been a thorn in my side for so long," Duke Louis snarled, his face barely visible with the dim moonlight and one or two torches both the ambushers and my men have lit as the fighting broke out. The light bounced off of the dirt and cobblestone street below and commoer dwellings all around us.
I looked at the shorter man.
Like a head shorter.
"You're short."
He wasn't at all like his older brother. Rudolf von Wittelsbach was a big man with a sturdy build. Louis? He was
tiny by comparison, though no smaller than the average man of this era.
Louis gritted his teeth. "I see. So you're an uncouth man," he snarled before pulling the visor of his helmet down. "Come at me!"
Well. If he insisted.
With a single push of my feet and knee, I slid across the ground almost like I was gliding when I was, in truth, merely jumping sideways.
But my jump buffeted the wing and my bear fur cape, which was no light thing, fluttered behind me like it was in distress.
The duke and the knights surrounding him immediately retaliated for my "overreach."
They were well-trained. It was a shame they weren't going to last long.
The first attack with a sword, a downward horizontal strike, felt and looked so slow to me.
I slapped it along the flat of the blade towards the blade's base, and the force sent the knight spiraling away with a scream.
The second attack came with a mace.
I landed, spun, and sliced with my sword. The giant blade, which was thicker than most phones back in my first life, carved into his right chest through his armor, flesh, bones, flesh, and armor, and came out of the other side of his chest. Blood sprayed everywhere, glittering briefly like gemstones in the dim moonlight, before they disappeared as they dropped out of the way away from the moon's embrace.
"AAAHHH!"
I whirled around, steadied my ground, and push-kicked.
The knight, who had a longsword,
missed me, and got a foot on his chest for the trouble. His armor caved inwards and then he was flying backward.
I jumped away to take a stock of the situation, and saw how the knights that had been charging at me were now hurriedly backing away.
It's been less than five seconds since I jumped the first time.
What used to be an overwhelming numbers advantage had suddenly turned on them, and they were left with less of their comrades than they started with while I wasn't even scratched.
No, I made all of these trained warriors wary now. They would be cautious.
Then they started to move. Slowly. Grouped up.
It was unfortunate for me that their training kicked in once they saw I wasn't an easy meal.
Pity.
Even if they struck me, I doubted they would even pierced my skin properly.
I took a deep breath in.
And moved.
I towered over them, but in an instance, I was below their chest level, dashing toward their flank.
"Stop him!" Louis shouted.
The knights tried to move but they wore heavy armor with a body of a normal human. A trained human with muscles but a normal human nonetheless at the end of the day.
I had the cumulative strength, dexterity, and agility of over ten men in my body.
For an instant, I disappeared from their perception as I pushed myself to the full.
In an instant, I went from a chill fifteen kilometers per hour to a blister one hundred eighty kilometers per hour.
In a small battlefield like this one, I was fast enough to swung all the way around from their left flank to their right flank through their rear.
So that's what I did.
I swung.
My blade, coupled with my speed, carved through one, two, three, and then four knights in quick succession before I skidded to a stop on the
other side of the fight.
The knights whirled around as their comrades fell apart with screams and gurgles.
Then I raised my heavy blade and swung down.
Metal squealed as my sword tore through them and flesh alike, and ended with a sickening squelches of splattering blood on the ground.
They all whirled around to face me.
"D-Demon!" someone shouted.
"Nah," I drawled as the latest casualty's body fell sideways. "Just too good for you."
One of them … ran for it.
That made two run.
But the rest stayed.
And they charged at me in their panic.
I parried the first one so hard that his blade snapped and flew away before flying and -.
Thunk.
I stopped.
The knights stopped.
We all saw the blade sticking out of Louis's chest.
He stared the blade and then at me.
And then fell backward.
"... I did not mean for that to happen," I sighed before turning to the other knights. "... And I don't think I want witnesses to what I can do."
They screamed as I cut them all down, including the ones who tried to run
.
"An accident," Rudolf moaned. Despite the fact that it had been his brother who had usurped him, Louis had still been his brother. Not enough had happened yet to truly make him hate his blood. "Of all ways to go, he died in an accident."
"It was still on the battlefield," I noted.
"Fat lot of good that'll do for me when I know he died like an idiot!" he hissed before settling down. "... No. You did try. Hell, you can't predict how a broken blade flies. I can't fault you for that. You could've killed him from the start. I've seen what those knights looked like after you finished your job." He shivered. "You're about as big as me, but I don't think I can do half of what you did there, count. You truly are a freak of nature."
I chuckled. "I'll take that as a compliment."
Silence fell in the tent after that.
The third person in the tent with us cleared his throat. "With the duke's death, there's only one result. You are now the Duke of Upper Bavaria, Rudolf," Duke Albert said with a nod. "A display of your brother's body should be enough to get the castle to open up the gates, right?"
"Yes, it should be," Rudolf sighed. The tears didn't fall but it was close.
This wasn't how he wanted things to end, and I understood that.
The thought that one of my own kids might suffer the same … made me clench up.
Louis knew better than to usurp his own brother, but did it stop Louis?
My children should know better than to usurp me, but will it stop them? When the realm I built had so much for someone at the top to exploit and pillage, would it stop them for doing what was obviously a bad idea?
I wondered if I was going to end up in Rudolf's position decades down the line.
And the thought of it scared me more than anything I've encountered in this life.
-VB-
Arc: Counterfeit War
End
Next Arc: Five Years of Peace
-VB-
A/N: as usual, I've got more chapters ahead on Patreon