CH 60

It was no ordinary centipede. For starters, it was gigantic. Its body was as long and thick as the tree trunks by its side. Its firm, segmented body slickly shone like well-heated iron. 1 The dozens of legs attached to its body were red and sharp, like blades.

Luisen had, in the past, wandered around the kingdom and seen many things he hadn’t before as noble trash, but this was the first time he’d seen such a large centipede. It would hurt when one got bitten by an ordinary centipede, but, the moment this centipede were to bite you, it would most likely cleave your body in two. That thought was so terrifying and gruesome, the young lord couldn’t help but shiver.

‘Is that a bug? Or a monster?’

Unlike its smaller counterpart, the opponent before them had dozens of bead-like eyes on its face; it moved around here and there as it examined Carlton and Luisen. The young lord had never heard of a centipede with dozens of eyes. ‘As expected, it’s a monster, right?’

The centipede made scratching noises as it crawled up a tree. Its long body curled around the trunk; its numerous legs clacked as it moved up the bark. Contrary to what its size may suggest, it was incredibly fast. In a blink of an eye, the centipede made its way up to the canopy and flew through the air towards Luisen.

“Aaaaagh!” Luisen screamed. The thing must have been after the young lord after all! Perhaps it was aiming at the weakest individual in the group first. If Luisen was alone, he probably would have been caught in that attack. However, he currently had Zephys–once again, the horse swiftly dodged the centipede’s attack.

Crash–!

The centipede couldn’t direct the force of its flight and soon crashed to the ground. A normal animal would have suffered a broken skull, but…

‘U-Urgh… Gross… I’m scared… It’s so disgusting…’

…The centipede was quick to climb–scraping against bark once more–up the tree again. However, this time Carlton was faster. He jumped at the bug and swung his sword. In an instant, its two front legs were chopped off.

Kyaaaaaaak–!

The centipede screeched. Dozens of its legs spread out in unison; it began twisting its torso strangely. Some thick bodily fluid began dripping from the severed locations.

The centipede began wildly whipping its tail about in agony and felled the surrounding trees. Carlton shielded Luisen while waiting for a gap in its random attacks. In the meantime, Zephys carried the young lord to a safe distance so that he wouldn’t be caught up in the fight.

Now a few legs short, the centipede changed its target to Carlton.

The mercenary and the insect exchanged a few blows. The bug moved its dozens of legs precisely and rapidly, swinging its front feet and tail almost instinctively. On top of that, it tried to reach out its head and plunge from a high height to pierce through the mercenary with its pincers.

Attacks–strong, powerful attacks–flew at each other from all sides. With each miss, the ground was hollowed, and trees were smashed. When the centipede’s front legs hit Carlton’s sword, the sound of metal hitting metal rang out. A slight brush of the blade, like that, couldn’t make a dent in the bug’s carapace.

Luisen watched over Carlton nervously. He knew his companion was strong, but the opponent was a hitherto unseen monster.

But Carlton was even more of a monster. He effortlessly hit back his opponent’s attacks. No matter how fast the centipede moved–no matter how many attacks it shot from various angles–Carlton did not allow himself to get hit by a single attack. He wasn’t pushed back at all.

The mercenary wasn’t flustered by the centipede’s hard carapace. He observed his opponent calmly and slowly cut off each of its legs. Each time its legs were severed, the centipede writhed and revealed its white belly.

‘W-Whoa. He’s not losing at all.’

Because the ever-loyal Zephys wasn’t moving from its distant position, Luisen was able to relax and watch over the fight.

The centipede changed its strategy as the situation became increasingly unfavorable. It hissed, turned around, and tried to dig into the ground to escape. However, Carlton had no intention of letting it leave now; he pierced his blade through its tail.

Kyaaagh–!

The centipede’s cry reverberated through the air, ripping through the sky. Even from far away, it sounded so terrible; Luisen was momentarily frightened. The monster’s long body wildly wriggled up and down, thudding thunderously onto the ground.

Disregarding all its thrashing, Carlton kicked the monster and pressed down on its head. Then, without hesitating, he thrust his sword between its eyes.

Crack–!

It sounded like the monster’s head was crushed. The remaining–still plentiful–legs trembled and twitched. Soon after, the centipede stopped wriggling, and its antennae drooped onto the ground.

“Is it finished?” Luisen asked.

“Wait a moment.” Carlton didn’t forget to confirm that he had fully killed his opponent. He didn’t allow Luisen to return until he had fully cleaved the centipede’s head in half and kicked both parts away.

“Ngh… It’s even more gruesome up close. Why is such a thing here? Is this centipede a monster?”

“It definitely can’t be some common centipede. Not with this size and strength.”

“Right.” Luisen looked at its torso. The centipede’s body, which had flipped over to reveal its white belly, was a different type of disgusting than when it had moved around so vigorously. The sight of dozens of its limp legs made his skin itch. ‘Ugh,’ Luisen groaned. ‘Up close, it’s even more revolting.’

Carlton patted Luisen’s shoulder.

Luisen and Carlton decided to take a break while they disposed of the centipede’s body.

While Carlton started the fire, Luisen sat haphazardly nearby. “How far have we travelled?” the young lord asked as he ripped off pieces of the bread he had brought from Confosse.

Carlton looked up at the sky–the sun was high in the sky. “Since it’s been about half a day, we should be nearly there. If it weren’t for the centipede, we may have already reached the village.”

As he drank water from a bucket, Luisen thought out loud, “Is it because of that centipede? For contact from the guard captain’s village being cut, I mean.”

The guard captain had sent word several times, but nothing had returned.

“They would have travelled the same path we did, so the messengers would have been similarly attacked by the centipede. If they were lucky, they may have been able to escape, I suppose,” Carlton said.

The centipede was a formidable opponent, even for the mercenary. An ordinary person wouldn’t be able to put up a proper fight and would simply become its prey. The messengers were probably eaten.

“Who knows. It’s quite far from town, but…” Carlton trailed off. The situation wasn’t very positive.

“Where could this centipede have come from?”

“Hm? Wasn’t it born here?”

“It must have migrated from somewhere. The south doesn’t originally have such gigantic monsters like this one.”

“Really?”

Mercenaries were often called in to fight monsters. Carlton was no stranger to monsters; the kingdom’s southern region had little mercenary activity. Compared to other regions, fights erupted less because the lands here were richer and had more administrative oversight. Crucially, though, there were no gigantic monsters that couldn’t be solved through individual power.

“I’ve never seen such a centipede before, but I’ve seen ants and spiders of that size. Their habitat is usually to the northwest of here,” the mercenary said.

“Then did they come down from there? However, there’s a river in the way–can monsters cross those?”

“If a monster of this size were to cross the river, it would have stood out.”

“Who knows. It’s a chaotic world lately.”

No matter where one went, the war has been a huge problem. Armies moving up, refugees fleeing south–the population moved chaotically. Among all that, there were a few people trying to cause fusses. The normal system had collapsed and strange things had gone wild within those cracks.

Luisen finished eating his bread. Carlton was about to set the centipede’s body ablaze, but then suddenly a few middle-aged men appeared from within the forest.

Unlike with the centipede, Carlton and Zephys looked at them calmly. They were dressed in ordinary peasant clothes; furthermore, they looked like frightened, cornered rats. Even to the young lord, they didn’t seem like people he needed to be vigilant against.

They soon noticed the centipede and became exceedingly startled. “Aargh! Monster! It’s a monster!”

“Save us!”

Frightened, they attempted to run away before they realized that the centipede was still, turned over onto its back. They held hands and observed the centipede incredibly cautiously. “W-What? You killed it?”

“It’s dead? The monster?”

Carlton stepped forward. The three men finally noticed the mercenary and backpedalled, frightened once more. “Whose family do you belong to?” 2 Carlton said.

“W-Who are you guys?”

“I asked first,” Carlton gave them a prickly reply.

The people alternated their gazes between the centipede and the mercenary before responding, “What…happened to that monster?”

“I killed it. So, what family do you belong to?” Carlton was annoyed.

Though the sight of an annoyed mercenary was incredibly frightening, perhaps these people had lost their minds from fear. They cheered from afar, “He said he killed it! That person killed it!”

“Aigoo! 3 He killed it? Really, thank you–Thank you so much!” They bowed and shook Carlton’s hand. Luisen couldn’t tell if they were in shock from fear or not. Carlton was dumbfounded.

The young lord stepped forward, holding back laughter at Carlton’s dazed expression. “What is the matter? Who are you people?”

At Luisen’s calm question, someone from the group finally returned to his senses. “We’re people from the village–right next to that huge boulder out front. We heard the centipede’s screeches, so we came here to see what had happened…We didn’t expect to find that it had been killed!”

The people lived in the guard captain’s hometown–Luisen and Carlton’s destination. “The village next to the big boulder? We’re on our way there as well. We’ve come on errand for Confosse’s guard captain,” Luisen said.

“Oh! The guard captain? He’s from our village–you’ve come to the right place.” The villagers were eager to guide Luisen and Carlton to their home. The village was quite a ways away; on the way, Luisen was able to hear further details about their situation.

TL: It’ll be explained later, but you may be confused as to why Luisen is asking if a gigantic tree-high centipede is a bug or a monster. In this world, monster is a special class of being–rather than a noun, it’s more like an adjective, an it’s hard to know just how many monsters or monster species exist.