Bear School Astartes
Chapter 44. Cavalry First Encounter Kill

Chapter 44: 44. Cavalry First Encounter Kill

"Haha! The bumpkin’s been caught!"

The young man, who called himself Willis, laughed heartily as he spurred his horse forward, aiming to sever Lann’s head.

His smile lost all semblance of friendliness, leaving only sheer cruelty and an eager lust for blood.

No caution, no care.

He couldn’t imagine how his opponent could possibly pose any threat to him.

Two crossbowmen hidden in the shadows, and himself a cavalryman. To deal with a lone individual... is there any suspense?

Cavalry! Soldiers of the King of War!

In the era of cold weapons, no matter how strong the infantry, they were like rabbits under the eagle’s claws compared to cavalry.

Modern people lack deep understanding of this, but those who have watched Spanish bullfights might have some clues.

Those knights in bright attire rode on horses with braided manes.

They even dared to stand close to the enraged bull, and at the moment of the bull’s charge, they would start the horse, intentionally keeping just a pace behind, toying with the bull.

Knights with excellent horsemanship could even draw their lance and target the bull’s back, all while interacting with the audience.

A bull that ten strong men couldn’t subdue was just a meat target under the synergy of man and horse!

Can’t match the startup speed, can’t match the mobility... So what if I’m close to your face?

And for humans, this advantage is even more terrifying.

The chance for infantry to harm cavalry is only at the moment of proximity, but for cavalry, opportunities abound from start to finish.

So Willis’s recklessness and relaxation seemed natural to him.

This notion persisted until Lann turned around.

A pair of amber cat eyes turned from the body in the mud to look at Willis.

Those cat eyes’ pupils were almost reduced to slits!

Willis couldn’t describe his feeling. If he had to, it felt like a predatory big cat exhaled a breath onto his heart.

As Willis began his charge, Lann had already formed his hand seal.

Infantry can’t reach cavalry... but a Demon Hunter has a Magic Seal!

"Alder."

Bang!

The air was suddenly compressed by an appearing force, and Willis’s horse’s hoof was knocked askew just before landing!

Thus, the entire weight of the horse was borne by its mispositioned hoof.

With a "crack," stark white bone pierced through the flesh on the horse’s lower leg.

The horse neighed in pain, rolling its hundreds of kilograms of body over the mud.

By the time it stopped, the human knight caught in the roll already couldn’t feel his lower half.

Willis’s spine was broken.

In fact, if this weren’t a muddy area but hard ground, he’d be done for.

Lann, expressionless, stepped through the mud to the mixture of bone and flesh.

"W-Wait a minute! Sir, this is a misunderstanding... Bang!"

A fist wrapped in a spiked leather glove smashed into the side of Willis’s face.

The once-presentable young man tried to argue, but after that punch, half his face was scraped off by the three-sided iron spikes on Lann’s glove.

The intense pain caused his body to release a large amount of pain-relieving hormones, which didn’t last long, but were enough to make Willis groggy.

After the punch, two crossbow arrows once again flew through the air, but Lann easily dodged them.

Once alert, with no one able to hinder his movement, these arrows couldn’t harm him at all.

A cavalryman, two crossbowmen. This setup was even trickier than the ambush on Bordeaux.

But at that time, Bordeaux had no way out, so he had to fight hard.

And he ended up fighting to his death.

But now, with Willis’s carelessness, Lann first incapacitated him, bringing the battle from climax to conclusion in a flash.

Normal Demon Hunters lack the ability to catch a horse’s hoof moments before landing and release a powerful Alder to throw it off.

Their Alder’s Rune is too dispersed, possibly unable to even make the horse pause if it hits a cavalryman.

Only Lann, blessed by Mentos with keen observation and control, could perform such a first-sight kill.

The Demon Hunter cast a deep glance at the distant road, the point of origin for the crossbow arrows.

But he didn’t have time to leave no survivors, because Bernie was already losing a large amount of blood.

If Lann tangled with the two crossbowmen over this one hundred meter distance, Bernie might lose consciousness.

"Mentos, initiate emergency skill [Navigate], analyze and upload to me Bernie’s piloting actions from memory."

Grabbing Willis by the neck, he pulled him from the entangled mass of horse and man and threw him onto the boat.

Blood stained Lann’s eye corner, but he didn’t even wipe it off. He lifted Bernie, supporting him toward the small boat.

With a left-right twist, the third volley of arrows missed narrowly past his ear.

After this volley, the crossbowmen opposite were already hesitant to shoot.

"This will be uncomfortable, sir. We’ve been with Bernie for so long; the estimated proficiency of the [Navigate] skill should be over 70%!"

"Just do it."

Leaving the house in the morning, a 20% proficiency upload, even after a night’s rest, left Lann rubbing his head for a good while.

But now, facing at least a 70% proficiency upload, he didn’t even bat an eye!

Mentos had no authority to prevent the master, and it knew with Lann’s determination, persuasion was futile.

It was merely obliged by fundamental logic to offer the reminder.

"Proficiency upload commencing."

Countless motion analyses surged into his mind, forcing Lann’s brain cells to remember and understand them.

The information was too vast, making the active brain cells raise his forehead temperature abruptly to 39 degrees Celsius.

Without a Demon Hunter’s physical resilience, this alone could have been fatal.

But Lann only paused for a moment as he supported Bernie across the ground, and then resumed his stride.

Cold sweat dripped, the muscles on his face spasming uncontrollably from pain.

He felt like his brain was about to explode!

"Lann... Am I hit?"

Everything happened so fast that Bernie only began to react to being shot when he fell to the ground, bewildered.

He wanted to muster some strength, but the pierced spot felt like a dam releasing, draining all his energy.

"Shut up, Bernie. I’m saving your life, and I’m feeling awfully uncomfortable, so keep your nonsense to yourself!"

His eyes had already begun seeing double, but Lann’s mouth remained merciless in taunting Bernie.

"Ha, even you can curse. This is the second time I’ve been injured, tsk... Demon Hunters truly are a jinx."

Bernie had never heard Lann curse before; in Auridon, Lann usually carried himself with more composure than nobility.

The villagers even crafted a dramatic backstory for him because of it.

Bernie’s teasing couldn’t affect Lann.

In pain, time seemed to drag.

Finally placing Bernie onto the boat, Lann took Bernie’s hand and pressed it against his abdomen, gritting his teeth.

"Press hard, it can suppress the bleeding. Whether you live depends on this."

Then he turned, pushing the boat into the lake water.

With his head in a fog, just two minutes into steering, the boat was spinning in place.

But despite the agony, the skill’s proficiency was no lie.

After two minutes, the boat’s navigation started to look decent.

Yet, this hardly improved Lann’s mood.

His head still throbbed, and Bernie’s condition was not looking good.

At first, Bernie maintained a fearless facade, saying things like,

"Just yesterday I wondered about disappearing for a while, and today I have to disappear even if I don’t want to. I’m really a jinx."

But soon, as blood loss worsened, his body grew colder and more numbed.

The initial jesting was to comfort Lann, himself, and his friend.

He had always been a strong man, unwilling to let his friends worry.

But now, an unavoidable fear struck him.

His hands and feet began to claw and slap around the boat, anxious for any reminder of his existence.

He muttered the names of his family incoherently.

Lann had no remedies except to pull him beside him and press onto the wound himself.

Meanwhile, hastening the mastery of [Navigate], rushing back to Auridon.

The return wasn’t far, and Lann quickly got the hang of it. Twenty minutes after Bernie was hit, the Demon Hunter returned to the village with his friend.

But his double-visioned eyes could no longer take heed; the village pier was already teeming with people.

Madam Donald, holding a small bundle, sat dazed and powerless among the crowd.