volume 2 - Chapter 64 (1/2)
Chapter 64 – The mercenaries
There was another man who flew out from the battlefield. Eke then struck down three mercenaries in the blink of an eye, and caused the crowd to have an opening. He moved towards the opening before anyone was able to react, but Brendel was slightly intrigued by his choice.
Capo was directly in the youth’s path.
The elderly mercenary brought his sword horizontally with his body inclined forwardly, and charged forward like a fearsome beast with tightly pursed lips.
[Randonian fencing. This swordsmans.h.i.+p was created by Swordmaster Imaria and was widely used in the continent in its early days. But there are not many pract.i.tioners in this era due to its technical difficulty. The number of users in this world who are truly able to use this style are exceedingly low.]
Brendel’s eyes narrowed a little. Almost all the people who knew this swordsmans.h.i.+p are highly skilled.
[Just raising this swordsmans.h.i.+p alone requires 133 TP from level 1 to level 2, and virtually exceeds the requirements of any typical sword styles by sixty percent. The accuracy rating is 2 times better than a military swordsmans.h.i.+p, while the damage increase is 1.3 times more, but there are not many players who actually spent time on it. That’s because the market price for the skill over one million Tor coins. As for book copies, there are only a few kingdoms who possessed them in their museums.]
Eke apparently realized his mistake as well, but trying to retreat backwards had became impossible, and he could only charge forward recklessly. Even though he did not use a sword from the beginning, it was clear from his fighting techniques that he was trained in the ways of the sword. Brendel recognized it as one of the knight’s varied swordsmans.h.i.+p.
[These two mercenaries look like they are close with each other, but the techniques they used are completely different. That’s quite interesting.]
But it was not exactly a rare thing to see in a group of mercenaries, so Brendel was just slightly interested in seeing how things turned out.
Eke directly charged into Capo while using his body to avoid the sword’s path, but Capo did not disappoint Brendel. He cleanly swung his sword twice and sealed off the youth’s options, and forced him to leap sideways.
If Capo took one more step, he would certainly force the youth into a dire state.
Brendel’s current stats were unlikely to match either of them, but he was certain of this fact more than anyone in the battlefield. As expected, Capo had seized the best position to attack where Eke was going to retreat next, and his sword was pulled back to prepare for a decisive strike.
But Brendel’s irides widened slightly.
Capo’s movements was slower by half a beat, and the youth grabbed his shoulder from the smallest opening to stop his arm from moving. He then lurched forward and smashed onto Capo’s body, knocking the veteran mercenary backwards by five steps. This change nearly surprised everyone, and even the youth’s stupefied expression was clearly reflected in Brendel’s eyes.
But Eke immediately shook his head. He saw that Capo’s stagger was a momentary thing, so he immediately turned around and escaped into the crowd.
[Well done.]
Brendel secretly praised Capo. He had deliberately received the blow from Eke but the way how he did it was really covert, and the average person would not be able to see through his actions. Brendel was the only exception with his unimaginable experience behind him, and everyone his age would have been deceived.
Brendel did not exclusively use a sword in the game and used other weapons for at least a decade. He had spend over a hundred and forty summers as a warrior. With one hundred and ten years in the way of the sword, and his foundation was beyond many people.
(TL: The game is 8 times faster in VR, so if the protagonist started off as 16 years old, then he would be around 33 years old IRL when he teleported to this world.
When I translate/localize, I also think about various aspects visually. So how I imagine it is from way early on when I TLed this series, this young naive fresh green kid Brendel met Freya for the first time and fought with her for years, then witnessing her death on the battlefield and Aouine’s demise, etc, which is the starting point of what Brendel is doing now and why he acts that way.)
Brendel’s true stats were merely that of a mid tier Iron-ranked fighter, and it looked like he was not even close to Eke’s match. But if they were to truly have a fight, Brendel would not lose even if there were two Ekes fighting him, especially when his military swordsmans.h.i.+p was at level 10 (9+1).
With the memories of the original Brendel about his grandfather’s swordsmans.h.i.+p, he was literally unmatched by anyone his age, and the military instructors in the army would just barely be proficient enough to become his students.
Still, even with his own vast experience, he did not reach his grandfather’s unapproachable aura that made people feel like they were on a tight rope hanging over cliffs. He was somewhat close to that state and becoming a grandmaster, but the more he raised his levels, the more mysterious he felt his grandfather was.
[A mere veteran soldier in that November War…? Even a level 100+ warrior like myself can’t gather up an aura to fight against him, it would really be ridiculous to write my grandfather off as a simple soldier. Especially when I don’t even see a hint of his strength on Leto.]
Leto was another soldier who experienced the November war. The only difference was the fact that he joined in the later part of the war, while Brendel’s grandfather experienced the entirety of the whole war.