Chapter 171 (1/2)

Chapter 171

「What happened, it’s so noisy . 」

「Our mood is dampened now . 」

The n.o.bles furrow their brows and the servants complain when the door is swung open with a bang .

But they don’t continue grumbling for long .

「The palace guards!? Whose mansion do you think this-…… uwaah, what are you doing!?」

I can hear the knight a.s.signed as the security for the party scream and then run in on all fours covered in blood .

「Ruffians! H-help……gyaah! 」

The knight crawls into the hall and the pathetic man dies soon after he was pierced in the back with a sword .

「Ooh…… how cruel!」

「Ah……」

Most of the people here are civil officials who have never seen a person die so they cover their eyes, while many wives faint on the spot .

「Mel, Leah, hide behind me . 」

「Right!」「‘Kay!」

It sucks not having Irijina here .

First I have to determine what’s going on though .

「n.o.body move!」

Counting the man who pulled the sword out from the dead knight’s body, there are 10 men who walk into the hall together .

All of them are wearing chainmail and holding swords .

As expected, none of them had weapons like bowguns or spears .

「The palace guards? ……what on earth is-!?」「What the heck is going on!?」

I can’t blame the n.o.bles for being shocked .

All of them look just like the guards that protect the capital .

「Are they palace guards?」

「They’re imposters . 」

I answer Mel’s anxiously asked question immediately .

There’s a possibility that they came because the master here is evading tax or they’re in the middle of cleaning up any places that support criminal organizations, but it’s still strange to specifically target a party . There are too many unrelated n.o.bles here and if by any chance they made a mistake and an irrelevant high ranking n.o.ble was injured, the guard captain won’t just lose his job .

Any armed groups loitering around and planning insubordination in the capital would be immediately suspected .

Their disguise as palace guards is just camouflage .

In that case, their objective is robbery? ……or maybe something else .

「We belong to the palace guards! Where is the Commissioner of Government Affairs!!?」

「Oh yeah, where is Marquess Baldwin?」

「Didn’t he go to the room in the back as soon as the commotion started?」

I guess Kenneth ran to the back room as soon as he heard the shouting .

That’s quite the leg speed if he didn’t know this was going to happen .

The fake guards realize immediately from the noisy n.o.bles that Kenneth isn’t here anymore .

The men make a sour look and click their tongues .

「Now that it’s come to this…… there’s no stopping even though we only have a small group!!」

The men tear off the crest of the palace guards on their uniforms .

「We are proud members of the Magrado Dukedom! We have come to punish the evil Goldonian n.o.bles in place of our late King and for our fatherland!!」

The men draw their swords altogether and start indiscriminately cutting down the surrounding n.o.bles .

I knew it would end up like this .

「Aegir-sama!」「Master, we-……」

「Don’t worry, there are only 10 of them . We’ll be fine . 」

I can somehow manage numerically speaking, but the enemy seems fairly well-trained and it’ll be hard on me when I’m unarmed .

I can’t just nonchalantly walk out and come back with a sword .

「Peiza, I’m scared!」

「Leave it to me honey, I was once called the knight of the swift wind!」

I’m not sure who called him that, but the knight of the swift wind draws his needle-like ceremonial sword and stands up against the hoodlum .

Oh right, this guy was the one who did a swordplay performance as a sideshow for the banquet a little earlier .

「The area within my sword’s reach is my barrier! Only death awaits those who get too close!」

He swings his needle around quickly . It does look like it’ll hurt if you get stabbed by it .

「Soryaa!」

Finally, the knight’s sword hits the hoodlum’s arm, drawing blood and a scream of pain .

That’s one point, you would win …… if you were in a match that is .

「d.a.m.n son of a b.i.t.c.h!」

The hoodlum shouts a curse and flicks away the sword stabbed in his arm with his two-handed sword .

The thin sword bends into the character ‘く’ and snaps in half, rendering the weapon unusable .

「Awawa, my sword! Time out! Let me switch my sword!」

The clamoring knight lost the will to fight along with his weapon and gets stabbed in the stomach while his hands remained pushed out in front of the enemy .

「Uwaaaaah!! Mamaaaa—!!」

I look elsewhere to see the n.o.bles all trying to escape and helplessly getting cut down one after the other .

Even without a decent weapon, there are 30 guys here against the 10 enemies .

I thought they would have been able to give Mel and Leah enough time to escape but it doesn’t look like I can expect much from them .

Unfortunately, I have to do it myself .

「Nooo-! Stop it!」

「Prepare yourself, Goldonian pig…… guhga!」

One of the hoodlums chasing down a n.o.ble’s wife gets. .h.i.t with a st.u.r.dy and expensive-looking chair . The chair shatters into pieces while the man falls to the ground on the spot with his face smashed in .

「Tch-! Who was that!?」「Don’t worry about him, we have to kill the rest of them before they run away . 」

Taking advantage of the opening when the men s.h.i.+fted their eyes to their dead companion, I take a candlestick in each hand from the top of the table and charge at them .

This heavy silverwork should have more effect than that needle-like sword .

「Is it you, b.a.s.t.a.r.d! Take that!」

One of the hoodlums realizes my presence and swings his sword down at me .

I react instinctively by blocking his powerless strike with the right candlestick, then follow up with a thrust using the left candlestick .

My strike was aimed at his face so the candle protruding outwards pokes into his eye first and embeds itself deep inside his head, killing the man instantly .

「This guy, he’s coming here!」

「Finish him off quickly!」

The candlestick crumpled after blocking the sword, so I throw it at the hoodlum, das.h.i.+ng forward using the opening it gave me .

「The same trick won’t work all the time! 」

After seeing what happened to his friend, he protects his face with both hands .

He probably thought the only place I could aim for was his face since his body was wrapped in chainmail .

「That would work if it was a weak man I guess . 」

I thrust into his defenceless abdomen with all my might .

The slow and pointy candlestick bends while piercing through the man’s chainmail, lodging everything but the base of the candlestick into his body .

「Abhubhub……」

I move in to grab the man’s sword as he throws up blood .

「You killed three of them …… unforgivable!」

「Die, you brute!」

The two ruffians come at me simultaneously .

I was about to deflect their blow with my arm guard in habit, but I realized I didn’t have them on this time and jumped out of the way instead .

That was close, I was about to lose my arm .

「Hmph, you’re unarmed…… I’ll kill you soon!」

The men charge at me with cruel smiles .