Chapter 352: From Reinforcements To Battle (1)

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Loren watched the group of cavalrymen launch a charge from behind the group of golems surrounding them while cutting off the approaching golems with their greatswords.

At least, the group looked to be cavalrymen to Loren’s eyes.

Wearing matching blue metal armor and holding long jousting spears, they rushed in from behind the golems that were attacking Loren’s team and thrust their spears into the creatures without mercy.

Golems did not feel pain and did not react to being pierced with a spear, but if they were stabbed, pushed down, and then caught under a horse’s hooves, they were largely destroyed and unable to move.

“Cavalry heavily counters infantry, doesn’t it?”

Lapis, looking unhappy, said. She was watching the battle between the golems, who did not seem to be affected at all despite being attacked from the rear without warning and the cavalrymen, who were beating them with their spears, pushing them down, and trampling over them with their horses.

Taking advantage of the lack of witnesses, Lapis had been trying to use magic without the normal restraint. But she was suddenly interrupted by the intruders, causing her mood to plummet.

As expected, Loren had stopped her from attempting to eliminate the golems and all the intruders, so she did not carry out what she had initially intended. But now, she was simply following Loren’s lead without taking any action against the golems.

Anyone who knew Lapis could see that as slacking off, but it was not so out of place if you actually saw her as a priest. Loren did not criticize her for it and simply continued to wield his greatsword.

“They do not seem to have made any special adjustments for fighting the golems.”

It was Gula who took an active role in place of Lapis.

Unlike her previous fighting style, this time she continuously destroyed golems one after another by exercising several spells. And even though she sometimes looked strangely at the splattered blood and flesh, she did not treat the golems as food in a situation where someone might be watching her.

In the meantime, the cavalrymen who had barged in were cutting a straight line through the golem encirclement, and were about to reach Loren’s group.

Loren saw the knights manoeuvring their horses to engage the golems, and he could tell that the intruders were well-trained.

“Are you okay?”

The voice coming from the horseback was that of a young man.

Loren could not see the other man’s appearance from the ground because he was wearing a full-face helmet, but from the sound of his voice, he imagined that the man was a handsome knight with a fine nose.

“For now! I don’t know about the future!”

“It’s good enough that you’re alright now! We’ll help you soon!”

The knight in the lead, upon hearing Loren’s reply, began to push the golems down with double the vigor he had been using up to that point.

Seeing that the circle of golems was about to be broken by this, Lapis tugged at Loren’s sleeve.

“Loren, I’ve come to a terrible realization!”

“What is it? Just say it!”

Loren urged her with a faint sense of displeasure, and Lapis told him with a very serious look on her face.

“If we were to get their help, I would have to cling to the back of someone other than Loren!”

In order to get out of this place, they would need to quickly retreat.

The best way to do this would be to get on the horses that the cavalrymen were riding, but there were no horses available for Loren’s group, and if they wanted to escape on horseback, they would have to hang on to the back of someone else.

“I don’t like it! I don’t want to hug a stranger of the opposite sex from the back!”

“I don’t think you need to hug them…”

“I’d rather run than do that!”

Running on par with a horse was out of human abilities. There was no way he could let Lapis do such a thing, but with the battle in progress, there was no time to persuade her. Loren was thinking that, in the worst-case scenario, he could forcibly throw her on the back of one of the horses when he saw one of the cavalrymen fall from his horse to the ground with a scream. Just as he thought about this, one of the cavalrymen was too slow to pull back his spear, and the golem caught him and dragged him off.

The cavalryman tried to stand up in a panic, but either his armor was too heavy or he was suffocating from the shock of falling from his horse, his movements were sluggish, and the golems swarmed over him.

No matter how sturdy the cavalryman’s armor was, it was no use if he was trampled by a large number of golems. Without a look for the cavalrymen, who had been transformed into a mixed mass of flesh and metal, Lapis immediately rushed to the horse that had lost its rider and jumped onto its back.

Thinking that this should not be considered luck, Loren grabbed Gula, who was nearby, by the neck and lifted her up, then threw her onto the horseback behind Lapis, who began to steer the horse.

“You’re treating me like crap!”

“What about you, Loren?”

As Gula protested, Lapis asked Loren, who had thrown Gula on the horse instead of himself.

Without responding, Loren shouted at the first cavalryman who approached him, who appeared to be the commander of the cavalry.

“Get out of here! You won’t last much longer!”

“What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to run! The horse can’t go fast enough if I’m on it!”

Loren was large in stature, and handled a greatsword, a heavy weapon. The combined weight must be quite heavy. It was not that he could not ride a horse, but it would be heavy enough for the horse to be unable to run at a high speed. Loren thought that if the speed was going to be slow anyway, running through the golem enclosure on foot would not make any difference in the outcome.

Of course, there was no way he could run at the speed of a horse, but Loren figured that he would be somewhat faster than the golems, so it would not be too difficult for him to get out as long as he had an opening.

“Alright! We’ve done what we came here to do! Retreat!”

At the command of their leader, the cavalrymen who had been engaging with the golems manoeuvred their horses and began to gallop out of the golem encirclement.

On the way, some of them were seized by the golems and dragged down, but most of the cavalrymen, showing what Loren could see as remarkable manoeuvring, broke through the golem encirclement and rushed out.

Loren ran after them, and the golems chased after him, determined not to let them get away. But with their slow gait, there was no way they could keep up with the horses or Loren, who had now switched to flight mode.

There was still a problem though, Loren thought as he wrapped his greatsword, which he did not need to use while running away, in cloth and hung it on his back.

Golems did not know of exhaustion.

Horses could shake them off, and they might give up the chase. But Loren could not shake off the golems for any length of time, and they might come after him.

Considering this, and the fact that he could not afford to cause trouble for the cavalrymen, whom he had no idea who they were, Loren desperately moved his arms and legs to keep running.

Loren did not know how long he had been running.

The cavalrymen easily left him behind, but he kept running frantically in the direction he thought was probably their direction, and when he finally reached a point where the group of cavalrymen had stopped, perhaps waiting for him, Loren sank to his knees, completely exhausted.

“You’ve worked hard, Loren. Are you all right?”

Lapis, who had been riding with the cavalrymen, pulled up beside Loren with Gula riding behind her, and immediately dismounted and crouched down beside him.

Loren was confident in his physical strength, but he could not reply due to shortness of breath and fatigue. As he tried to calm his breathing, Lapis offered him a cloth to wipe off the sweat and what appeared to be a flask of water.

Loren somehow managed to thank Lapis and take them, wiping the sweat from his neck and face and pouring the contents of the flask into his mouth without even checking it.

“Oh, is this wine?”

As Lapis caught the flask Loren had thrown back at her and took a sniff of it, he coughed for a while and then looked at her with a reproachful look in his eyes.

“You should be more careful…”

Loren thought that she should have offered water at a time like this. But one of the cavalrymen approached with his horse, dismounted, took off his helmet, and bowed to them.

“I’m sorry, but we didn’t have any water on hand.”

Loren looked closely at the face of the cavalryman who said this.

The man, who was probably the cavalryman in command, had the same facial features that Loren had guessed from his voice. He had short, blond hair and blue eyes. A young man, probably not much older than Loren.

His face, with its straight nose, made him look like he had stepped out of some heroic tale, and it seemed that if the opposite sex saw it, they would not be able to leave him alone.

“No, I’m the one who was rescued. I have no right to complain.”

Even without the cavalry’s intrusion, it would have been easy to get through with Lapis and Gula, Loren thought. But even if he had honestly told this to the man in front of him, it was unlikely that he would have been understood.

That was why he thanked him frankly, and the man smiled at Loren with a bright smile that showed no hint of dislike.

“It is our duty to save those who are in trouble in the Kingdom. Don’t worry about it.”

“Who are you people?”

What he was saying was admirable, but somehow Loren felt that he was being looked down upon. So he stood up, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand, and asked the man, to which he replied with a somewhat proud look.

“We are the Imperial Guards of the Lombard Kingdom. My name is Storm Lombard, and I am the Commander.”

Loren’s mouth twitched as the man introduced his name, not knowing how to react.

Since they were inside the Kingdom’s territory, he had expected to encounter people related to the Kingdom, but he had not expected to meet someone so close to the heart of the matter.

The man who called himself Storm continued to speak to Loren, who wondered how he would respond to the fact that they had been enemies until just a few days ago.

“We helped you partly to fulfil our duty, but there is also something else I would like to ask of you. Would you listen to what I have to say? From the looks of it, I’d say you are adventurers, aren’t you?”

“You mean you want to ask us for a favour?”

Lapis replied to Storm in place of Loren, who was at a loss for a response.

Unlike Loren, who was wondering how to act, she responded in a dignified manner, showing no impatience or confusion on her face.

“That’s right. The fact that you were able to take on that many golems with that number of people shows that you have a lot of skills. I would like to hire you.”

Storm said with a serious look on his face. Lapis glanced at Loren with a thoughtful expression, wondering what to do while Loren gently shrugged without any words to answer.

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