Atan.
A manifested tribe that lives in the north. Unusual beings who operate on raw morality, warlike in nature, and feed primarily on monsters.
In truth, it’s more accurate to call it an identity rather than a tribe. It was a title given to those who awakened the instincts hidden within them.
BOOM!
Everyone ducked and covered their ears at the ear-splitting sound. It felt like an overload to all five senses. Ears ringing, nothing visible but yellow fog-like dust. And the smell of blood.
What had suddenly happened? On a battlefield where beings far beyond human limits existed, what were they even doing? The price seemed too steep for leaving a single line in history.
A Burgos soldier cautiously raised his head. Then he saw a faint silhouette. Someone was standing in front of King Damon.
“Aha. Hello, hello.”
“……”
Ziiiing. Ziing.
A woman with an Afro hairstyle. She was blocking Ian’s attack with a black sword. Golden eyes. Unmistakably a mage. The woman flashed her eyes and swung her sword at Ian.
“That guy has a handsome face! Are you Bariel’s lackey? Huh?”
Clang! Chang!
Bang! Slash!
Ian raised his sword to parry and stepped back. As visibility improved, soldiers near Damon simultaneously thrust their Idgal spears.
At the same time, a bursting sound was heard. Capture nets used for hunting beasts had been deployed. The nets covering the sky sparkled with amber color in various places. They seemed to be made by cutting Idgal into them to catch Ian.
Now it was clear why Damon had mounted a conspicuous white horse and provoked Ian by torturing Tommy.
Ian quickly retreated, and the Atan woman also rolled sideways to escape the range.
“Oh my! King Damon! This is troublesome!”
“I didn’t expect you to step in.”
“We made friends, didn’t we? Hmm? Shouldn’t we be considerate of each other in our own sensible way?”
As the woman rested her sword on her shoulder, her wild, horse-like muscles were vividly revealed. She seemed to be the chief leading the Atan tribe currently.
“Nice to meet you! It’s been a while since I’ve seen a mage besides myself. My name is Efdiram. I’d like to shake hands, but it doesn’t seem to be the right atmosphere.”
“Uwaaaaa!”
“It’s the Atan! The Atan tribe has joined!”
“Burgos army, advance! Forward! Don’t even think about retreating until you’re dead!”
“The king’s severe punishment awaits those who retreat!”
“Kill them! Kill theeeem!”
Shouts announcing the arrival of the Atan tribe erupted everywhere. This was to devour the enemy’s morale and raise their own. Soldiers on both sides who had momentarily hesitated resumed their bloody battle with the Burgos army’s spirited shouts.
Damon grabbed Tommy by the hair and pressed a sword to his neck. Ian hesitated. Attacks from soldiers targeting Ian continued intermittently, but the mages watching his back from the sky wouldn’t let them be.
Bang! Bang!
“Ian, I tell you once more. Take everyone and return to Bariel. Isn’t this the opportune time for you, who holds the military decision-making authority? If you retreat, I will very kindly return your mages.”
Efdiram frowned, wondering what they were talking about, while Ian smirked.
Damon was misunderstanding. The true nature of Ian’s secret. He was suggesting that Ian was a hidden member of the current imperial family, and that now that he held military authority, he should return to Bariel and overthrow the ten-year-old Crown Prince in one stroke.
Ian smiled as he awakened his magic again, and in response, Damon pressed the sword deeper into Tommy’s neck.
“I’m serious. If this one dies, the other two mages in the camp will die with him. You’d better choose wisely. Mages are given by heaven, and they say their numbers are precious, right? Hmm? Ian!”
At that moment, Tommy, who had collapsed in pain, regained slight consciousness. His eyes, which had shown only whites, gradually became clearer, and soon he could recognize Ian facing him.
It was a moment when Ian’s resolve—to not prioritize mages’ lives for Bariel and the war—wavered slightly. It was just an instant, and Ian’s inner self was too deep for anyone to notice.
Meeting Ian’s eyes, Tommy smiled slightly. A smile growing increasingly bright, showing his blood-covered teeth clearly. Tommy raised his eyebrows as if he understood everything, then bit his tongue.
“I-!”
Damon quickly bit his sleeve, but the blood seeping out was ominous.
Now that the king’s head had turned toward Tommy. Ian recognized this was the opportunity Tommy had given him and didn’t miss it.
Ian clenched his molars and released his magic. The sword gleamed brilliantly as magic flowed through it, and Ian’s green eyes left only afterimages as he leaped toward the leadership.
BOOM! Bang!
“Hey! Where do you think you’re going!”
Efdiram, the Atan tribe chief, also jumped up quickly. The way she effortlessly matched Ian’s lightning-fast speed was extraordinary. Just as her sword was about to pierce the right side of Ian’s neck.
Chaaang!
“What the. Fuck. A new face.”
“Oh my. What’s this now?”
Beric blocked Efdiram’s attack.
Taking advantage of the gap, Ian continued rushing toward Damon, and Efdiram blew a whistle to command all Atan tribe members to join the battle.
Wheee!
Warriors leaped up from the hillside.
The mage-knights mixed among the Clifford formation sensed something ominous. Nearly half of them seemed to be ordinary people, but conversely, this meant the rest possessed extraordinary spirit. The power of warriors who had realized they were Atan could be felt.
Bariel’s mage-knights also soared up simultaneously, each facing off against an Atan member.
BOOM! Bang!
“Red head.”
“What, frizzy head.”
Efdiram tilted her head curiously while locking swords with Beric. Her sixth sense for recognizing tribes was stirring. Without showing any strain, she slowly put strength into her sword. Beric’s waist began to bend gradually.
“Starting with that sharp mouth, you’re clearly one of us, aren’t you? A Bariel person? Age?”
“Yeah. Forty-one. Fuck off.”
“See? You’re an unusual dog. The way magic flows, you’re not a mage but seem like a mage-knight. Where did you get that sword?”
Beric only then realized his black sword was similar to Efdiram’s. Hers had a slightly thinner blade, but the material was definitely the same.
Efdiram grinned and brought her face close to Beric’s. Beric was startled and pulled his body back.
“Look at this. You can’t go against the destiny of Atan.”
“What are you saying? You keep talking about burning something!”
“I don’t know the circumstances, but the very fact that you have a black sword is your destiny. It’s like a magnet. The material of this sword and us.”
The black sword that attracts monsters and lures them. And the Atan who fill their stomachs with the blood of the lured monsters. It’s a cycle where everything meshes beautifully, like the laws of nature.
“But why are you on Bariel’s side? You look like someone who can’t think straight, but can’t you tell right from wrong?”
“What? Your head is weirder! Frizzy head!”
“A massive fracture lies beneath Clifford. When it opens, the place will be filled with monsters, you idiot.”
“Ian doesn’t like that!”
Clang! Chang!
Beric barely managed to deflect Efdiram’s attacks and rolled backward.
She tilted her head even more quizzically. The north was overrun with monsters, but there were equally noisy political issues entangled in interests.
Try to hunt some monsters, and they’d say withdraw from here, withdraw from there. In an already complicated world, there were not a few cases where people, worried that the Atan tribe might gain power, formed vigilante groups to eliminate them and monsters preemptively.
If a new monster overflow area was created in Clifford, the Atan tribe planned to be the first to establish themselves there. That’s why they had accepted Damon’s proposal and come.
“You don’t know you’re Atan?”
“Do you know me? When did you see me that you keep—!”
“Idiot, it’s obvious at a glance. You think being chief is for nothing? This bastard is ridiculous. A mage-knight who doesn’t even know where his own bowl is.”
“My bowl is in the Imperial Palace!”
“Ah. What, did they tell you to be the palace’s dedicated guard? That’s not bad either, but there’s a saying about birds of a feather. You know that, right? Birds of a feather.”
Beric frantically unleashed attacks, but Efdiram calmly received them.
It was somewhat interesting. She had come just to pioneer a new monster overflow area but had met an Atan tribe member. It felt like meeting someone from the same hometown in a foreign land.
“I’m sticking with Ian because we’re birds of a feather.”
“Ian? Who? Bariel’s lackey?”
“Haaaaaap!”
Limited to combat, Beric was clever. Though annoying and irritating, Efdiram’s swordsmanship and strength were superior to Beric’s. It was similar to the burden he felt when fighting Jeirutt just once.
So what could he do? Even though he’d been told to use magic as little as possible, he had to unleash it. Sword energy flowed around Beric, and his red hair fluttered with it. Efdiram lowered her body and gripped her sword with interest.
“Looking at you, you’re top-grade.”
“I’m not meat, you know!”
“I mean you’d be perfect for slicing up! Idiot!”
“Frizzy head!”
“Red head!”
“There are no good fighters among muscle freaks!”
“You think I became chief for free?! You little runt!”
Crack! BOOM!
The Atan tribe members who had been cutting down Clifford soldiers sniffled as they looked toward Efdiram. A look that said, here we go again. As a group of aggressive individuals moving together, they had all crossed swords with Efdiram. The result?
Slash!
Efdiram’s sword cut Beric’s side. Very precisely and cleanly. She licked the blood on her sword and smiled.
“Not bad.”
“…Ugh. Pervert.”
“Haven’t tried monster blood? That’s the best for awakening. It’s so sweet and delicious it makes your eyes roll back. The supreme taste that humans can’t experience, that’s the blessing the Atan tribe received.”
Ssup. Beric spat while clutching his bleeding side. A worthy sparring partner after old man Jeirutt. The look in his eyes saying “you’re dead today” was vivid.
“Good. That look.”
“Fuck, you keep talking like a pervert!”
“Come! I’ll trample you properly! That’s how the Atan tribe imprints on each other!”
“Sure, whatever. I’ll kill you and eat the meat Ian gives me!”
Ian, Ian, Ian. What is it about this Bariel lackey that keeps making that stupid-looking guy mention Ian’s name?
Efdiram turned her head slightly to look at Ian.
“Oho.”
A movement perfectly focused on avoiding swords and spears pouring from 360 degrees in all directions. Though Damon retreated, dragging a blood-covered mage hostage to avoid Ian, the distance between them was steadily narrowing.
The things Ian cut through and sent backward were finished off by the mages in the sky, creating a perfect coordination that was nothing short of marvelous.
At Damon’s urgent gesture, synthetic monsters moved.
“Hey, Burgos! We brought monster shells!”
Don’t you know? As Efdiram scratched her head, she could see the Burgos army dragging monster corpses down from the hillside.
That’s right. That’s it. Though all the blood had been extracted, the corpses were intact enough for the necromancers to use.
Slash!
“What are you doing! Block him quickly!”
“I-I am blocking—!”
“It’s just one man! What are you all doing!”
A Burgos general, frustrated, stepped forward with his sword in hand.
But Ian was rushing forward at a terrifying speed. His pupils were frozen cold. The enemy’s blood that had drenched his pale cheeks seemed to match that temperature.
The general charged at Ian with a battle cry.
“Haaaap!”
Slash!
But despite his battle cry, his head fell in an instant. The sharply flickering magic cleanly cut between his helmet and armor. Ian lifted the general’s head and threw it toward Damon.
“Damon. This seems insufficient as a reply to what you sent. Wait. I’ll make you like this too.”