A Dragonslayer’s Peerless Regression

Chapter 29



Chapter 29

The coachman and the peddlers were startled by the sudden roar of the orcs.

“This… this makes no sense! How can there be orcs in a safe zone?”

The coachman hurriedly whipped the horses harder.

“Run! Hurry!”

Graaaagh!

Once again, the orcs’ war cries echoed through the air.

Neigh!

The horses, frightened by the roar, reared up in panic.

Thud!

The carriage wobbled as the horses flailed, eventually tipping over completely.

Zeke quickly leapt out of the carriage.

Boom!

The carriage toppled over, and the horses were pinned under the cargo, their legs trapped.

In this state, reaching the base camp was impossible.

From all around, the sound of orc war cries reverberated.

The adventurer who had previously boasted in front of Zeke was now pale-faced, trembling as he held his sword.

‘So much for that Academy training.’

Zeke hid behind a tree, observing the situation.

Moments later, something burst out from the forest.

“Graaaah!”

A group of orcs wielding massive stone axes emerged and began attacking the people.

“Argh! S-spare me!”

One of the orcs swung its stone axe, splitting a person’s head.

The adventurers who tried to resist were quickly overwhelmed.

“S-spare me!”

The boastful man was struck down, his head shattered by an orc’s stone axe.

The ground was soon drenched in blood.

Zeke, suppressing his presence, watched as the orcs gathered the corpses and looted the cargo.

If he acted now, he would leave traces, so he calmly waited for the orcs to leave.

‘How did orcs manage to enter the safe zone?’

Argos, with its flourishing dungeon industry, maintained strict national measures to protect safe zones for the merchants traveling through them.

‘Something must have happened at the base camp.’

As the orc horde moved on, Zeke concealed his presence and entered the forest path, heading toward the base camp.

When he arrived, the base camp was a scene of utter devastation.

The wooden barricades were completely destroyed, and blood-soaked supplies were scattered everywhere, as though a horde of monsters had swept through.

Zeke examined the corpses.

Among them were soldiers dispatched from the Kingdom of Argos.

‘These soldiers should have been able to handle most monsters.’

Finding the situation perplexing, Zeke began investigating the traces left at the base camp.

His expression darkened as he examined the evidence.

At the site of the attack, he found traces not of monsters but of humans.

Although the attack had been disguised as a monster raid, it was clear that humans were the perpetrators of this massacre.

It was clear that after the base camp was attacked, the scent of blood attracted monsters who came to scavenge the corpses and supplies.

Then, the orcs, having descended the mountain path, appeared to have assaulted the regular transport caravan.

Zeke dusted off his hands and stood up.

‘What matters most right now is finding Kysir’s ruins.’

From the wreckage of the base camp, Zeke selected only the supplies he needed and quickly left. Staying here would only invite unnecessary misunderstandings.

He immediately activated the mini-map and headed toward the area controlled by the barbarians.

As he ascended, the terrain became increasingly rugged, slowing his pace.

After about two days of trekking into the depths of the mountains, Zeke discovered something.

‘It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.’

Hundreds of skulls hung from branches—human skulls, alongside those of various monsters.

This was a marker, a clear sign that this was barbarian territory.

Areas marked like this were places even monsters avoided.

But Zeke didn’t hesitate as he entered the barbarians’ domain.

At that moment, something caught his heightened senses.

He felt the presence of someone—or something—following him.

At first, he thought it might be barbarians, but he quickly dismissed the idea.

Barbarians never stealthily shadowed intruders into their territory. If they saw someone, they would immediately capture them and quite literally tear them limb from limb.

Swish!

Zeke leapt onto a tree and concealed himself among the branches.

He drew a dagger from his coat and erased his presence entirely.

Soon, the figures following him revealed themselves.

Three of them. They weren’t ordinary adventurers.

‘These guys… they’ve had formal knight training.’

Yet their movements were far too covert for typical knights.

It was evident that these men had been selected from knight trainees and trained in pursuit and assassination techniques.

Zeke knew only one organization in his past life insane enough to do something like this.

‘The hounds… What are Imperial forces doing in Argos?’

The hounds were an elite unit secretly established by the Emperor of the Rom Empire to collect ancient relics.

In Zeke’s previous life, these hounds rose to become one of the Rom Empire’s main military forces.

But for now, the hounds were still shrouded in mystery, with few aware of their true nature.

In that instant, Zeke realized that the slaughter at the base camp had also been the work of the hounds.

It was no coincidence that these relic-chasing specialists were near Kysir’s ruins.

For Zeke, who had already advanced to the rank of Blue Knight, dealing with the hounds would be easy.

‘I’ll interrogate them and extract some information.’

Swish!

The situation turned on its head as Zeke became the hunter, now pursuing the hounds.

He erased his presence and trailed the hounds for a considerable time, carefully observing their range of activity.

The hounds moved in groups of at least twelve.

Zeke, who had a deep and bitter history with the hounds in his previous life, was thoroughly familiar with their operations.

He deduced that this particular group was tasked with perimeter security.

‘With a communication cycle that long, it’ll take some time for anyone to notice if I kill them.’

Exercising patience, Zeke continued to shadow the hounds. Eventually, he discovered the cave they had established as their base.

Clutching his dagger, he approached the cave slowly.

Using the Dragon’s Eye skill, he sharpened his vision, making the darkness appear as clear as daylight.

At that moment, one of the hounds stepped out of the cave.

Swish!

Zeke covered the man’s mouth from behind, stabbed him in the lung with the dagger, and then slashed his carotid artery.

The hound collapsed silently without even managing a scream.

Zeke moved the corpse aside and searched through his belongings.

Given the hound’s identity, it was unsurprising that nothing significant turned up.

He stealthily entered the cave and used the mini-map to study the layout.

The hounds had modified the interior of the cave into a fortified camp.

‘Brings back memories. Back in the cartel days, I practically lived in jungle camps like this.’

Zeke had once served as an assassin for the infamous Mechain Cartel, which dominated the southern continent.

Deceived by a dungeon guide, he had been sold into slavery on the southern continent, where he underwent killer training and was deployed on assassination missions.

Even in such dire circumstances, the skills he had honed in The Cradle and the Academy allowed him to survive the grueling missions.

The cartel, impressed by his resilience, formally trained him and made him one of their hitmen.

As a result, Zeke had spent five years entangled in the power struggles of the southern continent’s cartels.

Compared to the ruthless cartel bosses he had faced, the hounds were unseasoned and laughably easy prey.

Zeke donned a mask to cover his face and stored Bahamut in his inventory.

With his preparations complete, he advanced deeper into the cave.

Swish!

A dagger Zeke threw pierced the neck of an unsuspecting hound.

Thanks to the mini-map, he had already memorized the cave’s layout and the positions of the hounds.

Without hesitation, Zeke stormed further into the cave.

Two hounds were standing guard on a second-floor balcony constructed along the cave walls.

Drawing daggers from his inventory, Zeke flung them in quick succession.

Thud!

Both hounds hit by Zeke’s daggers tumbled down from the balcony.

Unusual noises from outside prompted the hounds waiting deeper in the cave to rush out.

Zeke, holding daggers in both hands, hurled them at the oncoming hounds.

Clang!

One of them deflected Zeke’s dagger with a sword infused with aura.

At that moment, another hound charged at Zeke from the side.

Zeke ducked low and rolled across the ground.

Drawing another dagger, he drove it into the hound’s foot and immediately pulled out a second dagger, severing the Achilles tendon.

“Grahh!”

Moving behind the hound, Zeke twisted his neck and snapped it effortlessly.

It was a technique straight out of the southern hitmen’s playbook for dealing with knights.

“He’s a southern bastard! Block his retreat and create distance! Use crossbows from range!”

Not just knights, but soldiers armed with crossbows emerged from the building.

Zeke sprinted forward at incredible speed.

Fwoosh!

A volley of bolts rained down on him, but his zigzag movement threw off their aim entirely.

In an instant, Zeke was upon the soldier wielding a crossbow.

Slash!

He slashed the soldier’s throat with a dagger and snatched the crossbow from his hands.

Handling the weapon with practiced ease, he fired bolts at the other soldiers.

Thunk!

The soldiers fell one by one as the bolts struck them squarely in the chest.

As Zeke eliminated the soldiers with the crossbow and daggers, the hounds began closing in on him.

Zeke took a stance, gripping daggers in both hands.

At that moment, a figure who appeared to be the leader stepped forward and addressed him.

“What business does a southern scum have here?”

The leader had clearly mistaken Zeke for a southern hitman.

‘Let’s make things even more confusing for them.’

Lowering his voice and adding a southern accent, Zeke replied, “Did you really think you could go after Mechain’s goods and walk away unscathed, you imperial bastards?”

The hound leader faltered, visibly startled by Zeke’s words.

“Mechain’s goods? We’ve never touched anything from that lot!”

“Take it up with your damned emperor after you’re dead.”

In an instant, Zeke kicked a stone at his feet.

Whoosh!

The hard stone struck the leader squarely in his left eye.

“Graaah!”

Zeke didn’t miss the opening. He dashed forward, slitting the throats of the hounds around him with his daggers.

“Graaaah!”

Few things were easier to handle than enraged knights blindly charging in their fury.

Zeke picked up the sword of a fallen knight and hurled it at the charging knight.

The sword, imbued with the will of Sever, pierced through the knight’s body and impaled another behind him.

In a matter of moments, Zeke had annihilated the hounds, leaving only the squad leader, who had addressed him earlier.

“You savage southern bastard, how dare you!”

Swish!

Zeke dodged the squad leader’s sword and slashed his dagger, severing the man’s arm.

“Gah!”

Thud!

Zeke’s dagger plunged deep into the squad leader’s lung.

As the man was on the verge of death, Zeke leaned in and spoke.

“Damn imperial scum. Kysir’s ruins belong to the Mechain Cartel.”

The squad leader’s eyes wavered at those words.

“What… what nonsense is this…”

With a face full of confusion, the hound squad leader breathed his last.

Zeke, observing the man’s reaction, realized that the hounds were not targeting Kysir’s legacy after all.

“Then what the hell are these bastards doing here?”

He ascended to the second floor of the camp to investigate their traces.

There, he found a coded letter from their superiors.

The encryption used by the imperial knights was notoriously intricate, considered nearly impossible to decipher.

But Zeke, thanks to his battlefield experience in his previous life, knew how to crack the Rom Empire’s codes.

Swiftly, he scanned the contents of the letter.

‘These idiots don’t even know what’s here. The emperor just sent them to blindly search for ancient ruins.’

It seemed the emperor of the Rom Empire, obsessed with immortality, was scouring the continent for ancient relics.

Every possible site of ancient ruins had hounds dispatched to investigate.

Clicking his tongue, Zeke remarked, “The emperor’s gone completely insane.”

Now that he knew the hounds were clueless about Kysir’s ruins, there was no reason to waste more time.

Leaving behind traces of his own, Zeke exited the cave.

He activated the mini-map again and began heading toward the site of the ruins.

Then, he heard it.

Fwoooosh!

A chilling sound echoed from above.

Zeke recognized it immediately.

It was the signal for the hounds’ Celestial Web Deployment.

 


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