Heroes to Hunted

The wheels rumbled and grated against the cobblestone, vibrating our carriage with every rotation. Even with our speed, we'd still been accelerating uncontrollably. The lemming had been whipping the horses in a frenzy with a face of utter desperation.

Finally, the first enemy attempt at stopping us came into view, taking the form of a makeshift barrier.

The obstruction had been a fortified garrison of soldiers behind a makeshift barrier.

Some thrust spears and longswords forward, while others had been frantically running back and forth with new additions to their pathetic barricade.

From fruit baskets to barrels to small crates, the city guards took refuge behind them and loosed a volley of arrows to delay us. That's when I noticed it.

I threw up my armored arms and readied myself to smash them from the air. Though I obviously never tried swiping arrows from the sky, I've had projectiles hurled at me before. So I figured the premise would've been the same.

I tapped into my instincts, into the deepest depths of my core. If I was going to block a barrage of arrows, it wouldn't be while stuck in thought.

My mind was emptied, and my sole focus was deflecting the danger confronting the lemming and me. So I waited, and waited, and waited until they'd been at the perfect swiping distance.

'Now!' I internally shouted myself into action. I swung my hand in a wide arc, ready to cast the arrows aside with my gauntlet and roll straight through.

'Did I miss?' Though I was planning to shove the arrows aside at an angle, I still expected wounds or even just the feeling of an impact. But I felt nothing.

I brought my hand and forearm to view. Rather than cuts and bruises, my arm had been left entirely unscathed. I focused my gaze upwards, remembering a crucial detail I'd forgotten. We had a goddamn barrier!

Just like how it'd been with the window, the arrows were locked in suspended animation. The arrows' shafts trembled from the force of an outstretched blue-green barrier, and their tips violently quaked in place.

Like before, the trembling soon ceased as the arrows were slungshot backward.

They whizzed through the air, peppering the soldiers in front of us with a torrent of wood and iron. The ones who'd made it through the barrage only looked on in complete shock.

Watching them get annihilated by their own attacks, with their own carriage, no less, I couldn't help but insult them!

I cackled as loudly as humanly possible. "Are you idiots?! How can you forget your own 'magic'?!" I had to latch my arms to my seat. If I didn't, I might've fallen off laughing.

Barreling past them, we shattered their sad excuse for a barrier into two barely recognizable halves. The audible crunching of wood and fiber accompanied the carriage's violent rocking as we bowled through like a wrecking ball.

Unsurprisingly, various parts of crates and other parts flew upwards around us. It created a shower of vandalism that I could only relish in.

As the debris flew wildly around us, I smiled.

I know it's crazy. I know that an ordinary person would feel anxious. That they'd feel dread for what's to come. But me? I couldn't stop the feeling of joy and excitement.

Raising a fist to the rising Sun, I shouted, "THIS IS AMAZING!"

I honestly felt that moment was what we all longed for. To smash everything in our path and force our way through any obstacle. I'd been too filled with joy to care about anything else.please visit panda-:)ɴᴏᴠᴇ1.co)m

Almost to meet my arrogance, there stood the knight with no equal in Blackwood. The knight who'd actually…genuinely instilled fear in my core.

Between us and the gate we'd need to cross for freedom, he stood with arms crossed over the hilt of his sword. The blade was buried into the cobblestone with ease. It was as if he'd planted it into sand rather than stone.

Though his stance had been completely unguarded, I couldn't shake the feeling that we were riding straight into the looming jaws of death.

I smiled once more. However, the grin wasn't of elation. Rather it was born from a deep-rooted anxiety. Despite everything, he could calmly stare us down like a wolf would with cornered prey.

pαпdα-ňᴏνê|·сóМ Even though…no…because I'm so reliant on my instincts, I knew I was no match for him.

"HEY!" The lemming shouted. "We're running straight through!"

"What the hell are you talking about?!" I shouted back. Though I'm reluctant to admit it, my usual ferocity had been entirely upturned.

Within my gut, where a fire of zeal usually roared, I had a pit of profound angst. I could feel my insides churning as my mind frantically told me to abandon ship. I was terrified.

Though we closed in, the gray knight hadn't moved an inch while he waited to meet our challenge. Reinforcing him was an arsenal of soldiers bracing themselves behind wooden spiked fortifications.

My body recoiled backward in my seat. Every fiber of my being had been telling me to run, to take my chances back at the manor.

I clutched my stirring chest to calm my untamed and loudly thumping heartbeats. 'Dammit, how do I shake this off?!'

Grinding my teeth together, I tried thinking desperately of any method that would quell my instincts. Remembering Agawa's process, I clenched my jaw and let loose a beastly growl.

I raised my fist and plunged it with fury into my gut. It had already been difficult to breathe on account of the biting winds. Despite that, it was my strike that robbed me of my ability to inhale. Luckily, that wasn't the only thing that I had stolen from me.

Thanks to my efforts, the fear that had poisoned me was washed away.

I stood and bellowed a war cry. "Bring it on, you fucking background characters!"

Arrows, spears, fire, and ice...they hurled everything they had at us in a final struggle. The arrows and spears, as expected, only ricocheted off with a vengeance in random directions.

As for the fire, once it had made contact with the barrier, it plumed around us in a red-orange haze. Despite our protection protecting us from burns, I could still feel the heat of the blaze on my skin. It'd been like we were locked in a sweltering sauna with no steam.

The horses squealed in a panic but must've been trained well. Rather than breaking off course, they maintained their stampede into the raging inferno. Even when we'd become enveloped by the heat, the mares loyally continued their charge forward.

Once the fire had dissipated, what assailed us wasn't the immolation of flame but the chill of frost. The barrier around our wagon had been pelted by a hailstorm of pale blue icy shards. Like glass, they fractured into slivers before being carried off by the soaring winds as nothing more than frigid particles.

After surviving so many attacks, our escape was close at hand. Through all of those tribulations, we were almost there!

That was what I'd like to say, but we still had the obstacle of deciding our fate. The one that merely stared with disinterest while his allies panicked and scattered. 'He' would be the final trial to overcome before we crawled out of literal hell.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!