Feeling the strength of his hands holding his arms weakening, the man who took on the role of leader of this group looked at Deon with pitiful eyes.
He was so weak that it was embarrassing to be nervous. Was this really a 'hero'? Are you saying that all the rumors in the world were nonsense?
Although he was secretly disappointed, it wasn't a bad thing since he was able to complete the work easier and faster than he thought. No, objectively speaking, it was actually good.
"Goodbye, fake hero."
As he struck the guy's head with the ax he had raised, there was a commotion on one side.
A loud voice coming from far away. The man stopped and looked up to find the cause of the commotion.
"Found them! It looks a little dangerous?"
"Oh, as expected, Your Majesty! He foresaw this!"
"Are you safe?"
"No, wait a minute! I think the captain fainted?"
"Isn't that how you die?"
"What are you doing! Let's get the captain right away!"
"It's not the captain, it's the Count, you idiots!"
A conversation that flowed along the stream of consciousness.
The man, who froze for a moment as the conversation took the listener's soul away, hurriedly began to assess the situation.
Who were they? Since they were trying to rescue Deon Hardt, they were not an ally. What idiot group was there that could call Deon Hardt 'captain'?
The answer came quickly.
"Stop them now! We must stop them, even if it means using bombs!"
The man shouted urgently.
It's the Rabid Dogs! The vanguard led by Deon Hardt during the Eight Year War!
The story of the vanguard being promoted to knighthood in recognition of its merits was well known as it is famous. They were also in charge of taking care of the Revolutionary Army among the Empire's security forces.
But why?
"How did you know here...!"
The plan went wrong. Now that this has happened, he had to kill Deon Hardt and retreat quickly. If they collided with them head-on, they would lose.
The scary thing about the Rabid Dogs was not their skills...
"Huh? Hey, it's a bomb."
"Wow, you have to shed blood against an enemy that uses bombs. I think this might be difficult for a sober mind, right?"
"Can I take the drugs?"
"Is there anyone we can accept? The captain is passed out over there, and neither Sir Lianne nor the leader is there right now."
"Isn't that true?"
The guy, giggling playfully, threw some medicine into his mouth. Others also took out medicine here and there and put it in their mouths.
At first glance, the man heard a voice like that.
"What can I do? I have to live."
The atmosphere changed in an instant.
The eyes become cloudy and madness took their place.
The red, bloodshot whites were particularly creepy. A creepy smile appeared on the corner of their mouths.
"Kill them all!"
"You know? Don't kill them cleanly!"
"Haha! What do you know! For now, enjoy!"
"You crazy guy! Do what you learned, do what you learned! First the limbs, cut off the limbs first!"
...Yes, the scary thing about them was their cruel hands. A hand that looks just like its owner and was extremely cruel.
We need to kill Deon Hardt first. Thinking like that, the man lifted the ax again, and at some point, strength came back to his once weak hands.
If it were just that, he wouldn't have stopped, but...
It stung.
Because nails were digging into his flesh.
As he looked down, the red eyes revealed behind the white mask smiled.
A creepy eye smile that was different from before. Feeling eerie, he hurriedly tried to strike down the axe, but suddenly h felt a terrible pain in his arm.
"Ahh! You crazy bastard!!"
Nails dug deep into his arm and scraped down.
The skin was not simply peeled off, but pieces of flesh were falling off as if they had been carved out with a carving knife.
It was so deep that the place where the long pieces of flesh had fallen off formed a hollow valley of blood. Without even thinking about it, the man reflexively threw Deon Hardt away.
The man let go of the ax and held his forearm because of the pain that would surge regardless of whether he hit the carriage wall or not. Before he knew it, the blood that had flowed from his arm was condensing and dripping onto his fingertips.
Deon was not going to miss that opportunity.
"Cough."
The white mask turned red. Even while coughing up blood, he quickly jumped up and picked up the ax that the guy had dropped.
Without any time to defend himself, he grabbed the handle with both hands, lifted it up, and brought his weight down towards his head.
Obviously, he was strangled to the point that the world turned white, and Deon himself had no strength, so he relied on the weight of the ax to hit him, but it didn't take much─just one blow.
In one blow, the guy's head was broken open without even a chance to scream.
Still, Deon was not satisfied.
'...You can't stop here.'
The ax rose again. The target was the head that has already been split.
'He's already dead. Should I do more? No. We need to do more. If you set an example, no one will dare attack you. Because I'm weak. But...'
His arms were shaking. Red eyes, standing on the borderline between normal and abnormal, shook constantly.
The reason why his eyes became clear and then blurred repeatedly was none other than cloudy madness that pushed away the hesitation that had been in his eyes for a while and took its place.
"Oh, Captain!"
"Captain...?"
Deon lifted the ax as if possessed. No, it would be more correct to say that he was crazy rather than possessed.
Like a man who had lost his mind, he lifted the ax without stopping, as if chopping firewood, and then began to slash it down indiscriminately.
Kwasik. Splack. Splack. Squelch.
Blood splattered violently and the bloody smell lingered.
Even as attention gradually gathered and the surrounding noise subsided, his actions remained unstoppable. On the contrary, he even smiled, rolling his eyes as if showing off.
The ax was heavy. His arms were shaking.
Still, he didn't stop. Not only for the sake of setting an example, but also because he knew how to turn this situation to his advantage.
He stopped when the ax became so heavy that he could no longer lift it.
He looked down and saw a bloodied lump of meat the size of a person in front of him.
The hand holding the ax went limp, then he kicked it and pushed it out of the carriage.
Thud!
"..."
"..."
The body fell and silence came.
Everyone's eyes turned towards this direction, both friends and enemies.
Deon closed his eyes gracefully as he felt the gaze going back and forth between something terrible whose original form he could not tell, himself covered in blood, and the bloody ax in his hand.
Bright red eyes were shining and curved like a crescent moon.
"I guess I'm tired of my peaceful life."
"What kind of person is that who went on a monster-slaying mission not too long ago..."
"Shh, be quiet. Don't you even notice?" A member of the Rabid Dogs, who was happily hacking away at the Revolutionary Army, was dragged away with his mouth shut by a colleague.
It was truly a funny scene, but no one dared laugh.
Oh, there was one person.
Deon laughed. A somewhat cheerful gaze was directed at those who had lived and died together.
"Long time no see. Did His Majesty treat you well?"
"Oh, don't say anything. He was so rude, telling me to pay for the food."
"Do you know how difficult it is to stop a Revolutionary Army trying to blow things up?"
A member grumbled as he cut off the hand of a Revolutionary Army soldier who was secretly pulling out a bomb.
Another member quickly picked up the bomb that was rolling around on the floor and looked around, sighing in his voice.
"Anyway, what on earth were you thinking, Captain, when you decided to move with only such poor bastards?"
"I thought there wouldn't be an attack because I moved as soon as I got back. How on earth did you know that I came here?"
"His Majesty already knew everything. He ordered us to bring our master safely."
"I must thank His Majesty. By the way..."
His red eyes looked at the murderous vanguard who were diligently decapitating the Revolutionaries while their mouths were saying something else, and then turned to the guards.
The guards, who had been stabbed a lot, were startled and avoided eye contact.
As they hastily cleared out the Revolutionary Army, they were unable to stop the regret that washed over them.
"You'll know without me having to say it. This is the Count's escort?"
It was a degrading remark, but they did not dare to refute it.
Because they had definitely become dull.
A whopping half a year. If it's short, it's short, but if it's long, wasn't it so peaceful during that long time? You can't just train all day. It seems like they had become lazy because of that.
So they forgot about it for a while.
How many enemies did Honorary Count Deon Hardt have?
"No matter how distracted I am, this big guy approaches me and no one notices. Can you call that an escort?"
"..."
"We need to change the escort first."
The guards' faces turned white. Being kicked out of Count Hardt's residence was not just about losing your job. If you're lucky, it may end without incident, but that's just luck. The majority of people died.
It's not that Count Hardt was doing anything or anything, but the problem was the Emperor.
He wouldn't leave those who were kicked out of the Honorary Count's mansion alone...
They heard it was for security reasons, but from the perspective of a former employee who knew nothing, it was like going crazy and jumping around.
"Count Hardt..."
One tried to call out to Deon, but unfortunately, the current Deon Hardt was different from the usual Deon Hardt.
Rather than having a moderate personality, he had an extreme appearance with a vanguard that was only heard about through rumors.
Ignoring the pale guards, Deon crossed the quiet space and picked up a dagger lying nearby.
He pointed the blade of his dagger at his enemies and spoke in a cheerful voice.
"What are you doing? There are still enemies left. I have to sort it out."
"..."
"Come on, hurry and kill me."
Blood dripped from red-stained hair.
He wiped away the thick liquid that was flowing from his forehead down to his eyes, and with a cheerful smile, he grabbed a dagger and jumped among the enemies.
***
In front of the Imperial palace lined with countless gorgeous carriages, there were carriages that you wouldn't normally see, but right now, because he was tired of looking at them, the doorkeeper's eyes, which were looking at them without much emotion, turned somewhere and then widened enormously.
Is this a red-painted carriage trying a new style? If the goal was to lead the trend, it was clearly a failure.
That looked more like blood...
'...A fishy smell?'
Was it really blood?!
The colleague standing next to him seemed to have noticed this as well and hurriedly aimed his spear.
Likewise, the gatekeeper who was aiming his spear barely spoke in a trembling voice.
"This place is the Imperial palace. If you don't have an invitation, you can't go in..."
"Get out of the way."
A man whose presence he didn't even know was hidden by the red carriage came out.
...Was it a protective color? Why was it the same color as the carriage?
Now he saw there were a lot of other people there too. It was unclear whether they were guards or people doing something suspicious, but they were all dyed red from head to toe, and their eyes were shining brightly.
"Do you know who is in this carriage?"
"Who are you...?"
"He's our captain!"
"...?"
So who is your captain?
The doorkeeper's expression became blank.
He was too scared to ask again outright, but he couldn't just let such a suspicious group pass, so he just rolled my eyes nervously, when he heard a voice of salvation.
"If you just say that, who will understand?"
"Ah."
Everyone's eyes turned to the red-haired, red-eyed man in red clothing who got out of the doorless carriage.
And the gatekeeper froze with his mouth wide open.
'That person is the worst! Did you take a bath in blood?! I can never let them in. No one can do something like that!'
Even heroes officially recognized by the Empire cannot enter unless His Majesty gave permission directly.
"It's Deon Hardt."
...Deon Hardt? It's a familiar name. Who was it?
Ah.
'The Vampire Count!'
In that case, those strange-looking groups must be the famous Rabid Dogs.
The fact that he was a hero of the empire occurred to the doorkeeper late.
Because his performance during the Eight Years' War was so great, the things that come to mind when thinking of 'Deon Hardt' were consistently negative.
After receiving the status of honorary count, 'Blood-Crazed Vanguard', 'Master of a Murderous Unit', he even became 'Vampire Count'.
But now that he looked at it, he thought it was true that he's a vampire.
As if someone had eaten someone inside the carriage, the blood-filled interior was clearly visible through the gap where the door should have been.
Even the Count himself was soaked in blood!
'Should I let him in?'
A hero whom His Majesty had personally given permission to visit in any form at any time. After all, that's the Honorary Count Deon Hardt right in front of him.
'But he looks like this?'
Even though today was the day of the banquet!
At that time, Deon Hardt, who roughly brushed up his blood- soaked hair, let out a slow voice.
"Where is His Majesty?"
Perhaps due to survival instinct, the answer came out immediately.
"In the banquet hall."
"Banquet hall?"
Could it be that he didn't know?
For a moment, the gatekeeper looked at him with the red eyes and answered in fear.
"Yes! A banquet to celebrate the birth of a new hero and the success of his debut..."
"...Aha."
"..."
The words ended there.
The doorkeeper quickly shut his mouth at the unusual voice.