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Zhang Liao.
He had been recommended by Lü Bu himself and appointed as a horse archer in the Jinyang army.
Though called a horse archer, in truth, within Lü Bu's personal unit in the Jinyang forces, he was treated as a general ranking just below Song Xian, Wei Xu, and Hou Cheng.
At first, he drew the envy and jealousy of the veteran soldiers for buttering up to the general as a kid.
- Hold a martial arts tournament in the unit.
But that envy and jealousy soon turned into admiration for his formidable skills, and the soldiers even started calling him the Little Lü Bu.
Little Lü Bu.
It was a way of saying they expected him to become a figure like Lü Bu someday.
And since Lü Bu himself hoped for the same, Zhang Liao genuinely wanted to learn.
- I told you to do some work, right? Let's start with the paperwork.
Even as he sorted through the stacks of bamboo slips dumped on him, he thought of it as the general's duties.
- If you're a general, you have to know how to handle this much!
When Song Xian told him to organize documents on cavalry management, he took it as an order to learn about Bing Province horsemen.
- H-Hey, could you write this down for me? Neatly organize what I'm saying...
When Wei Xu had him draft a report for the training grounds, he thought, "So this is the role of a training officer in the city!"
- Whew, if you weren't here, I'd still be struggling alone...
The first time Hou Cheng let out that lament.
- Alone with what?
- ...Never mind. Just write.
- General. No, brother. Be honest with me.
- H-Hey! Don't resort to force! Let's settle this like literate folks—with writing! Writing!
That's when Zhang Liao realized.
Setting aside the horse archer title for now, over the past three months—excluding personal training and sparring—what he'd done was...
Administration.
Clerical work.
Scribal duties.
Didn't he wield the brush more often than the spear...?
"This can't go on!"
Three months.
This was the moment Zhang Liao first rebelled against Lü Bu.
"So, you want to fight instead of doing administrative work?"
"Yes!"
As I was moving heavy rocks on the farm and chasing off moles, Zhang Liao approached me, shedding the outer robe of his civil official attire.
"In the past three months, I've shed more ink than sweat!"
"That's true."
I wouldn't deny it.
"The civil officials think highly of you too. That's a good thing."
"You didn't bring me here just to make me write, did you?"
"I did bring you to write as well."
Ahem.
"Once I started handling general duties, I realized that just writing my name and courtesy name wasn't enough. I learned that a true general must excel in both civil and military affairs."
"And you, General?"
"It's too late for me, so you should learn it all now."
"General...!"
Zhang Liao drew near, his face misty with emotion.
"I want to wield the martial arts...!"
If he'd just dropped to his knees, he might as well have been begging to play basketball, judging by that face.
"Haha."
Suddenly, I felt like a bespectacled coach, but this era had no glasses, suits, or basketball.
"Wield the martial arts. Flaunt your prowess, swing the spear, fell enemies, triumph in battle, and make your valor resound. Is that what you mean?"
"Yes...!!"
The rightful mindset for any man.
Especially for an exceptional warrior like Zhang Liao, it was understandable—but
He's still young.
Zhang Liao.
Unlike his appearance, his age was surprisingly tender—barely past his twentieth year, not even reaching the weak crown age yet.
The kid couldn't hold his liquor either.
"Why not endure a bit longer? This is the prime time to learn."
"I joined the army to suppress bandits...!"
"Zhang Liao."
Whoosh.
The wind blew in.
"How many months have passed since you joined the Bing Province army?"
"About three months."
"The fact that you haven't had a chance to step up means things have been that peaceful."
A faint, fishy scent of blood seemed to drift from the east, over the mountains.
"I hope that even as I hone my martial skills relentlessly, I never have to turn them against people."
"Pardon?"
"Because I don't wield weapons to kill people, nor swing them to show off."
I turned my gaze to Zhang Liao.
"When you pierced and slew those bandits, what thoughts drove your spear?"
"That is..."
"When you joined this army, what resolve did you bring with you?"
I lightly tapped my chest.
"I don't know the world well yet. But as one who walks the path of the martial arts, I can show you at least one way."
"General—!!"
Song Xian came galloping up on horseback.
"Ah, that field...!"
"It's fine. We can plow it again later."
No time to blame him for trampling the freshly tilled soil with his horse's hooves.
"Report! A band of Black Mountain Bandits is advancing on the upper mountain farm!"
Behind Song Xian, a riderless horse followed.
"Wei Xu and Hou Cheng are engaging with five hundred infantry, but their numbers are no joke!"
"How many?"
"About... five thousand!"
"!!"
Five thousand Black Mountain Bandits.
A gravely serious force. One might quibble that five thousand isn't much, but these weren't ordinary bandits.
"What weapons do they carry?"
"Not sickles—swords and spears!!"
"I see."
Dangerous bandits indeed.
"Zhang Liao. There are two kinds of bandits. One is the common folk who take up sickles because they can't feed their families otherwise. The other is the villains who know no way of life but plundering others."
I thrust the shovel I'd been using to till the land into the soil and mounted my horse.
"I became a martial artist to suppress those wicked ones with this power."
"..."
"Follow me. And witness—not how much impact one warrior can have on the battlefield."
Leaving Zhang Liao's confused gaze behind, I seized the reins.
"But how many foes a single monster can slaughter."
"Monster..."
"Song Xian."
I mounted up.
"My Fangtian Halberd?"
"Here, prepared."
"Let's go."
Gaaaaah—!!
Shouts echoed across the farm.
Red blood droplets rippled over the crops on the terraced fields carved into the mountainside like stairs.
"Hey, hey, kill them more gently. Don't let the blood stench soak into the crops."
The bearded leader of the black-clad bandits, his helmet adorned with iron horns painted black, clicked his tongue at his men in irritation.
"Kekekekeh!"
"L-Look at them going wild now that they've tasted blood after so long."
"I-Is this okay, Brother Wu Jiao?"
"Hey now. I told you to call me Chief of Staff."
The man who insisted on being called Chief of Staff.
"Even I, Zhang Wu Jiao, am a proper warlord now, you see."
"Warlord..."
Zhang Wu Jiao.
He was the chieftain leading over ten thousand Black Mountain Bandits in the remote valleys of Bing Province.
"Oh? You don't buy it?"
"N-No, of course I do. If you're not a warlord, Chief, who is?"
Half of that ten thousand were women, elders, and children, but the other half were able-bodied men with black bands around their heads.
The difference from others? Every one of them had blood on their hands.
"Heh heh heh. Hiding a sweet honey pot like this midway up the mountain from Jinyang."
"That..."
Aaaagh—!
Even as farmers were slaughtered by the black-clad bandits, Zhang Wu Jiao brushed it off.
"Tsk tsk. Chase them off after killing just enough, then hurry and harvest the crops."
He was the one who'd ordered the massacre in the first place.
"B-Brother. Isn't this still dangerous?"
"Dangerous? We've already killed at least dozens of those plowing farmers. Dangerous now?"
"B-But the regulars have shown up too."
"Relax, relax. Those leaders down there seem nimble, but they're too busy protecting the civilians to come this way."
Below the mountainside terraces.
Armored soldiers were cutting down bandits one by one as they climbed, but they couldn't ascend easily.
Twang twang twang.
The arrows from above were bad enough, but the soldiers had to shield not themselves, but the farmers, holding shields desperately.
"Just try climbing. The civilians in their clothes turn into pincushions. Heh heh heh."
Zhang Wu Jiao grinned viciously, pointing at the fields.
"We just loot the crops they've so nicely grown in the meantime."
"No, I mean, instead of talking, shouldn't we loot quick and run?"
"Run?"
Zhang Wu Jiao scoffed.
"From what?"
"Fr-From Jinyang's Locust!"
"...Jinyang's Locust?"
"Y-You don't know, Chief? The Locust of Jinyang?"
His subordinate paled, heart sinking.
"Hahaha! Joke. How could I not know him? You mean Lü Fengxian, that guy under Ding Yuan."
"You do know!"
"Of course. I know the rumors are exaggerated and full of bluster."
Zhang Wu Jiao chuckled, twiddling his long mustache like the horns on his helmet.
"They say the ground explodes every time he slams his halberd down, and grown men fly like leaves with every swing."
"Yes! That's why...!"
"That he kills at least three hundred per battle as a baseline? You expect me to believe that?"
"...Isn't that what makes him a monster?"
"I don't buy such rumors."
Zhang Wu Jiao shook his head firmly.
"No, does it even make sense? I've only been in Bing Province a short while, but they've never lost in ten years here."
"Exactly!"
"He's fought over a hundred battles already, so that'd mean one man killed over thirty thousand?"
"N-Not by that math...!"
"It's all Ding Yuan and his advisors puffing up their chests. Heh, that's all those schemers do."
Zhang Wu Jiao cackled, pointing toward the regulars.
"Look. That's the truth of the regulars. Can't even fight properly, wasting time guarding rice-munchers who'd just eat rations... Huh?"
Suddenly, with drumbeats, the soldiers parted left and right.
At the leaders' signals from horseback, shield-bearing troops withdrew to the sides.
Some to the slope above.
Some near the cliff edge.
Clearing that narrow passage.
Rumble rumble rumble!
One armored man, carrying something long, charged up the mountain path.
"...What the hell is that?"
His gait was strange.
Seemed like he was running, yet one foot barely touched before the other landed first.
"Th-That's him! His footwork's different!"
"Footwork my ass. What kinda nonsense is that?"
Zhang Wu Jiao laughed at his subordinate's fuss.
"No martial artist can block a volley from hundreds of archers."
"At least I've never seen one."
Before Zhang Wu Jiao could order, his men nocked arrows in unison.
Twang twang twang!
The arrow storm the regulars barely blocked with steel shields.
Their tips weren't as sharp as the soldiers', but a mass volley would—
Whoosh—boom!
"...Huh?"
Once.
The red tassel on the weapon traced a crescent arc, and in an instant, the arrows plummeted vertically to the ground.
"...Wind pressure?"
A single strike.
That one blow neutralized the volley, and the shockwave slammed into the second and third ranks, sending them crashing midair.
No other explanation.
That was exactly what Zhang Wu Jiao had witnessed.
"...B-Block—!!"
Zhang Wu Jiao screamed instinctively.
Another arrow barrage or swords—block at all costs.
Or else—
Boom—crash!!
The sharp tip of the halberd struck the ground, and three bandits charging the warrior tumbled down the slope, bleeding.
"Earth Shatter...!"
His subordinate blabbered.
Pale-faced, legs trembling, no thought of fighting—a pathetic underling.
Slash!
Something sliced, and a bandit blocking the path was bisected.
Red blood sprayed like a fountain, revealing beyond it a warrior with antenna-like hair spilling from under his helmet.
Step, step.
The warrior lightly swung the halberd to the side.
One stroke severed the waist of a bandit lunging from beside him, then he gripped and thrust reverse, piercing the bandit's solar plexus and shoving him off the cliff.
How many blinks?
One? No, two?
"...What?"
Already, ten subordinates dead.
No.
While thinking, another five—no, twenty—
"Th-This madman...!!"
They died faster than he could count.
The warrior, as if born to kill, cleaved every visible foe nearby.
Necks severed, chests gushing blood, bodies rent asunder in fountains of gore.
"Is that... human...?"
Even Zhang Wu Jiao, no stranger to killing, wasn't like that.
That was a monster born to slaughter humans.
"Uh, ugh...!"
His hands shook.
Over a hundred paces away, hundreds of his looting bandits in between, yet instinct screamed at Zhang Wu Jiao.
When was this feeling last?
When Black Swallow—that bastard—threatened him?
Couldn't recall.
He'd inflicted it often, but rarely felt it himself.
Death.
Yes, that was death.
His own.
"B-Block him!! He's just one!! We're Black Mountain men!!"
Just one?
What about the soldiers behind?
He realized too late his slip after blurting it.
Whoosh—boom!
The halberd traced a red arc.
The spear tip at the long shaft's end pierced one soldier's throat.
The crescent blade on the left slashed diagonally across a bandit's upper body.
The other crescent on the right sheared the legs of a charging bandit.
"Hah."
If the Overlord Xiang Yu lived back then, would he have looked like that?
"M-Monster...!"
Slash, slash.
The monster butchered his men wholesale, gradually accelerating toward them.
Toward here.
"U, uwaaaah!!"
Zhang Wu Jiao drew his sword.
Was it pride that he didn't flee like his men, that he was no pushover?
Or instinct that running meant death?
"I am Black Mountain's—"
"Where do you think you're going."
The moment their eyes met—or so he thought.
"As if a petty bandit scum like you gets to speak."
As he shouted his name and swung his sword, the monster's antennae-like hair was already upside down in his vision.
Thud.
The sky flipped, darkness fell.
As if his iron horns were slamming into the ground.
Shaaa—
Rain fell from the sky.
Night hadn't come, but the heavens were dark.
"Zhang Liao."
"..."
"Do you know how many bandits died here?"
I kicked aside a bandit corpse rolling on the ground as I asked.
"At least four thousand, I'd say."
"Of them, how many did I kill or cut down?"
"That is..."
"One thousand and thirty-four."
1034.
"That's the casualties one warrior wrought."
"One rider worth a thousand...!"
"Simultaneously, the number of men I killed."
"..."
"Zhang Liao. Every time I swing this Fangtian Halberd at humans, I always think."
Question.
"Is this one worthy of death? A beast in human skin?"
"..."
"The Master said all men are born good. My teacher said men can be evil, but through teachings, restrain their nature with reason and pursue goodness."
"..."
I planted the Fangtian Halberd in the ground.
"My martial arts aim for good, my blade for evil."
"What is evil?"
"You must find that answer yourself."
"...Then, what do you consider evil, General? I shall heed you."
"Evil is."
In this barbaric age.
"Those who oppress the weak."
Where justice and chivalry do not exist.
"As a warrior, I pursue becoming a strong man who aids the weak."
Based on the martial arts I possess, I merely seek chivalry.
"That is the warrior's path Lü Fengxian lives by, and the way of life for this man I am."
Author's Note
Note 1) The theory of innate human goodness is Mencius's claim, not Confucius's. The one who said it is Lü Bu.