Chapter 65: All Centaurs, Unite! (03)
Seeing the screaming centaur thieves, I realized we couldn't just leave them be, so I shouted to make the frightened centaur maidens retreat, and after dismounting from Eileen, I examined the spike-infested wound.
"It's not ordinary metal"
I couldn't fully understand, but at least I knew this spike wasn't made of ordinary metal.
As I watched the spike burrow into the wound and head towards the brain, I quickly drew out my Mana Saber.
"You don't want to die, do you? Then... give up a leg."
I split the area below the spike-infested right joint.
There was no blood splatter. The high heat from the Mana Saber cauterized the wound, and I quickly cut off the affected area before the mutated spike could spread elsewhere.
"Drag these fellows to the village now!"
By now, the centaur maidens were trembling in fear, and since no one was in their right mind, I had to give orders one by one.
Hoping someone would help seemed futile as no one was likely to assist, so I focused with the Mana Saber and directed one of the fleeing centaur thieves, giving commands myself to lead the wounded and retreat.
As I shouted, one of the centaur maidens threw her wooden shield at me, and I infused it with mana again to catch the spike flying towards us.
This time, I didn't block it directly but angled the shield, coating it with mana, causing a powerful deflection that embedded it deep into the ground.
As Eileen came alongside, I grabbed the reins and jumped onto her back. I held a wooden shield in my left hand and the Mana Saber in my right, charging at the hostile centaur thieves.
As I got closer, the centaur thief was bleeding from his head, and his entire body seemed twisted, moving awkwardly.
The subject had a broken left foreleg ankle visible to the bone, but he seemed unfazed by the pain and was limping towards us while trying to simultaneously wield two spikes with both hands.
'One spike for me, one for Eileen.'
As I predicted, one spike flew towards the wooden shield I was holding, and the other targeted Eileen's lower body.
Until just now, I was assessing the situation and caught it with the shield, but now that I knew where it was aimed, it wasn't something I couldn't deflect with a sword.
'The throwing speed is normal, but there must be something peculiar about the projectile...'
As expected, the throwing itself resembled ordinary dagger throwing, but the moment the spike was thrown, it accelerated in the air, spinning at high speed.
"Trust me. Don't dodge, just charge!"
If Eileen got scared and slowed down or missed the timing, she would be hit by the spike.
But I trusted Eileen, and unlike the other centaur maidens, she didn't back down out of fear but trusted me and kept up her speed as she charged.
To avoid startling Eileen, I briefly activated the Mana Saber to melt the spike targeting her lower body, and the one flying towards me was avoided by embracing Eileen and turning our bodies.
'It seems there are no more spikes...'
The moment I approached, the bleeding centaur thief touched his jaw.
'What is he doing...?'
The centaur thief inserted his fingers into his jaw and began pulling out a long object—spikes that had grown branches and were forcibly removed, bringing out the tongue and brain.
"What kind of thing is this?"
Staggering, he still threw the spike he held in his hand at me, and at that moment, the spike's surface had spikes retracting inwards and then it started to accelerate rapidly towards me.
But since the trajectory was too simple, I timed my swing with the Mana Saber to evaporate the spike in mid-air.
I reached the centaur thief's body, which had destroyed its own head and fallen, but by then, it was nothing more than a mere corpse.
Even if I touched the body with my foot, there was no reaction, and it was just a corpse, like a piece of meat.
"Ah... What the heck is this?"
I retrieved the spike, and to prevent any potential erosion, I wedged it between broken pieces of the wooden shield and brought it into the village.
As the spike tried to escape the fragments of the wooden shield, Dane was about to touch it when I warned him.
"If you want your fingers cut off, go ahead."
"Ah shoot! Just tell me not to touch it."
"Like you would listen?"
Dane was tapping the spike with his mana shield generator, and as soon as the spike touched the mana shield, its tip began to melt.
'I thought it melted because of the high heat from the Mana Saber... does it melt upon contact with mana?'
If so, this spike wasn't made with magic but was crafted with special technology.
"It's not a domestic product."
Domestic products infuse mana into all sorts of goods, even in self-defense products in the kingdom.
Since the spike was no ordinary item, Dane wrapped it with a few pieces of wood, then wrapped it in cloth, and finally, placed two spikes inside a tin box.
Now it was time to interrogate the captured centaur thieves.
"The chief... the chief implanted it."
Since they were more fearful than rebellious, they were cooperating with us, although some had been raving in fear, I was interrogating a centaur thief who was still relatively sane.
"He has been subduing bandit groups on the plains since last fall. He demanded horses, so we thought he intended to monopolize and sell them at high prices, but... suddenly, he killed all the horses he had gathered and tried to implant these things in us."
I'm not sure what kind of person he is, but he's a dangerous individual who shouldn't be allowed to run amok near the kingdom.
"Is this chief a centaur?"
"Sometimes he is a centaur, and sometimes he is a human."
"What does that mean?"
"That... it's exactly as I said. We don't really understand."
He didn't seem to be lying.
If they were hostile to us as a bandit group before, now that the bandit group has collapsed, they are being hunted down by the chief unilaterally and are talking about wanting to stay safe in the village.
"Isn't this a trap? These guys might cause turmoil within, leaving the villages defenseless for the bandits to attack from outside."
Dane mentioned that possibility, but...
"What about information from other villages?"
When I asked Eileen, who had just returned from outside the village, she shared the information she had learned with a serious expression.
"The nearby villages have also taken in survivors from the bandit group. It seems that the bandit group has indeed disbanded, and most of the bandits have lost contact."
Thinking of the centaur dominated by the spikes we had just encountered, the centaur bandits who were spiked in the head would end up in a similar state as that individual.
"And... surprisingly, about a hundred or so centaur bandits are gathered quietly in one place. They seemed to be moving to attack the kingdom's horse farms."
That meant the centaurs controlled by the spikes were now planning a full-scale attack on the kingdom.
That must be stopped.
It's not just about whether we get horses for free or not; most knights, including the magical knights, would be unable to train on horseback.
Moreover, since it takes 1-2 years to raise horses, if they ransack the horse farms and slaughter the horses, it would be years before the knights could obtain new mounts.
Additionally, it would become impossible to retire aged horses, albeit temporarily, but the entire kingdom's knights and cavalry would lose their mobility.
'I wish we had some support.'
Clearly, this was not something just two trainee knights could handle.
But even if we request reinforcements now, it would take time for the knights to arrive here, so we need to stall with what forces we have for now.
"There, knight, we can't just stay . If the chief gets more spikes, we will definitely be annihilated...!"
According to the bandits' testimony, the spikes don't self-replicate, but if left alone, they would bring more spikes and cause this kind of situation again, so the survivors from the bandit group are now demanding that we join forces to strike at the bandit chief.
They are terrified by the situation caused by the spikes, but they fear the chief's danger even more.
"Can we stop it? There are just two of us... even if we mobilize the centaur maidens from this village, would we have 20?"
We would have to fight an enemy more than five times our number.
And that's against enemies controlled by spikes who know no fear.
Moreover, the centaurs controlled by the spikes would throw spikes from their heads when defeated, as seen during the day, so defeating one would only lead to another taking its place.
Unless we crush them with overwhelming force to prevent the spikes from transferring to another body, or mobilize enough knights to prevent any counterattack...
"We need numbers, numbers. If we could surround those controlled by spikes and prevent them from moving their arms, we could subdue them, but we'd need to outnumber them to do that."
"If not, the damage will increase exponentially and could even provide the enemy with better hosts. We might need at least three times, maybe even more."
But the problem is that centaurs are fearful.
If the bandits communicate their fear of the chief to the centaurs, rather than uniting, they might flee the village for their own safety.
'Other villages might have seen similar scenes, but even humans would flee their villages in fear...'
As I was contemplating this, Dane and I heard the constant sound of hooves and stepped out of the tent into the village.
Eileen couldn't read my internal thoughts, so she didn't understand what I was talking about, but I still felt the need to apologize.
"I think I underestimated the centaurs too much."
Outside the village, at least a hundred centaurs were gathering.
Not just randomly congregating to suppress the bandits, but joining with the survivors of the bandits and converging here to prevent this situation after hearing all the rumors.
And looking at the distant sound of hooves and dust, it wasn't just a hundred.
It seemed as if all the centaurs on this plain were gathering here.
Horses are fearful. Centaurs are fearful too.
But when a horse carries an armed rider on its back, it becomes brave enough to charge at predators because it trusts the rider on its back.
And I had overlooked that this also applies to centaurs.
They trust their village chief and their comrades.
Thus, centaurs are not just a fearful species but become a perfect cavalry force, unified with their riders.
"With this many, there's no need to worry, right?"
With so many forces gathered, all we had to do was follow them.
I climbed onto Eileen's back as she held the reins and offered me her back.
Now it was time to subdue the bandits.