Spectre of the Sinner - Zetro Translation

POV: Evgeny Khraby, quarta hora matutina, Mellanphalia Kingdom

Desperately twisting my body to avoid a fatal swing from the abnormally gargantuan shillelagh-wielding[Ogre], I swung my massive war axe toward the monster. To my utter frustration, the damned beast ducked low enough to barely dodge my strike, almost causing me to lose my balance. But if it thought that it could exploit the gap in my stance, the [Kuhn] triplet prevented that from happening. One of the [Kuhn] brothers, whom I guessed to be the middle child as I still couldn’t distinguish them, swiftly rushed in to deliver a slash against the humanoid beast.

But disaster struck unexpectedly.

The young man tripped over one of the lowly [Goblyns] corpses, sending him tumbling on the ground. The one that I suspected to be the eldest hurriedly stepped in to protect his sibling despite being a pure mage, while the youngest, being an archer he was, furiously and hastily launched an arrow at the cunning [Ogre]. But fate had other plans for two of the [Kuhn] brothers, as the bowman’s projectile was ineffective in diverting the giant monster’s attention. Having recovered from the maddening near miss, I aim the axe’s trajectory into the monstrosity’s unguarded back, only to be repelled by an accidental preparatory swing of the damned beast. While the middle kid managed to roll away from the danger, his older brother was unlucky, for his lithe body was mercilessly crushed, headfirst. A bloodied hole was punched into the ground, with the missing volume filled by the sorry remains of the ill-fated soul.

While all of us were still in a daze over the brutal demise of the eldest brother, a roar from the ridiculously oversized monster rudely woke us from the shock. The sickle-wielding sibling, maddened with grief, recklessly moved his feet toward the gargantuan humanoid beast without noticing that it had prepared to swing its massive club-like weapon.

“Stop it right there!”

A hoarse, desperate shout roared from my seriously parched throat to no avail as the damned [Ogre] had already struck its suitably enormous weapon sideways into the thoughtlessly charging man, swatting him away like an annoyance. The sickening splat doused a bucketload of cold water on my spine as I watched in horror at the sight of the lad reduced to a bloody rolling paste. Right now, I dread the prospect of our survival, as even without looking at the last of the [Kohn] brothers, unless we got some substantial reinforcements, that monster could wipe the floor with us single-handedly.

Using my pride as a veteran six-star to prop my sorry arse into a fighting shape, I also directed a rallying war cry at the demoralized brother in the vain hope to had another pair of helping hands in stopping this damned monstrous being before it could further sow chaos amongst our ranks. But as I expected, the bowman had already slumped in despair at the sight of his two brothers being squashed flat like that, thus leaving me with no choice but to engage the monster before expecting any help to arrive. If only that eccentric black-clad butastrangeiro had come here sooner…

A subdued crack erupted from my left side, snapping me back to reality. Wincing from the outburst of slightly loud bangs, I angrily cast my eyes toward the source of the sound, only to find that the outlander was pointing his bizarre weapon at the [Ogre], spewing short bursts of fire one at a time. For something that was roughly the size of a shortsword, its prowess was a step above a ballista, evident by the amount of spraying blood and ear-splitting anguished screams.

Just as the humanoid monster’s attention had shifted to him, his weapon suddenly went silent, which greatly startled me. Yet, in contrast to my utter confusion over the situation, the man calmly rocked his armament aside to throw away the storage box before reaching for another box in one of his chest pouches, proficiently inserting it, and pulled a metal slide on the left-hand side of the weapon. Meanwhile, with a horrifying toothy grin plastered on its face, the monstrous [Ogre] made a mad dash at its tormentor while letting out a wild roar, clearly intended to grind the foreign soldier to a bloody paste.

As I finally forced my heavy lead-ladened legs to move, the foreigner pulled off the same stunt that he had shown beforehand: leaping high into the air, only that this time he also added short bursts of fire into the mix, making a fool of the raging monster. But what was surprising was his choice of destination: right beside me.

Ignoring my perplexed gaze, the man barked an offer while pelting a few shots at the confusing [Ogre].

“I will lay down suppressing fire while you go in and chop its fucking head off,” the odd outlander squeezed a few pops in as he planned the action, “and before you worry about that bullshitery called blue-on-blue, fear naught.”

The ear-shattering roar from the gargantuan [Ogre] cut off any of my attempts to question his words, forcing me to prepare my prized war axe.

“URA!”

The soldier furiously spitted fire at the charging beast after roaring an inhuman war cry while giving a light tap on my flank as if signaling me to charge. As I lifted my foot to advance, the human-shaped monster’s steps were repeatedly staggered due to valuable support from the outlander, allowing me to close in. Applying far more strength than I should, the damn [Ogre’s] head danced in the air, sprouting an eye-catching blood flower while avoiding a retaliating swing from the monster by the skin of my teeth.

Seeing the threat was done with as the monstrous being collapsed in a pool of gushing blood, I was startled as someone patted my shoulder from behind, only to find the butastrangeiro apologetically offered an apology for his peculiar action.

“My apologies for startling you like that, I didn’t mean to do that,” he waved his hand around remorsefully before he cleared his throat, “maybe you should offer some counseling service, I mean, consolation for the young man there. The battle is winding down now, so it’s safe to do so.”

With the sound of the battle starting to die down, the foreigner’s words brought my attention back to the grieving man. Having lost two of his brothers like that in a span of moments was too much for his mind to take, a fact that even I, a seasoned veteran, had to bitterly recognize as such. Thus, the feasible course of action right now was to send the kid back home and let him rest for a while. Silently praying that his mental state would not turn for the worst, I headed toward the surviving [Kohn] sibling to console him.