The Regression Of A Grand Mercenary

Thill approached the abandoned farmhouse, the putrid stench of rot growing stronger with every step. His nose wrinkled at the foul smell, something even worse than the burnt corpses he’d come across in the past. This had to be it—the ritual grounds of the Lich.

“Yeah, I’m getting close.” he muttered to himself while gripping the hilt of his sword.

As he neared the building, more and more rats scurried about, darting in and out of the overgrown grass. The sight didn’t bother him as much as the undead guards surrounding the barnhouse.

At least a dozen rotting corpses stood aimlessly in front of the crumbling farmhouse.

“Typical of the undead, always gotta make a mess of things, don’t they?”

The farmhouse was only five kilometers from his home, yet he’d never noticed it before. Liches weren’t exactly subtle, though. If one was around, you’d know. The smell alone was enough to give them away. And now, this Lich had cursed the nearby village, forcing Thill to track it down.

“and like the typical undead, dealing with them is simple.” he said with a shrug. He was sizing up the mindless corpses.

“Crush the brain, and they’re done.”

He wasn’t worried. In his past life, he’d fought creatures far more terrifying than this. There was a reason they called him the “Wind-Crazed Orc Slayer” after all. But even though his experience was unmatched, there was always a slight unease before a fight. Not fear—just the knowledge that one misstep could mean death. Liches weren’t tough, but you couldn’t afford to underestimate them either.

Still, Thill wasn’t one for sneaking around. That just wasn’t his style.

“Let’s get this over with,” he muttered, walking toward the farmhouse without a hint of hesitation.

***

Stealth? Nah. Thill had never been much for that. In fact, he was the complete opposite. Back in his previous life, he was a seven-foot-tall mercenary, a beast of a man who could crush diamonds with his bare hands. He didn’t need to hide—his presence alone struck fear into his enemies.

They used to tell stories about him, calling him a monster that single-handedly ended wars, defeated armies, and killed legendary beasts. He even took down a Glacial Dragon without any help, and that was just one of his many feats. To the world, he was a walking disaster, something you didn’t want to provoke if you valued your life.

But now? Now, he was just Thill Cicial, a normal guy trying to protect his siblings. Gone were the days of terror and battlefields soaked in blood. In this second life, his priorities had changed.

But that didn’t mean he was weak.

Thill stepped toward the farmhouse, eyes locked on the undead. There was no fear in his heart, only determination. He wasn’t the same towering figure from before, but he still carried the strength of his past self—and if this Lich thought it could curse his village and get away with it, it had another thing coming.

With his sword drawn, he didn’t hesitate.

Thill’s grip tightened on the hilt of his sword as he stepped into the farmhouse’s clearing. The undead corpses, rotting and hollow-eyed, turned slowly to face him. Their movements were sluggish and jerky, but the menace in their decayed forms was palpable.

“Alright, let’s make this quick,” Thill muttered, more to himself than to the enemies. He knew they wouldn’t understand, but it didn’t matter. This wasn’t about fear or intimidation—it was about efficiency.

The first corpse lunged at him, its decayed flesh hanging loosely from its bones. And true to his assumptions, they were slow…slow enough for him to predict their actions. So Thill sidestepped effortlessly, bringing his sword down in a sharp arc. The blade cleaved through the corpse’s neck, severing it cleanly. Easily so, Its body collapsed with a heavy thud.

“One down,” he said, but soon came the others who noticed his presence. In that moment, he turned to face them without any show of regret or fear.

More undead shuffled forward, groaning as they closed the distance. But Thill darted between them, showing that his movements were fluid and precise.

‘Hmm…even with this body, I can still manage myself well enough…’ despite being brought to the past, his experienced carried his confidence through the fight.

As he moved by each corpse, he cutted this down one by one. Each swing of his sword was calculated, aimed directly at the skulls. He didn’t waste energy with unnecessary strikes—he knew the brain was their weak point, and with a swift blow, they crumbled into lifeless heaps.

“Too slow.” he muttered as a corpse tried to grab him from behind. With a flick of his wrist, he spun, delivering a sharp kick to its midsection. The creature stumbled backward, and Thill finished it with a single strike to the head.

Despite their numbers, the undead were no match for him. Thill moved through them like a storm, his sword flashing in the dull, moonlit air. Each corpse that came near was swiftly dispatched, their bodies piling up around him.

But even as he fought, he couldn’t shake the sense of unease creeping in. The Lich wasn’t here yet. These corpses were just distractions—mindless drones meant to slow him down.

“Where are you hiding?” Thill muttered under his breath, his eyes scanning the farmhouse for any sign of the real threat. The closer he got to the barn, the more the stench of rot and decay intensified. The air felt heavy, thick with the unmistakable aura of dark magic.

Just then, a low rumble echoed from within the farmhouse. Thill paused, his sword still raised, as the ground beneath him began to tremble. He turned his gaze toward the barn, and his eyes narrowed.

“So, you’re finally showing yourself,” he whispered, a faint smirk forming on his lips.

The remaining corpses faltered, their movements growing more erratic. They began to collapse, one after another, as if their strings had been cut. Thill watched them fall with narrowed eyes, stepping back from the barn as the source of the power began to make itself known.

The doors to the farmhouse creaked open with an eerie slowness, and from the shadows emerged a figure draped in tattered, dark robes. The Lich’s hollow eyes glowed with an unnatural, sickly green light, its skeletal hands crackling with dark energy.

“You’ve been busy, haven’t you?” Thill said, raising his sword in a defensive stance. His heart pounded with anticipation, the thrill of the battle igniting his senses. “But you picked the wrong village to mess with.”

The Lich tilted its head, its eerie, rasping voice breaking the stillness. “Foolish mortal… you think you can stop me? You will suffer as they have.”

Thill’s smirk deepened, his eyes burning with defiance. “We’ll see about that.”

Without waiting for another word, Thill launched himself forward, sword raised, ready to end the twisted mage’s existence.

The stench of decay hung thick in the air as the Lich finally emerged from the shadowy depths of the farmhouse. Its skeletal face grinned wickedly beneath a tattered hood, and in its hands, a staff crackling with dark energy.

Thill stood a few paces away, observing the creature. He knew what he was up against—an ancient mage twisted by black magic. But the real threat wasn’t its power. It was the mind games, the manipulation. That’s what Liches thrived on: fear.

But Thill? He had no time for fear. He showed no fear against an enemy like the Lich.

In the appearance of the Lich, a large number of corpses started to swarm toward him. They were mindless, lumbering thralls of the Lich. Their rotting flesh hung loosely on their bones, some still wearing the remains of old clothes, others barely more than skeletons. Thill’s hand gripped his sword tightly. He wasn’t worried about the undead; he had seen worse.

To him, the undead was nothing compared to the bodies he himself took.

Those bodies who once piled like a mountain in the numbers of over a million…

With a quick step forward, Thill slashed through the first wave of corpses with ease, their bodies collapsing into lifeless heaps at his feet. The weight of the sword in his hand felt familiar, comforting even. But there was no joy in the kill, no satisfaction. He was here for the Lich. Once he will kill the Lich, every other corpse would follow.

The Lich raised its staff, muttering in an ancient tongue. The sky above them darkened, clouds swirling unnaturally as bolts of black energy shot from the staff, aimed directly at Thill.

He barely had time to react, ducking and rolling to the side as the blasts struck the ground where he had just stood, leaving charred marks on the earth.

“So, this is the power you cling to?” Thill muttered to himself, his voice low.

The Lich cackled, its hollow eyes burning with a dark fire as it summoned more undead from the ground. Thill’s eyes narrowed. More corpses came from the ground beneath adding to the countless numbers, but these ones were faster, more vicious. They rushed him from all sides, clawing and biting.

Thill spun his blade in a wide arc, dispatching several at once, but more replaced them. He could feel their weight pressing in on him, slowing his movements. One managed to get close enough to sink its teeth into his arm, its jagged mouth gnashing at his flesh.

With a growl, Thill slammed the hilt of his sword into its skull, crushing it instantly. Blood dripped down his arm, but he didn’t slow down. He couldn’t.

The Lich watched, eyes gleaming with malevolent delight. It waved its staff again, this time summoning a wall of dark magic between itself and Thill.

For a moment, Thill paused, staring at the barrier. It pulsed with evil energy, something that felt unnervingly familiar. But even this wasn’t enough to stop him. The corpses kept coming, and Thill slashed through them with brutal efficiency.

As he cleaved through a few more of the undead, his breathing turned heavy. Thill turned his attention back to the Lich. It hovered in place, watching, calculating. A sneer formed on its skeletal lips.

“Pitiful human… Do you truly think you can defy me? The great scourge of this land?” the Lich hissed, its voice echoing unnaturally. “You will be nothing but dust under my—”

Thill didn’t bother to let it finish. Thill knew his limit in this body…he could tell just how weak he was compared to before. Even now, he was shocked to find his body injured by a mere corpse…

‘I need to train more…I need to be better.’ he thought.

But for now, he needed to finish off the Lich…

With a sudden, sharp intake of breath, Thill shifted his stance. His sword hummed in his hand, almost as if it could sense what was about to come next. He closed his eyes for a brief second, allowing the familiar feeling of the wind to wrap around him. It was faint, barely noticeable, but there.

The Tempest Blades of the Gale.

A technique he learned from a book he gained under hands of a dead corpse found in a hidden cave. It was with this technique that he gained the name that was told in the stories as a form of a nightmare.

The Wind-Crazed Orc Slayer.

A name that was bestowed upon him by slaughtering an army of orcs by his own hand, using the wind as his blades.

He thought that in this fight, he wouldn’t need to use the Tempest Blades of the Gale. But necessary skills were needed just to go past an enemy.

The corpses were down, and only the Lich remained.

Despite the putrid show of the Lich’s presence as a black magic user, Thill knew he didn’t need to go all out. He just needed one, a simple move.

The Lich sneered, raising its staff again, dark energy swirling in the air.

Thill opened his eyes.

With a single step, he moved forward, faster than before. Like a skip of a rock, the lich did not expect such fast movements from a young boy.

And with as the sword gleamed in the dim light, he swung it in a wide arc. But this wasn’t just any swing—it was the first technique he ever learned in the caves where he trained.

Basic Gale Technique – [Breeze Strike]

The winds around him responded, picking up speed as his blade cut through the air with incredible precision. It was as if the blade itself was part of the wind, moving too fast to be seen.

The Lich didn’t even have time to react.

The breeze from the strike hit before the blade did. A gust of wind shot forward, slicing through the magical barrier with ease. The Lich’s eyes widened in shock as the barrier disintegrated, and then, in one smooth motion, Thill’s sword connected.

The strike was so quick, so precise, that it seemed like nothing had happened at all. For a moment, the Lich stood frozen in place, the grin still on its face, the staff still raised in the air.

Then, with a sickening crack, its skull split cleanly in two.

The dark magic dissipated instantly, and the Lich’s body crumbled to the ground, its bones falling apart like dry leaves in the wind. The cursed energy that had been swirling around the area vanished, leaving only silence in its wake.

Thill stood there for a moment with his sword still raised. For a moment, the wind was still gently blowing through his hair. He let out a small breath, sheathing his weapon.

The fight was over.

The Breeze Strike had been enough.

and in using his skill for the first time in this second life, he thanked the wind in his mind.

Now, as he stared down at the remnants of the Lich, his face remained emotionless. It didn’t matter how many enemies like this he faced. In the end, it always came down to the same thing. His past life’s power, the techniques he had mastered long ago—they were still there, waiting to be unleashed.

But for now, this was enough. He had done what he needed to do.

Thill glanced at the farmhouse one last time before turning on his heel, walking away without a word. The wind followed him, gently swirling around his figure as he disappeared into the distance.

The Wind-Crazed Orc Slayer had returned.