Dragonslayer’s Class Regression 29

Chapter 29

The coachman and peddlers were startled by the sudden roar of orcs that echoed through the air.

“T-This is impossible! How are orcs in the safe zone?!”

The coachman frantically whipped the horses harder.

“Run faster! Faster!”

Kraaaaaah!

Once again, the orcs’ battle cry rang out.

Neeeeeigh!

The horses, startled by the roar, became agitated and reared up on their hind legs.

Crash!

As the horses thrashed about wildly, the wagon soon overturned.

Zeke quickly jumped off the wagon.

Bang!

Soon after, the wagon completely flipped over, and the horses also fell, their legs getting trapped under the cargo.

In this state, reaching the base camp would be impossible.

The orcs’ battle cries could be heard from all directions.

The adventurer who had been bragging in front of Zeke earlier was now trembling, holding his sword with a pale white face.

‘And he had the nerve to call himself an academy graduate.’

Zeke hid behind a tree and observed the situation.

Shortly after, something burst out from the forest.

“Kraaaagh!’’

A group of orcs wielding massive stone axes appeared and began to attack the people.

“Ugh! H-help me!”

The orcs split people’s heads with their stone axes.

The armed adventurers tried to resist the orcs somehow, but it was useless.

“S-save me!”

The man who had been bragging had his head crushed by an orc’s stone axe.

The ground quickly turned into a sea of blood.

Zeke, while concealing his presence, watched as the orcs gathered the corpses and cargo of the dead.

He waited calmly until the orcs disappeared because intervening would leave traces.

‘’How did orcs manage to enter the safe zone?’’

Argos, with its developed dungeon industry, strictly maintains safe zones at the national level to protect traveling merchants.

‘’It seems like something has happened at the base camp.’’

After the group of orcs passed by, he moved stealthily through the forest path toward the base camp.

The base camp he arrived at was indeed a horrific sight.

As if monsters had swept through, all the stockades were destroyed, and blood-stained cargo was scattered everywhere.

Zeke examined the corpses.

Among them were soldiers dispatched from the Kingdom of Argos.

‘’With this level of defense, they should have been able to handle ordinary monsters.’’

Faced with this incomprehensible situation, Zeke investigated the traces left at the base camp.

His expression darkened as he checked the evidence.

This was because he found traces of ‘humans,’ not monsters, at the attack site.

Though it was disguised as a monster attack, this was clearly a massacre perpetrated by humans.

It was evident that after the base camp was attacked, monsters drawn by the smell of blood came to loot the corpses and supplies.

Then it seemed the orcs that had come down to the mountain path attacked the regular transport wagon.

Zeke dusted off his hands and stood up.

‘’For now, what’s important is finding Kaisir’s ruins.’’

Zeke selected only the necessary items from the remaining supplies at the ransacked base camp and left immediately.

There was no point in staying here as it would only invite misunderstandings.

He immediately activated his mini-map and headed toward the zone where the barbarians were located.

As he went higher, the mountain terrain became rougher, slowing his movement speed.

After traveling deep into the mountains for about two days, Zeke discovered something.

‘’It’s been a while since I’ve seen this.’’

Hundreds of skulls hanging from tree branches.

Not just human skulls, but various monster skulls were hanging together.

This was a marker indicating that this area belonged to the barbarians.

Even monsters rarely pass through areas with these markers.

However, Zeke entered the barbarians’ territory without hesitation.

At that moment, something caught Zeke’s senses.

There was someone following him.

At first, he thought they might be barbarians, but he soon shook his head.

Barbarians never stealthily pursue intruders in their territory.

If they see one, they immediately capture and literally ‘tear’ them apart.

Whoosh!

Zeke launched himself into the trees, concealing his presence.

Then he drew a dagger from his clothes.

After completely masking his presence, the figures that had been following him revealed themselves.

There were three of them, and they weren’t ordinary adventurers.

‘They’ve had professional knight training.’

However, their movements were too stealthy for knights.

It was clear that they had selected some knight trainees and taught them tracking and assassination techniques.

In Zeke’s memory, there was only one place that would do such a crazy thing.

‘’The Hounds… Why are Imperial bastards in Argos?’’

The Hounds were a unit secretly organized by the Rom Empire’s emperor to collect ancient artifacts.

In his previous life, these Hounds would rise to become the Empire’s main force.

However, until now, the Hounds remained veiled in secrecy, with few knowing their true identity.

At that moment, Zeke realized that it was also the Hounds who had massacred the base camp.

The Hounds  who specialized in tracking ancient artifacts didn’t feel like they were near the Kaisir ruins by coincidence.

For Zeke, who had been promoted to Blue Knight, dealing with the Hounds was an easy task.

‘’I’ll have to interrogate those guys and dig up some information.’’

Swoosh!

The situation reversed and now Zeke was chasing the hounds.

He erased his presence and followed the Hounds for a long time, observing their patrol patterns.

The Hounds moved in groups of at least twelve.

Having had bad blood with the Hounds in his previous life, Zeke knew their information thoroughly.

Zeke noticed they were assigned to external perimeter duty.

‘With that level, their regular communication intervals must be quite long, so it will take time for them to notice if they’re killed.’

Zeke patiently followed the Hounds.

Eventually, he was able to find the cave where they had set up base.

He gripped his dagger and slowly approached the cave.

With his Dragon Eye skill activated, dark places became clearly visible.

Just then, one person came out from the cave.

Swoosh!

He covered their mouth from behind, stabbed their lung with the dagger, and then cut their carotid artery.

The hound collapsed without even being able to scream.

Zeke moved the corpse aside and searched their belongings.

Given their status, nothing particularly noteworthy was found.

Zeke stealthily entered the cave while checking the terrain with his minimap.

The Hounds had modified the inside of the cave to create a fortified position.

‘’This brings back memories. During the cartel days, I practically lived in jungle camps like this.’’

Zeke once worked as a killer for the infamous Mekein Cartel that ruled the Southern Continent.

After being deceived by a dungeon guide and sold as a slave to the Southern Continent, he received killer training there and was deployed on assassination missions.

Even at his lowest, the skills he learned at the cradle and academy were ingrained in his body, allowing him to somehow survive the brutal assassination missions.

The cartel, finding this remarkable, formally trained him and made him the organization’s hitman.

As a result, Zeke was in the middle of power struggles between Southern Continent cartels for five years.

Compared to the ruthless cartel bosses, these still-green Hounds were too easy opponents.

Zeke wore a mask to cover his face and put Bahamut into his inventory.

After completing all preparations, he entered deeper into the cave.

Swoosh!

The dagger Zeke threw stuck in the neck of a careless Hound.

He had already mapped out the terrain and Hounds’ positions with his minimap.

Zeke immediately charged into the cave.

Two Hounds were guarding the railing of a two-story building built against the cave wall.

He threw daggers with both hands that he took from his inventory.

Thud!

The two Hounds hit by Zeke’s daggers collapse straight down.

When the ominous sound rang out, The Hounds waiting inside rushed out.

Zeke threw daggers at the approaching Hounds with both hands.

CLANG!

One of them raised his sword, infused it with Aura, and deflected the dagger.

And at that moment, a hound rushed at Zeke from one side.

Zeke lowered his stance and rolled across the floor.

Then he stuck a dagger in the Hound’s foot and immediately took out another dagger to cut his Achilles tendon.

“Argh!”

Zeke moved behind the Hound and twisted his neck.

It was exactly how Southern hitmen dealt with knights.

“He’s from the South! Block the escape route and maintain distance! Shoot crossbows from afar!”

There must have been soldiers as well as knights, as soldiers carrying crossbows emerged from the building.

Zeke ran forward at an incredible speed.

WHOOSH!

Though arrows rained down toward Zeke, they couldn’t hit him at all as he moved in a zigzag pattern.

Before they knew it, Zeke had approached right in front of a soldier holding a crossbow.

SLASH!

Zeke slit one soldier’s throat with his dagger and took his crossbow.

He skillfully handled the crossbow and shot bolts at the other soldiers.

THUD!

Bolts struck their marks, dropping soldiers one after another.

While Zeke was dealing with the soldiers using the crossbow and daggers, more Hounds gathered around him.

Zeke gripped daggers in both hands and took a stance.

Then someone who appeared to be the squad leader stepped forward and spoke to Zeke.

“What business does a Southern man have here?”

They seemed to have mistaken Zeke for a Southern hitman.

‘Should I make this even more confusing?’

He spoke in a low voice mixed with a Southern accent.

“Did you think you’d be safe after targeting Mekein’s goods? Damn Imperial bastards.”

Flustered by Zeke’s words, the Hound squad leader said,

“Mekein’s goods? We never touched their goods.”

“Take that up with your damn Emperor after you’re dead.”

At that moment, Zeke kicked up a stone at his feet.

SWOOSH!!

The hard stone lodged precisely in the squad leader’s left eye.

“Argh!”

Not missing the opening, Zeke rushed in and slit the Hounds’ throats with his dagger.

“Argh!”

Nothing was easier to handle than excited charging knights.

Zeke picked up a dead knight’s sword and threw it at a charging knight.

The sword filled with the will of penetration pierced through one knight’s body and lodged itself into another knight’s body.

Zeke instantly massacred all the hounds, and the only person remaining was the captain who had spoken to Zeke earlier.

“You savage Southern bastard—!”

SWOOSH!

Zeke dodged the captain’s sword and swung his dagger to cut off his arm.

“Urgh!”

Stab!

Zeke’s dagger pierced the captain’s lungs.

Just before he died, Zeke spoke to the captain.

“Damn you imperial bastards. The ruins of Kaisir belong to us, the Mekein Cartel.”

The captain’s eyes wavered at those words.

“What nonsense..?”

The hounds captain died with an expression full of questions.

From the captain’s reaction, Zeke realized that they were not after Kaisir’s legacy.

“Then why the hell are these bastards here like this?”

Zeke went up to the second floor of the camp to investigate their traces.

And he was able to find an encrypted letter received from higher-ups.

The encryption used by the Imperial Knights was so complex and sophisticated that it was considered impossible to decrypt.

However, thanks to his battlefield experience from his previous life, Zeke knew how to decrypt imperial codes.

He quickly scanned through the letter to examine its contents.

‘These bastards don’t even know what’s here and are just blindly searching for ancient ruins because the emperor ordered them to.’

It seemed that the Roman Empire’s emperor, who was obsessed with immortality, was collecting ancient artifacts from all over the continent.

The hounds were deployed to all places where ancient ruins might exist.

Zeke clicked his tongue after reading the letter.

“That emperor is seriously insane.”

There was no need to waste more time now that he knew the hounds were unaware of Kaisir’s ruins.

Zeke left traces and came out of the cave.

He tried to turn on the mini-map again and head towards where the ruins were.

That’s when it happened.

Wheeeeee!

A chilling sound was heard from above the sky.

Zeke knew this sound all too well.

It was the signal for the hounds to begin their

all-encompassing surveillance network.