Chapter 196: Chapter 196: Werewolf

There are seventy-five men manning the barricade. They carry long spears and wear leather armour. Among these is a man in a helmet, the tavern owner Lloyd. He is one of the thousands commoners mobilized tonight.

Though he has the title of leader, in truth he is no different than the other villagers. His physique is nothing special, nor is his mind particularly sharp. The younger guards are stronger and faster than him. He is given this position simply because he is the oldest.

His face turns pale, and his hands grips his sword so tightly the edges of his fingers turn white. Looking closely, one could see that his legs are trembling. His gaze is fixed forward solely because he does not want to see something horrible. His entirely unreliable posture only increases the men’ unease further.

Then again, it is to be expected, considering this is the first time their lives would actually be on the line in a battle. Only a handful of them has experience of being conscripted before.

They had ample experience dealing with squabbles between drunken peasants, but there had never been a case where they had to fight to the death. Because of that, their fear grow even further. The only reason they do not break and flee is because they know running away would be an unforgivable sin.

"I’m going to flee Redcliffe if I make it through this in one piece.”

Lloyd grumbles to himself quietly, and many of the people stare at him.

"That’s right. Does anyone know anything about fighting demons? Especially their weak points, what they’re bad at, that sort of thing.” A young man asks.

Nobody answers; they are too busy looking at each other.

"Damn it! Can’t those adventurers explain better?” Lloyd shouts a complaint. 

The knights who had shared their knowledge with the villagers had been heavily wounded and were falling back as fast as they could. Just telling them the name of the enemy was all they could do, let alone telling them how they looked like, or how to fight them.

However, it would be too harsh on the knights to solely blame them for this situation. There was no proper communication between the villagers and the knights, and as a result the amount of information being shared was low. In fact, forming the defense line out of villagers who didn’t know anything could be blamed on the leaders as well. Also, not all villagers were uninformed about the demons. Under different circumstances, some of them might have learned something about the enemy.

One such group of villagers had sent some of their members to help the knights retreating past them, and had learned a lot in the process.

This group, however, has not done so because their leader, Lloyd is frozen with fear and has not even turned to look at the retreating knights, and he certainly does not want to decrease the amount of troops guarding the barricade by assisting the wounded knights. 

Four hours had passed and these useless commoners are still safe because the wounded knights worked hard protecting them.

"They’re paid more than us to do the same job! They should fight harder! Until they die!”

Several men nod as Lloyd shouts.

“Our lives are at risk too! Those guys shouldn’t be running off and leaving it all to us!”

Lloyd calls out to the nearby villagers. Those further away stare coldly at him, while three men closer to him yell out their displeasure with the knights as well.

“They’re here!”

At the sound of the lookouts’ voices, Lloyd look like he has been choked.

Everyone’s eyes filled with the shapes of the demons loping towards them from the shadowed street.

At their head is a demon that look like a cross between a man and a frog. Its skin is a jaundiced yellow, gleaming with a sticky, shiny coating. Its body is covered in huge lumps which looked like human faces presses out against its skin from the inside.

A mouth that could swallow a man in one gulp gapes open, and an abnormally long tongue begins tasting the air.

Around it are hounds, waiting for their prey.

There were fifteen armoured skeletons, one swollen-bodied demon covered in faces, and six hounds.

There’s too many!” Lloyd cries like the tolling of a bell. “We can’t hold them! Run!”

“Dammit!” came the angry retort. “Shut the hell up!”

Ignoring Lloyd’s wails of despair, the villagers look to their comrades, tension knotting up their faces.

Suddenly, a man and another two donning high end armours walk to their side.

He is well-known. His grey hair and spectacle.

"Lord Jascha Alatt. Thank god!"

"Long live Viscount Jascha!"

Viscount Jascha Alatt shouts,

“Listen up! All you need to do is stick them with the pointy end! Our job isn’t to kill them! It’s to buy time! It’s not hard! We’re all going to make it!”

"We’re going to make it." Jascha's bodyguard repeat that cry, and then it is taken up by others.

“Hell yeah! Let’s go!”

Even the villagers with terrified faces grab their spears and get into their ranks.

“You come join us too!” 

Someone grabs Lloyd and drags him to his place. There is no time for playing around.

The demonic beasts howl, and begin tearing down the barricade at an incredible speed. The villagers’ spears stab out at them from between the ever-widening gaps in the barricade.

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The pained wails of the hounds rise up from all around them. Those skeletons that could not be stabbed slowly evade the barricade. They roar mournfully as they pace around the barricade, as though assessing the situation.

Some of the more collected guards blocks the gaps at the nearer skeletons with defeated skeletons' equipments, which drive them away.

Slowly, the faces of the men begin to cheer up.

The demons in the back have disgusting grins on their faces, and the villagers are still uneasy because they don’t know what the demons would do. However, letting time pass like this is still good. After all, their job is not to defeat the demons.

“Wh-what the?!” A lone man cries out as he watches what is happening in front of him.

The enemies have formed into a neat line, just barely beyond the reach of the thrusting spears.

This is completely different from the wild assault just now. The villagers begin growing uneasy. If they know what the demons are up to, maybe they could have changed their formation or done something about it. As it is, all they could do is blocking between the gaps.

Suddenly, the largest demon open its mouth and it's tongue stretches forward, hitting the front barricade. 

The barricade is broken and three men closest to it are hit. They collapse to the ground.

"W-we’re doomed!”

The words nobody want to say escapes from Lloyd’s mouth. His movements thereafter are remarkably fast, as he throws down his spear and discards his helmet, all to let him flee faster.

",Hei. Stop!" 

Jascha barks and tries to catch him but Lloyd is too fast.

He runs away with a speed that is hard for human beings to follow. The surviving men look on slack-jawed as Lloyd’s back fade into the distance.

The swollen bodies demon pulls it's tongue into its body. It jumps so high so high that it passes the men and lands squarely on Lloyd’s back, making a cracking noise like dried branches snapping as it does.

Lloyd cries out in pain. Though it could have killed him easily, the demon do not do so. However, that is most definitely not an act of mercy.

The demon opens its mouth and swallows Lloyd whole. Its distended belly hardly changes even as it ingests him— no, there is a new swelling on the large demon's body, with a human face on it.

Though it is hard to tell, it looks like it belong to Lloyd.

Jascha nearly throw up seeing that disgusting event.

Even as the sound of the barricade being torn down reaches their ears, the guards do not move. So much for being an obstacle; against demons, it is little more than a pile of matchsticks.

The skeletons who broke through the barricade encircles the villagers and Jascha. A strangled cry came up from them, for they know they would certainly die here.

They swarm over the men. Jascha's arm is slashed by a skeleton. Another one is about to cut Jascha's head when Jascha sees a dark brown man with thin hair jumps at him and kicks the skeleton's head. 

Its head  falls and it collapses. 

"Aargg!!" The man grabs the head of two skeletons and crushes them against each other. 

The men's spirit return despite newly appearing skeletons from the ground. They push away the skeletons. 

The hounds that linger outside their range close in. 

Jascha sees a strange looking figure running towards them at high speed, and catching up to the hounds. 

The weird figure picks up speed, as though it has been pushed forward by some force from behind, tracing a trajectory downward that ends in the middle of the road. It skids across the ground as though there are no friction, only managing to brake after plummeting the bodies of a hound in passing.

Once it is near, Jascha could see the figure clearly. 

It has a woman's body. Her hands and arms are over five times bigger than man's arms. 

She has beautiful woman's face but her canines are so long that those those tooths come out from her mouth. 

Her dark red hair are messy and long that it nearly reaches her whopping derriere.

Her massive hands are covered by voluminous fur, almost look like wolf pelt.

After crushing another two hounds, she swipes skeletons encircling the men with a swing if her hand. 

"Hiro. Are you fine?"

Jascha is surprised that the mouth with long canines could produce such normal girly voice. 

The man who just jumped in walks to her.

"I am fine, Brita. But there is that large demon. We never see such creature at other places."

The sharp minded Jascha quickly remember the name and faces of the man and woman; Brita and Hiro.

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