Shadowed Gaze: The Highserk War Saga - Chapter 131

A sharp whistle pierced the air as an arrow streaked through the darkness. The Lizardman, peeking out from the dim light, took the shot straight between its eyes. Its long, narrow tongue lolled out as it collapsed to the ground. Its remaining three kin, unbothered by the loss, surged forward without hesitation. In the past, Walm would have thinned their numbers with magic before engaging to avoid being outnumbered. But since joining the party, he had been conserving mana, using these battles to refine his movements instead.

The Lizardmen each singled out an opponent, though their decision had been subtly guided by the flanking explorers. Hari, who like Walm fought on the front lines, disregarded the incoming saber strike entirely. With his hexagonal club, he simply overpowered the blade and crushed the attacker’s skull. Meanwhile, Merrill, famed as part of Three Magic Attack, dodged a descending cutlass with a mere shift of his center of gravity, then swept his longsword across his foe in a single fluid motion. The Lizardman’s wrist and head parted from its body as easily as slicing through butter.

Such effortless precision. With both foes eliminated so swiftly, there was little left for Walm to do. He deflected a Lizardman’s spear with his halberd, then hooked its artery with the clawed blade. A simple backward pull was enough—the creature’s throat split open, and a spray of blood painted the floor. Just like that, silence returned to the labyrinth. The ease of it left Walm oddly unsettled. Feeling idle, he spun his halberd in his palm, flinging off the clinging blood.

“Not satisfied?”

Merrill, sheathing his sword, smirked as he watched. He had caught Walm absentmindedly spinning his weapon, much like a child swinging a stick out of boredom. A faint sense of embarrassment pricked at Walm.

“No, I’m not dissatisfied. Just surprised by how smoothly things are going.”

“It’d be more absurd if a party aiming to conquer the labyrinth struggled in the middle floors.”

A fair point. Years of being outnumbered in the army had ingrained certain habits in Walm. He was too used to fighting alone. Now, being on the overwhelming side of a battle felt strangely unnatural.

Fortunately, Merrill didn’t press further. Instead, Walm joined in scavenging the remains of the fallen. Yuna, the party’s archer, stepped on a Lizardman’s skull to retrieve her arrow. Merrill kept watch as the others collected valuables.

Slaying every foe in their path, the party descended deeper into the labyrinth. The swarming Dullahans and Doll Slimes were scorched away by Walm’s fire magic. Those who managed to close the distance were met with Hari’s so-called “disciplinary rod”—his hexagonal club that reduced armored monsters to little more than dented tin cans. Even those who avoided his strikes found their paths blocked by Merrill and Mariante, preventing any escape.

What was supposed to be a simple exploratory dive had taken them all the way down to the 30th floor. Walm, who had struggled so much on his own to reach this depth, now stood here with ease. Despite being a new addition, Merrill and his team continued to move with near-perfect coordination, seamlessly adapting to Walm’s presence.

An ogre, its head snapping back from a precise shot, tumbled to the ground in a heap. Another, leaping over its fallen kin, was struck mid-air by Walm’s fireball. Its body burst apart in a grotesque explosion, leaving four remaining adversaries, all of whom had sustained injuries from the blast.

“New ones incoming from behind!”

Merrill’s warning coincided with Walm’s own senses registering the approaching threat. The ground trembled under the gallop of centaur warriors—the labyrinth’s equivalent of heavy cavalry.

“Walm, Yuna, hold the front!”

With Merrill’s sharp command, the party’s formation shifted. Merrill, Hari, and Mariante moved to intercept the centaurs, while Walm and Yuna stood their ground against the ogres.

As Walm surged forward to engage, something streaked past his back—a projectile from Yuna. She had already accounted for their movements, prioritizing shots on the ogres locked in melee. The arrow lodged deep into an ogre’s collarbone, severing muscle and throwing its balance off. Its war hammer veered wildly off course, leaving Walm an opening. He thrust forward, driving his halberd’s blade beneath its chin and into its brain.

Ripping the weapon free, Walm’s gaze flicked to the next target—a charred ogre, half its face melted from his earlier fireball. He knew firsthand the vulnerability of a single damaged eye. Lowering his stance, he aimed for the blind spot and cleaved through the creature’s ankle.

The ogre crumpled forward, unable to support its weight. The moment its hands touched the floor to push itself up, Walm’s halberd came down. The axe blade sank deep into its skull—perhaps not a clean decapitation, but enough to ensure death.

Only two remained. One lunged at Walm in a reckless grapple attempt. Shifting his weight from right to left in a sharp reversal, he swiftly moved to the side. The second ogre, already committed to its attack, swung its longsword in Walm’s path. Walm caught the blade using the claw side of the halberd, causing it to scrape along the metal.

The ogre attempted to force a clinch, but instead of locking weapons, the halberd’s tip slid across its grip with a sharp screech, slicing off four of its fingers. The severed fingers dropped along with the longsword, and in desperation, the ogre lunged barehanded at Walm.

With a sharp thrust of his folded elbow, Walm reversed his grip and struck the ogre’s eyes with the butt of his halberd. The hardened metal pierced its eyeballs, blinding it instantly. The ogre flailed wildly, throwing erratic punches into the air. Walm didn’t waste time finishing it, slipping past its side to prepare for the last ogre—but it was a needless precaution. The ogre, too fixated on Walm, had exposed its unguarded back to Yuna.

An arrow embedded itself into the ogre’s temple, causing it to roll its eyes back and collapse, its jaw slack. Only the blind ogre remained, aimlessly flailing like a drowning man on land. A simple thrust from Walm’s spear ended its rampage.

He turned to assist the others, but the battle had already ended. The centaurs had been turned into a brutal display of crushed skulls, beaten down like a game of whack-a-mole under Hari’s “disciplinary rod” and Mariante’s mace. The few who had been cleanly decapitated bore the mark of Merrill’s handiwork.

“Good cover.”

“Mm.”

Walm nodded toward Yuna, who merely gave a short reply. Their conversations were always brief, though Walm reassured himself it wasn’t due to any hostility on her part.

“Looks like you finished up too.”

“They were already weakened. Hardly impressive compared to you taking down four centaurs.”

“Well, speed isn’t everything.”

Merrill flicked his wrist, shaking off the sticky remnants clinging to his longsword. As Walm wiped down his halberd, he noticed a lingering gaze. He turned to find Hari staring at him with unsettling intensity.

“Something wrong?”

“No, nothing at all. I was just admiring the contrast—Merrill’s vibrant eyes and your cloudy ones. Both equally captivating in their own way. Ah, don’t look at me like that. You’ll make me excited.”

“…What?”

The words took a moment to register. When they did, Walm instinctively took a step back, alarm bells ringing in his mind. His gaze snapped to Merrill in protest, but the green-haired explorer merely sighed and shook his head.

“He’s skilled, reliable… but that part of him is beyond saving. I gave up trying to fix it.”

“Were you staring at your own teammates again? Cut it out.”

Mariante, having caught on, promptly scolded Hari.

“Oh, come now. It’s human nature to be drawn to beauty. Worry not, Mariante—your fierce, anger-filled gaze is exquisite as well.”

“That’s exactly why you got kicked out of the monastery!”

Having had enough, Mariante swung her mace, landing a solid strike on Hari’s rear. The sharp clang of metal meeting flesh rang out, but the monk didn’t even flinch. The force should have been enough to shatter a normal man’s bones—Walm had no idea what kind of muscle composition Hari possessed to endure it so easily.

“Calm your rage, Mariante. Anger dulls your movements.”

“Oh, shut up!”

“As you can see, scolding him only makes it worse. Best to just ignore it.”

“…Noted.”

Had it been a grim battlefield joke, Walm might have joined in. But there was nothing humorous about this—Hari was entirely serious. Leaving Mariante to deal with the monk, Walm quietly put some distance between them. This commotion seemed to be an everyday occurrence for the party. Yuna, unbothered, focused on retrieving her arrows. After collecting a few, she spoke up.

“Walm, you’re good at keeping the arrows intact.”

Being able to reuse expensive arrows without damaging them was invaluable. In the resource-strapped Highserk Empire Army, anything that could be reused was put to use. Even arrows embedded in rotting corpses were eagerly recovered by archers.

“Just an old habit.”

Though their acquaintance was brief, Walm felt that the usually emotionless Yuna seemed somewhat pleased. If he had been carelessly breaking arrows, he might have unknowingly been branded as a brute in her mind.

Hari and Mariante had finished their argument and began rummaging through the centaurs’ corpses. They say the grass is always greener on the other side, but this party was full of eccentric individuals. Each one had their own quirks, but Walm wasn’t exactly noble enough to criticize others.

“What’s on your mind?”

Lost in thought with his gaze lowered, Walm was pulled back to reality as a flash of vibrant green hair entered his vision. Merrill’s heterochromatic eyes locked onto him, as if peering into something unseen, making him feel as though his thoughts were being read. Perhaps he could understand why Hari found him interesting.

“Just… realizing how lively this party is.”

“You talk like you’re an outsider, but you’re part of this lively group now.”

“Yeah… I suppose I am.”

Despite the grim atmosphere of the labyrinth, Walm found himself smiling.

Translator – Lyxxna