Though he had endured so much, Number Three rose to his feet and began to run in a desperate, serpentine pattern. He was about to reach the last stretch of open ground before the forest!
But just then, he heard a sound behind him. He did not dare to look back. In the next second, a CRACK shattered his last hope. The lieutenant was thrown forward as if by a heavy blow, tumbling over and over until he came to a stop at the very edge of the dense woods.
Don't stop...
But he soon realized he was not dead. That last shot had not been for him. Realizing this, he tried to crawl into the forest, but at that moment, he felt a coldness at his neck, and a voice spoke softly from behind him.
"Third Brother, where are you running off to in such a hurry?"
The familiar voice made him realize. He looked back and saw Dismas, who should have been the first to be shot, standing there completely unharmed, a shortsword pointed at him.
This...
"You're one of the barbarians," the lieutenant realized, his face instantly darkening with the understanding that he had been duped.
Dismas was silent, but a look of profound satisfaction was on his face. He had endured no small amount of their scorn and ridicule on the way here. To see the man's expression change so dramatically now was quite satisfying.
From the dense forest, Lance finally finished his roll call, sniping the last of the remaining elites. Only then did he lower the long gun in his hands. Beside him lay two other long guns and three pistols. Barristan and Reynauld were at his side, helping him reload. This was the reason one man had been able to produce such an overwhelming volume of fire.
Besides the crossbow, Lance had also diligently practiced his marksmanship. But the flintlocks of this era were different from the modern cartridge-based firearms of his old world. Their accuracy depended on the quality of the gun itself, the amount of powder used, and the ammunition. Even a master marksman like Dismas needed time to adapt to a new weapon to achieve his best state. In other words, it all depended on experience, feel, and a smile from Lady Luck.
Lance knew his own skill was merely adequate. If Dismas had been the one shooting, none would have been hit in the arms or legs, and certainly no one would have escaped. The gap in experience and feel, which can only be accumulated over time, is not something that can be quickly overcome even by a prodigious talent for learning.
That he had been able to achieve such results today was not only because he had aimed for the torso instead of showing off, but for a deeper reason... He gently rubbed the signet ring on his index finger. Lance knew that without the sensory enhancement provided by this transcendent item, he could not have accomplished this so easily.
No wonder people were so desperate to obtain such items. A lifetime of training is not worth as much as a single piece of good equipment.
The three of them gathered their gear and joined Dismas. It was only then that Number Three saw the three strange figures. One was a one-eyed old man in the old-style armor of an Imperial Army NCO, the surface of his plate covered in countless battle scars. One was a Church knight, carrying a greatsword, his heavy plate adorned with a Church sigil. And the last one wore a full-face helmet, a large backpack with a shovel handle sticking out, and had two long guns slung across his back. His appearance was bizarre beyond measure.
But it was Dismas's attitude towards Lance that truly baffled him.
"My lord, this is the Cannon Company's Third-in-Command. What are your orders?"
"Your pistol." Lance handed Dismas his original weapon, his gaze sweeping over the captive.
"Where are the rest of your men? Come on out!" Number Three, though a prisoner, still spoke with a trace of arrogance.
"What men?" Lance said, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "It's just us."
"Impossible... impossible... How could just three of you be a match for our elites?" The lieutenant's face was a mask of disbelief. He looked around, as if searching for a hidden army.
"Heh. Elites?" Lance scoffed, his disdain unconcealed. "What damned elites? I hunt elites."
"You're lying to me! There must be a large force ambushing us! You're lying!" The lieutenant suddenly became agitated. His two elite squads had been annihilated by just three men? He could not accept it.
"Behave yourself."
Dismas had no intention of indulging him. He simply punched the man in the gut.
Lance took a look and saw that the man had survived because he was wearing two layers of armor: a decent quality breastplate on the outside, and a layer of mail underneath. With his clothes as a buffer, he was not seriously injured. He had likely been trying to play dead before making a run for it.
After confirming he had no hidden weapons, they tied him up. "There's no time to linger here," Lance said to Dismas. "You take him and go on ahead. We will clean up and follow."
Dismas led the captive away. Lance then sacrificed the eight corpses and collected their equipment. Eight long guns, three pistols, and various other weapons, armor, and scattered coins. In all his previous fights with the brigands, he had never had such a harvest. It seemed you have to crack the hard nuts to get to the meat.
It was a lot of gear. The three of them had some trouble carrying it all away, leaving behind a scene of carnage. They found another spot to rest, and Lance placed the gear, along with the long guns he had been carrying, into a sarcophagus and sealed it, to be retrieved later. Number Three was now busy filling in the hole with a shovel. The three captured pistols, however, they kept. Lance was now like an elder of the Beggar's Clan, with so many pistols he had nowhere to put them. He gave another one to Dismas.
"Things were going well. Those bastards were about to take the bait, but..." Dismas began to recount his meeting with the Captain, and when he mentioned the woman, Lance found it strange.
"What kind of place is this? How could a woman as bewitching as you describe be there?"
"You would understand if you saw her, my lord," Dismas said with a strange laugh, the meaning of which was self-evident.
"Alright, get to the point." Lance had no time for such things. What kind of woman hadn't he seen? The mission was what mattered. If he didn't deal with these brigands, he wouldn't be able to sleep at night.
"Later, I had no choice but to try and get out and leave a message. But those men were watching me so closely, they gave me no chance. Luckily, I saw the secret signal you left, my lord. I never thought you would make a move so directly."
"I saw you were being escorted by two men. I knew the plan had gone wrong. To be safe, I had to rescue you first. So when I saw you leading them back to the old camps, I made my arrangements." Lance clapped Dismas on the shoulder. "I would never abandon you. We were with you the whole time."
The words moved Dismas, but he soon remembered something that made him anxious. "My lord, that Number Two got away. Will that affect our plan?"
"I let him go on purpose," Lance said with a small smile, the picture of a fisherman, calmly waiting for his catch. "If no one goes back to inform the Cannon Company, how will they ever be provoked into attacking?"