Barbarian's Adventure in a Fantasy World-Chapter 321: Ashen-Haired Barbarians of the White Snowfield (3)

Chapter 321: Ashen-Haired Barbarians of the White Snowfield (3)

Bringing the barbarians inside the fortress would only invite disaster. Even under Ketal’s command, they could not be trusted to regulate their emotions, and if an opportunity presented itself, they would swing their axes without hesitation. Ketal therefore ordered them to wait in the forest nearby and not set foot within the palisade.

He returned to the stronghold and reported to Arcane that the barbarians had been handled for the moment. Arcane regarded Ketal and the Tower Master with reverent eyes and showed them to a small hut that could serve as a place to speak without interruption. The Tower Master wove a curtain of silence around the walls and sat.

“So those really are the barbarians of the White Snowfield,” the Tower Master said. They were the figures of legend, the most dangerous beings said to stalk that frozen realm. “They are strong.”

The Tower Master had not expected as much. He had assumed the fearsome reputation of the ashen-haired barbarians rested entirely on Ketal himself, a tribe buoyed by a single extraordinary man. Seeing the three in person stripped that assumption bare. Each of them carried the pressure of a Hero fighter.

“And they are blindly devoted to you,” the Tower Master added.

“They only listen to me,” Ketal replied, his expression weary. “I hate that about them.”

“They are truly strong,” Serena murmured, recovering from her shock at last. “I am not sure I could defeat any of them head on.”

“Are these the strongest barbarians after you?” the Tower Master asked Ketal.

“No,” Ketal said. “Not the strongest. They are not weak either. Think of them as high-ranking warriors.”

They had not reached the pinnacle. They lacked both the depth of strength and the breadth of experience.

“I still do not understand why these ones were the ones to appear,” Ketal said. “And it bothers me.”

“So these are not even the highest among the barbarians,” the Tower Master mused.

He gave a quiet, incredulous chuckle. He had once experienced the power of beings from the Demon Realms when he faced Nano, and his mind kept trying to sort the White Snowfield into the same category. However, that was the mistake. The White Snowfield was not simply another frontier. It was a true inhuman hellscape.

“What will you do?” the Tower Master asked Ketal. “Are you going to send them back?”

“That is the most likely course,” Ketal said. “If they had completed the command I gave them, I would have no grounds to refuse them, but they did not. They forced their way out because they wanted to see me.”

“I will not drive them off at once,” he continued. “However, I will not let them roam free. You do not need to worry about that.”

“Will they obey?” the Tower Master said.

“They will,” Ketal answered flatly. “If I ordered them to leap laughing from a cliff, they would.”

“For people like that, they did a fine job ignoring you when they attacked me,” the Tower Master said dryly.

“That is the troublesome part,” Ketal said, frowning.

He had told them not to attack the Tower Master. Barbarians who obeyed him at the level of worship should have obeyed that command without question. However, they had attacked anyway. It was not that they had chosen to disobey. It was that the sight of the Tower Master had spiked their emotions so sharply that the command slipped from their minds. When Ketal repeated the order, they stopped at once, yet if a similar stimulus appeared later, they would forget again and act.

“Reason does not work,” the Tower Master said. “Argument does not work. Order does not work.”

That was the White Snowfield’s barbarian. Even compared to barbarians outside the Snowfield, who would at least follow a clear command, these three were far more ungovernable. The Tower Master studied Ketal afresh.

“You are the sensible one after all,” he said. “You must have suffered living among them.”

“They are a plague I thought I had escaped,” Ketal said, clicking his tongue. He had never imagined they would track him this far.

“At least they do listen to you eventually,” the Tower Master said. “Sending them back should be possible. That much is fortunate.”

“It is,” Ketal said. He rubbed his chin, eyes narrowing in thought. When he looked up again, a decision had settled behind them. “Tower Master, you once said this. To stop one of Necrobix’s puppets, a single means is required, and if we have that means, we can bring it down.”

“I did,” the Tower Master said. “But acquiring such means is not easy. The Sun God’s Saintess cannot help this time.”

He stopped, turned, and looked at Ketal. “You do not mean what I think you mean.”

“This is convenient,” Ketal said softly. “If there is a card I can spend, I should spend it.”

***

Ketal went out to the edge of the forest where the three waited. Their eyes lit the moment they saw him.

“Ooh!”

“Our king! You have come!”

“We were almost bored enough to come find you!”

“I told you not to come,” Ketal said.

They had already been halfway to breaking his orders again. He exhaled and lifted a hand.

“I have a question.”

“Oooh, a question from the king to us!” Greta exclaimed

“Ask anything!” Anna chimed in.

They shouted with delight and leaned forward as if ready to obey a command to kill one another on the spot. Their faces made Ketal’s mouth harden.

This is what I hate, he thought.

It was not loyalty. It was worship that skated close to madness, and it did not feel like dealing with other humans. However, that did not matter now. He set the feeling aside.

“How many died?” Ketal asked them.

If they had truly driven one of the Primarchs to the brink, there was no way their tribe had escaped unscathed. Greta, massive and blunt, answered first.

“About half,” he said. “Roughly.”

“Half...,” Ketal repeated.

He clicked his tongue. Many among those dead would be faces he knew. In truth, all of them would be faces he knew. He had been their king. Death was familiar to barbarians, but it did not make the taste pleasant.

Perhaps I should have set a different command, he thought. Yet even reconsidered, nothing better came to mind. If he had set a milder test, they would have cleared it quickly and followed anyway. More to the point, the three in front of him did not grieve.

“It was a noble sacrifice,” Greta said. “I want to die like that.”

“That is what I despise,” Ketal said. “Enough of that. Why you three? Others must have fought for the chance to leave.”

They were strong, but they were not the apex. It was hard to imagine the strongest would simply step aside. Greta gave the answer without hesitation.

“The others are badly wounded,” he said. “Many are at death’s door. So the ones still whole came out.”

That was reasonable on its face, yet Ketal’s eyes narrowed.

“They didn’t come out for that reason alone?” he said.

Even shattered in all four limbs, those barbarians would drag themselves along the ice if they thought it would put them at his side. They would not give up a chance because they were dying. Greta flinched.

“In truth, they tried to come,” he said. “But the outer ring is blocked. They could not make it through.”

“So the barrier still holds,” Ketal murmured.

The Ugly Rat had said as much. The barrier had not been completely destroyed. Breaking it required considerable strain. With mortal wounds, they could not break through.

“We held a tournament to decide who would go,” he said, puffing up with pride. “The three of us won. We proved our strength and came outside.”

“How many died in the process?” Ketal asked him

“About twenty,” Greta said, and his eyes shone as if asking to be praised for the efficiency of the slaughter.

Ketal sighed. “Greta. Back when you were a child, you seemed a little clever, so I worked hard to teach you, hoping you might turn into someone I could actually reason with. And now look at you—you’ve managed to grow into a barbarian with just enough brains to do math in your head.”

“Thank you!” Greta said brightly.

“That was not praise, idiot,” Ketal said. He clicked his tongue again. “But now I understand the situation.”

“Ooh,” Thomas said. “What shall we do now? Give the command and we will act!”

“Let us conquer this land and make it ours!” Greta said, eyes shining. It was plain from their faces that they would sprint for the nearest battlements and start cutting the moment he nodded.

“What you will do is return,” Ketal said.

They stared.

“Why are you surprised?” he asked the group. “You did not complete the order I gave.”

He had told them to kill one of the Primarchs, and they had failed. They had come anyway because they wanted to see him. He had no reason to accept that.

“That cannot be...,” Anna whispered.

It was the obvious answer, yet they looked as if the ground had opened under them. Ketal watched them a moment longer and asked the question he needed to ask.

“Do you want to stay at my side?” he said.

“Yes!” Thomas said.

“I want to fight beside our king!” Greta said.

“I want to burn this land for you!” Anna said, with a kind of soft devotion that made Serena’s skin crawl from far away.

“Then I set a condition,” Ketal said.

“A condition?” Greta echoed.

“Yes,” Ketal said, and let a very small smile touch his mouth.

Their eyes lit as if someone had tossed oil on coals.

***

Necrobix moved the next day like a clock winding itself. It had three puppets in motion, each driving fire through a different corner of the continent. Flames rose over cities and forests like the fingers of a hand closing to make a fist.

Soon, Ketal appeared. He met one puppet head on and locked it in a brutal duel. The Tower Master and Serena had always taken the second together. When those two engaged, Necrobix sent the third to range freely, burning anything it could reach.

That pattern had held through every exchange. However, this time, the pattern bent. When Necrobix turned its attention to the second front, it paused.

“What is this?” it said.

Serena stood alone in front of it, pale and unsteady, yet at the same time, she did not back away. Light began to pour from her, a fierce radiance that pushed the air itself aside. Necrobix crushed the first flare with contempt and narrowed its eyes.

“Where is the Tower Master?” it said.

Until now, the Tower Master had always fought at Serena’s side. This time, the one blocking the puppet was Serena alone.

Necrobix considered and then understood.

“So they intend to hold all three...,” it murmured.

Ketal would pin one. The Holy Sword would pin one. The Tower Master would handle the third. In that way, the damage across the continent would shrink, and rescue and evacuation could keep pace. It was not a foolish plan. However, everything depended on a single point: Serena had to hold.

“You are just a tool,” Necrobix said. “You think to bar my path. That is arrogance.”

Serena gagged, forcing the bile back down as she clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles blanched white.

“I was the Holy Sword,” she said. “No matter what you are, you will not crush me so easily!”

She ran in and met the puppet with a blazing arc of sanctified light. The first exchanges did not match any of their previous battles. Serena had prepared for this moment, and it showed. Even Necrobix needed effort and attention to keep her from driving it back.

“That is as far as you go,” it said.

Perhaps she could survive one engagement. Perhaps she could force it to respect the first exchange, but she would not do it twice.

Meanwhile, the third puppet shifted to its task.

“So the Tower Master is here,” Necrobix said. “What trick have you brought today?”

It waited without hurry for the Tower Master to arrive. Yet, he did not come. A furrow creased. Voices floated across the blackened stones.

“That’s the one,” Greta said. “So if we kill it, the king will allow us to follow him by his side.”

“That’s good enough for me,” Thomas said.

“I like it!” Anna said.

“Wait... You are—,” Necrobix said, face stilled.

Three ashen-haired barbarians strode into view, grinning as they spun their weapons. Necrobix could tell at once that they were not the same as the barbarians of the Outside. They wore the same shapes, yet something inside those shapes did not belong to the Mortal Realm.

“I do not know who you are,” Greta said. “It does not matter.”

“Die for the king!” Anna shouted.

“And for our own purpose!” Thomas added with cheerful malice.

The barbarians of the White Snowfield loosed their war cries and plunged toward Necrobix like stones dropped from a cliff.