I, the prince in distress, send money

Chapter 391 The Brutal Battlefield

The longsword pierced through leather and flesh, and the feedback from the friction against the bones made Monokuma feel a sense of physical disgust.

The Miniese man pinned to the ground by a two-handed greatsword appears to be an officer, judging from his armor and ornaments.

His chainmail was finer than that of ordinary soldiers, and his breastplate was also thicker.

When Monokuma tried to draw his sword, the already battered and battered greatsword, which had endured too many impacts and slashes, finally gave way.

Bang...

A crisp, piercing cracking sound rang out.

Monokuma felt a sudden lightness in his hand, and looking down, he saw that only half of the broken sword remained.

The heavy hilt and the front half with the handguard were still in his hand, but the blood-stained, twisted blade, along with the deadly tip, remained in the officer's chest.

The officer on the ground had dilated pupils from the excruciating pain and blood loss, and his body was convulsing violently.

His lungs were pierced, and each futile breath was accompanied by a "hoarse...hoarse..." sound of air leaking out. Pinkish blood foam with fine bubbles kept gushing out from his wide-open mouth and the piercing wound, staining his beard and the mud beneath him.

That's really stubborn!
Even in this state, his bloodshot eyes were still fixed on the black and white bear. His right hand, which wasn't completely pinned down by his body, was still groping in the mud, trying to grab the broken sword that had fallen not far away, as if he wanted to give the black and white bear one last blow.

His lips opened and closed silently, each movement bringing out more pinkish blood foam.

These pink bubbles, surprisingly, possess a strange, morbid beauty.

But Monokuma knew this was no good. It was proof of a human struggling in the final moments of life after their lungs had been torn apart and filled with blood.

Each burst of the pink bubble represents the dissipation of life. Monokuma dares not imagine how painful it is, nor does he want to experience it.

He dropped the broken sword and looked around.

The battlefield was eerily silent.

The deafening shouts of battle, the clanging of clashing weapons, the dying wails, the frenzied battle cries... all the sounds vanished.

Just a minute ago, the place was bustling with activity; now, only the babbling of the stream remained, not even a bird's chirp. The nearby birds and beasts had all been frightened away by the brutal slaughter taking place there.

All that the black and white bear could see were corpses.

The stream was no longer clear, but thick and dark red.

Severed limbs, broken shields, dulled swords, and bloated corpses floated on the water.

Near the shore, the corpses were piled up in layers, some wearing dark blue Miniese leather armor, others wearing Bagnian breastplates and green robes.

The corpses lay dead in various twisted and intertwined positions, their frozen expressions filled with pain, shock, anger, and final madness.

Behind the black and white bear, the twenty-odd Bagnian soldiers and Tia family guards who had followed him to charge forward at the last moment had all fallen.

Further away, there was no sound of fighting, only deathly silence.

The entire riverbanks and this narrow battlefield seemed to have been muted.

Only the player, Black Bear, clad in three layers of blood-stained heavy armor, wielding a broken sword, and covered in dents and scratches, stood upright amidst this mountain of corpses and sea of ​​blood.

I'm so damn tired!
This was even more tiring than Monokuma wielding a longsword to fight against the Leterian cavalry.

Because when he was cutting down cavalry, he could catch his breath, as the Leterian cavalry charges were in waves, one after another.

Meanwhile, the Minisian swordsmen and shieldmen kept fighting without stopping. The Bagnian soldiers protecting the black and white bears were all skilled, but they were too tired and were not in peak condition before the battle, so they could only play a supporting role.

However, they were also remarkable, because until the entire army was wiped out, these soldiers continued to fight, covering the back of the black and white bear, and not one of them escaped.

The black and white bear stood still and rested for a while. After the Miniese officer on the ground breathed his last, he also regained some strength. At least his hands stopped trembling.

Randomly picking up a reasonably good-quality armored sword from the bottom of the stream, untying the straps of his breastplate, removing the heaviest piece of armor, and throwing it into the water, creating a splash of red, Monokuma walked onto the stream and headed south.

After walking for about ten minutes, and after crossing a small hill, Black Bear saw a corpse. The man, dressed in a green military uniform, was leaning against a tree, his eyes staring blankly at the gray sky, his chest covered in blood.

The black and white bear paused for a moment, bent down, raised its hand to close his eyes, and then continued on its way.

After walking a few steps, past just a few bushes, the scenery suddenly opened up, and the black and white bear also saw a small patch of tragic battlefield ruins, like fragments of hell, brutally embedded in this damp and cold forest clearing.

More than forty corpses, half dressed in green military uniforms and the other in dark blue clothes, were scattered unevenly in various places.

Monokuma scanned the area and found the center of the battlefield... Centurion Torres.

He stood with his back against a half-person-high, moss-covered boulder, his body upright in an incredible posture.

The centurion was killed in action, but he did not fall.

A spear pierced his thigh and sank into the mud at an angle, while a sword stabbed his abdomen, protruding from behind and pressed against a rock.

Torres gripped a longsword, its blade chipped and stained with blood, tightly in his right hand. The tip of the sword was deeply embedded in the chest of an enemy kneeling before him, as if it were his last crutch.

His left hand disappeared below the elbow, and the severed clothing was a deep crimson.

Centurion Torres' head was slightly lowered, his helmet long gone, revealing gray hair stained with blood and sweat, obscuring his face.

Around him lay his soldiers.

A young Bagnian soldier lay at Torres's feet, an arrow stuck in his neck, his hands still clutching a spear. He had bled to death in the battle.

Another soldier sat on the ground, his back against the other side of the boulder Torres was leaning against, his head bowed, a short sword piercing his chest and pinning him to the stone, his shield shattered in two.

A guard from the Tia family lay nearby, stabbed multiple times, but his right hand still tightly gripped a broken spear, the tip of which was deeply embedded in the throat of a Minician soldier. The two were locked in a life-or-death struggle.

More corpses were scattered around, in various positions, but all falling in the same direction... They had used their lives to protect the centurion's rear.

The place where each person fell was like a gap in the defense line forcibly filled with flesh and blood. Most of their weapons were still in their hands or broken. Their scarred bodies silently told the story of the fierceness and despair of the battle.

The black and white bear stood silently at the edge of the forest, its face beneath its helmet expressionless, with only rainwater sliding down its cold armor plates.

He stared at it silently for half a minute, then lifted his foot and continued walking forward.

Centurion Torres, who was responsible for covering the rear, and all the wounded soldiers accompanying him were killed in action. It is likely that Elena and the members of the Tia family who tried to escape... are also in grave danger.

Beneath the black and white bear helmet, his brow furrowed, the heaviness in his heart growing ever more pronounced. He trudged through the mud and dark red puddles of blood, bypassing Torres's monumental remains, and continued along the ravaged path.

They hadn't gone far when the stench of blood in the air became more complex and intense, mixed with an indescribable sense of despair.

The path suddenly opened up, leading to a relatively flat meadow in the woods.

But the scene here was even more shocking and heartbreaking than Torres' final stand.

There were no signs of fierce resistance, only one-sided massacre.

Scattered across the open ground were the corpses of many more members of the Tia family, including the elderly, women, and children.

Most of them lay prone in the direction they had fled, with fatal sword wounds on their backs and the back of their necks.

An old woman huddled under the roots of a tree, tightly embracing a little girl who had already lost her voice and whose chest was stained with blood.

A young servant was pinned to the ground by a spear, his face frozen in extreme fear.

Several strong women lay dead in the middle of the road, clearly trying to hold off the pursuers. They were covered in knife wounds and still clutched crude sticks and kitchen knives...

The cries and screams seemed to linger in the cold air, allowing the monokuma to hear them.

Besides mud and bloodstains, the ground was littered with discarded packages, overturned baskets, and even crushed toy puppets.

This was the last stretch of the road for the fleeing group, and also their desperate end.

Black and White Bear's heart sank to the bottom. He glanced at the body and saw that there were at least thirty dead members of the Tia family, mostly elderly people with limited mobility, women holding children, and a few teenagers.

The number of Miniese soldiers' bodies was relatively small, with only a couple lying on the road during the pursuit. They were clearly killed by desperate counterattacks or accidents while slaughtering these defenseless targets.

"Did I... miss it?"

The black and white bear muttered to itself, its voice sounding dull and tired inside its helmet.

He gripped his armed sword tightly, preparing to face the last enemy who might still be lurking nearby, or... to confront Elena's cold corpse.

However, at the very edge of this slaughterhouse, closer to the denser woods ahead, the situation was quite different.

There, the bodies of more than a dozen Minisian soldiers, dressed in dark blue uniforms and also covered in blood, lay dead in an extremely disheveled manner.

Their deaths varied: some had their heads deformed by heavy blunt force, some had their throats slit by sharp blades, and others had one or two bullet holes in their backs.

There was even one that was split vertically in two, just like an earthworm.

To the black and white bear's surprise, right in front of the group of Miniese soldiers' corpses, there were about twenty members of the Tia family who were still in shock, mainly women and children and a few servants who were not seriously injured. They were huddled together.

Their faces still bore the marks of tears and extreme fear, but at this moment, they were filled with bewilderment and disbelief at having survived such a catastrophe.

Among the corpses of the Minieses stood several players dressed in extremely strange clothes, with all sorts of armor and weapons, and their faces painted with greasepaint.

The players were chatting loudly, their voices sounding exceptionally clear in the quiet forest.

"What should we do? Have we found Elena yet?"

"No...no body found. Oh no, did we die up ahead?!"

"Where's Monokuma? Is Monokuma dead?!"

Upon hearing their words, Monokuma immediately recognized them as players from the Overland Tigers.

Those bastards finally arrived!
However, they were too late. They not only failed to save Torres and the soldiers who covered the rear, but also failed to stop the massacre of the old and weak of the Tia family. But at least they saved the last twenty or so survivors, and... Elena was still alive?
Just then, footsteps came from the woods ahead, and Little Knife Battle Leader emerged with several men.

The group of people turned out to be Elena Tia, two strong women, and the last guard.

Elena looked as pale as a sheet, her lips trembling slightly from nervousness and running, and her ill-fitting, oversized cloak was covered in mud and grass clippings, making her look somewhat disheveled.

But her body was unharmed. Although her emerald eyes still held immense terror, tears welled up instantly when she saw the group of surviving tribesmen in the center of the clearing. Then, she burst into an overwhelming sense of relief, almost exhaustion, as if she had been given something she had lost.

She was carefully helped by the strong woman to walk towards the group of surviving tribesmen, where she embraced them tightly, and finally burst into suppressed sobs.

Captain Little Knife walked up to Monokuma, looked at the chief warrior who was covered in blood, whose armor was full of wounds, and who exuded a strong bloody and murderous aura, grinned, revealing a set of white teeth.

"Will he survive!?"

"I can survive... Find someone to bandage my wounds."

Hearing the conversation, Elena, surrounded by her tribespeople, raised her head and looked towards the black and white bear with teary eyes.

She saw that silent, towering figure, as if emerging from a pool of blood from hell. She also saw the "knights" surrounding him, strangely dressed and unruly in their speech and manner, who had saved her and the last of her people like divine warriors descending from the heavens.

In her eyes, although these members of the "Knights of the Mountain Tigers" behaved strangely, their bravery and timely appearance made them undoubtedly messengers sent by Prince Chris to save her.

A mixture of gratitude, awe, and lingering fear welled up within her.

Monokuma looked at the group of grinning players, then at the Tia family survivors who were crying and celebrating their survival, and finally his gaze fell on Elena, who was disheveled but unharmed.

After he turned around, he slowly took off his blood-stained helmet.

"I hate her?"

"Huh? What did you say?"

“I said, I hate this NPC.”

"oh!?"

Xiao Dao was a little confused, but after looking around and then back at Elena and the survivors of the Tia family, he suddenly understood.

"Is she stupid?"

"She's not stupid, but she doesn't trust us or the NPC guards, which has caused the situation to go in the worst possible direction... She can't be compared to Chris, who listens to people. I don't think their marriage is a good thing."

"Hey, why do you care so much? You take a rest first, I'll take some men to clean up the battlefield, and we'll head back tomorrow."

(End of this chapter)