But how could the witcher let them have their way?
Dick sprinted several strides forward and leaped into the air.
Ignoring his unloaded hand crossbow, he hurled the shield in his hand sideways.
The shield hurtled forward and struck the foremost Jatu soldier square in the chest. With a loud bang, it knocked him backward.
Taking advantage of the brief moment when the shield blocked the three Jatu soldiers behind him from seeing, Dick slashed diagonally through the air, cleaving one of them in two from his right chest to his left waist.
After landing, he ducked again, avoiding another Jatu soldier's horizontal sword swing.
Shifting his footing, he spun around and cut that Jatu soldier in half at the waist as well.
Following his momentum, Dick snatched the spear from one of the dead Jatu soldiers who had yet to fall. He drew his upper body back like a fully drawn bow, then hurled the spear with all his strength, piercing the chest of the fourth Jatu soldier as he tried to fight back. A great gush of warm, foul-smelling blood spurted from his chest; plainly, the soldier would not survive.
Only then did the first Jatu soldier recover from the breathlessness caused by the shield's heavy blow. Just as he tried to rise, the witcher reached him, pushed off hard with both legs, and leaped into the air. Gripping his sword in both hands, he drove it down viciously.
With his body weight and the tremendous strength of his arms behind it, the sword tip pierced the Jatu soldier's heart and plunged into a crack between the stones of the wall beneath him.
The brief, intensely focused fight left Dick slightly out of breath.
But he had no time to worry about that. Turning toward a gap in the battlements, he saw another pair of leather-gloved hands appear. Another Jatu soldier was about to climb onto the wall.
A defending soldier at that spot slashed his saber at the Jatu soldier's hand, but the latter nimbly dodged and thrust the spear in his other hand toward the defender's chest.
But just before the spearhead pierced the defending soldier's chest, the flat of a longsword blocked it.
The instant Dick saved the soldier, he ignored his grateful gaze, pushed off again, and spun into a horizontal slash, cleaving the Jatu soldier in two.
"Your name's Carter, right, lad? Stay focused and support me from behind. The rest of you, pick up their spears and thrust down hard!" Dick shouted.
"Understood, Master Dick." Carter's face was full of respect.
The surrounding defenders rallied as well and answered him one after another.
A short while later, the first wave of the siege ended.
More than thirty corpses of Jatu soldiers who had been affected by Bloodlust lay on and below the wall.
Of course, there were also the mutilated bodies of over a dozen defending soldiers.
Dick panted heavily, saying nothing:
During the fighting just now, he had clearly felt how fast these Jatu soldiers moved, but with his physique twice that of an ordinary person and his superb swordsmanship, they had still won this round of the defense.
But on their own side, quite a few defending soldiers had died as well.
Even the lad called Carter had taken an arrow from a Jatu archer below the wall.
Fortunately, Dick had reacted quickly and saved the boy, who had then been helped into a corner tower by his comrades to recuperate.
Now, the autumn wind blew bleakly, and an eerie silence fell over the wall and the ground below.
Dick frowned deeply. He wondered why these Jatu soldiers had stopped attacking.
If they kept up the same intensity as before, the town would fall sooner or later.
"Dick, Dick..." Kebi approached with blood smeared across his face and a longsword in hand, two guards following close behind.
Judging by Kebi's appearance, he had fought the Jatu soldiers at close quarters just now after all.
"Fisher just told me we have a little over ninety men left. More than twenty of our brothers died in that fight, with one seriously wounded and several lightly wounded.
"The Jatu soldiers below the gate tower suffered almost the same number of casualties as we did."
Apart from the two guards, the nearby soldiers were all crouching by the wall to rest. No one was paying attention to their conversation, so Kebi did not lower his voice.
"Forget all that for now. Keep defending. It's not as though we have any way to retreat."
"...You're right."
Kebi then began ordering everyone to deal with the bodies.
"Dick, come with me," Kebi said again.
Dick did not understand why, but he followed Kebi into the corner tower.
In a corner, several wounded soldiers were lined up to have their wounds treated by a young man in a robe.
"He's a doctor from an apothecary here in Odinburg. He graduated from Oxenfurt University. When he learned how urgent things were, he volunteered to help."
The doctor had clearly heard the conversation between the two men as they approached, but his hands never stopped moving. Only after finishing the bandage around a wounded soldier's arm did he wipe the sweat from his forehead.
"There. Be careful with that arm when you're defending the wall later."
After giving another couple of reminders, he looked up at the two men. "Young Master Kebi, you're here."
"Sorry for the trouble, Anson," Kebi said politely.
The skinny young man called Anson turned to the witcher. "Hello, Master Dick."
"Hello."
"Master Dick, come to think of it, we really do have a connection."
"What connection?" Dick asked. He did not remember meeting this young doctor called Anson.
"My little brother had two sugar figurines from you a while ago. After he came home, he kept saying you'd killed a witch with a single stroke of your sword to save him."
Dick understood at once. So this was the older brother of the round-faced child his body's original owner had abducted.
"Is your brother doing all right at home?"
"He's fine. My grandfather is looking after him. But as a member of Odinburg, I naturally had to come support you. Otherwise, if the town falls, our home will be gone too."
"Thank you for your efforts," Dick said solemnly.
"It's no trouble, no trouble. But..." Anson looked at Kebi again. "Young Master Kebi, one of your badly wounded soldiers probably won't last much longer. I'm sorry. I have no way to save him."
"Where is he?" Kebi asked urgently.
At this point, losing even a single soldier would make the defense that followed enormously difficult.
Besides, the soldiers here were all Kebi's fellow townsfolk. He truly did not want anyone else to die.
"Over there in the corner. I covered him with a quilt. He said he was very cold, probably from losing too much blood. But there's a very deep wound in his chest, probably an arrow wound. It damaged his internal organs. There's nothing I can do."
The three of them then walked to the corner, and Kebi looked down at the soldier:
He was twelve or thirteen, his face pale, and he was looking up at the three of them with hope written across his face.
"Commander Kebi, Doctor Anson, Master Dick, I don't want to die. I don't want to die! I haven't lived long enough yet!"
Dick pressed his lips together at the sight. Wasn't this Carter, the boy he had saved earlier after he was struck by an arrow?
Kebi clenched both fists, his nails digging painfully into the tender flesh of his palms, yet he did not notice at all.
After gazing at the boy for a long while, he finally spoke. "This is all my fault. I'm sorry. Where is your home? When the time comes, I'll personally deliver the death benefit to your family."
"I don't have any family. I'm an orphan," Carter said, his breath faint as a thread. "So money is no use to me. I just want to live. I want to live! Please, I'm begging you, save me."