The Imperial Supreme Commander Has Returned - Chapter 13

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

The Imperial Commander Has Returned Episode 13

Whoo— Whoo— Whoo—

“Damn, they’re quick with that horn.”

Delam spat a curse as he heard the War Horn sound. All thirty soldiers would have echoed similar oaths if they’d had the breath for it, but the exertion of running left them gasping.

The formation had collapsed and the mages had already routed—so why were they only now sounding the retreat? It was obvious: command didn’t care if the Common Soldiers died. The horn had blown the moment the Knights and mages came under threat.

“Don’t stop! Leave the stragglers behind!”

Delam rallied the soldiers as they cut across the battlefield. Not a full sprint—they’d need to pace themselves.

As the column stretched out, eyes fell upon them from all sides. The Barbarian Warriors tracked Delam’s group but didn’t press the attack.

Besides, there were plenty of other prey. Scattered groups of the Pioror Kingdom Army were limping back in retreat—why chase the sharp-eyed unit ahead when you could pick off the stragglers?

Thirty soldiers running in formation with spears unified looked like something out of a nightmare—a porcupine you didn’t dare touch.
Death to anything that stood in the way.

“Filthy Kingdom dogs, die— gurk!”
“Get lost!”

A few of the Barbarian Warriors had enough pride to challenge them anyway. But the moment they charged, they fell silent. Delam’s Short Sword cleaved the first attacker’s throat, and the soldiers behind him ran the rest through on their spear points like roasting meat on skewers.

“Ugh!”
“What’s wrong with him?”

“Stop here and you die. Hey, you there with the big frame—carry him. The injured one takes a spear instead.”
“Th—thank you!”
“When you tire, take turns carrying. It’ll hurt, but bear with it a little longer. And it’s not entirely a bad deal for you.”

He’d been clear before they left: stragglers get left behind.
But this wasn’t a critical moment yet. Delam’s command made the larger soldier’s chest heave with determination.

“I’m fine with it! If I can save a comrade by bearing a little hardship, I’m happy to bear it!”
“Bold of you. But that’s not quite what I meant—once arrows and spells start flying, he takes the hits instead of you. Not such a bad arrangement.”
“Oh……! Then I’ll carry him.”

Mark had stepped forward timidly and found himself with nothing to show for it. This man—Delam couldn’t quite tell if he had nerves of steel or no nerves at all.

After collecting the wounded and resuming their flight, they’d been running for some time now. Command and the mages’ ranks had to be in chaos, so Delam’s unit kept angling sideways across the Plain, always sideways, pushing forward.

But was it truly a mistake?

A shrill scream tore through the air.

It came from somewhere ahead, distant and terrible.
Not just one.
Pleas and shrieks echoed in short, rhythmic bursts.
Several soldiers were even hurled into the air.
Their heads were already gone—landing was no longer a concern.

“That’s… a Barbarian Warrior!”
“Yeah, and I’ve got eyes. I can see perfectly well.”

Just as the Decurion Haintel had reported—a Barbarian Warrior indeed.
In terms of the Pioror Kingdom’s hierarchy, a Warrior held the rank of a Knight.
Normally, this Barbarian Warrior should’ve been locked in fierce combat with Pioror’s Knights by now—that would be the natural order of things.

But this one was different.
A deserter, perhaps?
Or some grieving patriarch blinded by vengeance?
The elderly Barbarian Warrior dogged the retreating Pioror soldiers relentlessly, reaping a crimson harvest in their wake.
In that brief span, five soldiers had already fallen.

Then a figure came sprinting from ahead of the troops.
The armor was markedly different from that of common soldiers.
Chain mail beneath leather armor, with a gambeson layered over top—and the insignia of a Centurion gleaming on his chest.

“Come then, you savage!”

The Centurion drew his Longsword and roared.
Hearing that voice, Delam’s group faltered to a halt.
It was instinctive.
The shout carried power—Mana infused within it.

From the Centurion’s rank onward, men became officers—those of higher station.
And such men received basic Mana Techniques as their due.
Of course, basic was merely basic.
To reach the point where one could weave Mana into one’s voice with only the fundamentals—it demanded truly extraordinary effort.
This officer had achieved it.

‘Though his opponent is formidable…’

Still, it fell far short of a true Knight.
Knights were those who learned secret Mana Techniques from childhood.
Only through relentless, grueling training could one ever become one.

And so this battle’s outcome was already written.
The Barbarian Warrior stood as a Knight’s equal.

“Hey, Delam… our side will win, won’t it?”
“No. We’ll lose.”
“Then what do we do?”
“We fight alongside them, naturally.”

Run.
But that was the truth in his heart.
Unforgiving as it was, while the Centurion bought time with that Barbarian Warrior, they would slip backward quietly, taking the long way around to flee.
If only that officer could hold on a little longer.

A feral howl split the silence.
“Huh?”

In that instant, the Centurion’s body was cleaved by the Double-Handed Axe.
His face, twisted in agony as blood poured from his mouth, contorted further with futility.

But Delam found the situation far more frustrating.
He’d thought the Centurion might last longer than thirty seconds, yet here they were.
The Barbarian Warrior was plainly far stronger than he’d anticipated.

‘This is damned inconvenient.’

Either way, there was no choice now but to fight.
But was it even possible?
Delam rapidly assessed the Barbarian Warrior before him.

-Technique and mind: considerably below my level.
-Mana and body: considerably above my level.
So then, what was the conclusion?

‘This won’t do.’

There was only one way forward.
He’d have to take Mark and make a desperate run for it.
Delam turned to address the soldiers.

“Listen carefully—I’m only saying this once.”
“…….”
“I’ll hold that monster here. You all escape while you can. Especially you Decurions over there—”
“Yes, sir!”
“Your orders, sir!”
“Take those twenty-seven soldiers and get them safely back to the Main Camp. That’s on you.”

Snap!

The Decurions answered with a military salute instead of words.
Though they held the same rank, such formalities hardly mattered now.
The other soldiers too saluted through their tears, all of them equally moved.

“Heh heh, are you children finished with your little show?”

The Barbarian Warrior who had been watching approached slowly.
He’d already killed the Centurion but didn’t rush forward immediately.
The children’s pathetic display was simply too fascinating to interrupt.

“You speak amusing words. You’ll hold me back? A boy barely old enough to have been weaned from his mother’s breast?”
“…….”
“If my grandson—whom you killed—had lived, he’d be about your age by now. So as an elder, I shall teach you the folly of your words. I’ll carve up your companions one by one before your eyes!”

What grudge did he carry?
The Barbarian Warrior drew closer, his face alight with madness.

His footsteps were not particularly swift.
Yet the soldiers had already gone rigid, unable to move, let alone flee.
Like mice before a cat, they could only sweat in terror.

They all understood.
The chasm between a Knight who wielded Mana and themselves.

A subtle whoosh.

The Barbarian Warrior laughed savagely and raised his axe.
In the next instant, as the forward soldier’s neck was about to be severed―

“……!”

The Barbarian Warrior staggered back, his gaze fixed on one side.
There stood Delam.
Delam had discarded every other weapon.
His torso lowered, he gripped only a single Long Spear, held firm as iron.

It was like a bowstring drawn to its absolute limit.
The slightest touch would send it snapping forward.
Ready to pierce clean through his neck.

The Barbarian Warrior felt it then.
The cold sweat trickling down his brow.

Physique, mana, experience, years of battle…….
In every measure, he surpassed the youngster.
Yet in one thing alone—his spirit—he was losing ground.

“Roooaaaagh!”

Unable to accept this, the Barbarian Warrior roared.
But Delam’s face remained unchanged as he spoke.
To his men, and to his enemy alike.

“Advance. And… come.”

* * *

People often wonder about such things.
Can technique truly surpass the gulf between ranks?

[Technique honed to the extreme]
[VS A rank one dimension higher]

One side possesses extraordinary technique but lower rank.
The other side has inferior technique but higher rank.

In truth, it was a question that could never be settled.
Because if technique reaches its pinnacle, rank is likely to match.
Which meant, ordinarily, those with superior technique also possessed higher rank.

But here, now.
That question was about to be answered.

“Roooagh!”

It was the size of Delam’s entire torso.
Before the blade even reached him, an overwhelming surge of wind pressure and blade-song swept toward Delam as if to split him in half.

The Double-Handed Axe gouged only the Plain below.

In the same breath as he sidestepped, he placed his weight firmly alongside the blade’s edge and―

The recoil sent his body flying backward.

In ordinary battle, blades were only honed to a modest edge.
With mountains of enemies to cut down, what happened if you sharpened a blade too keenly?
After killing a few men, the teeth would shatter completely.

That’s why Delam’s ankle had survived uncut.
Of course, it wasn’t something just anyone could manage.

“Slippery as a loach!”

The Barbarian Warrior, momentarily startled, let out a derisive snort.
A light frame and the kind of bodily balance you’d see in an acrobat.
Impressive, certainly, but that was all.
You swat a fly out of the air with the palm of your hand.
And once it hits the ground, you step on it—problem solved.

Thump!

The Barbarian Warrior caught up to the retreating Delam in a single bound.
The Double-Handed Axe swung again.
This time, determined to prevent another of those clever tricks, he brought it down vertically with enough force to split the upper body clean in two.

“Whoosh!”

This time, Delam did not dodge.
The spear blade thrust abruptly into the axe’s path of descent.
It was perfectly timed.
Exactly before the axe’s power reached its apex!

“Huh?”

The spear blade tangled the axe while simultaneously aiming at his fingers.
The Barbarian Warrior, caught off guard, hurriedly altered the axe’s trajectory.
He pulled back slightly, trying to hack the spear away.

But he failed.
The spear rotated counterclockwise, clinging to the axe head.

Swish!

The Barbarian Warrior exerted force, trying to shake the spear loose.
With such overwhelming strength disparity, he thought it would be simple.
But bizarrely, it wasn’t working.
Pressing relentlessly, withdrawing, thrusting again—
No matter how hard he struggled, the spear clung like a leech and would not come free.

The secret lay in his stance.
Delam’s left leg, waist, and spear were perfectly unified as one.
When the leg moved, the waist moved; when the waist moved, the spear moved—the power of his entire body flowed completely into that single shaft.
That was how he could overcome even the absolute hierarchy of strength and master the matchup itself.

“Shriek!”

The greater problem was the spear tip.
It crawled along the axe handle and darted unpredictably, probing for an opening.
There was no way to predict where it would thrust next.

Crack!

The Barbarian Warrior’s reaction stuttered for just a moment.
In that instant, Delam surged forward and drove his spear straight ahead.
The shaft shot toward the vulnerable hollow of the warrior’s throat.

“Hrgh!”

But the blood that sprayed came from the Barbarian Warrior’s cheek instead.
Only thanks to Enhanced Perception sharpened by Mana Technique had the warrior managed to twist away at the last breath.
The Barbarian Warrior, snatching survival from the jaws of death, stumbled backward several paces.

Thump! Thump! Thump!
“What… are you?”

The Barbarian Warrior asked the question with each heavy, deliberate step backward.
His newly serious tone carried the edge of something else—a creeping dread.

The ancestral spirit dwelling within him was sending a warning.
This opponent was no child. He was a warrior, just like him.
If he let his guard drop again, he would not see tomorrow’s sunrise.

A glorious moment—acknowledgment from a true warrior!
But Delam was already looking past the Barbarian Warrior entirely.

Click.

He opened the locket and glanced at his mother’s photograph once more.

“Haaa… ah.”

Then he drew in a long, clean breath of the fresh scent of leaves.

“Sorry, what did you say?”
“…I asked what you are.”
“Me? A farmer. My mother had a gift for herding sheep, but I never took to it—they’d scatter the moment they saw me. So instead, I grew the finest potatoes in the village. Boiled just right, they were fluffy and delicious. And—”
“What?”
“Well, that’s what I was. The best farmer with the best crops. And now—”

Delam leveled his spear, his voice dropping low.

“This year’s final harvest is you, boy.”

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————