"Old Man Bane is in for it this time!"
"Embezzlement? Smiling Will, that guy, would he embezzle? I remember he was someone who valued honor above life itself?"
"What do you know? Embezzlement is just an excuse. He's actually caught up in the internal struggles of House Crane."
"Followed the wrong person?"
"No, he followed the right person, but he just didn't know he wasn't as important in that person's heart as he imagined."
"What do you mean?"
"Idiot, he was used as a pawn in a trade!"
Among the crowd watching the excitement outside the tavern, there were many merchants traveling between cities. These people were much better informed than ordinary folk, and their hushed conversations revealed the recent power shifts in Red Lake City.
Linde's somewhat mutated hearing allowed him to easily catch the content of their conversations, thus understanding the reasons for the current situation and judging how he should act.
In fact, even without Old Man Bane's instructions, Linde had already planned to go all out, because he needed Sir Kleen to make a name for himself in Red Lake City's noble circles.
Thinking of this, Linde nodded to Old Man Bane, indicating that he understood, then without another glance at Sir Kleen, he walked to the open space in front of the tavern and said calmly, "Come on!"
Linde's demeanor and actions clearly surprised everyone around him. They thought Linde should have shown anger, unwillingness, or perhaps worry and fear.
After all, as an innocent person caught in the internal struggles of House Crane, inexplicably targeted and even forced into an extremely unfair duel, he should have shown some strong emotional fluctuations.
But Linde remained unusually calm, facing his fully armed opponent as if he were facing an ordinary person, not putting the other party in his eyes at all. This made everyone recall the various rumors about Linde during this period.
At this moment, the expression on the face of the soldier chosen by Sir Kleen also became grave, because the calm Linde brought him an extremely strong pressure, a pressure like facing some terrifying existence. This made him think of the rumors about Linde devouring the Bear Hunter.
However, at this moment, like Linde, he had no retreat and could only brace himself.
So, when a hint of impatience appeared on Sir Kleen's face, he took a deep breath, tightened his grip on his sword, and without any warning, charged towards Linde, simultaneously swinging his sword in a diagonal slash, aiming for Linde's shoulder and neck.
Watching the attacking sword, Linde was not flustered at all. He simply took a step forward as if strolling, and tilted his body slightly, easily dodging the slashing longsword. Then he suddenly rushed forward, colliding with the soldier's body.
The soldier was knocked to the ground by Lindewithout any resistance. Before he could react, a foot stomped towards his neck. After a sharp pain, he completely lost consciousness.
At this moment, the surroundings fell silent. They still hadn't understood what had just happened. They only saw Linde take two steps, and the soldier fell, followed by Linde stomping on the soldier's neck, ending the battle.
Sir Kleen saw his man taken down by Linde, and the expression on his face was difficult to maintain its composure. With a gloomy face, he motioned to another soldier beside him, telling him to replace the previous one and continue fighting Linde.
That soldier also had a bitter expression. He knew very well that his strength was similar to his companion's. Since his companion was so easily dealt with by the opponent, he absolutely could not defeat the opponent, but he also had no way to escape now, so he could only brace himself and charge forward.
As a result, just like the previous soldier, Linde easily dealt with that soldier, as effortlessly as casually snapping a roadside weed.
Immediately, murmurs arose from the surroundings. Clearly, Linde's displayed combat power was excessively strong. Although among the mercenaries of the surrounding caravans, there were also people who could deal with such soldiers, they could absolutely not do it as easily as Linde. And what was even more terrifying was that after killing two soldiers, Linde still maintained a calm demeanor, making people feel that he did not regard human life as important at all.
"Bear Hunter, it's the Bear Hunter!" There were many people from White Village in the crowd. Many of them were very familiar with Linde's past character and behavior, and everything Linde was displaying now was clearly very different from the Linde in their memories. This also made them increasingly believe the miraculous rumors about Linde.
As for Linde, the person involved, he was not affected by the surrounding gazes and conversations at all. He bent down, picked up the longswords of the two soldiers, casually swung them to get a feel for their weight, and then said to the noble in front of him, "Let the rest come at once!"
Hearing Linde's words, Sir Kleen's face turned extremely ugly. He felt humiliated. Originally, upon seeing Linde's strength, he had thought of recruiting Linde into his command, but now he only wanted to get rid of Linde and erase the humiliation he had suffered.
"You few, go together." Sir Kleen roared at the remaining four soldiers.
Although Linde was the one who suggested they all come at once, Sir Kleen's actions still drew disdain from the onlookers. Some subtle but still audible jeers came from the crowd, making Sir Kleen feel incredibly embarrassed and increasing his disgust and resentment towards Linde.
Upon hearing Sir Kleen's command, the four soldiers did not immediately advance. Instead, they looked at each other, each took down the round wooden shield strapped to their backs, and then the four cooperated to form the most common shield wall formation, pushing towards Linde.
Seeing the four soldiers use this combat formation against a single person, the people around felt even more disdain. The jeers that had been hidden were now unleashed, and immediately the open space was filled with all sorts of jeers and insults. Even the people of White Village, who didn't have a good relationship with Linde, spoke up for him.
However, when Linde saw the military formation formed by the four, he showed no panic at all. He remained very calm, no different from before.
However, unlike the passive counterattack just now, this time he chose to take the initiative. He charged towards the gap between the shields of the two shield-bearing soldiers in the middle, seemingly intending to break their formation by crashing into them.
This method is also the most common one used by knights to counter multi-person defensive formations, but this method has a prerequisite: the knight must be wearing heavy armor, which can enhance the impact force and also defend against surrounding attacks, ensuring that even if the charge fails, he will not be injured.
But now Linde was only wearing a thin short shirt. In every way, Linde's charging behavior looked like he was committing suicide.
And the two soldiers facing Linde's charge thought the same. They pressed their arms tightly against their shields, trying to resist Linde's impact. Even if they couldn't stop Linde, they wanted to slow down Linde's momentum so that the soldiers on both sides could cooperate in surrounding and attacking Linde.
The other two soldiers seemed to have guessed their companions' thoughts and also cooperated tacitly, raising their longswords, ready to slash at the position slightly in front of the shields.
However, something that stunned everyone happened. Linde rushed to the four men, and just as he was about to collide with the shields, his momentum strangely vanished. Then, like a superb dancer, he moved with the steps of a waltz, spinning around and passing in front of the four men's shield wall. Before the four could react, he had circled behind them.
As Linde's body spun, the twin swords in his hands did not remain idle. Following the rotation of his body, they precisely slashed towards the back of the necks of the four targets.
The rotational force brought by his spinning body, combined with Linde's inherent arm strength, made it impossible for the four soldiers' necks to withstand such an attack. Three heads were directly severed and flew out, carried by the residual force on the swords, while the remaining head was still connected by a layer of flesh, dangling from the wound.
Blood gushed from the neck wounds like fountains, splattering all around and staining Linde's clothes red.
The jeers previously directed at Sir Kleen and the four soldiers instantly vanished. The surroundings became utterly silent. Everyone stared at Linde, dumbfounded, only able to hear the sizzling sound of blood oozing.
"Bear Hunter!"
"Bear Hunter!"
...
It's unknown who was the first to shout Linde's nickname. The silence was instantly broken, and cheers with various accents rose and fell, even the White Village people cheered excitedly, as if they were the ones who had just fought.
Although the battle just now was very short, only a few seconds, ending almost in the blink of an eye, for the people around, this was absolutely the most spectacular battle they had ever seen. In their memory, they seemed to have never seen anyone who could defeat four opponents so quickly and gracefully.
"Don't come near me!" At this moment, Sir Kleen no longer cared about noble decorum. The moment Linde, covered in blood, looked at him, he retreated in panic again and again, then said nothing, frantically untying the reins from the hitching post, mounting his horse, and rushing out of the crowd, disappearing at the end of the road outside the village.
Although the people around were disdainful of Sir Kleen for abandoning his subordinates' corpses and fleeing, they didn't say much. After all, no matter how bad he was, he was still a member of House Crane, and a titled member at that. No matter how much House Crane declined, it was still the master of Red Lake City, not someone these commoners could provoke. A few mocking remarks were already their limit.
"Disperse, everyone disperse!" Old Man Bane showed no joy because of Linde's performance. His face remained extremely serious. After shouting loudly at the crowd twice, he turned and instructed his subordinates in the tavern, saying, "Find that guy Squinty, clean up the bodies, and also strip off their weapons and leather armor and keep them safe. House Crane will likely send someone to collect them."
After speaking, he motioned for Linde to hand over his weapons to the tavern staff, then led Linde towards the tavern's backyard.
Although Linde had left and Old Man Bane had signaled everyone to disperse, the onlookers were still not out of their excitement. Some bolder caravan mercenaries even gathered around the corpses, examining the wounds and mimicking Linde's swordsmanship from earlier, to see if they could perform it.
However, more people were discussing whether House Crane would blame Linde for this incident, or even send people to arrest and execute him.
Just as everyone was discussing Linde's subsequent troubles, in the open space in the tavern's backyard, Old Man Bane was also talking to Linde about this matter.
"How did you do that?" Old Man Bane asked impatiently after leading Linde to the backyard.
Linde looked puzzled and said, "Do what?"
Old Man Bane made the movements Linde had used to execute the four soldiers just now. When Lindeperformed them, it was like dancing, but when Old Man Bane performed them, he looked like a wobbling wine barrel, particularly comical.
Although Linde wanted to laugh, he held back and replied, "You told me to go all out."
"Yes, I told you to go all out." Old Man Bane nodded, smiling wryly, "But I never expected you to be so powerful and ruthless when you went all out. Although the guards of House Crane are not top-ranked among the lord's guards in The Reach, they are still the regular army of Red Lake City. I didn't expect you to take down six of them at once. It seems I underestimated your abilities before. If I had known your actual combat strength was so strong, I wouldn't have gone to that guy Will. I would have just gone to Lord Fotimo, and things wouldn't have turned out like this."
Linde asked doubtfully, "Old Man, what exactly happened in Red Lake City? Why did a noble suddenly come looking for trouble with me today?"
Old Man Bane sighed, saying with a hint of apology, "Alas, you were implicated by me. I didn't expect the internal strife of House Crane to happen again, and so coincidentally right after I went to see Will."
Saying that, he told Linde what he had learned.
It turned out that in the past, House Crane had split into two factions over the issue of alliances.
One side believed that since House Tyrell was the Duke of Highgarden, the Supreme Commander of The Reach, and the Warden of the South, then House Crane should naturally side with House Tyrell.
But the other faction believed that the relationship between House Tyrell and House Crane was distant, and there were no records of ancestral intermarriage. Siding with House Tyrell would not bring them any benefits.
On the contrary, House Florentine of Brightwater Keep had a very good relationship with House Crane, with multiple intermarriages, shared bloodlines, and frequent economic and political interactions between the two houses. Moreover, House Florentine's strength was not much worse than House Tyrell's, and aligning with House Florentine would be more beneficial for the development of House Crane.
However, this internal family division had not escalated before it abruptly ceased due to House Florentine and House Tyrell suddenly making peace.
But the divisive trend within House Crane did not diminish because of this; instead, it intensified, finally erupting completely recently.
And the result of this latest eruption was both expected and surprising: the members of House Crane who sided with House Tyrell were utterly defeated. Family power had been completely seized by the members who sided with House Florentine, and that Sir Kleen from earlier was one of them.