The Laughing Swordsman

Chapter 274 - Traitors

As the man and the other people wearing rabbit masks walked down the corridor, they occasionally split up to go somewhere different. Until eventually, they had all split up from each other.

Then, one after another, people with rabbit masks appeared on the surface. Some of them came out of people's houses. Others came out of a lake. Then there were people that actually just burst out of the ground.

Regardless, they were sprouting up like actual rabbits.

The rabbit masks were rather conspicuous, so most of the passersby noticed them. However, most came to the conclusion that it was just a strange person when there was only one.

It was only when they started to group up, showing multiple people with the same mask, did the passerby realize something was wrong. There was one that decided to report this strange group of people to the council.

The rabbit people gradually grouped up. They began walking towards the center of the city with the goal of freeing Apollo. There were some people with metal swords. Others had wooden shields along with a wooden spear that had a metal tip. Then there were some with a wooden bow along with arrows that had stone tips.

As the group approached the prison area, they were interrupted.

"Halt!"

The guard at the front of the group demanded they stop. Honestly, he didn't expect that the people wearing rabbit masks would listen.

...But they did.

The guard thought that there might've been some sort of misunderstanding, so tried to ask them about it.

"What is your business walking across the streets like this? You are frightening the people, not to mention you all are showing your weapons so brazenly!"

The rabbit person at the front spoke up slowly.

"We choose to fight for justice."

The guard furrowed his brows.

"We don't need you to fight for justice as that is what we are doing."

The rabbit person at the front shook his head.

"We will become the new justice."

The guard at the front raised an eyebrow, then scoffed disdainfully.

"Oh really? Sure you may have weapons, but none of you have any armor! But of course you wouldn't, as this stuff is far too precious and difficult to acquire."

He shrugged his shoulders.

"If you really wish to fight a battle where you will die in one hit, when we will be unharmed after several, be my guest."

The rabbit person at the front remained silent.

The guard crossed his arms confidently, thinking he had intimidated him.

"If you're so scared, just return to whatever hole you crawled-"

Suddenly, the guard's head came off.

But it wasn't because of one of the people openly wearing rabbit masks. One of the guards from within the squadron had walked up to the leader and personally cut off his head, fitting the sword between the gap in his armor.

This immediately caused panic among the guards.

"Traitor!"

They attacked the person who stabbed the guard previously. However, he slipped by the guards, pushing through them. Within the chaos, the guards were unable to tell who was who. They started to attack one another, misunderstanding who the traitor was.

This made the innocent people think that they were being attacked by the traitor and retaliated.

The confusion was at an all time high and people were dying one after another. That was when the people with the rabbit masks acted.

Some people charged forward, into the fray. Others drew back their bows, waiting for just the right moment.

A guard saw a rabbit person approaching him. Although he didn't trust the other guards around him, he could be sure that the rabbit person was his enemy.

And so, the guard and rabbit person clashed swords.

The two of them were roughly equal in strength. Their swords both began to tremble. However, the guard could tell he was just barely losing, mostly because of how heavy his armor was.

The guard shouted to the one next to him.

"Kill him!"

That guard nodded.

"Alright."

Then, cut off the head of the guard that asked. One guard pointed their sword at the traitor.

"He is the traitor! Make sure to focus on him!"

Knowing who the traitor was, he confidently showed his back to the other guards.

Then lost his head as well.

The actual guards quickly realized it was best to just avoid the others in case they were a traitor and focus on the rabbit people first. And that was what they did.

One charged towards a rabbit person with a wooden shield and spear.

He gave a light slash with his sword, just aiming to force the rabbit person to block and it worked. The rabbit person lunged and stabbed forward, but the guard easily dodged by sidestepping. From there, he did an overhead swing, taking advantage of when the rabbit person lunged.

But then, one of the rabbit people in the far back released their arrow, letting it streak through the sky.

It landed right in the guard's eye, making him stumble backwards and cry out in pain. From there, the rabbit person easily stabbed the guard in the skull, finishing him off.

As the number of guards got lower, there were a few among them that took off their helmets and put on rabbit masks that they hid on them.

Now knowing all their allies, the rabbit people surrounded the guards, giving them nowhere to go.

The guards put up a valiant last stand. One directly threw their body at a wooden shield before slashing off one of the rabbit people's heads, but lost his own right after.

But in the end, all of the guards were killed.

There were also people injured among those wearing rabbit masks, but they were few. Upon accomplishing this, the leader of the rabbit people issued a command.

"Before they can send more reinforcements, we must free the angel and spread the truth."

And so, they charged into the prison and were met with Apollo, who was still reading his book.