RDR: No Regrets - Chapter 290: A Brutal Fight (Patreon)

“Who the hell is this guy?”

One of the armed guards looked at Stephen, who was lying on the ground barely alive, then turned to his companion in confusion.

“What do we do with him? Just kill him?”

The strange man had suddenly appeared by the roadside. The guards had barely raised their rifles to warn him when he collapsed on his own.

Two of the bolder men cautiously approached and found that he looked half-dead already.

His entire body was covered in blood, and he had clearly suffered severe injuries. The wound on his back alone was enough to make their stomachs turn.

For a moment, the guards hesitated over what to do.

Should they simply put a bullet in him, or leave him lying there?

Another guard carefully stepped forward, raised his long rifle, and used the barrel to slowly roll Stephen onto his back.

As Stephen turned over, something resembling a small booklet slipped out.

“Huh? What’s this?”

The guard picked it up and glanced at it.

“Stephen Johnson? Bounty hunter?”

It was the pass Sam had once issued to Stephen, containing his basic information.

Stephen had deliberately let it fall.

He wanted to know whether these guards recognized his name.

If they didn’t, things would be much easier.

If they did...

“Stephen Johnson? Why does that name sound familiar?”

The guard looked back at his companions.

“Any of you know who he is?”

“He’s with the Van der Linde Gang!”

One of the guards behind them suddenly remembered and immediately raised his rifle at Stephen.

“Mr. Milton told us before we left. The Van der Linde Gang has a bounty hunter with them!”

“I remember now! He’s the Berserker of Lemoyne!”

The guards instantly became tense.

And honestly, no one could blame them.

Stephen had built quite a reputation for himself in Rhodes.

The Berserker of Lemoyne was one of the targets Milton had specifically warned them about before the operation.

A bounty hunter who had appeared out of nowhere. A vicious killer whose methods were said to be utterly brutal.

Rumor had it that in Rhodes, he had slaughtered hundreds of Lemoyne bandits in a single day, leaving blood running through the streets.

Worse still, many of the people he killed hadn’t even been left in one piece. Arms, legs, even heads had been severed.

Stephen, still lying there pretending to be unconscious, sighed inwardly.

At this point, there was no hiding who he was anymore.

Then again, that wasn’t surprising.

He had caused so much trouble in Rhodes that it would have been stranger if no one had heard of him.

After watching Stephen remain completely motionless for a while, the guards finally relaxed.

“Damn, we really got lucky. This bastard practically delivered himself to us!”

The guards immediately broke into grins.

“He’s not officially wanted, but Mr. Milton said he’d personally pay a reward if anyone managed to capture him.”

Heh.

So this Mr. Milton really did think highly of him.

The guards laughed among themselves.

There might be several of them, but Stephen’s bounty was still worth plenty.

And he had practically fallen into their laps.

Who wouldn’t be happy about that?

Milton?

Milton...

Why did that name sound so familiar?

Stephen searched his memory.

Where had he heard it before?

Right.

The train station.

Stephen remembered.

South of Valentine, at Flatneck Station, he had once run into a senior Pinkerton agent.

So it was that bastard who had followed them all the way here.

“Let’s carry him inside and tie him up first!”

The guards quickly made their decision.

“Once all this other business is over, we’ll hand him over to Mr. Milton.”

Meanwhile, Juan, hiding aboard the ship, had heard every word.

The moment he realized they intended to take Stephen away, he knew he couldn’t stay hidden any longer.

Without hesitation, he sprang from the ship, raised his dagger high, and drove it into the back of one of the guards.

The blade plunged in at the base of the man’s neck, and with Juan’s full weight behind it, tore down across his back.

Blood erupted like a fountain, spraying Juan across the face and chest.

The wounded guard let out a horrific scream, startling everyone ahead of him.

The others turned around and froze at the gruesome sight.

They had all killed before.

But they had rarely seen someone die like that.

Stephen immediately understood.

Juan was giving him an opening.

And Stephen wasn’t stupid enough to waste it.

If he didn’t move now, Juan would be riddled with bullets in the next second.

More importantly, the commotion had made every guard turn their back on him.

If not now, then when?

Stephen clenched his teeth and forced himself upright, ignoring the agony ripping through his wounds.

With a sharp hiss, his long knife left its sheath.

He lunged forward and drove the blade straight into the back of the nearest guard.

Stephen was badly injured, and days of travel had drained nearly half his strength.

Fortunately, the long knife in his hands was exceptionally sharp, its point easily capable of piercing armor, let alone the human body.

Human flesh offered even less resistance.

The blade punched clean through the man’s abdomen.

Stephen gripped the hilt and twisted hard, shredding the man’s insides.

That alone was enough to kill him.

Stephen shoved the body aside, gripped the knife with both hands, took a long step forward, and swung at the next man.

From the moment Juan had leaped out and killed the first guard to Stephen’s sudden attack, no more than three or four seconds had passed.

Two guards were already dead.

Only then did the rest realize they were under attack.

But by then, they had already lost control of the situation.

With enemies on both sides, they had no idea which way to turn.

Two reckless guards charged at Juan with their rifles, apparently intending to fight him hand-to-hand.

The remaining three tried to fire, but their own men blocked their line of sight.

And Stephen had already reached them from behind.

Five left.

Stephen stared at the three men in front of him and swung again.

The tip of his blade swept across one man’s throat.

A thin line of blood appeared.

The guard instinctively dropped his weapon and clutched his neck with both hands, as if he could somehow close the wound himself.

It was useless.

Four.

Stephen rushed the next guard.

The man hurled his rifle directly at him.

Stephen twisted aside, but the guard used that brief opening to draw the revolver at his waist.

Stephen’s eyes turned cold as he saw the man raise his right hand.

He charged straight at him, watching the hand holding the gun.

Just as the guard was about to pull the trigger, Stephen suddenly shifted to the right.

Then he raised the knife high with both hands and brought it down.

One strike.

Just one.

The blade severed the guard’s right arm cleanly at the elbow.

As the slash finished, Stephen reversed the blade and ripped it upward again, cutting from the man’s abdomen toward his chest.

Three.

Compared to Stephen, Juan was having a much worse time.

He didn’t have Stephen’s skill.

Facing two men at once, he could barely defend himself.

Fortunately, Juan had a vicious streak of his own.

He ignored the man behind him punching and kicking at him and kept his eyes fixed on the one directly in front of him.

After taking four or five blows from behind, Juan finally found an opening and buried his dagger in the man’s throat.

Two left.

“AAAAH! YOU MONSTER! I’LL KILL YOU!”

Watching his companions die one after another finally drove one of the remaining guards over the edge.

People reacted to fear in different ways.

Some froze.

Some panicked.

Some ran.

Others went mad.

This guard was clearly the last kind.

With a roar, he charged Stephen from behind.

Under normal circumstances, Stephen could have dodged him easily and ended the fight with a single slash.

But right now, his arms and legs were weak, and the pain wracking his entire body had slowed his reactions more than ever before.

For a moment, he failed to react at all.

By the time he did, the guard had already slammed into him and knocked him flat.

The man’s heavy body crashed down on top of Stephen.

By sheer bad luck, one of his arms landed directly on the wound in Stephen’s back.

Even a man made of iron would have struggled with that.

Stephen was still only flesh and blood.

His vision instantly went black, and he nearly passed out.

Pain.

It hurt like hell.

“AAAAH! I’LL KILL YOU, YOU BASTARD!”

Seeing Stephen struggling to breathe, the guard became even more frenzied.

He pressed his full weight onto Stephen and began hammering his fist directly into the wound on his back.

“DIE! WHY WON’T YOU FUCKING DIE?!”

Once.

Twice.

Three times...

Since arriving in this world, Stephen had never felt death this close.

Blood sprayed from the wound with every blow.

Soon, blood even began spilling from his mouth.

For a moment, he couldn’t even keep hold of his knife.

No.

Not yet.

He couldn’t pass out now.

Stephen gritted his teeth, dug both hands into the dirt, and summoned every bit of strength he had left.

With a violent heave, he threw the man off his back.

Stephen seized his knife again and lunged.

The guard struggled to rise, but before he could get to his feet, Stephen drove the long knife straight through his chest.

One left.

Stephen gasped desperately for air and forced himself to look back.

He had nothing left.

Juan was wrestling the last guard to the ground, both hands locked around the man’s throat.

The guard thrashed wildly, clawing bloody gashes into Juan’s arms.

But Juan’s hands might as well have been welded around his neck.

No matter how hard the man fought, Juan refused to let go.

Gradually, the struggling weakened.

Then stopped entirely.

Only then did both Stephen and Juan collapse to the ground.

“Boss? Boss, are you okay?”

Juan took several ragged breaths, then forced himself upright and limped over.

He had been stabbed in the leg during the fight.

Fortunately, the blade had missed the artery.

Gritting his teeth, Juan hauled Stephen up.

Looking at his boss covered from head to toe in blood, he didn’t even know what to say.

Not even during the last battle in Rhodes had Stephen been hurt this badly.

“Boss, let me get you onto the ship first. I’ll bandage you up!”

By now, Stephen couldn’t even answer.

Repeated injuries and severe blood loss were dragging his consciousness away.

Juan got Stephen aboard first, then frantically started searching the ship.

Praise God.

Praise Javier.

That man really had thought of everything.

Inside a small box in the cabin were bandages and medicine for stopping bleeding.

Juan grabbed the medicine, stared at the countless wounds covering Stephen’s body, and froze.

Where was he even supposed to start?

Screw it.

Just use all of it.

Juan gritted his teeth, opened the bottle, and poured the medicine all over Stephen.

He looked like he was seasoning a roast.

After Juan wrapped Stephen in bandages yet again, Stephen slowly regained consciousness.

“They... still aren’t here?”

Stephen asked weakly.

He was talking about Hosea and the others.

Juan glanced outside.

“No. Nobody’s here yet.”

“Boss, forget about them for now. Let me finish patching you up.”

When Stephen tried to sit up, Juan shoved him back down and grabbed another roll of bandages.

After working for quite a while, he finally finished wrapping Stephen up.

The moment he was done, Juan collapsed onto the floor.

Stephen looked terrible, but Juan wasn’t in much better shape himself.

These Pinkerton gunmen were trained fighters.

They ate well, rested well, and every one of them was strong and solidly built.

Juan, on the other hand, had only spent the last two months with Stephen living without worrying about his next meal.

Physically, the difference between them was enormous.

His entire body was covered in bruises.

He had two knife wounds.

And his arms were even worse.

They were covered in bloody scratches and cuts.

Juan sat there panting, grabbed a tomato from a nearby basket, and bit into it.

The cool, sour juice burst across his tongue and immediately cleared his head a little.

“Whew...”

“Come on, guys... hurry up already...”

“If a few more of them show up, we’re not going to hold out...”