Chapter 3 – The Fierce God Descends on the Fort
The morning after our second night at the fort.
And so, one way and another, we were walking the fort’s interior, taking stock of how things stood. The place was a walled fortress, and just now we were up on the passage that ran along the top of the wall. Being up on the wall, that passage would be the front line if the fort came under attack. Naturally it had its share of clever fixtures for dropping arrows and stones from above, and on that score I’d call it neither good nor bad.
“Still, Ephthal-sama? You bore that remarkably well, back there.”
“Best to leave that sort be. He didn’t do anyone any harm.”
I’ve a personality that makes enemies easily myself, but a man who raises hell around the clock is just a lunatic, when it comes to it.
“Besides, it works out nicely.”
“Nicely?”
“Stay here and the tribe holding the Scarlet of Hades comes to us, doesn’t it? If anything, I ought to be glad they’ve saved me the trouble of getting inside the fort.”
“Well, that’s true enough… But what do you make of this, Ephthal-sama?”
Merlin held out the layout map she’d been glowering at a moment before. Ah, incidentally, it seems I’m being treated as a quasi-noble of the barest possible sort. Which is precisely why we’d been handed the planned deployment map against the tribe in advance.
“The militia are treated abominably. That’s the long and short of it.”
Inside the wall a number of wooden fences had already been strung up, a formation that took it as given the gate would be breached. Up on the wall and around the gate, it was almost all militia, adventurers and the like, while the regular troops would form their main camp on the inner side of the fences.
“Cannon fodder… you mean to say. Just the sort of thing Orgren would dream up…”
“The adventurers will get quite a shock the moment they’re posted, especially the militia stationed around the fences.”
“Indeed,” Merlin muttered, all but spitting the word.
“The militia are close-combat armed, on the outer side of the fences, and behind the fences a great many of the regular army’s archers are massed. Throw the delaying militia at the tribe once they’ve broken the gate and come charging in high on their success… and rain arrows on the pair of them, I should think.”
“It might be a fair way to knock the wind out of an enemy who’s already tasting a mopping-up, but it’s utterly without character. And that, over there, is no good either.”
“That…?”
Where I pointed, behind the fences a great mass of pots had been set out.
“Oil pots.”
As she caught my meaning, the blood drained from Merlin’s face.
“Militia and tribe alike, flung into a sea of arrows and fire… a scene straight out of hell, I’d say.”
“There’s more that troubles me. Going by the disposition, if it comes to it the regulars even have arrangements to slip out through a hidden passage.”
For a fort of this kind to keep an escape route ready for the upper ranks is common enough. As I studied the layout closely, a special intent of one sort or another gradually showed through, beneath the surface. This one was fairly easy to read, so easy, in fact, that it turned my stomach.
“That man… uses commoners for cannon fodder, and speaks of a noble’s pride. What gall.”
“And we’re slotted neatly into the militia positions, at that. Did it never occur to him we might complain, looking at this map?”
“Are we not being made light of? On the assumption that we’d never grasp it, no doubt.”
Haah… As I let out a sigh, footsteps and a voice reached me from behind.
“A fine read… have the pair of you studied military strategy?”
Mid-fifties, at a guess. An eyepatch over one eye, long white hair swept straight back, and a huge frame that spoke of a warrior seasoned in many battles.
“No, we’ve never studied it… but are you one of the fort’s regular soldiers?”
“Aye, Angus, the deputy captain. And yet you’ve never studied it… well, well, that’s something. You especially look no more than mid-teens, and to read this much from the map alone, with no briefing on the plan, I’m impressed.”
Well, I’ve been through a real battlefield any number of times, and the same goes for Merlin. And it truly isn’t much of a read.
“Personally, I’ve a great deal to say about this plan… and as the deputy captain, might your position do something about it?”
Meeting my reproachful look, Angus-san shrank his great frame down small and gave an apologetic little bow.
“My apologies. Were I still captain… I’d not permit an outrage like this.”
“Still captain… you say?”
“Half a year ago, this fort was taken once by the tribe. We managed to retake it somehow, but the gate and walls are slapdash, thrown up in a rush. Which is why the true camp is pitched within the grounds.”
“…And? Why are you the deputy captain now? We’ve exchanged only these few words… but I’d say you’re the better man for it than your present captain.”
“When the fort fell, I was the one in command here. A mixed host of anything and everything, tribe, monsters, undead, assaulted us, and in fighting strength we hadn’t a hope. The soldiers garrisoned here were wiped out to a man.”
“That the tribe use monsters, I understand. But, undead?”
“Aye. Necromancy… high-order forbidden magic. Where the tribe came by such a technique I don’t know… but the men stationed at the fort were annihilated.”
So it’s as I thought, I suppose. The Scarlet of Hades is, in effect, a kind of magic-power tank for a necromancer, and that’s about the only use it has. I’d wondered why the tribe would want such a thing, and it turns out that was the use after all.
“But the story is that everyone was wiped out. So how is it you’re alive?”
At the words, Angus-san slowly looked up at the sky and gave a self-mocking little laugh.
“A death-squad was formed, and some of us were to break out of the encircled fort and carry a plea for aid to the capital. By the time I reached it, I was the only one left. And when I came back with the relief force… there was no one of our own still alive. So I alone survived, shamelessly, and here I go on, a living disgrace.”
“…Is it possible… that you’re looking for a place to die, on the battlefield?”
At that, Angus-san’s eyes went wide with surprise.
“How… did you know that?”
“One look at your build and I can tell you’re a veteran of many fights. But right now you don’t have the eyes of a warrior going into battle. Worn down to nothing… the eyes of a man contemplating his own death. And, forgive me, placing yourself on a battlefield in search of a place to die makes no atonement whatever to the men who fell. Or so I’d have thought.”
“…Truly a strange boy. I feel as though I’m talking with the Satori, that creature out of eastern legend. But it does make atonement, I think.”
“Meaning?”
“It was in the guard journal that survived. That sending the captain for reinforcements had been a mistake.”
“A mistake?”
“Aye, there was a line saying we don’t need reinforcements, so come back. That, most likely, was a bitter reproach aimed at me, the one man who lived. If we’re to die, then let us all die together, myself included. To have saved yourself, and only yourself… a curse to that effect, I should think.”
Angus-san gazed off at the far morning sun and murmured, all strength gone from his voice.
“They were subordinates I’d doted on once. We ate from the same pot, close as family. I’ve grown tired… of being wracked by nightmares. Ha, I never imagined I’d be worn down quite this thoroughly.”
Then he made the best cheerful smile he could and clapped his hands together.
“Now, enough of the maudlin talk. And though I seek a place to die, I mean to fall only after giving my all. I intend to save as many of your lives as I possibly can.”
“Our lives?”
“Aye. I’ve volunteered as commander of you militia. It’s the least atonement I can make for failing to save them, that time. I want to keep as many of you alive as I can. Or, even should you die, I’ll not let those creatures do as they please with your bodies… not as they did with them.”
“Your bodies, you say?”
“A custom of the tribe. They carry off an enemy’s corpse and drink while they look on it. Sometimes it’s the head they take, I hear, but in this fort’s case, every last body was carried away.”
Even in Japan’s warring-states age there were tales of carrying off an enemy’s head as proof, to claim a reward. But… well, this is a far uglier business than that. And there Angus-san gave me a little bow.
“Honestly, I’d like to tell you that you’re free to flee… but given my position, I can’t quite do that. There’s a grain of reason in what the present captain says, as well.”
“If you carry a sword, then work for the nation, that sort of thing.”
“Aye. I’m sorry to ask it, but I’d have you help with tonight’s raid. That it means defending the realm is… also the truth.”
“Well, I’ve no objection to that.”
“Then I’ll count on you tonight.”
And with that, looking apologetic, Angus-san took his leave.
“So, Merlin, back to where we started. Ethics of throwing the militia to the front aside, what do you make of this formation, purely as a formation?”
“Against a human enemy, a scorched-earth tactic that takes your own side down with them would be effective. On the premise that we set the ethics aside, that is.”
“Mm. I think so too.”
“But if the enemy is a beast-tamer…”
Merlin fell silent a while, then let out a small sigh.
“I can only say they don’t understand what a monster is.”
⁂
And then, the night of the new moon.
On the wildly arbitrary grounds that Maria carried a bow, we’d been posted as guards atop the wall. Well, this is the front line for a breach of the gate, so it suits well enough for keeping the militia’s losses as low as possible.
As for how the fort’s regulars had guessed the tribe would strike tonight, the reason is very simple. As a rule, the tribe’s fighting strength divides into two.
One is human beings. The other is monsters.
The beast-tamer’s way of fighting has no shortage of drawbacks. To wield monsters as a force, for instance, is to take losses among your own from their rampaging as a given. And for an ordinary nation to fold monsters into a standing army would mean keeping them, like horses, in the regions where people live. Using them only on the battlefield might just barely pass, but keeping monsters in a town is no good, for public order and for the residents’ feelings alike.
On that count, the tribe is a gathering of people who make their living by rough trades, and they pitch their homes in mountains forever teeming with demonkind besides. So among the tribe, the beast-tamer’s method is fairly popular, and rational too.
And as for why the new moon, a monster’s ferocity shifts with the waxing and waning of the moon. It’s not so far from the werewolf legends: the nearer the full moon, the more savage they grow. So for a tribe whose strength is largely monsters, a new moon becoming an absolute condition is only natural.
Naturally, one could turn that around and set a defense to match, but the other side knows all of that perfectly well. Which makes it hard to believe this defensive line, built on the premise of the last raid, will work as intended. This kingdom tends to make light of the tribe’s wits, but I, who spent my adventurers’-guild days hunting bandits and thieves up and down, know better. They’ve no character to speak of, but at fighting they’re professionals. In this formation, most likely, they’d be torn to pieces without our help.
“Ephthal-sama?”
“Aye, just as expected.”
Gazing off at the far sky from atop the wall, Merlin and I nodded to each other. And there Maria tilted her head, puzzled.
“Hold on, what do you mean? I’m not some superhuman like you, Ephthal, so out there in the dark all I can see is… nothing but blackness, that far off.”
“Ah, sorry. Let me lay out the situation, then.”
Not only Maria, Anastasia and Sheryl gave small nods too.
“In the last raid the tribe used monsters and struck with a small force. Goblins and orcs, mainly, with giant-kind like giant apes used as a decisive weapon to break the gate, that’s the shape of it, wasn’t it?”
“Yes, that’s how it was told, and the traces of the fight suggest the same.”
“They rely on ambush and surprise. And they can only make full use of their strength on a new moon, that’s a constraint too, isn’t it? Yet last time they broke off after little more than a probe and went home.”
“…What does that mean?”
“With a constraint like that, the orthodox play is to finish it in a single blow. Put us on our guard and let us prepare countermeasures, and, thinking plainly, the situation only worsens for them, doesn’t it?”
“Well, that’s true… so, in short, what does it mean?”
“The last raid, that itself was the trap.”
I pointed at the far night sky, and Merlin gave a small nod.
“Gargoyles carrying tribesmen. Around a hundred of them, and with that much strength on hand, they deliberately didn’t use it last time. They mean to settle it tonight, and by their reckoning, this defense doesn’t account for a surprise from the air at all. Then, as a separate force, the same goblins and the rest as a ground assault, and in the middle of the fighting, arrows raining from overhead. That’ll be the tribe’s script, near enough.”
And there Merlin laughed, exasperated.
“Their side means to bathe us and their own goblins alike in a storm of arrows, and our side means to bathe them and our own militia alike in a storm of arrows. Ironic, isn’t it.”
“And that their arrow-storm plan looks the more effective one, now that’s a poor show, truly.”
“What shall we do, Ephthal-sama?”
“As planned from the start. We move with the protection of the militia, dragged into this for nothing, as our first priority.”
“Concretely, wipe out the tribe’s ground force at once, then follow with anti-air magic to annihilate the gargoyles?”
“Mm. For the moment… yes.”
Watching the gargoyles’ movements, I fell to thinking. Their shapes weren’t visible yet, but the enemy’s ground force closing through the forest would beyond doubt come flooding at the fort’s gate, that much was certain. Where the aerial force would head, though, I couldn’t be sure. By the book, they’d loose an arrow-storm from above onto the wall and the gate during the fighting, to strip the defenders of their power to resist. But from the air the whole of our formation would be plain at a glance. A commander with any wits would see that the strength around the gate and wall was cannon fodder, cut off from the main chain of command. In which case, they might judge on the spot to make straight for the keep, throw our command into disorder, and sow confusion. Well, either way, what we do doesn’t change. In any case, the order of who to protect is Anastasia and the others, the militia, then the regulars.
“Ephthal. I can see them now too… an incredible number of gargoyles.”
“That’s an elf archer for you. Good eyes.”
Maria had her bow out, burning with resolve in what looked like an anti-air stance, so I hastily stayed her hand.
“No, they’re out of reach from here. You needn’t mind them for now.”
“What do you mean? Aren’t they coming here, to us?”
“I thought they might be, but… they haven’t dropped their altitude yet. By the feel of it they’re making for the regulars inside the fort. For now, let’s give everything to the tribe’s beast-tamer ground force.”
“Eh? But then the regulars are in real trouble, aren’t they?”
And there Sheryl cut in, flat and hard.
“…A soldier is one who has resolved himself to fight. That Ephthal means to save them in the end at all is a stroke of fortune they should be grateful for.”
And so the flock of gargoyles passed straight over the wall and the gate, just as I’d said, and pressed on through the sky toward the interior of the fort.
“But Ephthal? Couldn’t you blast them all in one shot? You know, something like a Level 10 or 9?”
“They’re too scattered to finish in one strike. And there are limits on hurling super-wide-area magic in a barrage besides… don’t tell me you’ve mistaken me for some monster with bottomless magic power, Maria?”
“Eh?! You mean you’re not?!”
Startled at me with a perfectly straight face. No, you’re a mage yourself, so surely you can work that much out… What on earth do you take me for. If that were possible, the mages of ancient days would all have been men who could face down a great nation single-handed. “And besides…”
“Besides?”
“The Scarlet of Hades is on my mind. If that artifact makes an appearance… wearing our strength down with large-scale magic early on ties directly to the danger you’re all in. There are priorities, and as Sheryl said, if they’re regulars they ought to have resolved themselves.”
Then, after a while, the moment came. With a whish, whish, whish of cutting wind, arrows were loosed from the sky at the interior of the fort, inside the fences. Men fell in a clatter amid screams, and the regulars scrambled to flee into the buildings. On the soldiers too slow to escape, the mercy-less reaper called an arrowhead came pouring down. And in that pandemonium of ringing screams, the tribe pressed their advantage further. Oil pots came flung down here and there, a volatile, sharp reek drifting even to us. Then a dull, heavy blast. Fire arrows loosed from above onto the flammable liquid strewn across the ground. And the oil pots we’d prepared caught as well, blast after blast erupting, and the scene turned into a very picture of hell.
“This is smoother work from the enemy than I’d figured.”
“Yes, Ephthal-sama. Even trying to get out of the buildings they’ve fled into, they can’t easily, for the storm of fire and arrows. If we don’t move to help soon… the buildings will fill with the burned dead. Shall I strike out alone into the forest and sweep the goblins?”
“No, the Scarlet of Hades is still on my mind. I’d have you be the last shield for Anastasia and the rest. And besides—”
“Besides?”
“We needn’t go to them. Before long they’ll come to us.”
As Merlin and I were talking, Maria put a puzzled question.
“Say, Ephthal? The tribesmen riding the gargoyles, they seem to be dipping the ordinary arrows into pots before they loose them. What’s that about?”
“You really do have good eyes, Maria.”
At the words she threw out her flat chest, proud.
“I didn’t hunt the woods and grasslands since I was a child for nothing. So, what are they smearing on the arrows?”
“Ah. Rotted human waste.”
“…Waste? Why would they do that?”
“Germs. Even a light wound… quickly develops into tetanus and takes a man out of the fight. Tending the wounded wears the regulars down too, so it’s ideal for whittling away strength.”
As she turned it over, the color drained from Maria’s face.
“That’s a filthy… thing to do.”
“A stock tactic of the battlefield. This isn’t a game, it’s war.”
At that Anastasia gave a great nod.
“Fufu, I’d use poison, myself!”
“Poison’s dear and takes effort to make. So… it’s cheap, free human waste instead.”
Anastasia thought a while, then shook her head with a little “mgh…”
“…I see, then.”
For the moment, the business of smearing waste on arrows had clearly given Maria no small shock. But Anastasia seemed to take it as a matter of course. If anything, she looked ready to call it soft.
—Yes, this child really is frightening.
Even I thought “ugh…” the first time I brushed against knowledge of this sort, but from Anastasia I get no such sense at all.
“Wh-whoa, Ephthal?!”
“What is it now, Maria?”
“The tribe and goblins you said would come out of the deep forest are coming, but…”
Face blank, she pointed weakly across the way. And seeing it, I let out a long, deep sigh, and a loathing and anger welled up from the pit of my stomach.
“Yeah, that, of all things, I never get used to, however many times I see it.”
“When a monster does that, I can just about understand. But the tribe are human too, aren’t they? How can they… do something like that?”
Maria had a hand over her mouth, ashen, looking about to be sick. Well, that’s an ordinary person’s reaction. The first time I saw it long ago, I actually vomited.
“…I see. So this is the tribe. With this, I can loose killing magic without a shred of hesitation.”
Biting her lip as she said it was Sheryl, with her, anger seemed to win out over disgust.
“…There are, after all, things one may do and things one may not, I think.”
Good. Truly, good. That the blood had drained from Anastasia’s face, truly, I was glad. If she’d taken in that sight and stayed unruffled, I wouldn’t have known how to handle this child.
“So, Ephthal? What, really, what, is that? What… is that…?”
“Human corpses, as you can see, flesh and organs, cut to pieces.”
Yes, it was a forbidden tableau. Wired to the great shields the goblin vanguard of the tribe held aloft were severed heads and limbs and viscera.
“I can see that much for myself! What I’m asking is why they’d do such a thing!”
“A classic, common tactic, and one the tribe favor especially. The main aim is to instill fear.”
At my words Anastasia nodded.
“Fear spreads to your side and hands the win to the enemy… in that sense, I think it’s effective.”
“Mm. That’s right, Anastasia.”
“Wh… eh? What do you mean?”
“Tell me, Maria, don’t you think suggesting a man’s own end at the very start of a fight is effective? Cutting down the back of a fleeing foe, or cutting down one who stands and comes at you, which is easier is plain enough.”
“No, anyone who stands on a battlefield isn’t going to bolt just from seeing something like that.”
“It’s a matter of later. The moment the odds turn even a little bad, this sight we’re looking at now starts to bite. I don’t want to end up like that, and while everyone’s enduring it, if a single man breaks and runs, the rest collapse from there. That’s the worst pattern, the one I’ve seen play out any number of times.”
Catching what I meant, Maria clicked her tongue.
“Still, I can’t forgive them. People who do that sort of thing… never.”
She’d been blank enough at first that I’d feared she’d lost the will to fight, but she seemed to have shaken herself, trembling with anger, into something like fire.
“Ephthal-sama? Have you noticed?”
“Mm. I know there’s a beast-tamer, but we should take it as too well done.”
When they’re wielded by humans, humanoid monsters like goblins and orcs often carry the gear of heavy infantry. But in this case—
“It’s new. And it looks customized for monsters, on top of that. Bluntly, it’s better gear than our own regulars have.”
“Yes. Plainly the hand of a nation at a high level of craft.”
“…The story was that the tribe are stirring, wasn’t it? Merlin, how do you read this?”
“That the tribe would assault a fort at all, that they’d pick a fight with a nation, and folding that in, I’d rather not think about what all this means.”
“Aye, my thoughts exactly. And, Merlin? Because of the Scarlet of Hades matter I’ll watch them to the last possible moment, but, use around Level 6 water magic to halt the flames, and save the regulars.”
“Understood.”
Now then, a siege-engine battering ram had come out of the forest too, and the vanguard goblins’ assault looked about to begin. And so I snapped my fingers toward Anastasia and the others.
“M-Master? What did you do? Just now… the wind went all soft…”
“The wind spirits’ protection. It’ll turn a stray arrow or so right back, but don’t put too much faith in it. And, there’s no telling what may happen, so take it that Merlin’s and my support ends with this, apart from this first bit. Act each on your own judgment.”
Then I gave a great nod and went on.
“Now, it’s your first battle.”
Deputy Captain Angus’s Perspective
“Gargoyles… you say?!”
Onto the main camp, from the sky, arrows poured down like rain, no, like a storm. Screams echoed through the fort, and in an instant the regulars fell into panic, fleeing into the buildings soaked in blood.
“…This is bad.”
Explosion after explosion, and the flames spread in the blink of an eye. As the fire ran wild, unease spread through the militia atop the wall as well, and I gathered that some of them had already begun laying plans to flee. Then, off in the forest, the shapes of the tribe’s beast-tamers, goblins at their head, came into view.
“Hey, hey, what do we do?!”
“The bigwigs behind us are in ruins from the sky, and from the front a huge number of monsters and foreign tribesmen—!”
“We were forced into this to begin with, dragged here! To hell with it, we run!”
And there a heavy, low voice rang out in a great, great bellow.
“Run where?! Don’t talk rot! We fight here, we hold, and we carve out a way through! Panic now and we’re playing right into the tribe’s hands!”
The last man, the eldest of an adventurer band, and by the look of him the leader of some party. At his roar, the group recovered their calm and seemed to steel themselves.
As you’d expect of the adventurers, I thought. Because they wager their lives for coin, they know well the arts of survival. Already surrounded by monsters and tribe, they’d find even flight difficult. To hold here now, watching the regulars for a chance at a counterattack, and pluck the chestnuts from the fire, that looked to me as well the best course.
But, I thought. The color in the adventurer-leader’s face was poor, no vigor in his expression.
Nine times in ten, the face of a man resolved to die.
Small wonder. Undecided as the situation still was, at his back the flames were rising, and the main body of regulars was near enough beaten.
“Hold, regardless! The regulars are only rattled by the surprise! The chance to turn and counterattack will surely come!”
At the leader’s words the whole group answered with a roaring “Aye!” In truth, not one of them took his words in earnest, I’d wager. And yet they answered aye all the same. It’s a thing that must be done to survive, I suppose, rousing themselves and those around them with that roar. And before I knew it, I’d answered their courage with a salute.
A man who seeks a path through a place of death is, to a man who seeks a place to die, unexpectedly dazzling.
And there one of the adventurers gave a cry close to a scream. Following their gaze, I bit my lip without meaning to, and the taste of iron spread through my mouth.
“Wh-what are those things?!”
“Corpses lashed… to their shields?”
“This is a war-craft of old, they’re stoking our fear.”
The tribe’s device had told, it seemed; the adventurers, poor of color to begin with, went whiter still. Then, from among the band, one man threw out a name.
“Everyone, I’m a C-ra… no. The A-rank adventurer, Edwards of the Mad Flame!”
“An A-rank? Why’s a man like that here?!”
“No, didn’t he just now tell me he was C-rank?!”
At the words, Edwards laughed a “fufufu.”
“There’s a reason I called myself C-rank. On account of certain matters, my father bade me stay humble and quiet… but in a situation like this, there’s no help for it! Now, everyone! Come and survive alongside me!”
“Survive, what do you mean to do? And is he really A-rank?”
“Hmm… I’ve a memory of… yes. Probably, no, definitely! I’ve seen that man running with the A-rank lot at the capital guild! That’s it, he’s Edwards, the A-rank adventurer, sure enough!”
“Ooh! You’re serious?!”
“So, what do we do, Edwards-san?!”
“We punch out toward the forest all together, in a single mass! Break through the enemy’s ring at one point and slip away! Yes, with an A-rank mage’s rear support, the support magic of this Edwards of the Mad Flame, there’s no encirclement we can’t escape!”
At Edwards’s words, roughly half of them lit up in the eyes. The way this is going… is no good. Because they wager their lives for coin, they’re keen to danger. It’s precisely because they treat their own deaths always as merchandise that they’ll take even so transparent a bit of bravado as before, half knowing there’s no winning, and yet, because it’s all they have, they’ll play along. So then, suggest another chance at survival, and?
“If an A-rank can get us out, maybe we really do live!”
“I’m in! I’m with Edwards-san!”
“Me too!”
“Now, everyone! Good deeds done quickly! Level 2: Wind Cushion!”
A cushion of air formed at the foot of the wall, and, following Edwards, the adventurers leapt down from the wall one after another. Half went with him, half stood there stunned, about an even split.
“You… don’t go?”
I called to the adventurer-leader from before. Most of those who stayed looked to be blank with shock, rueing the chance at flight they’d let slip, but this one man alone seemed cut from different cloth.
“Ha, the regulars’ deputy captain, saying that to me?”
“Aye. I’ll not blame you if you go. If A-rank is the truth, the odds of surviving are better on his side.”
“I’ve a bad feeling, is all. I look like this, but where living and dying’s concerned… my nose is keen.”
The adventurer-leader said it and shrugged, playing the fool.
As for Edwards’s band, they meant, it seemed, to drive forward in tight formation into a horde of goblins armed with sword and mail.
“Take this, you filthy ogre!”
“Aghh!”
The lead man crushed a goblin’s skull with a battle-axe, but this is no good. He alone had thrust out ahead of the packed formation. And, sure enough, goblins came clinging to him from the flank, one after another.
“Damn it, there’s too many! Hey, Edwards-san! Cover me!”
“Everyone! Leave the man swarmed by goblins and run straight on through!”
“Wha—?! You—you bastard—?!”
“Should I come to danger, I’ll use magic in due form. I only say I won’t waste shots. Magic power is finite!”
“This son of a—! Hey, wait! Wait, all of you! Don’t leave me! Gyaaaaah!”
It took less than ten seconds for the man to be swarmed by goblins, dragged down, and beaten and stabbed to a pulp. And there, from atop the trees, several goblins came dropping onto the band. One of them was on a direct course for Edwards, and he loosed a fire area-spell up into the air.
“Gyagh!”
“Agiiiii!”
“Ooh, that’s our Edwards-san! Incredible!”
“But if you won’t cover us properly, there’s no point, is there? We could turn back to the fort even now—”
“Ha, everyone, be at ease! I too can’t afford to lose all my flesh-walls to flight. That fort turning to hell is only a matter of time, think carefully which side profits you!”
“Damn it… he’s got us by the throat!”
And yet the band’s feet didn’t stop, if anything they picked up speed. It seemed they’d resolved themselves.
“That’s it! Now, drive on! Dawdle, and the dead only pile higher!”
As he spoke, goblins came dropping from the trees again. And since it was a fair distance from Edwards, this time he used no magic.
“Damn goblins, agh!”
“Ugyaaah!”
Two men set upon by goblins fell with a thud, and heedless of them, Edwards’s band ran on. “Wait, wait for me… gwaaaah!”
Ah, what a thing. I’ve seen many sights on the battlefield, but it’s been a while since anything this vile. And as my head went light and swimming, Edwards’s band, leaving several corpses behind, vanished into the depths of the forest.
“They’ve gone… so, what do we do, deputy captain?”
To the question I shrugged and answered.
“Rain every arrow we have on the goblins, from here. There’s nothing else.”
“Ha, now that’s a fearsome bit of command. My common wits would never have hit on it.”
The adventurer-leader let out a good grief sort of sigh.
“My apologies. In this situation there’s no other course to take.”
“Well, if you said such a thing when another way existed, I’d knock you flat and take command myself.”
And then, in silence, they began gathering up the bows and arrows Edwards’s band had cast aside. To do what can be done to survive. In that, this man understood truly well what needed doing. All we can do now is rain arrows from atop this wall.
Then, after a while, the surviving adventurers began to stir again. Because, the goblins spilling out of the forest one after another suddenly halted where they stood and drove spears into the corpses Edwards’s band had left behind. They dragged out the entrails, and then, with knives, set to severing the heads and limbs.
“Gigi, gigigi!”
“Gugu, guguguu, gugugu!”
“Deputy captain? Are they… laughing?”
“Aye, no mistaking it.”
“Toying with the corpses… you mean?”
“No, that’s not it. A monster gives no thought to instilling fear in us. They’re only—”
The goblins hacked off the corpses’ limbs, cut them, tore them apart, and then, jaws gaping wide, bit down on the gobbets of flesh.
“—making it easier to eat. That the tribe’s beast-tamers don’t stop that behavior is surely a calculation of the effect on our will to fight.”
A cold sweat showed on the adventurer-leader’s face. The fire at our backs was strengthening too, and the regulars’ state was turning grim indeed.
The situation is near its end.
But he, he truly seemed to know, even now, exactly what had to be done.
“Ha, hahaha! Base creatures do things basely, don’t they! We’re the adventuring trade, and we wager life and death on coin! Right, lads?! A cheap scare like that won’t—”
The man puffed out his chest in the loudest bluster he could manage, then swept his eyes over his surroundings and fell dumb.
“You… lot?”
“Say, leader? Are we… going to end up… like that too?”
At the question, the man bit his lip.
“…Perhaps we are.”
He’d realized, no doubt, that rousing them was useless now. The man threw up both hands, all nothing for it.
“Still, the fire behind us is a half-hearted burn, eh? If it’s going to go, it may as well blaze up good and proper for the send-off… that’d be the stylish thing for a last stage!”
Whistling, weakly, the adventurer-leader took a bow in his hand.
“So, buy time till it burns higher and higher, and we’ve a fine curtain-fall! Come on, I’ll rain down every arrow we’ve got!”
And then, behind the goblins, the shapes of tribesmen came into view. At the tribe’s command, what came out of the forest toward us, dragged on carts by the goblins, was a battering ram. Against the gate, in tatters from the last raid and given only a rushed, makeshift repair… there was no way it could hold.
“Now then, this is about the tide’s turn.”
God, I made to pray on the spot, and stopped.
There is no god.
I prayed enough, that time. That until I brought back the relief force, they would live, would hold on, so much I prayed. That day, weeping tears of blood, I begged fortune in war for the men I’d left at this fort.
Yes, there is no god. There’s no meaning in leaning on one. Then, what can I do? To lessen the losses even a little… no. To save even one of these young ones?
Cutting a glance into the forest and giving a nod, I dropped lightly from the top of the wall to the ground below. I’ve confidence in my swordwork, at least. The enemy numbered, tribe and goblins together, some three hundred. And the distance to the enemy commander was about a hundred meters, plainly he’d pushed too far forward.
“So, he’s certain this is the decisive breach, certain of victory. That’s why he can stand at ease at such a distance. My, my, careless of him.”
I called to the adventurers on the wall in the fullest voice I could muster.
“I cut in toward the enemy commander! I open a way with blood, when the enemy buckles, you flee!”
“Deputy captain, where do you think you’re going?! No… I see, that would indeed… All hands, ready to withdraw! Watch for the moment, if it looks good, we bolt!”
If I cut in toward the commander to a fair depth… a gap will open in the enemy’s encircling formation. Then—
This, at last, is a place fit for my death!
No more will I pray to any god. In place of prayer I grip my sword, and their road I’ll open with my own hands!
And as I began to run toward the forest—
Whish, whish, whish, whish.
From the treetops came a rain of goblin arrows. But this was foreseen. Without slackening my pace I twisted my body, dodged, cut them from the air, and made straight for the tribe’s commander. Cutting down the goblins that came at me, kicking them away, blasting them off with my body, I used every limb, this great frame and all, to carve a bloody road. Just as I’d reckoned, tribe and goblins came swarming at me headlong.
“That’s it, that’s the way! Come to me! More!”
I gave a great nod. Yes, even if I can’t kill the commander, drawing their strength onto me alone opens a gap for the adventurers to flee.
“Oooooooh!”
With all my strength, I run. With all my soul, I swing the sword.
Fifty meters left to the commander, by my eye.
The enemy’s attacks grew fiercer at last, and the countless flying arrows were already past managing. I guarded only my head, and sharp pain shot through my shoulder, my arm, my leg, one after another. Heedless of it, I whipped this old body on and accelerated further. And then, at some twenty meters from the commander… something coiled about my leg, and I was left dangling in the air.
“Ha, such a classic…”
Got me. A set trap. In my upside-down vision, understanding it all, I let out a deep sigh. A beast-catching sort of snare, the moment it triggers, a rope winds and binds the leg, and up you go, dangling. A goblin came slowly on, spear in hand.
“So, you’re to be my last, are you,” I told the goblin weakly. And then—
God, if it may be, grant those young ones fortune in war.
And there I gave a wry smile. I’d resolved to pray to no god, and yet at the very last… I’d thought it, unaware. What is this final act if not a farce? No, perhaps this is well enough. For me, late to bring the relief force, my men wiped out, and I alone shamelessly living, perhaps it’s a fitting end.
The goblin came slowly on. Nearer, with the eerie pat, pat of its footsteps.
Ah, god. I could not save my men. My prayer did not reach. But at the last, at the very last, hear this one plea. Save those pitiful young ones, dragged onto a battlefield without cause, understanding nothing.
The goblin, now upon me, thrust out its spear with a leering grin. There, that’s the end, I thought. And then—
Fwoosh.
With a cutting of wind the goblin’s head burst, and the rope hanging my leg was severed. I fell head-first to the ground and scrambled to my feet. And, dumbstruck, I could do nothing but stand there. Small wonder—
Fwoosh. Fwoosh.
With the cutting of wind, the heads of the goblins around me burst, one after another.
“This is… an arrow?”
And no ordinary arrow. A fire arrow, with a bursting spell laid on it? Fwoosh, fwoosh, fwoosh, and after the wind-cut, pop, pop, pop, the bursts. Amid the crisp sounds, scorched gobbets of flesh scattered, and in the blink of an eye a field of goblin corpses was made.
“Wh-what is happening…?”
Turning toward the fort, I saw the figure of an elf girl loosing arrows this way. Three at once… is she firing? And at this distance, a hundred hits from a hundred shots… what an astonishing archer. “No, that’s not it.” The arrows moved erratically in the air, and their speed was uncanny. They’re being guided by magic. And more, these bursts are plainly explosive magic laid on. Most likely by the pink-haired girl beside her, the one handing the elf girl her arrows.
“Ha, what girls.”
At the sudden descent of these reapers, the goblins could do nothing but flee in confusion. Into a fleeing back, a head, a torso, wherever they struck, the bursting spell blew the body apart; one arrow, one kill, truly. And three of them came flying once every few seconds. There’s no bearing it. Then, to counter the arrows, ten heavily armed goblins with great shields appeared and took the van toward the fort, but—
Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop. Pop.
It was the work of not even ten seconds. The first goblin was blown away, great shield and all, never knowing what had happened. The next understood, an instant before it and its shield were blasted, and was blown away with its eyes flung wide. The rest took arrows in their fleeing backs and burst apart. And beside the girls, a girl with a hood shaped like cat ears raised her palm to the heavens.
“…Level 5: Scarlet Flame.”
A single shaft of light, colored with flame, came flying this way. The instant it struck the ground, what thundered in the forest were screams and blasts. The distance swallowed the voices, but reading the mouths… it seemed a wide-area attack spell had breathed fire.
“Ha… Level 5?”
Strength draining from me, I nearly folded to my knees on the spot. What, truly, what is happening? Once, an upper-A-rank adventurer showed me his power. Not a sham like that Edwards just now, but a true master, said to be worth a hundred ordinary soldiers. And what he showed me was… Level 5. Yet why would mages of such skill be in a place like this?
“Perhaps… this fight can be turned around.”
And, what a mercenary breed the adventurers are, I thought, and found a rueful laugh rising. Seeing the girls, and judging their odds of survival better in fighting than in flight, they’d begun, faces set in deathly resolve, to rain a storm of arrows this way. Then this old frame too should fall back to the fort and stand with them, and as I thought it, my eyes flew wide, and I doubted them.
Small wonder. A single black-haired boy ran the top of the wall at terrific speed, and then, straight toward me, made a great leap. A distance of some fifty meters, surely. In the time it took to gape, the boy tore through the air as if running across it, flew clear over my head, and, an instant before landing, flashed a blade with a fwoosh.
“Wh-what… in the world…!”
The boy struck the head from the tribal commander’s body, and the next moment set down on the ground. Then, sliding-tackle fashion, he skimmed along the earth, killing the speed of his leap.
“Now then…”
Sliding some five meters and rising, the boy called out to the tribesmen around him.
“See that, and you’ll understand the gap in strength. I’d be grateful if you’d withdraw.”
What is this boy saying, I thought, and in that moment I looked toward the fort and lost my voice.
“The fire… is out?”
The flames that had blazed so fiercely were gone entirely, and more than that, the surfaces of the buildings the regulars had fled into were dyed white with ice.
“Merlin… I said around Level 6, and she goes and uses the Level 8 Hel… ah, this is going to be a headache now.”
The boy was muttering something, and I could only doubt my own ears. Because, when it came to a Merlin who wielded Level 8… I knew only one.
A living legend. Called, they say, the hero of the demon race. In the last great war, single-handed, she crushed one human mage corps after another, could this be that Merlin?
And the tribe and monsters, gazing at the ice-wrapped fort, wore blank, stupefied faces. Come to think of it, the tribe had all but no one who used magic. So they can’t grasp in the least how outrageous a thing has happened. Only, incomprehension. There’s nothing for them but to stand stupefied. As for the monsters, understanding was never within reach to begin with.
“So you’ve no mind to withdraw, it seems?”
At the boy, the goblins the tribe set on him came attacking. His motions were smooth as flowing water, clean, and quiet. The least possible movement, and yet, an overwhelming, pure speed that no longer seemed human at all, too swift for the eye.
“…A beautiful sword-dance.”
A slender, near-androgynous boy, one you might even call lovely, was dancing on a battlefield. That body-strengthening… it seemed nothing a human could own. No, the thing to watch was that swordwork. That it was no mere brute force was plainer than fire. The boy swung his sword, and in the span of a blink goblins fell by the dozen. Before the eyes could follow, that phrase is the fitting one for this very moment. Before I knew it a mountain of countless corpses had risen, and the goblin dead in this place were well past a hundred. Sheer trampling. Sheer annihilation.
And there, one of the tribesmen who’d finally grasped the situation gave a scream and began to run. One ran, and then the next ran. Two ran, and then the next two ran. In no time the force collapsed, and in a rout worthy of the words annihilated and put to flight, they broke and scattered, each scrambling to be first away.
Watching them flee out of the corner of my eye, I walked toward the boy and, before anything else, spoke.
“Astonishing… you’ve ended it in no time at all. Who taught you that swordwork?”
“No, it isn’t over yet.”
The boy gazed off at the far sky, and there, at the end of his line of sight—
“A d-d-d… a Dragon Zombie?!”
The span of its spread wings must top ten meters. Its height cleared four meters easily, and that body, once a sovereign of the skies, was half rotted away, bone showing here and there. Yes, that is a dragon’s ruin. A dragonkin can hold converse with a human, they say, but that is a pure dragon. The strongest lowly creature on the earth, void of wits, that has swallowed knight order after knight order, the very byword for humanity’s natural predator, and its ruin.
“Why…… is……… a thing… like… that…?”
“There was a beast-tamer, wasn’t there?”
“N-n-no! I’ve never heard of the tribe wielding such a thing! To make a Dragon Zombie serve is, that’s an affair of four hundred years ago, the age of legend!”
The boy thought a while, then let out a sigh.
“Just to be sure, there are no homes anywhere over that way, are there?”
Toward the far quarter where the Dragon Zombie flew, the boy turned his palm.
“A-aye. There are no homes, true enough?”
“Good. Now I can go all out with an easy mind.”
“A-a-all out? A moment ago you performed a splendid sword-dance, did you not? Don’t tell me that wasn’t all out?”
“No, it was all out. With a sword.”
And then the boy smiled and went on.
“—all out with a blade, that is.”
“Wh-wh-what in the world do you mean… to do?”
A chill ran down my spine, cold sweat with it. Just so, the boy raised his right palm and spoke a single phrase: “Level 10: Thunder God Emperor Ephthal.” And in the great sky there appeared, in the most literal sense—
A thunder god.
And beneath a single strike, all was ground to nothing. Centered on the Dragon Zombie, within the radius the trees were blown away like so much refuse, scattered, or scorched black. Yes, everything was destroyed. The earth was gouged, sand and soil danced up, and the trumpet that announces the end, a thunderous roar, rang in the depths of my lungs.
A dragon, called the strongest lowly thing on the earth. An undying ancient dragon, said to be hard for even a nation’s knight order to bring down. The dragon’s carcass, in a single strike, was blown away. As one brushes off a gnat, with the boy only raising his palm, until it was scorched gobbets of flesh… it was the work of mere seconds.
Absurd.
Such a word rose in my head. Yes, that pure violence stirred in me not dread alone, but a kind of worship as well.
“What’s the matter?”
Before I knew it I was on my knees, offering up a prayer to the heavens. No, not to the heavens. There is no god; I cast that away. But there was a god after all. Not in the heavens, but here upon the earth.
The one I offer my prayer to now is the god of war.
Yes, to the Fierce God before my eyes.
Ephthal’s Perspective
Ugh… I’ve gone and done it.
Well, there’s no bringing down a Dragon Zombie without losses to our side except with something like a Level 10, so there’s nothing for it. But Angus-san is on his knees with tears in his eyes… ugh… he’s gone and started praying at something.
Right, this is bad.
Come to think of it, the name Ephthal and my identity are already known to the garrison captain. Well now, what to do about this. Lay on some brainwashing magic and wipe the memory… no, the memory-work I can manage is only temporary and no root solution. Well, well, as I was wondering what on earth to do, a scream reached me from the fort.
“Wait, there’s more?!”
I gathered Angus-san up and flew into the sky on flight magic.
“Y-y-you flew up?! No, for you, perhaps that’s nothing at all. Even were you to sprout wings… I’d not be surprised anymore.”
“Er, how to put it… it’s Level 5 flight magic, so it’s nothing special.”
“Level 5, nothing special?! Ha, hahaha! As expected!”
Now this reaction is turning genuinely dangerous. Well, for the moment, Angus-san is a problem I’ll shelve. I laid on presence-erasure and optical-camouflage magic, there’s a bit of too little too late about it, but a token effort to keep the witnesses from multiplying, and set down atop the fort’s wall. And there—
“Hahahaaa! Burn, why don’t you!”
Hm? What’s this? Why is Edwards fighting Anastasia and the others? And I’d watched out of the corner of my eye as his lot fled the fort, hadn’t I…? No, that’s neither here nor there. What matters is Edwards’s belly.
“Ephthal! What is this thing?! And he’s annoyingly tough besides!”
“Master! This, it uses even fouler tricks than I do!”
“…Bluntly, out of ammo.”
Sheryl had been dashing about at speed loosing area magic, after all. If anything I’d want to praise her for holding her power out this long. Still, to give even Anastasia and Maria together this much trouble; the A-rank title isn’t for nothing, it seems.
“Y-you, the boy from that time! I wondered why a former slave of mine should be here… I see, so the present master is you! Stealing another man’s slave, have you no shame!”
“Anastasia called you ‘this thing’ just now. Meaning… she can’t so much as recognize you as her former master.”
“Can’t recognize me?! What are you talking about! I parted with this slave a few months ago, forgetting my face is out of the question!”
“No, it isn’t a matter of forgetting your face, I think.”
“Truly… what are you saying?”
“It’s just that you’ve turned into a zombie. With a face like that, no one can tell who’s who.”
Well, it’s exactly as it looks. Entrails spilling from his belly, face gone to mush, a freshly-minted walking corpse: that’s Edwards’s present form. I’d known at once from the habits of his magic, but to Anastasia and the rest, Edwards likely looked no different from a Lich-type undead.
“Level 6: Turn Undead.”
I snapped my fingers, and Edwards was wrapped in a silver, holy color, then stopped moving and toppled with a thud. I’d like this to be case closed, but the world won’t be so obliging, I expect.
“So, what happened, Anastasia?”
“…A-all of a sudden… a horde of zombies came out from over there…”
Looking, there was a hole opened in the flagstone road inside the fort, and zombies were crawling up out of it one after another. Several among them, it seemed, were the corpses of the adventurers who’d fled earlier. And that hole, forts of this kind often keep a secret passage for slipping from the interior to the outside, against the worst case. The garrison captain and his lot had likely planned to flee through it, but this time it seemed to have been turned against them.
“Incidentally, Merlin? The captain?”
“Before I stopped the fire with ice magic, it seems he fled, alone, through another hole.”
“Every last one of them… nothing but good-for-nothings.”
Edwards among the adventurers, the captain among the regulars. The only decent one was Angus-san, what in the world is wrong with this country… but that aside. At the center of the zombie horde stood a tribesman holding a deep-crimson orb.
“I see. So the Scarlet of Hades’s use is the Dragon Zombie, and these zombies now.”
At my words Merlin gave a great nod.
“But truly… a Scarlet of Hades that can command even a Dragon Zombie… how did the tribe come by such a thing?”
“This is right beside the Alcott ducal domain, Merlin. There should be two people in the domain who hold that artifact, or could refine one, shouldn’t there?”
“Sasha-sama, and…”
“Yes, the Fire God Emperor. He was trying to gather the souls of everyone at the academy, and he ought to have deep ties to necromancy besides.”
And there I noticed Angus-san standing rooted where he was, trembling.
“Th-those… are…”
“What is it, Angus-san?”
“The zombies those creatures lead… that’s the armor my old subordinates wore…?”
“Weren’t they wiped out defending the fort, some time ago…?”
And saying that much, I caught on. The bodies had been recovered, the story went, so it was for this that the tribe carried the corpses away.
“This is getting fouler and fouler, Merlin.”
“What do you mean, Ephthal-sama?”
“The Scarlet of Hades can hold thousands of zombies under its sway, yes? The tribe stirring across every stretch of the border, and taking this fort too, all of it, most likely, to gather materials.”
“So the tribe means to raise an army of the undead…?”
“It’s a matter of possibility, mind.”
“Ephthal-sama, what do you intend to do?”
At Merlin’s words I gave a small nod.
“I can’t let them trample the dignity of the brave soldiers who fell in battle any further. With wide-area purification, let’s send them up to heaven at once.”
I raised my palm and set to building the purification formula. A horde of zombies this size, Level 9 ought to manage. Then I checked from a distance whether any purification-resisting magic had been laid on them… and, after a moment’s thought, halted the working.
“Angus-san, let’s go over there together.”
“Over there, where?”
“To those zombies… no. To the soldiers.”
Hoisting up a flustered Angus-san, I flew into the sky once more on flight magic. The soldiers numbered a hundred and a little more. Being men once bound by ties of loyalty, they kept together in a mass rather than scattering. And their bodies were, compared to Edwards’s, abnormally little damaged. To be reused even if killed, most likely, kept from harm as far as possible.
“Mm. No fear of losing any of them, this way.”
And as I set down, Angus-san gave a cry close to a scream.
“Y-y-you bring me to a place like this… wh-what do you mean to do?”
“Try speaking to them. Communicate with them, and they should stop.”
At my words Angus-san froze a while, blank-faced, then opened his mouth wide.
“Commune with men who’ve become zombies? There’s no way such a thing—”
“No, it can be done. If I lend a hand, without fail. The last wishes of brave soldiers who fought for their nation, I mean to give whatever help I can, to the fullest.”
“What are you saying… no, if it’s you… can you truly?”
“Yes… they too, it seems, have something they wish to tell you.”
I raised my right hand lightly and snapped my fingers.
“Level 9: Unlock.”
Still, a hundred men. Even for me, undoing the formula that steers the undead on this many at once, simultaneously, is hard going. Or rather, impossible. A superlative priest of four hundred years ago would have done it with ease, but unluckily that’s not my line of work. So why did I think I could manage this on such numbers? Because they themselves were fighting, desperately, against the mind-corruption of their undeath. That faint wrongness I’d felt when I read the flow of their magic from afar. Their movements, compared to the other zombies, were very sluggish, and they showed no sign of turning eyes on the living to attack them. And what I felt from the flow of their magic was a fierce longing to tell Angus-san something. It was an emotion laced with regret, but plainly not the negative feeling of a curse. I can’t return them to the living, but even so… I chose to pay my respects to soldiers who fought to the very end, and to prepare a stage for them to tell Angus-san something.
“A-ah… we’re…?”
“My body… moves as I will…?”
“I had consciousness the whole time, but my body was kept moving by someone. Were the rest of you the same?”
“Aye, me too. Consciousness gone hazy, and only the body carrying on of its own accord.”
And there, to the soldiers who’d come back to their senses, Angus-san spoke.
“You lot…”
Noticing Angus-san, they froze on the spot, mouths agape—Captain…? And to them, Angus-san dropped to his knees and bowed his head.
“…I’m sorry. The relief force was late… I’ve no face to show you all…”
At the sight of Angus-san, the soldiers were dumbstruck, and traded glances one with another.
“We don’t need any apology, Captain.”
“We sent you for reinforcements by the will of us all. As the surest odds of surviving.”
“Heads or tails on the coin, if the bad side comes up, is there a fool who complains about the bet afterward?”
Raising his head, Angus-san’s face mixed in a color of confusion.
“B-but you lot… the journal said sending me was a mistake, said we don’t need reinforcements, so come back… a bitter reproach…”
And there the soldiers traded glances again and began to laugh, low.
“If anything, what we regretted… was making the wager at all. Because, well, the tribe were more brittle than we’d figured.”
Angus-san tilted his head, all how so?
“Brittle… you say?”
“They lean on numbers alone, and neither their training nor their tactics amount to anything. We flinched at the start, faced with a force several times our own, but we fought better than we’d have thought.”
“And that’s when we thought,” one of the soldiers said, looking up at the sky, “couldn’t we have won, if the Captain were here? Under the Captain’s command, mightn’t we have managed somehow… that alone is our one regret.”
“That’s when it hit us. What are we? Among the tribe we’re the border guard, the ones who make even crying children fall silent.”
“Just so. Why did we choose the road of calling for aid… we’d not have lost with the Captain here. To have lost without giving the unit’s full strength, that we couldn’t, is our regret.”
And, taking in the words, Angus-san stood. His great frame was trembling, and, head bowed, his eyes couldn’t be seen. No, even if they could be, here it’s surely right to look the other way. And so I clapped Angus-san on the shoulder.
“I can’t bring them back to life, but I can let them ascend in peace. Only, removing their last regret is a thing only you can do, Angus-san. Or so I think.”
Wiping his eyes with a handkerchief drawn from his coat, Angus-san loosed a voice loud enough to reach every man there.
“To have my men made such sport of by the tribe, I cannot draw back! Together, will you not take up your swords with me?!”
At the words, as though they’d been waiting, cheers went up here and there.
“To sweep the tribe from within the fort, let that be our final duty—”
And just as he began to say it, boos came flying from the soldiers.
“You lot…?”
“Captain! If it’s a last mission, let’s go out in style!”
“We’re the border guard, who silence crying children! If we’re at it, let’s snuff the tribe out for good!”
“The first place they hauled us to in these bodies was the tribe’s stronghold near here, so we know the lay of the land right well!”
Angus-san grinned and shook his huge frame, delighted.
“Then, full assault! Our objective is the tribe’s stronghold!”
And so, leaving me the words “the fort is in your hands,” Angus-san led the soldiers out through the gate.
“Will you not help them, Ephthal-sama?”
To Merlin’s words I answered with a shrug.
“That would be… discourteous to them, wouldn’t it?”
At that Merlin gave a faint, weak laugh.
“Now, enemies still remain. Let’s begin the mop-up.”
“Aye, so we shall, Merlin.”