Chapter 113 - Yes, I'm Back

"That's today's quota done."

It was the third day of their deployment. It had begun with a melee sparked by a minor provocation. Rem had taken the field all three days, and each time he returned in exactly the same fashion, shaking the blood from the axes in his hands onto the ground.

Whenever he went out, he killed exactly three men before returning. His sweeping axe blows made those three look like firewood. Living firewood that spilled brains or entrails when split.

The moment the two sides first clashed, he would slash, hack, and smash heads in a flash, then come back. Any commander who didn't salivate at the sight ought to surrender their title. At least, anyone with an eye for talent would never want to let him go.

And Rem wasn't the only one.

"I'm fine on my own. Why do they keep assigning soldiers to me?"

The soldier named Ragna, dragging his feet as though bored, was much the same. At first, he hadn't stood out at all. Every time, he barely seemed to fight. He would hold his ground well enough and return. Unless someone attacked him, he hardly risked his life in battle.

'What a waste of skill.'

The Fairy Company Commander was among those who had recognized his ability. She had simply kept watching him, until one day he reportedly got lost all by himself while they were moving between battlefields.

'How do you get lost here?'

Had they skirted a mountain range? Secretly crossed a river to raid the enemy's main camp? All they had done was move their own camp back. In any case, the soldier named Ragna apparently wandered toward the enemy camp by mistake, which should have meant his death.

Instead, he returned perfectly unharmed. Strolling back with an enemy commander's head, no less.

"Ah, so that's why I felt like turning left back there."

That was what he casually said on his return. The enemy commander's head dangling from his fingers was an added bonus.

"You got lost?"

He nodded. The Fairy Company Commander had asked and received an answer. That was the end of it.

She hadn't had the slightest intention of forcing them to do anything when she brought them along. Those were the terms they had agreed to.

["Fill in for your Platoon Commander."]

To these men, the name Encrid was synonymous with magic.

["Hold on. The higher-ups sent him away. Why are we supposed to fill in?"]

["If you sit idle, it will mean Encrid told you to. Will you cause him trouble?"]

It had taken only a few words. Men who hadn't even deigned to snort at the order to deploy began gathering their things.

["Three a day. That's all I'm doing."]

That was Rem.

["Fine by me."]

That was Ragna.

Jaxon silently nodded.

["In accordance with God's calling."]

Even Audin, the religious zealot, moved.

As for Andrew, Mac, and Henri, naturally they had to do as they were told. That went without saying. The fellow named Krais was away, having requested leave.

With one eye bruised blue, Andrew actually seemed glad to be going to war. Beside him, Mac, whose opposite eye was blackened, felt the same.

["The battlefield! Fighting! We're marching out!"]

They made their delight so obvious the moment they heard the Company Commander's order that Rem grinned at them.

["Happy? You really shouldn't be."]

For an instant, the Fairy Company Commander saw a demon in his grin. She blinked, and it was gone.

Those were the men she had brought along.

Jaxon and Audin were roughly as skilled as the other two. Jaxon merely pretended to make a decent effort, yet the enemy soldiers in his way couldn't even scratch him.

"Why can't I hit you? Hah, hah... Just you wait."

Even when an enemy soldier finally spat that out, Jaxon didn't answer. He treated it like a passing dog barking. More often than not, he returned without killing his opponent or suffering an injury himself.

Audin had taken the field just once so far. The moment he appeared, he snapped an opponent's forearm with his bare hands. Those who saw it firsthand said their hair stood on end, even though they were on his side.

Breaking an arm? What was so remarkable about that? But gently taking someone by the wrist and snapping it like a thin twig? The sight made them wonder whether that could possibly be human strength.

"Fuck, stay away! Stay away!"

How must he have looked to the enemy, when even his allies found him terrifying?

The soldier named Audin drew every eye simply by existing. Smaller than a giant he might be, but he stood two heads taller than ordinary soldiers, with broad shoulders and a fearsome bulk. How could he fail to stand out?

'Fewer than ten men, and this much fighting power...'

How to describe it? It felt as though the number of fighters on her level had increased tenfold. Simply calling them outstanding did not do them justice. Properly used, they were a move that could trouble the enemy far beyond their raw strength.

'This must be why.'

Surely this was why they had survived all the incidents and trouble they had caused. Having brought them here, the Fairy Company Commander had taken responsibility for watching over them.

This much, and no more. This was the extent of the fighting they had agreed to do. What happened, then, if someone demanded more?

"You lazy bastards. Who said you could pull back first?"

He was a soldier of Platoon Commander rank who knew nothing about them, an officer who had only recently joined. He knew neither the troublemaker squad nor Rem, famous for assaulting his superiors, nor Audin, who would not hesitate to separate flesh from bone if God's teachings called for it. Nor Jaxon, who silently projected killing intent. Ragna, admittedly, seldom bothered getting up for anything.

Andrew stepped into the path of that utterly ignorant Platoon Commander. Rem already looked deeply displeased.

'Let this go, and there'll be blood.'

They would be lucky if bloodshed was all it came to. Rem might split the skull of anyone who challenged him.

"We belong to the Independent Platoon. Operational command therefore rests with our immediate superior."

Andrew had learned a thing or two about military life by now. He answered by the book.

"What? So you're going to watch from the rear?"

The newly appointed Platoon Commander couldn't accept that. They barely fought, then retreated at every opportunity to loaf around in their tent? Some men risked their lives while others sat idle? Had they all lost their fucking minds? Independent Platoon or not, as a superior officer, he couldn't let this pass.

In the man's behavior, Andrew saw his own past contempt for Encrid. Back then, he had been an idiot who knew nothing.

"Hah..."

Andrew sighed, glanced up at the sky, then lowered his head. There stood a man serenely resigned, a man who had given something up.

"My name is Andrew Gardner, eldest son of the Gardner family. This unit has a nobleman in it. Just fuck off."

He meant none of it. His expression was detached and defeated, hardly the face of an arrogant nobleman. But he simply couldn't spare the effort to worry about his expression, too.

Mac approached without a word and patted his back as if offering encouragement.

"Y-you think being a noble makes you something? Fuck!"

The strange atmosphere made the Platoon Commander work his lips for a moment before he spoke.

"Hmm. Guess I'll have to take a look at his guts after all."

As Rem reacted to those words, Andrew challenged the other man to a duel. He promptly beat the Platoon Commander to the ground, sparing Rem the need to swing his axe. Instead, Andrew alone received a thorough dressing-down.

"Noble or not, this is the army."

The Fairy Company Commander approached and reprimanded him.

"I'll reflect on my conduct."

As he spoke, she patted his shoulder. She understood everything. It was all right. Her words scolded him, but her hand soothed him.

Encrid's Independent Platoon. It was no exaggeration to say that Andrew deserved the most credit for keeping the men now called the Lunatic Independent Platoon out of trouble.

He curbed Rem's urge to kill by serving as his sparring partner at every turn, and occasionally dealt with people who challenged them out of ignorance.

Thanks to all this, morale in the unit was a complete mess. The Lunatic Platoon was partly to blame. Of course, there were plenty of other reasons.

The First Infantry was currently stationed northeast of Border Guard, on gravelly ground with the Penn-Hanil River on its left and a string of low hills, crossable in a day, on its right. Grass poked up here and there among the stones, and occasional weeds near the riverbank reached a grown person's waist.

Part of the knight order and the main army had marched onto the Green Pearl plains to face the enemy's main force. Border Guard's First Infantry was tasked with stopping enemy troops here. It served as a wall against flanking maneuvers, or against a detached force taking the field at all.

In a sense, its fate depended on the outcome of the main battle. If their side made the first move, part of the knight order would be sent here to sweep away the enemy. If the opposite happened, they might have to face enemy knights without any of their own.

That had certainly been the situation at first. But as both sides watched each other warily, the fighting here had somehow become the preliminary battle, the clash of the vanguards.

An infantry battalion and one Independent Company. Their strength and conditions were equal. Both armies kept their main forces on the Green Pearl plains while watching this battlefield. So far, Naurilia's troops had been pushed back every time.

There were reports of a giant soldier among the enemy. Several enemy soldiers had distinguished themselves and taunted anyone who thought they could fight better to come forward. All of this shook their own troops' morale.

Under these circumstances, they needed a new factor. Something to seize the advantage. The Battalion Commander, too, could see just such a factor: the Lunatic Platoon. They certainly stood out.

"We just need them to fight properly. Do they have any demands? They look ready to bolt if we force them."

The Battalion Commander was wise. He grasped the Lunatic Platoon's situation at a glance. The Fairy Company Commander had somehow brought them along, but they were troops beyond her control. If necessary, he would bring them to heel by force. But not now.

'We haven't lost yet.'

The battle had only just begun. Battalion Commander Marcus was a warmonger, not an imbecile. If he could persuade them reasonably rather than force them into submission, their morale would be several times higher.

"We need their Platoon Commander."

The Fairy Company Commander answered, and the Battalion Commander gave his permission.

"Bring him."

That settled it. She saluted and turned away.

That morning, Rem had made something of a declaration.

["Bring our Platoon Commander here. Hard to get in the mood to fight when we don't even know if the man's alive."]

It sounded like a threat to stop even his three kills a day unless they brought him. A fleet-footed scout messenger set off immediately.

Three days after the messenger's departure, Platoon Commander Encrid stood before the Company Commander. She had brought the Lunatic Platoon to the rear to receive him. It was only thanks to that that they had managed to meet in three days.

"Shouldn't you have come straight back once you returned? Didn't you miss me?"

The Company Commander greeted Encrid with a Fairy-style joke. Seeing his face crumple pleased her. That frown relieved the frustration that had built up while dealing with his infuriatingly disobedient lunatics.

'Blockheads.'

Her gaze fell on his right wrist.

"Injured?"

"I got into a fight with a thug in the city."

"Was this thug a Frog, by any chance?"

Krais and Esther, who had accompanied him, fixed their eyes on her at that. Only Encrid remained unperturbed. This must be another joke.

"It's not a serious injury."

His wrist wasn't broken. There was some damage to the bone, but not enough to prevent him from holding and swinging a sword. It needed treatment, but it wasn't a fatal wound. All the work he had put into strengthening his wrists with the Isolation Technique had paid off.

"In any case, welcome back."

The green-eyed Company Commander spoke, and Encrid saluted. The Fairy acknowledged it with a slight nod.

"Go on, then."

Encrid headed straight for the place where his platoon members were gathered. He had wanted to get there as quickly as possible anyway. They caused trouble even with him around, but the trouble they caused in his absence was on another scale entirely.

* * *

'Should I quit?'

At first, there had at least been an ignorant Platoon Commander picking a fight. Now there weren't even any of those. Playing with Andrew was beginning to get boring, too.

'No real reason to stay here.'

Then he could simply leave. Rem thought it was about time to leave the army. He wasn't thinking of an honorable discharge like other people. He could just vanish.

The longer he spent away from Encrid, the more the thought came to him.

'If he doesn't come today, I'm leaving.'

Yet Rem kept repeating another day. A tiresome day in which nothing meant anything. Days when even fighting on the battlefield failed to stir his interest.

"Die!"

Boring. So boring. If he wanted to kill someone, he should hurry up and thrust his spear. Why flap his mouth? He didn't even realize the wasted breath was making his spear tip waver.

Rem swung his axe vertically. Its edge struck the spearhead.

CLANG!

"Urk!"

That single blow tore the enemy soldier's hand open and made him drop his spear. Losing his weapon in the middle of a battlefield fight? This bastard wasn't half of half of half the man his Platoon Commander was. No, even comparing them was a sin. A sin.

CRACK!

The axe split the enemy soldier's head. Still boring.

And so he killed three men and returned. Days repeated in a blend of tedium and boredom, and the urge to quit suddenly surged within him. This place was losing its meaning. Once they moved to the rear, there wasn't even any fighting. He had still less to do.

Ragna was much the same. Above all, he lacked motivation.

'Is he dead?'

Otherwise, why had there been no word? Without the Platoon Commander, he had reverted to his old self. He could find no motivation whatsoever. Distress? Even feeling that seemed like too much trouble.

Ragna passed his time idly, doing everything halfheartedly. Aside from slaughtering a dozen or so enemy soldiers when he got lost once, he did nothing.

Audin prayed to God and asked, 'Has the time come for me to return?'

As always, his Lord answered. With silence, without words, He respected Audin's wishes. With no answer forthcoming, what mattered must be Audin's own heart.

'Shall I return, or not?'

He had asked himself the question and had yet to answer.

Jaxon had chosen military service for a purpose. Now that purpose was more or less fulfilled. He could simply leave. There was no need to waste time here.

Considered dispassionately, that was the truth. Unnecessary things. Meaningless things. One day after another of them. It was the height of inefficiency, something he would normally find unthinkable. So why was he still here?

'Tonight.'

Jaxon resolved to leave. Of course, he had been making the same resolution for three days now.

On one such day, as each squad member passed the time in his own way, the sun sank and dark shadows began to settle over their surroundings. Someone entered the tent of the men now nicknamed the Lunatic Platoon.

"I'm back."

One matter-of-fact remark. The same as always. Encrid had returned.

Everyone in the tent fell silent. As their gazes passed quietly between them, an unexpected figure rushed forward first.

"Waaaaah! Why, why, why only noooow? Whyyyy, whyyyyy did you take so loooong?!"

Andrew greeted him with tears streaming down his face. His black eye bore witness to all the misery he had endured, and his sobs made his feelings plain.

At the sight of Andrew's face, Encrid couldn't help letting out a chuckle.

"Why the hell did he have to beat me to it? You're back?"

Rem's voice came from behind Andrew. Beyond him stood Ragna, Audin, and Jaxon, with Mac and Henri off in one corner. Every gaze was fixed on Encrid.

"Yes, I'm back."

He was reporting his return.