Chapter 133 - For Spring Holds Magic

Andrew and Mac held their swords ready. Between them, Henri kept drawing the shortbow he had brought instead of a crossbow. Whenever he saw an opening, he shot. Whenever an enemy blundered close or he spotted an enemy soldier on the ground, he buried his hatchet in their skull.

THUNK!

He could not split a head with a single blow like Rem, but that did not leave his victim's skull intact. A half-shattered head, blood running through the gaps in a helmet, eyes full of resentment or despair. It looked just like an animal he had killed.

Henri turned his gaze away at the thought. Sentiment was a luxury on the battlefield. In any case, that was all he did. Andrew and Mac handled everything else. They might not match the men known as the Lunatic Platoon's members, but neither was a pushover.

"You bastards think the Gray Hounds are a joke?"

One of the enemy shouted. He had already taken down several allied soldiers. His eyes were fierce, and blood dripped from the tip of his short spear.

Andrew took him on. Five exchanges were enough. Two parries, two slashes, then a sudden one-handed stab. Something about that stab resembled Encrid's. At least, that was how it looked to Henri.

Mac also cut and tore through the enemy with practiced skill, all while making sure Andrew did not venture too far forward.

"That's far enough."

At Mac's words, Andrew stopped dead. Then he began pounding his chest with both hands.

"Raaah!"

What was that? Why was he suddenly shouting? He seemed to have learned the wrong lessons from Rem.

"Come on, all of you! You bastards whose dicks haven't even grown in!"

A clumsy taunt. More importantly, what in the world was all that chest-pounding supposed to be? Still, worked up as he was, Andrew fought well.

From behind, Henri watched the two of them and the others. Blood flecked their helmets.

"Raaaaah!"

Alongside the battle cries came shouts brimming with killing intent.

"Kill them! Kill them!"

"Urgh, please."

A mutter clinging to life. In the midst of a battlefield where men killed and were killed, Henri realized something.

'This is as far as I go.'

While some cheered at the sight of the Lunatic Platoon and others were moved to awe, Henri saw his limit. He understood. This was as far as he went.

"Raaah!"

With something like a monstrous cry, Andrew swung his sword. It whistled through the air and cut into an enemy soldier between collarbone and neck.

CRUNCH.

He pulled the half-buried blade free.

"Aaaaagh!"

The enemy soldier's scream followed the blade's movement.

Having recognized his limit, Henri wanted to return to being a hunter on the plains. But the plains he would return to had become a battlefield. Going back to the city and living as the flower-shop widow's husband would not be a bad life now.

Her. That widow. That steadfast woman who had lost her husband to war and was raising a child alone. Henri missed her terribly. So much that he wanted to forget the battlefield and go straight back. It was time to end his life as Henri the hunter, Henri the soldier.

"Getting sentimental."

Muttering to himself, Henri surveyed the battlefield as the fighting hastened toward its end.

The enemy commander was remarkably quick on his feet. Quick to make decisions, too. In other words, at some point the commander's standard and bodyguards had vanished. Most of the troops left behind surrendered. Only a few resisted. The fighting on the battlefield was coming to an end.

Amid it all came a cheer he had never heard in his life, tearing through the air.

"Long live the lunatics!"

It was a cheer of victory.

* * *

Aspen's commander was running for his life.

'Fucking bastards.'

He, too, was a capable commander, and he had grasped what was happening. Who had overturned the battle? Where had the winds of change begun to blow? The man with the axes, and a handful of others.

They needed intelligence. He had to tell them there were men among the enemy who reeked of danger. He had already sent a pigeon, but as the commander who had experienced it firsthand, his final responsibility was...

"Thought we'd be here till dawn, you bastaaards!"

His heart lurched. A sudden shout. A unit armed with all manner of weapons blocked his retreat. They looked like an independent roaming force. They were not allies. Definitely not. He could plainly see the eagle emblems on their right shoulders.

"We lost even without them there?"

The commander murmured in self-mockery. His bodyguards closed around him in an unbroken ring, but that was all they could do.

"Those Frontier Slaughterer bastards."

The enemy was the Frontier Slaughterers, Naurilia's prized fighting force. They had circled the battlefield and secretly laid an ambush here. Their detachment had come around to tear into the returning enemy's rear, thinning their numbers and sapping morale.

Had the Giant's assault succeeded, the maneuver would have been meaningless. Now it was a fatal blow.

The Border Guard was bewildered, too. They had meant to raid the rear, gradually harrying the enemy from behind. What was this? The enemy had come back like a pack of hunted wild dogs.

This was no time to puzzle over what had happened. The captain did his job. On finding Aspen's rear deserted, he had changed the operation from destroying their rear camp to laying an ambush. If no enemy came, he had intended to return to the main force. But here they were.

"Fuck them all up."

The border defense captain pronounced their death sentence. The enemy commander and his bodyguards resisted, but it changed nothing.

"Retreat! Retreat!"

The commander shouted as he personally charged forward. It was quite a sight. To shout for retreat and attack rather than flee could only mean he meant to save as many of his men as possible. Such conduct deserved respect. The border defense captain stepped forward himself.

CLATTER! CLATTER! CLATTER!

He held a flail. Its chain cried out as the weight at its end whirled.

"I'll send you off in peace."

The captain kept his word. The fight was brief. One had risen to command a force through martial prowess; the other specialized in using his head.

WHOOSH.

The iron weight at the flail's end fell along an unpredictable arc.

CRACK!

The Aspen commander's head shattered, spraying blood and brains. That was the end of it.

"Aaaah!"

Dealing with the remaining fleeing soldiers did not take long, either.

CRACK!

An axe buried in the last enemy soldier's head ended the battle. A battlefield worthy of the name Frontier Slaughterers, perhaps.

Leaving the scene of slaughter behind, the captain spoke.

"Back to the army."

The Border Guard hurried back to the main force. The captain had meant to force some of the enemy troops to double back or cut their supply lines, not smash their commander's skull. How had the battle turned out like this? Questions, curiosity, anticipation: a mixture of such feelings spurred his steps.

And when they finally arrived, they found their allies cheering in victory. The battlefield bore unmistakable signs of an overwhelming triumph. There was no need to ask who lay at its heart.

The men who had each broken the blades the enemy had prepared on their respective fronts. And the man who led them. The unit under that man's command. Its name rang out amid the cheers.

"Lunatic Platoooon!"

"LU! NA! TICS!"

"You crazy bastaaards!"

Battalion Commander Marcus did not stop the cheering. No, he made certain everyone knew who had distinguished themselves most in this battle. He had his messengers call out the Lunatic Platoon's name.

Amid the waves of cheers stood Encrid and the Lunatic Platoon, in a circle formed by their allies.

Torres saw them, too. Looking at Encrid's face, he thought, 'A gathering of lunatics, all right.'

Was there a single sane person among them? And though no one would admit it, Torres knew from firsthand experience that Encrid was a lunatic, too. There were plenty of reasons, but if he had to pick the biggest one...

'Just living like that among those crazy bastards...'

Wasn't that proof enough he was mad? Besides, he fit in remarkably well.

* * *

Watching the cheers and the course of the battle, the Fairy company commander murmured, "There is magic in spring."

Spring, the season of gentle breezes, had returned. The battle that began at dawn ended around midday. As the sun passed overhead, a warm breeze blew.

Spring. Like flowers born in winter lifting their heads in spring, the warm breeze that followed the bitter winds always held magic.

Before that magic of spring, heralding a new beginning, a man stood tall amid everyone's cheers, his whole body filled with it.

The Fairy company commander's gaze followed the man clad in spring's magic. Encrid. Her eyes settled on the face of the man who led the Lunatic Platoon.

* * *

Encrid enjoyed the cheers on the battlefield.

'Not bad.'

People shouting his name. Calling for the Lunatic Platoon. He knew who had changed the course of this battle. His platoon members had done it.

Rem had killed the Giant. Audin had broken the enemy formation. Jaxon must have done something, too. Encrid had not asked or heard about it yet, but he surely had. And Encrid and Ragna had cut down the men who appeared on the battlefield's right flank: ten mercenaries who wielded the Murderous Blade. Left alone, they would have carved through the allied troops.

'We did well.'

Not bad. So surely it was all right to enjoy these cheers.

"Enjoying yourself?" Rem asked, snickering beside him.

"Yes."

Encrid was as honest as ever.

"Honestly, you're so easy to please."

Rem abandoned his attempt at teasing and grumbled instead. Why did he have to admit it so readily?

Just then, the others returned.

"Andrew and two men reporting back."

However much Rem beat him, however gently Audin threatened him, Andrew was proud to be a squad leader in the Lunatic Platoon. The blood flecking their helmets alone showed they had been through some rough fighting, too. Encrid nodded.

"Did you cut off some commander's head? Or maybe the Giant's balls?"

Having failed to tease his platoon commander, Rem switched targets to Andrew.

"Instead of one Giant, I reckon I cut down two hundred men myself."

Bluster. Obvious bluster. Andrew knew it as he said it, and everyone listening knew it, too, which made it pleasant enough to hear. Somehow, the atmosphere in the platoon was mellow.

"Bullshit."

Rem merely snickered and left it at that. Ragna was calm, too, as though he had released something that had been boiling inside him. He was loose and languid as usual. Above all, even Jaxon smiled.

Audin went without saying. Give the man a halo at his back, and he would look like a paladin called by God. He glanced gently around. Even with a club stained dark red in his hand, he radiated peace.

Watching them all from one side, Krais wondered, 'How did things turn out this way?'

Working backward from an outcome to guess its cause was one of his habits.

'Did it start with that sparring?'

Krais prided himself on being the most perceptive member of the platoon. Ever since the sparring that began after Encrid's return, he had sensed something strange in the air. Rem, Ragna, Jaxon, Audin. The mood of the four men who formed the core of their fighting strength had changed.

They were in a better mood? Put simply, yes. Look deeper, and it felt as though some knot within them had unraveled. From one sparring session? The same sparring they did every day?

'No.'

He had seen his platoon commander fight the Frog. Afterward, he had seen him bite off an enemy commander's ear. Whether that was the Valen Mercenary Sword Technique or some other technique did not matter.

Krais had watched his platoon commander for quite a long time. So had the others.

'Growth.'

And growth by leaps and bounds at that.

Even knowing he would never rise to anything near their level, they had helped because they knew their platoon commander would struggle to the bitter end without giving up. They had wanted him to stand, to walk, to run.

But all his platoon members had known. They could not have failed to know. They had seen countless people unable to overcome the limits of their talent. Whatever Encrid did, it would ultimately be impossible for him to stand beside them.

But what about now?

"Well done, everyone."

Encrid spoke with the whole platoon before him. Looking at his back, Krais felt emotion well up. He was the same platoon commander as always. Yet he was different.

The afternoon sunlight, the warm breeze, the smell of the battlefield, rusty iron and blood, the scent of death. All of it mingled, then receded.

Krais admitted he was intoxicated by something. Merely looking at Encrid made him feel as though he had fallen under a charm spell. It had to be spring's magic. As the saying went across the continent, spring held magic.

Every member of the platoon came to look at Encrid with much the same gaze. No, not just them. Battalion Commander Marcus, who had been watching from one side before approaching, wore a similar look.

"Raise a cheer."

The battalion commander strode over and spoke. As Encrid turned his head, Marcus smiled at him.

"A cheer for those who distinguished themselves most in this battle."

Amid the short, thunderous bursts of cheering and cries of the Lunatic Platoon's name, the battalion commander's words spread far and wide. A roar rose that could have shattered the spring sky.

"Raaaaaah!"

It was the cry of people drunk on the joy of victory and the magic of spring. Joy brought by victory on the battlefield. A cheer, in the end, for those who had won it.

Encrid quietly enjoyed the cheers. Not bad. Not bad at all.