Chapter 314 - You Brown Piece of Shit

You brown piece of shit.

CRACK! "You!"

Esther seized her opponent's forearm and snapped it. Galaf recoiled in horror at the sight of his breached barrier. Only then did the pain hammer into his brain. "Urk."

That was it. A battle between mages was a contest of spell worlds, but they still had physical bodies. Injuries affected them, too. Put simply, pain made it hard to concentrate. Despite the immense difference in how much mana they could draw from their spell worlds, hadn't the battle been evenly matched? That meant his opponent knew how to cast and employ spells far more efficiently than he did. Galaf broke into a cold sweat as he endured the pain. Her last attack had been utterly absurd. He had cast a defensive spell, only for that damned witch Esther to wreathe her hands in flame, grab his barrier, and tear it apart. The movement carried tremendous strength. FWOOSH!

Steam had momentarily obscured his vision, a result of the Blue Lake spell combining with the Heated Hands spell. Flustered, Galaf had barely managed to attempt a barrage of spells before she grabbed his arm and broke it. How had this witch become so strong? Galaf's mind was full of questions. Had she always been this good at fighting? Had she been called the Fighting Witch not for her temper, but because she really was good at fighting? Few mages had as many epithets as the witch before him. Galaf had thought it a kind of trick: spreading multiple epithets to keep opponents from seeing her true nature. Trick or not, he now knew one thing for certain. Of all the epithets belonging to the unsmiling witch before him, Fighting Witch was genuine. "You're not getting off easy."

The witch with hair like black silk spoke expressionlessly. The summoned creature that had killed his two apprentices now stood motionless to one side. It appeared to be a golem of stitched flesh, but its craftsmanship was extraordinary. The stitches on one side of its face and its unfocused eyes seemed to attest to its nature. It looked like a golem someone had devoted a lifetime to creating. "Grrgh!"

Galaf resisted. Of course he considered fleeing, too, but the difference in their abilities had been clear from the start. Esther had not actually sought the epithet Fighting Witch. It had spread by word of mouth because she fought like a madwoman. Galaf was the opposite. His days were spent building his domain and tending to his apprentices. The difference was immense. Esther had sensed that difference from the outset. This had never been an even match. The density and solidity of their spell worlds? Galaf's was superior. But a spell only meant anything when used where it was needed, at the moment it was needed. Especially in battle. Esther could do that. Galaf could not. This was the result. "Goodbye."

Her farewell was almost cheerful.

SHUNK.

Instead of a spell, Esther drew a knife, plunged it into the mage's heart, and pulled it out. Galaf spat blood and gasped, then fell with a thud, knees first.

"F-fuck... bitch."

He turned his head sideways, his lips working. Esther planted her foot on his mouth and pressed down. A mage's mouth was not something to leave unchecked. Then she crouched and drove her knife into the back of his hand.

SHUNK!

The blade passed through Galaf's hand and lodged in the ground. A mage's hands could no more be left unchecked than his mouth. "Mmph!"

Galaf's body writhed. That was the end. A rather formidable mage had passed away. In other words, one of the trump cards Abnaire trusted had died quite unexpectedly. Esther checked the corpse briefly, in case he had left some trick behind. There was no movement of mana. Then she swept up her long hair and gathered it in one hand. A hair tie would have been nice. Blood had spattered her hair, her black velvet coat, and the pale skin it concealed. Droplets trickled down the swell of her breast. It felt unpleasant enough that washing should have been her first thought, but something else came to mind instead.

"I wonder what my nest is doing."

The words slipped out as she spoke to herself. She wondered what Encrid was up to. Perhaps he was getting beaten up somewhere. Galaf, He Who Holds the River's Course. Even she had heard his name. If a mage of his caliber was here, there was likely something else elsewhere. Esther searched Galaf's clothes, took everything worth taking, then dismissed her summoned creature back into her spell world and set off. She could operate Bonehead, the flesh golem, but her body was still too far from normal to sustain it for long. The channels that conveyed mana were damaged, limiting its operating time. The fight might have looked easy, but maintaining her human form had nearly emptied the mana reserves in her spell world. 'I'll have to stay a panther for a while.'

Without regret, Esther changed into her panther form.

* * *

The Aspen troops standing in formation saw a man charge in alone like a lunatic.

'What the hell is that?'

'Is that bastard crazy?'

'Should I stab him?' He had broken through the front line in a single rush and reached the rear of their formation. A few Aspen soldiers quietly turned their spears backward. Formation be damned, the man behind them looked dangerous. Three soldiers exchanged glances. Kill him quickly and get back into position. Their Squad Leader nodded as if to turn a blind eye. They were just about to attack when a voice stopped them. "Hold."

A nearby Platoon Commander had checked the enemy's face. More precisely, his distinctive appearance had immediately caught the commander's eye.

'Blond hair, pale skin, red eyes.'

It was one of the descriptions Abnaire had personally assembled all his commanders to give them. "Leave him."

That ended the three soldiers' unspoken agreement. Orders from above. They stopped where they were. The Platoon Commander watched the enemy soldier. The man had strode into their ranks without so much as a helmet, then headed off to one side as though there were nothing to consider. He was not running, but his pace was extraordinarily fast. Sword in hand, he surged onward, seeming to cover two ordinary strides with every step. Ahead of him stood an Aspen soldier carrying a short sword. More precisely, an ally wearing hardened leather armor unlike the regular soldiers' gear. He slipped a finger beneath his helmet, scratched his head, and spoke.

"You're following me all the way, huh?" Instead of answering, Ragna took another step.

WHIZZ!

The leather-armored Aspen soldier threw a dagger. Ragna tilted his head to avoid it. The dagger struck the ground. Ragna kept walking without looking back. The dagger had not halted him for even a moment.

'You said hello. Now we have to see this through.' He pursued with his eyes fixed on the man's back. There was no chance of losing track of his presence. The man seemed about to pull away, but never did. The fact that he had plunged into the enemy ranks did not enter Ragna's mind. Encrid had once said that, given the circumstances, the members of the Lunatic Company could do things even worse than Rem. Ragna had once returned after cutting down hundreds of enemy soldiers simply because he had gotten lost. This was nothing to him. Besides, no one had ever asked Ragna for strategy or tactics.

["All you need to do is fight."]

That was what Krais had said. Encrid, too, had told him:

["Fight however you like."] So Ragna had done just that. Fought as he pleased. Until now, that had meant putting in just enough effort. But things were a little different now. Something had been added to that bare minimum.

Motivation. "Hey, are you going to keep following me?"

The enemy soldier scratched his head again as he spoke, never slowing down. He was no ordinary soldier. Ragna had known that at a glance. 'I'll catch him.'

Why did he want to? Asked for a precise reason, he could only have given a vague answer. But he felt that following this bastard would lead to something he had been hoping for. That alone gave him all the motivation he needed to keep moving. His red eyes were devoted to a single purpose. The enemy soldier deliberately drew farther from the main camp. More precisely, he moved out of sight of both Naurilia and Aspen. They had run far enough to be quite winded. 'He really can keep up.'

The soldier considered himself better on his feet than anyone around him, yet this was the result. His pursuer kept coming. His chest rose and fell, but his breathing was barely labored. 'Wow. That hurts my pride.'

He actually belonged to the Ruling Prince's Knight Order. He was a squire, and the best of the squires when it came to using his legs. Even if his opponent was supposed to be at the level of a proto knight, this still hurt his pride. The man needed less time to catch his breath and looked less tired than he did. "Seriously, what are you?"

The squire asked again in disbelief. Ragna stared at him, then asked:

"You're not alone, are you?" The squire did not nod. What difference would knowing make? Ragna felt his previously vague determination surge. Motivation. Desire. What should he call it? An urge to fight pounded at his chest, and it was not because of the opponent before him alone.

Absolutely not. Ragna raised his sword. The enemy soldier, the squire of the Ruling Prince's Knight Order, took a step aside. Out of the tall grass came the opponent who had stirred Ragna's motivation. "After all my warnings, you're still surprised?"

The newcomer addressed the squire. The figure was tall and dark-skinned, with long hair tied back and hanging down, and a helmet that seemed custom-made. It was an oddly shaped helmet with its visor raised. An opening beneath the back of the head let the hair through, while above it two pointed protrusions jutted up like a beast's ears. The peculiar manner of speech suggested someone from another continent. Skin color and features supported that impression. An Easterner, by the look of it.

And a woman. "You really are fearless."

She stretched out a long arm as she spoke. Her reach was roughly equal to Ragna's. Sword raised, Ragna quietly steadied his breathing. It was already even. At the sight, the squire's brow furrowed sharply again. What the hell was he, to have that much stamina? In truth, it was inevitable. Ragna got lost at the slightest opportunity, so wandering was an everyday affair. A journey that took someone else a month could take him a year. Carefully studying a map or having a guide might have helped, but Ragna had never traveled in wealth. Maps were not cheap, and he saw no need to hire a guide. After all, someone without a destination simply lived each day. The premise of getting lost did not apply. Thus, Ragna believed he had never been lost. When his luck was bad, he sometimes continued on foot for over three months without reaching a village. Naturally, his ability to run and sprint had developed to an extreme. "You said he was at proto knight level. Shouldn't he be about equal to me?"

The squire fingered the sword hilt at his waist.

"He's above you."

The brown-skinned woman answered at once, never taking her eyes off Ragna. "Are you certain?"

"Are you asking because you don't trust my eyes? Or is that just wounded pride? Neither is a good thing."

"... My mistake. I didn't want to lose when it came to legwork, at least. Something about him gets under my skin."

"Rather than saying he's at proto knight level, we might as well call him a proto knight." As Ragna listened to them, he looked for openings in the woman's guard. It was instinctive rather than deliberate. He had already launched four attacks in his mind. A broad horizontal cut from left to right. A downward snapping strike from the Heavy Sword Technique. A visible stab driven forward. A semicircular cut rising from the lower right. In Ragna's mind, the female knight easily parried all four imagined attacks. Her next strike reached his shoulder or abdomen.

'Can I dodge it?'

He could evade it with footwork, but that would put him on the defensive. Once on the defensive, he would struggle to turn the tide. Whatever he did, he had no chance of winning. A genius's discernment and talent were sketching the course of the fight. Of course, it might all be empty fantasy. No one knew a fight's outcome before it began. Without a change in expression, Ragna opened his hand and wiped his palm against his thigh. He was sweating. "Still, you're not a true proto knight. You seem to know a little about Will, too. Whew. They did tell me to make absolutely sure I killed you."

The female knight took a few steps forward as she spoke, then continued. "I'm Aya of the Knight Order of Aspen's Ruling Prince. Would you consider switching sides?" A proto knight of the Ruling Prince's Knight Order, with a squire at her side. Aya brimmed with confidence. She was in her fourth year as an actual proto knight of a knight order. She knew better than anyone that not all proto knights were equal. A knight order gathered people with comparable talent and skill. There was a clear difference between a proto knight who trained among such people and someone of proto knight caliber wandering the continent. The intensity of the sparring matches and duels they experienced was different. Aya made the offer because defeat had never entered her calculations. Ragna wiped the sweat from his right hand twice, then wiped his left. He gripped his sword with both hands and raised it upright before his face. The sharpened blade parted the biting winter wind. It parted the sunlight, too.

The weather was fine. His heart pounded. The motivation that sometimes welled up when he watched Encrid now hammered at his chest as never before. Why? Why was he so motivated? Because he wanted to cut his opponent down? Was it an urge to kill?

No. It was because she was formidable. Her movements were clearly extraordinary, and her affiliation only added to that. The Knight Order of Aspen's Ruling Prince. One reason Aspen had gone to war despite Naurilia's Scarlet Cloak Knight Order. A symbol of military might. Was it because such an opponent had appeared before him now? Of course, that was not all. Ragna's motivation had been stirred for some time. The impulse Encrid inspired in him had given him a thirst. It made him throw himself into training, if only occasionally. But once that thirst had arisen, training alone could not satisfy it. Even walking a set path did not mean knowing everything that would happen along it. Only then did Ragna realize.

'Ah.'

A small exclamation sounded in his mind. He needed a catalyst. Something to carry him farther than he had come. Something motivation alone could not achieve. He could not kill Encrid or the halfwits around him, so he could not give them everything he had. But what about the female knight before him? Here was an opponent he could give his all. Someone he could measure himself against on the brink of death. A catalyst. He had not even heard the offer to change sides. He simply wanted to fight, right now. Provoking her would help. Ragna, too, had learned something from Encrid. So he put that lesson into practice. "What are you babbling about, you brown piece of shit?"