Chapter 406 - The Reinforcements Dance

Krais had decided they needed to send reinforcements. He also thought those reinforcements did not necessarily have to be a large army.

'Are they short on supplies?'

Probably not. The royal army would not have gone into battle without at least that much preparation.

Then could sheer numbers light the beacon that would turn the tide? He did not know. It was hard to predict. He could not read Count Molsen's moves.

Naturally. Count Molsen had prepared something combining magic and spells, and was even now painting the battlefield in blood.

Even so, Krais had predicted that his opponent would unveil something no one could have anticipated. Once again, his mind's habit of imagining the worst had proved its worth.

In that case, sending their fastest, strongest fighters as reinforcements was the obvious choice. A handful of exceptionally powerful individuals could overturn a battlefield.

Audin, Sinar, and Teresa. Krais had provided each of them with two strong, swift horses. That was how Audin and Sinar came to be here.

* * *

Encrid stepped back. Audin had gently gripped his shoulder and pulled him away. There was no reason to resist.

"Now, just watch. I had my turn watching earlier."

Rem spoke as Audin stepped forward. Then he crossed the weapons in his hands and struck them together.

CLANG!

In his right hand was his usual long-handled axe. In his left was a shorter-handled hammer he had picked up somewhere. Encrid knew Rem was not particular about his weapons, so it was safe to consider him fully ready for battle too.

"I just need to cut those down?"

Ragna dragged his sword's tip along the ground as he spoke. Whatever he had done to it, the edge was chipped all over. It might as well have been a sawtooth sword.

Yet in Ragna's hand, it was menacing, frightening. Even a wooden sword would have been a threat in his grip. That was especially true today. His determination to cut down anything that tried to stop him was palpable.

After pulling Encrid back, Audin smiled gently.

"Father, here are some souls for You to keep at Your side and chastise."

In plain terms, he meant he would kill them and send them on their way. His two fists were ideal tools for sending those before him to the Lord's side.

He wore leather gauntlets on both hands. Someone seemed to have sewn them carefully, stitch by stitch. The finishing was meticulous, and they looked sturdy.

The material looked like demonic beast hide. Encrid had seen correctly. More precisely, they were made from centaur hide. Tanning and processing it took time, but it was indeed exceptionally tough and durable.

Krais had commissioned them and made sure to send them along. Idly curious, Encrid asked,

"Leather gauntlets? Who made them?"

"We have an excellent master tailor in the unit. I do not know his name, but his stitching is superb. He was once a Squad Leader, but now he is a supply officer, brother."

Someone came to mind.

"Red nose? Loves his drink?"

"How did you know?"

Tension still hung thick between the five monsters and their group, yet Encrid spoke and Audin answered as though there were nothing wrong with doing so.

Of course, Audin never took his eyes off what lay ahead. More precisely, his gaze remained fixed on the largest of the five monsters.

"He helped me out once."

The man had made him leather greaves and gauntlets when he first began repeating today. His skills seemed to have improved considerably since then.

If he was working as a supply officer in Border Guard, surely that meant his sewing had been recognized. Encrid had heard Krais had a hand in supply matters. He would not employ just anyone, which was further proof of the man's skill with a needle.

"My betrothed, who tormented you? Point them out."

Sinar stood beside Audin. Her Fairy humor had not changed. Her features were cool and intelligent, her tone flat, but her words could not have been more frivolous.

"The one who tormented me has already departed."

Encrid pointed at the sky as he spoke.

"You sent him to the Lord. Well done."

Was there another priest-like fellow besides Audin who praised people for killing? Surely not everyone who worshipped the God of War acted that way.

Still unsmiling, Sinar drew her sword.

"There is a halfwit here defiling Fairy blood."

She was right. One of the five was a Fairy.

Rem was inwardly surprised. He had met that one just a short while ago. She had scrambled away even after being cut apart, but he had not expected her to live. Even if she had survived, he had not imagined she would be standing here in such good shape.

He had given her torso a lovely chop with his axe and watched her entrails spill out, yet here she stood. Dark crimson blood did seep in spots between the crude stitches, but the mere fact that she was alive and moving was astonishing. He had been certain he had killed her.

Sinar stepped forward with her leaf sword. That left Rem, Ragna, Audin, and Sinar standing in front of Encrid.

Only Jaxon remained in the same... No, he had already vanished. He had concealed himself.

The moment Encrid realized it, Jaxon appeared beside the count. His skewer-thin sword shot straight toward the count's head.

No one had anticipated the strike. The point struck the count's head, but Jaxon failed to achieve his aim.

CLANG!

His sword bounced away as though it had struck solid iron. Jaxon was startled. It was far too hard to believe he had struck human skin.

Standing still would have been tantamount to praying for death, however, so he hurled himself backward immediately after the thrust. Black claws appeared and swept through the place he had occupied.

He could not help thinking a scratch from those would end badly. The black claws were something magical, brimming with menace.

Jaxon knew it was no defensive spell that had stopped his sword. He had checked for spells with his senses before attacking in the first place. In other words, the skin itself was simply that tough.

"Did you graft monsters into your own body too?"

Jaxon used the question to relay information to everyone: the count's skin was exceptionally tough, like a monster's.

"You mayfly."

The count kept speaking and waving his hand. Black claws toyed with Jaxon one after another. He vanished as though sinking into the ground and reappeared five paces away, but the claws pursued him without end.

At the same time, the creatures that could well have been called Lierbart's siblings, though they shared no blood, charged. Leading them was the Fairy Rem had half killed.

"Uuuurgh!"

She scratched furiously at her head, then began to run. Rather than charge head-on, she raced in a semicircle around them. Even on that curving path, she was frighteningly fast.

To Encrid, she seemed even faster than Lierbart. And she was.

Had Lierbart attacked recklessly, relying solely on his physical abilities, he could have replicated what this Fairy was doing. But he had not.

His human aspirations and a knight's honor had been his final shackles. He had wanted to become a true knight. That was why he had not fought like a beast.

What would have happened if he had attacked using his physical abilities alone? The answer was here.

Encrid had literally not blinked once, yet the enemy vanished from sight. Just as he thought he had lost her, his right cheek prickled. Something cut through the wind toward him: a slash powered by sheer speed.

He perceived it, but he had no need to react himself. A Fairy had been murmuring something for a while now. The words she had spoken before her opponent began to run had reached his ears too.

"A child of the forest who has lost her pride."

This time, her sword moved in earnest, not in jest. One leaf sword blocked another.

CLANG!

Green light scattered as the two blades met. The impact drove the opponent back, while Sinar was pushed back two steps as well. For a moment, the two faced each other across the gap.

Their swords were similar in shape. But one retained the leaf sword's distinctive form, while the other was wrapped in tangled blood vessels sprouting from the back of its wielder's hand.

"I cannot even call you one of my own."

Sinar rebuked her. The opposing Fairy had apparently not lost all reason, for she opened her mouth to answer.

"What the fuck are you talking about, you bitch?"

Well, it was hardly pleasant to hear. Sinar gave a faint smile at that. Merely looking at it felt chilling.

"Such foul language in front of my betrothed."

With that, Sinar raised her leaf sword.

She spoke reproachfully, but a single exchange had been enough to feel the difference. They differed in strength, speed, and the toughness of their bodies. Yet she did not think her opponent a knight. She was merely a monster that had struggled desperately to become comparable to one.

Sinar had seen Fairy knights before. They were beings who deserved admiration and were worthy of respect. One could not become a knight merely by tearing apart and remaking one's body.

That was why she had to cut her down. She would free this ignorant, foolish Fairy's soul.

"I shall speak to the forest and flowers."

Sinar raised her sword as she spoke. It was strange. Though it was the very same leaf sword, it seemed to give off the scent of grass.

"The season is spring, and spring stirs with more life than any other."

She continued her recitation. Her secret technique took form by drawing in the forest's spiritual essence.

It was the same as when she had delighted Encrid during their earlier spar. She had confused him with attacks using several doubles. Spiritual essence could also be used to deliver physical blows.

Naturally, that was not all it could do. That had merely been a trick.

She called to the spirit formed from gathered forest essence and heard its answer. Sinar took that essence into her body.

It was a secret Fairy technique, an art now forgotten because no one could perform it anymore. By accepting the essence into her body, she stepped for a moment into a world akin to her opponent's.

The mutated Fairy's sword came at her. Nidle's blade, called a leaf sword for its resemblance to a leaf, closed in on her face.

Having drunk freely of the essence she had stored for this purpose, Sinar struck out at a speed matching her opponent's.

CLANG!

She did more than strike it aside. Twisting her blade upward from below, she deflected the sword plunging down at her. Her own sword took on a soft green glow.

The leaf sword Nidle changed through an art called Seasons. The sword in her hand now was spring.

Spring's Nidle poured forth spiritual essence with more vitality than at any other time. Its shape remained unchanged, but the power within it transformed.

Sinar's movements thereafter resembled a dance. Remove the parries, cuts, thrusts, and shattering blows, and it was nothing more than dancing. Thus, blow by blow, she battered and broke her opponent's sword, striking down the Fairy chimera that had sought to rival a knight.

* * *

Watching Sinar begin her fight, Audin spoke.

"As punishment for arriving late, I shall take two."

No sooner had he finished than the remaining guards moved. Like the mutated Fairy, once they began to run, they too were faster than Lierbart.

Of course, not fast enough to trouble Audin or the two men flanking him.

Hearing Audin's words, Ragna extended his sword.

'Faster and stronger.'

What could he use to achieve that? Will. Formless power inhabited his arms. He laid Will upon his determination to cut and blended it into his limbs. He perceived how it moved and directed it.

That was the answer Ragna had found. And he put it into practice.

The power would scatter in barely two breaths, but that was enough. For a single moment, Ragna recreated a knight's sword. More precisely, the sword the knight of Aspen had shown them.

It had simply been fast and sharp. Ragna made his the same.

He placed his left foot half a pace forward and drew his blade back along the shortest possible path. To load it with the power of the Heavy Sword Technique, he added rotation from his ankles through his waist. That was his preparation.

Compared with the charging creature, Ragna's movements as he raised his sword and shifted his stance were noticeably slow.

To an observer, it would have looked as though those claws were about to pierce him, rip out his heart or part of his entrails, and leave him knocking on heaven's door. Assuming that observer had the eyes to follow any of it.

Ragna's sword abruptly accelerated. Far faster than his opponent's charge, the blade drew a line. Before speed and strength beyond perception, the tower built through false means collapsed helplessly.

WHOOSH! CRACK!

It truly happened in an instant. The creature charged, split in two, and fell to either side.

Rem saw it too, just as he was hammering his own opponent with axe and hammer.

'That crazy bastard.'

He was running even wilder than before. Having faced one of the charging creatures himself, Rem knew they were formidable monsters. Yet Ragna had done that.

Rem did not hesitate. He brought out the things he had acquired while hunting down the Ageless Madman.

In the West, Rem's homeland, the word Will did not exist. There was not even such a concept. But there was a way to hone one's mind and advance. What one had to gain through that process was called a spell.

To Rem's clan, spells were simply one of the weapons anyone aspiring to become a Hero was expected to possess. Ancestral weapons had derived from them as well.

"Watch closely, asshole."

Rem spoke toward Ragna, then snapped a totem using only the thumb and forefinger of his hammer hand.

The totem was a small doll two fingers thick. Its effect was simple: it imbued the caster's body with the Lightning Step spell.

Without holding anything back, Rem took out another talisman, crumpled it, and stuffed it into his mouth. This talisman's effect was Bear's Arm.

The two spells changed the power in his arms and legs, in all four limbs. Neither spell was his own, nor had he created them through his own invocations. It was a trick that let him use spells briefly.

That trick made Rem faster than before and added strength to his muscles.

His opponent came at him with a thick sword in each hand. The creature had repeatedly dodged Rem's attacks and pressed in, as though anything Rem tried could simply be evaded.

Like Encrid against Lierbart, Rem had been hard-pressed merely to block. Now his axe moved at an angle it had never taken before. It surged upward, then fell like a thunderbolt.

BOOM!

His opponent blocked but was driven back. The impact numbed the charging creature's entire body, forcing it backward.

Normally, even spells could hardly produce such force. This was possible only because it was Rem. His innate talent for spells surpassed even his talent for using his body. And he was better still at applying them to himself and putting them to use.

This was the result. He slammed his hammer into the creature's side. His axe feinted in and out, tangling up its defenses, before finally reaching out and splitting the chimera's head.

CRACK!

The tough, solid skull split vertically. Perhaps thanks to its monster blood, bones, and hide, it only split halfway, but its eyes and the rest of its contents spilled from the cleft.

Rem let both arms hang and thought there would be some aftereffects from this. It was the price of borrowing someone else's spells. Nothing to be done about it.

His gaze turned toward the final two. Audin appeared to be barely blocking and holding out, but naturally, no one intervened.

He had said he would take two, so he had to take responsibility, didn't he? Rem thought Audin an obnoxious fanatic, but he also thought him a man fully capable of keeping his word.