King Kong and the Hybrid Clash (7)

Krrrrrrumble!

"E-earthquake!"

"E-evacuate! Evacuate, now!"

Terror took the soldiers as the quake kept roaring through the tunnels, and they shouted evacuation orders in a frantic scramble. If the tunnels came down, they would be buried along with them.

But.

"I told you to take the prisoners with you, didn't I?"

"B-but, Your Highness..."

"Don't call me prince. Call me Sir Aren! I am on official duty!"

"Hrk!"

"I will not tolerate disobedience. You will take ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠every last prisoner with you."

"Y-yes, sir...!"

At Aren Pendragon's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠command, the soldiers had no choice but to round the prisoners up.

"L-light...!"

"Forward! Why aren't you moving?! If we all die because of you, I'll hold you responsible!!"

"I-I'm sorry!"

The prisoners had no time to rejoice at sunlight and clouds they had not seen in ages; they were too busy running. Even so, the sheer joy of being alive left them almost glad of the disaster. By rights, men already condemned to life imprisonment were never meant to walk free, even if the tunnels collapsed on top of them.

And yet.

"I will say it again. You take only the people written on this list. If anyone who does not belong is mixed in, cut them down on the spot."

"U-understood!"

Royal blood had the power to overturn every such principle. Aren had washed the filthy gray from his hair, and now the silver that marked Pendragon streamed behind him as the soldiers moved as one beneath his orders. They trembled with fear, yet their complaints were few, because they judged the orders just.

"Royal blood, sure enough. He means to keep anyone from dying with a grievance."

"The ones on that list might as well be innocent, that's true."

"They called him the noble White Lion. It wasn't an empty title."

Among those locked in the tunnels, these were the rare few whose crimes were slight. The soldiers were rescuing only men who had offended some noble or been framed, so there was little cause for complaint. It was a glimpse of nobility that deserved the praise.

From the man receiving it, however—

"Goddamn it..."

It ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was nothing short of humiliating. He felt filthy, as if he were stealing someone else's reputation.

I'm the one taking orders here!

There was the list, supposedly wrung out of the guild by threats, and the order that he rescue the prisoners—no.

An utterly unreasonable threat hung over him, so he had no choice but to do his utmost. Why should a royal like him break the law itself to do a thing like this? The question gnawed at him, but Aren was too afraid of what would follow if he ever spoke it aloud.

And yet.

"Th-thank you, Sir Knight! Thank you, truly, thank you!"

"Th-they said if I held out one more year they'd let me see my mother. I thought I'd die ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠without ever seeing her face. Thank you, Sir Knight...!"

"Th-thank you for saving us..."

Goddamn it!

Watching the prisoners—no, watching people who looked genuinely decent—offer him their thanks, something swelled in Aren's chest.

What is this?

"D-don't waste time thanking me! Just get out of here!! You there, your leg looks bad. Get on my back."

"I-I might dirty your armor..."

"Don't make me say it twice!"

It would be a long while yet before Aren realized that, somewhere along the way, what frightened him was no longer the monster, but the discovery that he was truly trying to help these people.

"Still, he's not a completely rotten man."

"No, he isn't. Right now, the name White Lion actually suits him."

"He does look brave, and noble, like a white lion..."

Shlick!

While Aren got people out, Jake and Jord had been charged with cutting down the vicious criminals trying to slip away among them, and they were slaughtering prisoners without hesitation. A few had even learned Fighting Art. They were surely of the Blood Cross Army—men who had betrayed the cult and were trying to escape.

"Not a scrap of loyalty in them."

"Heretics—no. What would you expect from garbage like this?"

Whoosh!

Jord swung at the prisoner lunging for him. A horizontal cut unfolded without hesitation, fast as the wind.

Thock!

The finish was immaculate. No one could begrudge calling it the height of swift-sword work—startling skill, and the reason he ranked first among that year's Silver Lion recruits. His senior knight, as if unwilling to be outdone—

Fwoooom!!

Whud!

"I'm nowhere near that man, who can turn aside both blade and arrow, but I'm fairly solid myself."

Jake took the enemies' attacks with his whole body and came away without a single wound.

Diamond Body.

Before Lee Han taught the students Gyeong, the first person he had taught it to was none other than Jake. He had been treated like a test subject, true, but Jake had already been an excellent knight, and he learned faster than the students. That was why even Diamond Body—something everyone had believed only Lee Han could manage—lay within his reach.

And so.

"Don't bother being born in the next life. Even the air you breathe is wasted on you."

It meant heretics of their sort could not so much as touch him.

Shunk!

A flawless drawing cut unfolded, and in an instant every neck that had rushed him was severed, neat as a sickle reaping grain. It was the skill of a knight at the very top—impossible to imagine from a man who still sat in the middle ranks. Jake let out a light breath and cooled the sweat on his skin.

"Hoo. Have we more or less cleaned them up?"

"The heretics, more or less, sir. ...The ones we cut down are only a fraction, though."

"...True enough."

Jake and Jord had felled more than fifty, and still hundreds of prisoners remained. And every one of them—

"They're still in there, aren't they."

"...So there really is another passage, just as Senior Lee Han said...?"

Hundreds of prisoners, with no intention of coming out even through an earthquake and the roar of explosions. They must have had something to fall back on.

"Hoo. Just how many traitors are there?"

Whether they wanted to know or not, they were about to find out. Inside the tunnels that held the convicts, there was a facility even they had not known about, and a suspicious power had latched onto it and was swelling. This was no ordinary band of terrorists or heretics. Someone was helping them from behind. Someone with considerable strength...!

"...For now, let's focus on the mess in front of us. If we take a blade while our minds are elsewhere, we're the only ones who lose."

"......"

"Why are you looking at me like that?"

"...Because you just sounded like Senior Lee Han."

"M-me?"

Jake looked badly shaken. His manner of speech resembled that disaster of a knight...? Did that mean he was a disaster too?

"I-I'm not that far gone!"

"You are, though. Exactly the same. Heh heh."

"You—!"

Watching his slippery junior leak that sly little laugh, Jake felt his blood pressure climb. The boy had been a diligent model student. How had he changed like this?

It's all that guy's fault. Lee Han. He called the man a friend, but he was nothing more than a bad influence. Ever since they had gotten tangled together, not a single day had stayed normal.

"Haa..."

Even so, Jake's eyes were fixed on the tunnels, black as pitch. Somewhere in that darkness the man was fighting, and Jake worried for him.

You holding up in there?

He wanted to run in and help, but he knew he would only get in the way, so he had to endure it. The man always did better when he fought alone. That did not make it sit any easier. Being left to clean up like this only drove home his own inadequacy.

"Tsk. Right now, I wish I were the Black Lion of the North."

"The Black Lion of the North? You mean the vice-captain of the Black Iron Lions?"

"So you know of him."

"His achievements are famous beyond the North, throughout the whole kingdom. The Black Lion, Maximus Iron de Lionel—the renowned Giant Slayer, isn't he?"

Maximus, slayer of giants. The valiant knight who had felled a frost giant alone. Even among the young knights who represented the southern continent, his feats and his fame stood on another level entirely.

"...I've only ever heard the stories, but is he really that strong?"

"I've only seen him once myself. And that was by chance. ...But."

"?"

"He's strong. Absurdly strong."

"......"

He could not forget.

Jake had accepted his father's words. No—that presence and that momentum had left him no choice but to accept them. And he had wondered whether he would ever, in all the life still ahead of him, meet another person like that.

...Well.

After he met that guy, he changed his mind.

In a way, the man was stranger still than a monster born through odds of one in ten million. Skill that would not lose to anyone. If Maximus was a genius of so-called heaven-given talent, then that one had seized his power through adversity and trial. In a word—

A hybrid. Something like a chimera?

The man was good at all sorts of peculiar things. Grotesque things.

Ha...!

Even so, calling a person a hybrid was too harsh. Jake snorted at himself and felt a pang of guilt.

I'll buy him a beer later. Whatever.

...Once all of this was safely over.

Shunk!!

Jake's sword harvested, once again, the neck of a beast wearing a human face.

And the monster judged to have been born with a gift of one in ten million, and a certain hybrid who had seized grotesque power through trial—

"So. Why are you here?"

"Haha, I happened to be doing a bit of spy work. Strangely enough, they kept chasing me and calling me suspicious. How they saw through me, I can't imagine..."

"...I think I know the reason all too well."

"Hm?"

Lee Han and Maximus. The two knights had a sword and an axe leveled at each other's throats, ready at any moment to harvest the neck between them. They held the standoff.

And watching them—

"Um. We're in the middle of being buried alive..."

Rrrumble!

Derek jabbed a finger at the falling dirt and stone and screamed at them to stop fighting and get out already.

Unfortunately.

"You lower the sword first."

"Wouldn't it be better if you lowered the axe?"

"......"

Neither of them looked willing to yield an inch, and Derek thought—in every world you went to, the reason men died young was obviously that useless pride.