A Knight Never Forgets a Grudge (4)
Somewhere along the way the twins had started nodding off with Lee Han for a cushion, and while they dozed he turned over the creatures he had personally wiped out.
"Not even a damn cuckoo, and he's still shit his mess all over the map."
The one Lee Han was hunting was none other than No. 2. These days the thing answered to Second Apostle, or Hansel, or whatever else it liked, but the No. 2 Lee Han knew was no grand apostle. He was nothing but a hopeless pervert. Man or woman, the moment he felt any affection he hungered for love and tried to force himself on them. When they met this time, the bastard wasn't even a man anymore—he had turned himself into a woman—and if a latent criminal like that changed bodies, he was obviously lining up some fresh perversion, some new crime.
Lee Han, however, didn't much care what the vampire intended to do.
Only—
You hit first, you'd better be ready to get beaten bloody yourself.
Let it be said plainly: Lee Han hated him. All the more because, as a child, he had very nearly been the one on the receiving end. And then the bastard he hated had picked the fight first, landed a blow, and run? That was no different from leveling a muzzle at him and demanding they settle it with their lives. Lee Han was not big enough to forgive someone who pointed a gun at him, and if forgiveness was the virtue that made a man magnanimous, then he wanted to be magnanimous even less.
So he was wasting a precious winter break chasing the bastard. And yet—
"The asshole isn't even Hong Gildong..."
This wasn't the old trick of flashing into sight in the east and vanishing in the west. The thing's traces spilled over in every direction like a virus. Even the creatures Lee Han had annihilated so far had carried the bastard's "traces," and thanks to that he had felt no need to hesitate while wiping them out.
But.
"At this rate, it isn't going to work..."
He wanted the catch made before winter ended. Unfortunately, the reality in front of him offered no hope at all. It would be nothing but a dragging game of hide-and-seek.
"No. We can catch him."
"Yeah."
"...You finished your nap?"
"Ah, we didn't sleep."
"Y-yeah..."
"Wipe the drool off your mouth before you talk."
"!!?"
Perhaps his muttering had woken them. Something weighty came out of the twins' mouths—though when toddlers tried to sound weighty, it only came off as thoroughly trivial.
...My whole back is soaked.
"And I just put this on today..."
Grumbling over nothing much, Lee Han looked at the twins rubbing the sleep from their eyes. Drowsiness still sat plain on their faces, but now that they were awake he could feel a stubborn will not to drift off again.
"O-our spit isn't dirty."
"...It's clean."
"Big talk."
"!!"
"More to the point. What do you mean, you can catch him?"
Had it been ordinary children mumbling, he wouldn't have paid it much mind. This was the conviction-laced murmur of a mystery-race. Not something he could wave off. And sure enough—
"Rotting smell. Circling around."
"Bad smell, really bad! But the most bad smell is still around!"
"......"
"So we can catch him!"
"Catch!"
"...?"
......He couldn't understand a word of it. Lee Han was an adult far too ground down by the world to make sense of the language of pure children.
Shk!
A blade drew a black arc and sheared the heads off five charging goblins at once. They flew so easily that a bystander might have fallen into the illusion that goblins were simple to handle.
Thuk!
"Gyaaah!"
"S-save me!"
"You morons! I told you not to go charging at the goblins!"
Mercenaries went down one after another, run through on spearpoints or else dragged away. They were veterans of war, and still they were losing to creatures the world ranked as the weakest of monsters, so it was tempting to think the mercenaries were simply weak. That was a mistake.
"Don't underestimate goblins. One wrong step and it's a wipe!"
Among monsters they ranked just below gnolls for coordination, and they were a species that knew how to use tactics. On top of that, these goblins fought with basic spear and sword work. A single goblin might be a joke, but monster scholars agreed that a goblin pack was more frightening than a wolf pack. As if to prove the scholars right, the creatures were toying even with seasoned mercenaries, and more than five of the company were already badly wounded.
If not for them—
Skrrt!
"There's no end to them!"
"Kunta tired."
"Do not charge in alone!"
—the fight might have grown far harder. They were not one man against a thousand, but the three students were doing the work of ten, and every time their blades whipped through, a swath of the goblin pack was swept away.
Even so, someone was putting on a more striking display than those boys.
"Everyone, get back from there! There's a trap! Shield team, shields up! The rest of you, throw the stones on the ground as high as you can! Higher!!"
Even as she neatly punched through the brow of the goblin coming at her, the blue-haired girl issued precise orders in a clear, upright voice and wielded considerable command. Her presence was surely the greatest reason they could fight eight thousand goblins without taking heavy losses.
"Gomsuni is super amazing!"
"Figured she'd end up a big shot. Turns out she already is."
"She is a remarkable person."
"Talk later! Sir Garand, join the mercenaries and secure command! Sir Arno and Sir Kunta, keep breaking them one by one! Together with Young Lord Roen, do everything you can to kill the leader—or hold it!"
They followed her confident orders without a word of complaint. A voice that was upright, righteous, and strong with conviction had the power to move hearts—a power that soldiers and politicians, people who for their own ends spent lives without hesitation and sacrificed them like cards, could never possess. It seemed a power that belonged to her alone: the stubbornness, and the nobility, of refusing to sacrifice anyone.
It was not a Mystery, and yet it felt like one. Taking the sight in, the black-haired young lord who was the true head of this expedition forgot the chaos around him and sank into a memory he missed.
"...As expected. You're what I admire, Jeanne."
Faced with a dignity and nobility worthy of a mercenary queen, he found the sight almost blinding. At some point even the mercenaries—stubborn, and prone to looking down on women—and the dwarves, famous for refusing to trust humans, were following her. Roen himself was butchering goblins with his sword like any common fighter, and he had no complaint about having lost command. He knew her ability to command was a hundred times better than his own.
But was soaking in sentiment in the middle of a battle a fatal mistake? A goblin that had closed in unnoticed aimed for Roen and thrust a rusted blade.
Thuk!
...It did not know a shadow was quietly guarding him.
Blood burst from the back of the goblin's neck, and it collapsed where it stood. The shadow lowered an awl.
"My lord, I can see that you're moved, but right now you need to focus on the fight."
"If I said I let my guard down because I trusted you, would you believe me, Jack?"
"I'm sure that's exactly what happened."
"...You're starting to sound like the instructor, too."
"So you wanted me to keep this respectful? No—you said this was a light trip! We've already run into goblin packs four times!"
"I didn't lie."
A journey to see a company of dwarves home. He had said beforehand that the trip was for that purpose.
Only—
"We simply had to enter the mountain range the goblins rule if we meant to reach the dwarves' homeland. Did you think I hired this many people for nothing?"
To cross the range, Roen had paid a huge sum to a first-class mercenary company and to students of the sword faculty. It had seemed like too many people for a trip. There was a reason. Of course, for a safe journey it would also have been fine to bring a knight order along. But—
These ones need to grow stronger.
In his heart, it was a scheme that was not quite a scheme. Roen wanted the One Hundred and Eight Arhats of the sword faculty to grow quickly. Raise those who held a power that could stand in place of Fighting Art. That was one corner of the picture he meant to draw.
...Well. From the perspective of students hired on the thought of some easy pocket money, it was a thoroughly rotten deal. Even so, Roen had no intention of throwing them into danger for no reason. He knew perfectly well that the instructor was frightening, and he didn't want to earn a grudge he didn't need.
And so—
"—Everyone, fall back."
He had taken out a very large insurance policy.
A mighty gale roared up. It was a discharge of mana far too powerful to imagine coming from a girl whose beauty called fairies to mind. The genius magic girl, whose talent was that of an Archmage—no, who could already be called an Archmage—finished preparing her spell.
"Wind, blow."
"Strong and fierce."
"Pierce through everything."
⟨ More violent than any spear! ⟩
The moment the girl's magic tore through, the goblins were swept up and shattered like dry branches. Wind packed as tight as a small typhoon was a disaster in itself, and her immense mana had laid edges and bludgeons into that wind, sharpness and weight together. From this alone, hundreds were certainly dead.
"Magnificent."
Irene Windler. The insurance Roen had hired at great cost was performing beyond the price he had paid, and he let his satisfaction show in a smile.
"M-my lord. Something I've been curious about for a while—what on earth did you give as payment, to be able to hire that young lady? It isn't as if someone of Galahad would be short on money..."
"......"
"Ah. If it's a secret, you don't have to say."
"...I merely gave her a gift."
"A gift?"
"...Just leave it at that."
"??"
The world overflowed with things one was better off not knowing in detail.
"...Ahem."
Jack didn't see it, but on a rare occasion Roen's face went past stiff and broke into a cold sweat.
"Hehe. Maybe it's the bracelet, but my magic feels like it's working even better today."
Irene wore a bright smile even as she pulverized goblins. Her condition was as good as it could possibly be. The ghost girl, watching her, felt nothing but horror.
"...Arin. Does that thing make you happy?"
"Huh? I'm just glad. I'm together with a part of the person I like. That's happy enough, isn't it...?"
"......"
"What?"
"N-no. I should just keep my mouth shut..."
"??"
The ghost girl felt a horror toward Irene that she had no words for, and she couldn't bring herself to follow the thought through. The girl hadn't committed a crime, and if she said she liked it, there was nothing more to add.
Except—
"...A bracelet made of hair is a little..."
The bracelet on Irene's wrist had been made from the instructor's hair, and the sight of her treasuring it like a talisman sent a chill straight through the ghost girl.
"So it's true that people are scarier than ghosts..."
"What have you been muttering about this whole time?"
"...That you're scary."
"???"
"Haa...!"
The ghost girl was so worried about her partner, who had gone seriously off the rails, that a sigh escaped her on its own.
...The irony was that the person in question had no idea what about her was strange.