A Knight Remembers and Repays (1)
It did not please her.
Crack. Vile and wretched though they were, the evil spawn born by her grace were vanishing so pointlessly, and that displeased her too.
Boom. It sat foul in her that her faithful servant, the warrior upon whom she had bestowed the name of Great Warrior, could not break free of so desperate a struggle.
Flare. It was hateful that primates, worthless beyond words, dared to defy her.
Everything was contemptible. Nothing was to her liking. Had anyone heard her, they would have called her nothing but a childish tyrant—yet of those who had dared offer such counsel, not one remained alive. She had ground every last one of them into a miserable end, and that was all there was to it.
And so Inanna thought.
Crunch. What could possibly feel more refreshing than smashing, in a single stroke, the hopes of those primates who were no better than monkeys?
She had only imagined it, and yet the unpleasantness clinging to her like a bank of gloomy fog seemed to cool, if only a little. Inanna reached her decision quickly.
A being twisted past all untwisting. Too petty of heart to be called a god, and overflowing with a malice too boundless to pretend she was not an evil spirit—her aspect suited the name Great Evil Spirit altogether too well.
Chillingly so.
Who am I? Where is this...?
The eyes of the silver-haired knight who bore the noble epithet of the White Lion were utterly empty. His soul had, quite literally, slipped out of him.
"Sir Aren! Monsters keep climbing up onto the fortress!"
"Your Highness, the Eighth Prince! T-troops! We need troops! The west is about to be breached!"
"Captain of the First! Poison smoke! A tremendous amount of poison smoke is spreading in every direction! What do we do?!"
Even with his wits gone, people were still looking for him. The Silver Lions clung to him like ducklings trailing a mother duck—no, as they looked now, even calling them cats instead of lions would have been too generous—and the knight, in that state—
Thwack!
"Aagh!"
"Pull yourself together. What are we supposed to do if you blank out again? You have to give orders, Sir Aren."
"Y-you impious wretch. Striking a royal across the back of the head..."
"It was you, Sir Aren, who ordered that if you started acting the fool, we were to snap you awake. I am only following that order."
"...That was not an order to hit me in the back of the head."
"Regardless, come to your senses and take control of the situation. Everyone is waiting on the mother duck's orders."
"...Watch your tongue, Sir Jord. I am not a mother duck."
"Then what should I call you?"
"...Call me a mother cat, if you must. A lion is a feline, at least..."
"......"
"Rrrgh!"
As if the words themselves had given him a sickness of rage, Aren erupted in a fiery bellow.
"You pathetic wretches! If they're climbing, stop them! Throw rocks or whatever it takes and knock them off!"
"Learn what cooperation means! Stop fighting apart from the Second and Third Knight Orders and work with them, damn it!"
"Are you carrying antidote potions as ornaments?! Don't panic—know what you have on you, for once!"
Somewhere between a commander and a man screaming, Aren could not hide his desolation. The royal knight orders—what a miserable spectacle. Honestly.
"...Tsk."
But it was not incomprehensible. Had he never lived through the Tunnels, he might well have panicked and fallen apart just as they had. The Fear breathed out by hundreds of thousands of monsters was more than enough to rob a person of reason.
The Fear of a single low-grade monster was nothing to a knight who had learned Fighting Art. The Fear of a mid-grade monster could freeze even a knight for a moment, and from a high-grade monster onward, Fear began to steal human reason itself. And high-grade monsters of that sort numbered in the hundreds of thousands. On this battlefield, ordinary soldiers could multiply all they liked and still be of no help whatsoever. It would be a mercy if they merely locked stiff and stayed out of the way.
Those who had learned Fighting Art could at least do one man's work, and the knights of the Silver Lion were each doing the work of two or more. In that sense, they were holding their own. Were they not defending the fortress, repairing it, and supporting Mordred's troops? Truly... A splendid role. As supply troops, and as soldiers. A miserable thing, if ever there was one. Why were knights doing a soldier's job.... Ah. No. Right now, this too is an important role.
Aren hid the gloom at once. Yes. It was not that they were lacking. The mere fact that they did not freeze beneath the Fear of six hundred thousand monsters, and could still be of use in the fight, meant they were fulfilling their duty well enough. So it was simply... Those others who are the abnormal ones.
KRA-KOOM! The shock of another collision rang out. Dust billowed into a vast ring, like an enormous doughnut cloud, and filled everything within a radius of three kilometers.
Was that supposed to make sense? And a thing like that is merely the shockwave of a knight order striking monsters.... It defied all common sense. No—before one even asked whether they were a knight order, it was doubtful they were human at all. Is the gap really this wide? The Silver Lions and the Black Iron Lions were both lions, weren't they, different only in color? And yet the white ones were in this state, while the black iron— They're fighting an army of six hundred thousand over there, aren't they?
Another blast tore across the field. KRAAAAAANG!
"...In what world is that a knight order? They're just monsters."
"Even so, they're on our side at the moment. Nothing could be more reassuring."
"...Doesn't it gall you?"
"Gall me? So long as I have pride in my own skill, that's enough."
Shlick!
"......"
"You ought to be careful as well, Sir Aren. You are the commander, are you not?"
"Mm..."
A serpent-shaped monster had burst up through the ground, and Jord's sword had already cut it in two. Watching the stroke, Aren felt the hollow laugh he had been swallowing rise in his throat all over again. This bastard—when had his skill grown once more? While I was off completing commander training, he went and trained alone again. This training fanatic. A subordinate whose skill far surpassed his captain's. Impious, through and through. He was grateful for the help. The complicated feeling, he could not help.
Flicking the blood away and sliding his sword back into its sheath with a flourish, Jord went on as if simply picking the conversation back up.
"And there's no reason to be galled. It isn't as if the Black Iron Lions are the only abnormal ones, is it?"
"What?"
"Look over there. There are three more monsters, aren't there?"
"......"
In the direction Jord pointed, three knight orders were putting on a display no less absurd than the Black Iron Lions—in some ways, even more so. The Turquoise Unicorn Knight Order swept the battlefield at will atop dark-blue horses, and the swordsmen of House Offen, though they bore no title of knight order, were no different from Offen's own. And then...
"...Why are they flying over there?"
"An artifact, perhaps. Or a technique that lets them fly."
"Does such a thing exist?"
"Hmm. If you asked Senior Lee Han, I suspect you'd get an answer. That technique—no matter how I look at it, its roots seem similar to Senior Lee Han's Muscle Arts."
"And how would you know that?"
"Can't you tell at a glance?"
"......"
"Why are you looking at me like that?"
"...Because you irritate me."
"Pardon?"
"Damned brat. Arrogant to the bone..."
Jord only stared, lost.
So this was why geniuses were so detestable. Thinking that if the man weren't so capable he would have cut him down on the spot, Aren furrowed his brow. Far from comforting him, the advice only left him feeling wronged. Why was it that only the Silver Lions—the kingdom's finest knight order, supposedly—were in this state, while every other order was flying about? Beyond understanding. No. Enough to drive a man mad.
Then—
"—By that logic, the truly absurd ones might be those over there."
"Sir Jake?"
"Look there, Sir Aren. Once you see that, even their feats will start to seem merely average."
"......"
Jake Parman had just finished a fierce fight against the monsters charging the fortress, and still looked to have stamina to spare. He pointed to the left as if offering comfort. Aren's head turned before he knew it, and at once his eyes trembled, for he had seen something he was never meant to see.
RUMMMMBLE!
Monsters were colliding.
He could not see the movements. Faint afterimages blurred through the air, and that was all. Every time a motion became even slightly visible, a tremendous shockwave scoured the ground around it. BOOOOM!
"...The God of War."
He had heard it in passing from a soldier of Mordred. What stood there was an ancient Great Warrior, a monster possessing the body of a god. A higher existence that might be more dangerous than the six hundred thousand monsters on the field. In which case—
Thud.
—those who fought a monster like that as equals were monsters of the same kind.
"Ahaha! Incredible, he blocked that one too! Dire Wolf, that man is seriously strong."
"Strong, yes. Not so strong he can't be killed. So withdraw. Better to fight alone than alongside the likes of you."
"...I was the one fighting here first, mind you."
"And what would you have me do about it?"
"...Hm. Is this how other people have felt? I suppose I ought to watch my mouth from now on. Ahaha!"
There were two knights exerting power equal to the God of War. The Dire Wolf of Galahad, and the Black Lion of Lionel. Far from being pushed back by the ancient Great Warrior called the God of War, the two knights of great renown had him flanked on either side and were driving him. One by strength. One by skill. Whichever it was, there was nothing human about it. No—one might well doubt they were even the same kind of primate.
"...Koff."
Aren coughed, dry and thin, his face paler still. The sight alone left his head spinning and his stomach sick.
"Don't show me things like that, Sir Jake. A person ought to live like a person."
"They are people too, though."
"They are not."
"...They're Seven Rising Knights, the same as you, Sir Aren..."
"Damn it! The day I catch anyone who brings up that Seven-whatever in front of me, that day they die!"
Lumping him in with things that weren't even human?! The sheer injustice of it. Aren ground his teeth and grumbled, but he could not deny that their presence was reassuring. No—not only those two knights. The others as well were so solid a presence that what he felt went past reassurance into relief.
This battle... We've won. With the enemy host being swept away, there was urgency, perhaps, but no sense of crisis. It was proof the contest had already been decided, and unless their own side suddenly gave up, defeat was simply impossible. To that degree, they boasted an overwhelming strength.
"Almost dull, at this rate."
"Sir Aren, weren't you sick with your own inadequacy until a moment ago?"
"That was only a past version of me."
"...It seems a madness is setting in for you as well, Sir Aren."
"Enough nonsense. Victory isn't far off, so we ought to prepare the victory toast. Haha!"
"......"
"...Sir Jake? Why are you looking at me like that?"
"No, it's just... I remembered something that guy said."
"That guy?"
"Yes. That guy. Lee Han said it. Celebrate before the match is even decided, and you'll catch one in the back of the head."
"What kind of nonsense is that?"
"Nonsense.... I wish it were. But that guy's nonsense, somehow..."
Shaaaa—
"...has a way of being right."
"......"
In that instant, a wind blew in, cold enough to match the North Sea. It was a cold that did not stop at a chill down the spine, but numbed the fingertips, and the knights lost in the fighting turned their eyes as one toward its source. It was a cold that stirred the sense of crisis. The instinct to survive.
"Sir Aren..."
"I-is this my fault? This?"
"......"
"...Sorry."
He apologized. And yet, somehow, Aren felt deeply wronged.