The Piper Knight
The Piper Knight
It was the ninth day since the fortress city of Levien had fallen to the Human Race forces' invasion without putting up any proper resistance.
Because the outer fortress had been breached in just two days, the inner fortress was overrun before the main force could even arrive. Not only did the counter-offensive fail, but they were instead pincered by the Human Race army and suffered catastrophic losses. It was an unprecedented defeat, a major incident significant enough to sound the alarm throughout the entire Demon King's Army.
The sudden change had every front in an uproar. They were investigating whether Itisel's Silver Eagle Independent Combat Brigade, which had withdrawn from the battlefield, had been concealing that much strength all along. They were even considering the possibility that the last survivor of the Levien family, who had moved with them under the title of supreme commander, was either an unparalleled genius or a Hero.
Amidst that chaos, the nearby Demon King's Army responsible for supplying Levien were frantically busy day in and day out, trying to hurriedly retake it before the Human Race could fully reclaim Levien and regroup. Thanks to those efforts, the Human Race couldn't perfectly seize control of Levien either, maintaining a precarious balancing act. But as time went on, it was unavoidable that the Demon King's Army's losses were becoming disproportionately heavier.
The root of the problem was the wrong first step, but the bigger cause was the change taking hold in the Human Race forces' tactics.
"Damn it, it's a wyvern knight!"
The moment the Demon King's Army guard, stationed at the forest base supporting the Levien siege force, shouted, an emergency alert spread through the entire encampment. This new Human Race raiding method, previously unseen, boasted a viciousness that made the Demon King's Army clutch the backs of their necks in frustration.
Just like the twenty wyverns flying across the dawn sky right now. The guard called them wyvern knights, but the base commander knew those devils were different from wyvern knights.
Those bastards, who had suddenly appeared lately and were harassing the Demon King's Army's rear lines, weren't wyvern knights. They were mobile knight launch platforms, an utterly horrifying nightmare beyond any comparison to catapults.
"Fire a signal flare! Call the detached force! They must have bypassed the main force to approach, so we just have to hold out!"
Though he shouted to encourage his subordinates, the commander foresaw his death.
This base was established for managing supplies and housing the wounded, so proper troops were limited in the first place. The enemy knew that, which was why they were targeting it, and it was clear that everyone riding those twenty wyverns was stronger than the Demon King's Army stationed here.
Still, a sliver of hope remained within the dying embers. If only the Piper Knight wasn't here. Then they could hold out.
-Fweeeee!
And the commander's wish was brutally shattered.
"It's the Piper Knight!"
Using the whistle as their signal, the wyverns simultaneously folded their wings, lowered their altitude, and charged toward the earth. The few mages present hurled attack spells, but hitting the swift wyverns was impossible. Rather, when the whistle echoed once more, the mages who had cast spells were struck by an unidentifiable attack and collapsed one by one.
"Damnation...!"
The Human Race knight who had single-handedly breached Levien's outer fortress and brought down Irap, the One Who Shoots Light. The bastard who had overturned the rear lines in less than a week and was known as the Devil of the supply routes.
"Fight! You must fight and endure!"
That bastard didn't leave commanders alive. Therefore, the commander couldn't stop. He had to somehow rally his troops and command them to increase their chances of survival.
Forcing his Magic Power into a rampage, he strengthened his body, pulled out the banner-lance set beside the tent, and aimed it at the Piper Knight charging at the vanguard.
"Today! We! Kill the Piper Knight right here!"
It was a futile dream. There was no one here skilled enough to defeat the Piper Knight. All such individuals were on the very front lines. To the Demon King's Army, the distinction between rear and front was just that.
His lance, thrown while suppressing the urge to flee out of a soldier's sense of duty, missed its mark as expected. Confirming a figure leaping from a wyvern that suddenly changed direction, the commander drew his sword.
"For freedom!"
The Piper Knight, whose expression was unreadable due to the helmet, answered by skillfully adjusting his posture in mid-air and swinging a double-handed axe.
And that was the commander's last memory in life.
◈
The advantage of being able to move one's main forces freely compared to the Human Race, by operating gates with overwhelming Magic Power to shorten physical distances, was meaningless in front of enemies already holed up in bases.
Of course, the story would be different if there was enough leeway to pull troops from other fronts. But unlike the early stages of the war, members of the Human Race and Demonfolk were now on a razor's edge.
The Human Race army, which had once relied largely on sheer numbers, grew stronger as time passed. Where a single Demon King's Army soldier had once been able to take on five Kingdom soldiers, now just two Kingdom soldiers could take on one. Even the gap created by the Silver Eagle Independent Combat Brigade's movement was filled when the Empire joined the war, leading the Hero. So the only troops the Demon King's Army could deploy were the rear-line soldiers who hadn't been directly involved in the war.
There was no way rear-line troops, suddenly forced to face Human Race elites because the balance had shifted, could remain intact. No matter that they were Demonfolk.
"The weapons are Magic-Armament Alloy anyway, so there's no way to touch them. Focus on destroying supplies like food. Bind those who surrender and gather them in the center..."
The Levien offensive had produced so many wounded it almost recalled the war's early days. The base naturally grew in its role as a relief station, to the point where the ratio of combat-capable soldiers to wounded had reached 1 to 4.
So when the rumored Piper Knight appeared in such a place, the outcome was obvious. The Demon King's soldier guarding the tent where the wounded were gathered steeled his troubled heart and pondered how to accept his end.
Should he make a final desperate struggle, or simply accept death? Still, judging by the faint conversation just heard, they seemed to be keeping those who surrendered separately. Was surrendering the right choice?
But this place was deep in enemy territory for them. There was no way they could afford to manage prisoners. Perhaps they planned to gather everyone and bury them alive.
"To think I'd die without ever having a romance."
As he chewed over his miserable feelings, unable to decide quickly, one of the wounded lying on a bed laughed at the words he'd blurted out and opened his mouth.
"What, was our medic friend a virgin?"
The female soldier, her leg blown off and her arm heavily injured, struggled to raise her upper body and continued.
"You should've said so earlier. Since we never know when we'll die, I would've given you a go at least once."
"Bullshit. What's he got to be desperate about, wanting to stick it in a one-legged bitch?"
"Jesus, what's a leg matter in this situation? As long as you can bang, that's all that counts, right?"
"I'd rather stick it in a knot hole and be done with it."
The wounded man next to her was in far worse shape and couldn't even raise his upper body, but the female soldier hurled her water cup without a shred of hesitation. As the cup struck the wounded man squarely on the forehead and he screamed, laughter erupted from all around.
It was an unbelievable sight, given that the base had just been sacked by enemy elites, but it was precisely because of that—the result of giving up on everything.
"Well... you've worked hard. I would've preferred to die fighting, if given the choice."
"Fucking war."
"It was tiresome. Seriously. I'm actually glad it's over—"
The small complaints and casual chatter that had been emerging one by one were cut off by a single sword piercing through the tent entrance, and the noise made by the medic who reacted by convulsively springing up from his spot. As everyone who could move their gaze stared at the entrance, the sword, which had slowly begun to move, lifted the tent flap.
It wasn't hard to tell he was a Human Race knight, even though he wore a helmet. There was no sense of Magic Power, and the style of the armor was different.
"Relief station confirmed. Report to Sir Ega."
The resonant voice from the helmet felt like a death sentence. The medic, who had reflexively shot up, felt the strength drain from his legs and leaned his back against a pillar supporting the tent.
The knight still only held the tent flap open with his sword, looking inside without taking any action. Not long after, other presences were felt. As a figure appeared, pulling back the unopened flap with a hand, the Demonfolk who recognized him drew long breaths.
The figure accompanied by the other knights, alone in wearing a different style of armor and helmet, was the Piper Knight.
"How many do you estimate are here?"
Blood still dripped from the axe in his hand, testament to how many Demon King's Army he had killed. But from the moment he had appeared, the tense Demonfolk had no time even to feel fresh fear at that sight.
"It seems there are about fifty in this tent. As there were similar-sized tents elsewhere, it is presumed there are more wounded."
"How many have surrendered?"
"About twenty when I last checked."
Hearing the answer, the Piper Knight nodded slightly and entered the tent. The very air around them seemed to change, a mere illusion perhaps, and everyone trembled in fear.
Such was the formidable infamy the Piper Knight had amassed in a short period. The face of the medic, watching the Piper Knight approach him with steps neither fast nor slow, began to grow pale.
"Cough! Cough!"
While no one even dared make the sound of swallowing, a violent cough echoed out, just around the time the Piper Knight had almost reached the medic. The Piper Knight's helmet naturally turned toward the direction of the sound.
And then he turned his body completely and walked toward the wounded soldier who was coughing so violently his entire body was heaving.
"Ah..."
As the sound of his own heartbeat grew loud enough to burst his eardrums, the medic couldn't stop him. Not because he thought it didn't matter if someone died first just for coughing since they'd all die anyway, but simply because he couldn't move, wanting to live just a little longer. The moment he realized that fact, self-loathing surged up, but it too quickly subsided before the threat of death.
So when he saw the Piper Knight, who had reached the side of the wounded soldier continually coughing and struggling to reach a water bottle, extend a hand to the bottle to pour water and pass that cup to the wounded man, he thought he was losing his mind and hallucinating.
"...Cough!"
Was he going to kill him the moment he took the cup? Or would he let him die after drinking water, at least?
While all the watching Demonfolk were having such thoughts, the wounded soldier, unable to withstand his cough, cautiously reached out and took the cup.
Then the Piper Knight, having watched him drink the water, turned around naturally and headed for the entrance.
"They all seem to be critically wounded. There's no need to drag them out. Check the other tents, and if the situation is similar, have them wait along with the medics in charge."
"Shall we put the surrendered ones to work beforehand?"
"No. There's no need to give them other ideas. We'll release them after we've left."
The sight of them casually conversing among themselves as they moved away from the tent was surreal. The medic barely managed to fill his emptied mind with thought and assess the situation.
"...So, did you piss yourself, medic friend?"
"Fuck. Yeah, I did."
But more quickly than any relief at being alive or doubt about their intentions, he registered the dampness spreading in his lower half.
Feeling pathetic about himself, yet laughing in relief that his life was still attached to him, the medic chuckled. As the other wounded soldiers also began to exhale belatedly and murmur among themselves, the female soldier who had propped up her upper body and was resting her chin on her hand asked the wounded man lying beside her with a serious expression.
"Honestly, even if the one missing leg is bothersome, wouldn't the fact that he's a bed-wetter cancel that out somehow?"
The wounded man snorted in disbelief and shook his head instead of answering.