Walking Toward Death
General Gero, who had set out ahead of the others, was wandering the snowfields, tracking footprints through the white expanse.
Finding Minor and his soldiers before Neveumano did took priority.
"Where the hell are they."
Gero furrowed his brow and pushed through the snow. After a long search, they finally found something.
A suit of armor, crushed and mangled as if something had chewed it. Inside it, flesh and bone fragments pressed flat against the metal.
It was a sight almost too horrific to look at. Whatever had done this had clearly bitten down on an armored soldier and spat him back out.
"This is monstrous…"
Gero clenched his fist tight. He drew a sharp breath as he looked at the corpse, damaged beyond any hope of identification. His bloodshot eyes burned red with fury.
The enemy was a monster that killed humans this savagely. It had to be found and destroyed. A creature like this was nothing but a blight so long as it lived. It would bring nothing but harm to Cartadia.
～～～ ♬♪
A beautiful song drifted across the snowfield.
Gero lifted his head and scanned the surroundings. The other soldiers looked equally puzzled, as if wondering whether they had misheard.
"That sound just now…"
"It seems to be a monster, sir."
The 10-captain assisting at Gero's side spoke up. Gero nodded. It could be Neveumano — they needed to confirm it.
"Let's go. Do you know which direction the sound came from?"
"…I'll gather everyone's opinions."
The kingdom's forces advanced in the direction the majority of the 10-captains and soldiers agreed upon.
～～～ ♩♬
Along the way, that pleasant sound rang out once more — as if welcoming them along their path. But knowing it belonged to a monster made it deeply unsettling.
At last, at the end of that path, Gero found the monster.
A white, fur-covered bulk. The moment he laid eyes on it, General Gero felt as though he were staring at a giant from myth.
"…That thing."
Everyone let out a groan of despair.
Most monsters stood on all fours, or at least hunched forward with their spines bowed. But Neveumano held its spine upright like a human, and that alone made it far more oppressive than anything else. It was so enormous that the very idea of fighting it seemed absurd.
Gero's instincts screamed a warning. That was it. That was the monster they had been hunting.
"That one is…"
As Gero muttered under his breath, the 10-captain added,
"…General, it's not one. There are two."
Beside the lumbering giant, something comparatively small stood close at its side. A monster with the feet of a bird, yet carrying itself with an elegant grace.
The Snow Man's mate — the Snow Woman, Neveterde.
Gero studied the pair in silence, lost in thought.
"General, your orders."
Gero clenched his fist.
"That great beast killed our countrymen."
"……"
"Would retreating from this place be what they would have wanted of us?"
"…No, sir."
"We have trained our entire lives for a day like this."
Gero turned and looked back at his soldiers. Just as he expected, they were frozen in place, paralyzed by fear.
"Will you fall back from here and leave everything to the hunters? Is the kingdom's army so weak as that? The way to defend our territory is to strike down our enemies. With our own hands."
Gero glared and drew his sword. The essence set into the hilt of the general's blade flared with light.
"I will stand with you. Let us show them our true strength."
"…Yes, sir!"
The soldiers answered. They steeled their terrified hearts and forced their locked legs to move. General Gero walked at the very front of the line.
"……"
Gero felt it dimly. They were walking toward death.
But if they fled from this place, what would become of the kingdom army's honor? Strength flooded into the hand gripping his sword. He regretted that the Knight Commander had been unable to come. Had he been here, Gero might have felt a little more at ease.
As he walked, his thoughts wandered on. Where was this monster's weak point? Would they have to fight the one beside it as well? Ah — there, beneath its eyes, he could just make out fragments of crushed armor. It had eaten them. That thing had devoured them.
Crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch.
Even so, no one's footsteps faltered. The closer they drew to the creature, the colder the air around them became. Every breath billowed out in thick clouds of white. The monster chilled its surroundings by its mere presence.
At last, when the Snow Man noticed their approach, Gero stopped walking.
One final thought crossed his mind. Even if that Master Hunter — his last gamble — arrived, could she truly kill this monster? Meeting the Snow Man's gaze, Gero felt a crushing pressure unlike anything he had known.
Beside the Snow Man, the Snow Woman Neveterde looked toward the kingdom's forces with a confused expression.
～～～ ♬♪…?
Gero failed to grasp her meaning and thrust his sword forward. They had to be ready before the monsters turned hostile. From this moment on, there was room only for thoughts of battle.
"…We begin. Form ranks."
They spread out and held their positions so that no single strike could wipe them all out at once. The rear ranks raised their bows. They pressed the release and unfolded the halved shortbows into longbows, nocked their arrows, and slowly drew the strings taut.
General Gero raised his sword high, then swept it down in a sharp arc. At his signal, the arrows flew as one, streaking toward the monster. At the same time, the 10-captain and the general charged.
General Gero could scarcely believe his own eyes.
Was this what it meant to face a monster beyond human comprehension?
A thunderous roar that shook heaven and earth crashed through the world with deafening force. At the heart of that roar stood Neveumano. Even after weathering a storm of arrows, even after taking the sword strikes of the general and the 10-captain, the creature showed no sign of falling. The best they had managed was to scratch its hide.
And now, Neveumano's palm was crushing the ground.
"Tyra…!"
The knight Tyra, who had bravely charged Neveumano, failed to dodge a single downward smash. His body simply burst. There was not even time for the sound of bones shattering to register. The corpse was pressed so flat beneath the palm that it vanished entirely from sight.
Neveumano lifted its hand. With a wet, sticky peel, something viscous clung to its palm and then dropped away. What remained of Tyra was so horrific that the crushed armor from earlier looked almost merciful by comparison.
Every face went deathly pale. Gero's hands trembled violently.
And the great beast was not their only problem. The monster at Neveumano's side — Neveterde — was harassing the soldiers as well. Ice wings sprouted from both her arms as she soared through the air, raking soldiers' hands with her talons and coating them in a paralyzing venom that left them unable to draw their bows. Fortunately, she stopped there; those struck by Neveterde did not die. But Neveumano's attacks knew no mercy.
With every soldier who fell, Gero's eyes grew darker. Every death that had occurred in Lacrima settled heavily upon the general's shoulders.
And then, at last, the general understood.
They could not kill this thing.
It was not simply a matter of being the kingdom's army rather than hunters. If the entire kingdom army gathered and brought every piece of equipment they possessed to bear, they might bring it down at a catastrophic cost. But in this extreme situation, there was precious little they could do. The same would be true of the hunters. The forces at Lacrima Outpost were not enough. Just as with Disastro, they would need additional support from the kingdom.
He had to get that message through — even if it meant imprisonment once this operation was over. For the countrymen who had fallen. For the comrades who had died here. Until every word was delivered, he could not die, and he could not lose consciousness.
Gero drew a deep breath. He had to get the remaining men out alive.
"…Everyone, run! The 10-captains, the soldiers — all of you!"
Gero kept shouting.
"Hurry — run!"
At Gero's command, they stopped attacking and fled as if they had been waiting for the order. They had known they could not win. But the Snow Man was not about to let them go.
The Snow Man let out a tremendous bellow. The cry that erupted from that enormous body made the world itself tremble. Everyone clutched their ears and curled in on themselves, unable to flee through the pain of ruptured eardrums. General Gero, who had heard the roar from close range, shuddered and trembled as a ringing filled his skull.
In that opening, the Snow Man clenched its fist.
CRACK!
And brought it down once more. A wet, bursting sound spread through the air as someone's body was crushed to pulp right before Gero's eyes. Barely still alive, Gero could not gather his wits.
"…General! General!"
"…Ah — Aido!"
The knight Aido seized Gero by the shoulders and shook him back to his senses.
"General, we have to run — now!"
"The others — what about the other soldiers…!"
"Everyone is fleeing. We need to fall back from here first!"
Gero nodded. Supported by Aido, he withdrew.
BOOM. CRASH. BOOM!!
As the kingdom's forces pulled away, the Snow Man gathered snowballs and ice the size of its own hands and hurled them at the fleeing soldiers as if it were a game.
"Ahh…!"
Even as he retreated, Gero watched soldiers transform into dark, ruined corpses. Tears streamed down his face.
"Aido — so many fine young men are dying because of me!"
Aido answered,
"General, that creature is at least… a Supreme-grade monster on par with Disastro. There can be no doubt."
It had been a complete defeat born of insufficient information. But it was also a defeat that left room for a next chance. They had gained something from this engagement — the knowledge that there were two monsters, not one, and a measure of Neveumano's true strength.
The knight Aido continued,
"We need the kingdom's support. We need to prepare proper siege weapons. Like Angolo Outpost — with sufficient forces of our own…"
But Gero was not listening at all. His gaze was fixed on something farther off.
"…Have they arrived?"
"Sir?"
Aido turned at Gero's sudden words. Amid the general retreat, someone was walking toward them. No — not just one. Despite the order to flee, kingdom soldiers were walking back into the fray.
Aido frowned as he spotted a helmeted knight among them. Then he checked the color of the plume on the helmet, and his eyes went wide.
"…Evan?"
Evan had clearly been sleeping back at the outpost. And beside him walked two people who were not wearing kingdom armor. One was a small-framed girl carrying a large pack. The other was a slender woman with a greatsword slung across her back.
What stood out most was the greatsword itself — a strangely withered, peculiar-looking blade. There was only one hunter who wielded a sword like that.
The Master Hunter who had once competed with Evan. The last bastion Gero had thought of before setting out.
Alice.
Aido had barely begun to process her appearance when —
"…Pina."
"Yes?"
"Help the people here. With Evan. Just like we planned."
Alice ran.
She pounded across the snowfield, weaving past the soldiers. Her hand reached back and closed around the greatsword's hilt.
In that instant, a shadow fell over Gero and Aido's heads. A massive chunk of ice the Snow Man had thrown was hurtling toward them.
Alice's feet glided smoothly across the snow. At the same time, the greatsword slid free of its sheath on her back.
CLANG—!
Flowing Water.
The ice was caught by the ravenous greatsword and deflected aside, kicking up dirt as it buried itself harmlessly in the ground.
"……"
Alice glanced at Gero and Aido, then passed them without a word and charged straight at Neveumano. Strength flooded into her fist. At the edge of her vision, Neveterde's form was reflected.
Neveterde had not yet noticed her.
Alice swallowed hard. A greatsword was a weapon. And a weapon knew no hesitation.
Neither did Alice.