Chapter 32
Chapter 32
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Translator: Vine
Chapter: 32
Chapter Title: Return of the Victor
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He came to his senses only to find he had been defeated.
For Phillip of Brandenburg, at least, that statement was no lie.
By the time he joined the fray, the right-wing cavalry had already been crushed, and Lord Milvas and all the Aura Knights had fallen. Baron Perker's left wing had been breached long ago. Having broken both flanks, the enemy cavalry easily maneuvered to encircle the entire main force.
From all sides, the black-clad cavalry tightened the encirclement.
In contrast, having lost their core forces and with their morale at rock bottom, the fate of the Order of Saint Magdalena was a foregone conclusion. With every approaching spear tip, soldiers were stabbed to death, trampled, or crushed in the retreat as blood and viscera sprayed through the air. Death was everywhere.
“Ah, ahh…”
The battlefield is a place where even the wisest men become fools. How much more so for a man who was foolish even in peacetime?
The heart-stopping fear of defeat, the pointing fingers of others, his father's cold gaze that would surely fall upon him, and above all… Dale's condescending look and icy sneer remained seared in his mind.
“Lord Phillip! Please, make a decision!”
Anxious, Phillip bit his lip.
“…Annihilation.”
Phillip muttered, his decision made.
“W-what did you say?!”
“—A glorious death!”
“Sir…?”
Ignoring the knight who blinked in disbelief,
“The swords of our proud Order of Saint Magdalena may break, but they will never know defeat!”
Phillip shouted, as if he would never yield.
“A glorious death for all! For everyone! Gather the remaining cavalry and reform the ranks! Follow me! Prepare for the final charge!”
“B-but, my lord! If we do that, we’ll all be wiped out…”
“Do you dare defy the supreme commander’s order?!”
Charge, charge, charge. Phillip repeated the word like a parrot.
A glorious death. To shatter as beautifully as jade. To die a clean death for honor or loyalty. It was indeed a beautiful phrase to the ear.
* * *
Gathering their last remaining strength, the Order of Saint Magdalena under Phillip's command charged, and the encirclement was broken more easily than expected.
‘I did it…! I actually did it!’
But just as their life-or-death breakthrough succeeded, and their resolve to die turned to hope,
“Charge!”
As if they had been waiting, the ‘Aura Knights’ of House Sachsen appeared.
They had withdrawn to the rear early on to conserve their stamina, change their armor, and switch their tired mounts for fresh warhorses.
“Trample everything in your path!”
There was no longer any need to disguise themselves as the motley knights of Baron Greenbelt.
Jet-black armor, the symbol of the Black Cavalry. Destroyers of the battlefield, charging like war chariots. Intimidatingly brandishing the ‘impossibly large greatswords’ in their hands, the black-clad cavalry galloped forth.
The Zweihänder, a two-handed sword just under two meters long. And that massive blade was seamlessly wreathed in jet-black aura.
“For House Sachsen and Lord Dale!”
*Fwoosh!*
The black swords of Sachsen descended like a storm, and everything in their path was torn apart like paper.
Necks were severed, bodies were crushed, and armor was mangled and shattered.
“Ah, ahh…”
The hope of having broken through the enemy encirclement and opened a path to escape was short-lived. The Order of Saint Magdalena, prepared for a glorious death, was being literally pulverized.
It was a perfect, waiting ambush, and it meant only one thing.
They hadn't succeeded in their breakthrough. They had been deliberately allowed an escape route. Like moles in a losing game of whack-a-mole.
Their sliver of hope vanished without a trace.
“L-Lord Phillip. Please, perhaps you should surrender now…”
Was it because of fear, or because the faint hope he had harbored just moments before had been betrayed?
“It’s not a defeat as long as the commander is alive!”
Phillip roared in response to his subordinate's desperate plea.
“Hold them back! Hold them back and protect me!”
“But, my lord…!”
“Silence! I don’t care about the lives of mere soldiers! Protect your commander, even if it costs you your lives! Protect me!”
And so, one person was excluded from the commander’s resolve to face even death.
* * *
The battle, which had begun as dawn broke in the eastern sky, did not end until dusk settled over the western horizon. Darkness was swiftly falling along the horizon.
“Everything went according to your plan, my lord, from start to finish! The operation was a complete success!”
“As expected of Lord Dale!”
“I, Veil of Baskerville, can only express my utmost awe at Lord Dale's strategy!”
“…”
Amidst the Night Raven Knights, who could not suppress their joy and loyalty, knelt the enemy commander, captured disgracefully after attempting to flee.
He knelt before a monster whose genius a dullard like himself could never hope to match even in a hundred years, and behind him, a sea of blood and mountains of corpses from the Order of Saint Magdalena.
“You really seem to hate the idea of surrendering.”
Dale spoke to Phillip, the eldest son of the count.
He stood beneath a banner bearing the Night Raven crest of House Sachsen, flanked by knights in jet-black armor.
“You may have won through despicable tricks and cowardly schemes…”
Phillip shouted defiantly.
“We may be broken, but we are not defeated!”
At those words, Dale glanced behind him. He saw the endless mountains of corpses and seas of blood stretching to the horizon. The result of a proud, glorious death, of refusing to surrender to the very end.
“Those are some rather grand words for someone who fled to save his own skin.”
“I-I, as the commander of this battle, have a duty to survive until the very end!”
“Ah, is that so.”
Dale replied as if it were none of his business.
“Well, the battle is over now, so I suppose there’s no need for you to be alive anymore.”
*Shnk.*
He rested his hand casually on the hilt at his waist.
It was at that moment.
“Fine!”
Seeing Dale’s movement, Phillip flashed a triumphant smile.
“I gladly accept your ‘challenge to a duel’!”
“...?”
Dale tilted his head at the unexpected words.
“I, Phillip of Brandenburg, graciously accept Dale of Sachsen’s ‘one-on-one duel for the fate of this battle’!”
It was a claim as petulant as a child's tantrum.
*Shing!*
Phillip scrambled to his feet and boldly drew the knight’s sword from his waist.
And just as the Sachsen knights moved to stop his absurd action,
“Very well.”
Dale held out an arm to stop his knights and nodded without hesitation.
“I accept your challenge.”
The moment Dale nodded, Phillip gave a sly smile. With that smile, he kicked off the ground and charged.
It was a despicable charge, launched before Dale had even drawn his sword from its belt.
*Thwack!*
A blade swung, followed by a sound that felt utterly unreal. Along with it came a scream like a stuck pig.
“Aaaargh! S-save me! No, spare me! Please, please spare my life! I’m begging you!”
“So much for dying a glorious death.”
It was all over in the space of a few ticks of a clock’s second hand.
* * *
“Lord Dale is here!”
“His lordship has returned victorious from battle!”
Because a messenger had delivered news of the victory ahead of time, and because, coincidentally, Dale’s eleventh birthday was approaching,
the city of Sachsen was swept up in a grand, festive mood.
The Black Prince and the Holy Sword Master. A proxy war between two great lords, fought under the names of mere barons.
The battle on the Greenbelt Plains had been an overwhelming victory for House Sachsen and the Night Raven Knights. As the triumphant general who had seized victory in that very battle, Dale returned to his domain.
Leading the endless procession of House Sachsen’s prized Night Raven Knights, along with the few prisoners from the Order of Saint Magdalena, including the count’s eldest son, Phillip.
“They say he pulled off the ultimate pincer envelopment against the Order of Saint Magdalena!”
“I hear that even if a flock of crows pecked at the bodies for a week straight, they’d barely make a dent!”
Leaving behind the people’s whispers and their embarrassing praise of his exploits.
* * *
The great hall of Duke Sachsen’s castle.
Clad in custom-made black armor and a surcoat, Dale strode across the hall’s marble floor.
“Big brother!”
“Lije.”
His two-year-old sister, Lije, who had only just begun to speak, called her brother’s name with innocent delight.
“Dale.”
Seated on the thrones in the hall, the Duke and Duchess smiled at their son’s majestic return.
“Congratulations on your first victory in battle, Lord Dale!”
“Thank you, Lord Helmut.”
Lord Helmut, Charlotte, and the elven mage Sephia. Leaving the familiar faces behind, he crossed the hall.
“Dale of Sachsen hereby formally reports his victory to Your Grace, the Duke.”
Before the Black Prince’s throne, Dale knelt and paid his respects. Duke Sachsen smiled, unable to hide his fatherly pride.
“You led them to a truly magnificent victory.”
“It was a victory made possible only by the swords of House Sachsen.”
“Lord Veil, thank you for guiding Dale so well.”
“The credit belongs entirely to His Lordship!”
At Duke Sachsen’s praise, Lord Veil, Dale’s aide-de-camp, bowed his head.
“You must be tired, having just returned from battle.”
Next, his mother, Elena, spoke, unable to hide her concern for her son.
“You should get some rest first.”
“Thank you, Mother.”
Dale bowed his head once more before rising to his feet.
Sachsen Castle. The months-long battle was over, and he finally felt as if he had returned to where he belonged.
His home, his family.
It was a very strange feeling.
* * *
“L-Lord Milvas and all the Aura Knights, the entire Order of Saint Magdalena, have been wiped out…”
The news was like a bolt from the blue.
“Lord Phillip was captured along with a few retainers and is being held for a… a huge ransom…”
“That damned brat from House Sachsen…!”
As soon as he heard the messenger’s report of the devastating defeat, a pure white aura enveloped the blade of the Holy Sword.
As if searching for an innocent victim upon whom to unleash his hatred.
Before the aura, as brilliant as an angel’s feather, the messenger’s face froze, pale as a sheet.
* * *
“Do you remember my death?”
the man asked. He was a corpse with a blade piercing through his chest from behind.
“I remember our deaths.”
Ten-year-old Dale, clad in his black armor and surcoat, nodded. The dead man spoke again.
“Remember death (Memento mori).”
With those words, the man’s form vanished. But the blade that had been piercing the man’s body was now protruding from Dale’s own chest.
* * *
Every mage has their own world, and the practice of magic is the process of perfecting that world.
* * *
That night.
When Dale closed his eyes in his bedroom in the ducal castle, having safely led his forces to victory in his first battle, what came to him was not a simple nightmare.
The abyss of his mind.
“…”
The darkest landscape of his mind, the one he had forcibly opened to achieve the 3rd Circle.
His true world, from which there was no escape.
He sat quietly in a cross-legged position on his bed and stared at his own palm. Chilling cold and refined dark magic intertwined, mimicking the double helix structure of DNA.
‘…I didn’t even get to use it in a real battle.’
Ignoring the swirling flow of magic, he clenched his fist hard.
*Clang!*
Shards of cold and darkness scattered as if a glass had been dropped.
The training to control and refine one’s inner world is the beginning and end for a mage. Yet here he was, his sleep disturbed by that very ‘world,’ constantly feeling a pang of loneliness.
It was a pathetic state of affairs.
‘It’s still not enough.’
The power to control his world more completely. The power to upgrade his level as a mage.
From where?
Only one answer came to mind.
Just as a renowned knight has a renowned sword, so too does a great mage have a companion.
‘A Grimoire…’
After that thought, he turned his head. Sephia’s face came to mind unbidden. The elf with crystal-colored eyes who always believed in him, her gentle smile.
After recalling her, he asked himself.
‘…Once I turn eleven, I’ll probably look more like a man, right?’
A thought truly befitting an eleven-year-old boy.