Chapter 160
Chapter 160
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 160
Chapter Title: The Final Card (7)
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BAM!
A few cadets from Squad 3, who had stacked their shields against the troll's club, were sent flying.
But the gap was quickly filled by other cadets.
Cadets from Squad 1 vaulted off the shoulders of those hunkered down.
“Haaah!”
Swords swung powerfully in mid-air battered the troll's entire body.
Its crudely fashioned armor was instantly turned to rags.
Several crimson lines were carved into its tough hide.
*Bubble, bubble.*
But the wounds healed in moments, and the troll began to rampage again.
“This is no ordinary troll! Its skin is several times tougher!”
“You’re just figuring that out now? I knew it the moment I saw it!”
The cadets of Squad 1, who had retreated behind the shield wall to escape the enraged troll’s rampage, grumbled.
“Lian! Status on Squad 3!”
Meanwhile, Bern Vigete checked on Squad 3’s condition.
“We can still hold on! That club is softer than it looks! It can’t handle the monster’s strength and… Gack!”
Before he could finish his sentence, Lian Kart went flying.
He didn't look fine at all, but since he claimed he could endure, Bern could only trust him for now.
He checked on Squad 2’s situation.
Amelia Justice and the other Squad 2 cadets were running around frantically, keeping the orc and reptilian in check.
They didn’t even seem to have the leeway to answer.
In truth, while the degree differed, no one had any energy to spare.
Contrary to Lian’s claim that they could hold on, Squad 3 was not in good shape.
It was only natural after taking such heavy blows that sent them flying. It was a wonder they were still maintaining their formation.
The frontier knight was also struggling against the ogre.
Rumor had it that the redder their skin, the stronger they were.
A single glance at its blood-red skin confirmed it was a powerful one, even among ogres.
Everyone was fighting with all their might.
Except for one person.
“Stack shields in threes! Lian and Udo take the center, and the rest of you support them!”
“Squad 1! Stop with the clumsy, multiple swings! Land one proper thrust!”
“Amelia! You need to rotate faster than that! If they get used to your rhythm, you’ll be countered immediately!”
The very person who had goaded them into facing these horrible beasts had taken a step back and was now running his mouth nonstop.
“Getting greedy won’t get you anywhere. Stop aiming only for vitals and go for the legs. Once you knock it down, a troll is nothing special.”
The way he spoke, as if dying of frustration, was incredibly infuriating.
It was enough to make one's stomach churn.
But in truth, he knew it himself.
If it weren't for the Mage Slayer giving infuriating advice from the back, they wouldn't have even dared to fight like this.
As much as he hated to admit it, the Mage Slayer’s advice was undeniably useful.
The cadets of Squad 3, who had almost had their arms broken on the first blow after clumsily blocking the troll's attack, only learned to stack their shields and disperse the impact after hearing his advice. The cadets of Squad 1, who were so uncoordinated they were constantly tripping each other up, only realized how to leverage their numerical advantage after his nagging.
Even the cadets of Squad 2, who had only been able to doggedly cling to the enemy, learned to use hit-and-run tactics to keep them in check thanks to him.
Besides, it wasn't as if the Mage Slayer had just stood there running his mouth.
Right after the battle began, the few crossbow bolts he fired had changed the tide of the fight.
Not many, just one bolt each.
The ogre was pierced in one eye, the troll in its left arm.
The reptilian and the orc were hit in the legs.
It was strange enough that their tough, resilient hides, which should have been difficult to pierce with a normal crossbow, had been penetrated so easily. But the fact that the troll, which could regenerate most wounds in an instant, was still unable to use one of its arms was almost unbelievable.
In many ways, the Mage Slayer's role had been decisive in maintaining the current balance.
But admitting it meekly hurt his pride.
“That damn mouth of yours! Do you fight your battles with words?”
Bern Vigete finally forgot his composure and screamed.
“Yeah. I’m not feeling so good right now.”
The reply was a masterpiece of absurdity.
“Is there anyone here who *isn’t* at their physical limit!”
As if anyone was fighting with clenched teeth because they had energy to spare.
But he couldn’t press him further.
It was true that the Mage Slayer's complexion was not good.
His lips were pale, and the muscles around his eyes were twitching constantly.
He'd been full of vitality when they left the gate, but now he looked like he could collapse at any moment.
All he'd done was fire a few bolts and run his mouth.
He couldn't understand the reason at all.
“We’re short-handed as it is…”
“Bern! If you know that, why are you arguing with Yan right now! Can’t you see our guys are dying out here!”
As he grumbled under his breath, Lian Kart shot back with a scream.
Bern Vigete snapped back to his senses.
Just as Lian said, this was no time to be worrying about the Mage Slayer.
“Going in again!”
At Bern Vigete’s command, the top cadets of Squad 1 leaped over the shield wall in unison.
The battle grew more and more intense.
The cadets relied on each other, focusing all their attention on the enemy before them.
What little breathing room they had was now gone.
Naturally, they had no time to look back.
That was why.
Even when the ceaseless stream of advice suddenly stopped, not a single person noticed.
*Stagger.*
The young cadet standing firm at the rear swayed.
*Drip.*
Blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, staining his chin red.
“Not yet… not yet.”
The cadet forced himself to stand straight and wiped the blood from his lips.
His gaze, which had momentarily blurred, sharpened once more.
“Squad 3! Push forward! Squad 1, attack the flanks and rear!”
“Amelia! Increase rotation speed! No more than two strikes!”
Advice poured out once more from between his deathly pale lips.
***
When Rocarno Matiasi came to his senses, the ogre was lying motionless on the ground, face down.
The family’s treasured sword, embedded in the back of the ogre’s neck, was badly chipped.
He didn’t even feel a sense of loss.
“I… I killed an ogre…?”
He couldn’t believe he had felled the vicious giant that even seasoned knights struggled to face.
He vaguely recalled frantically running to find a blind spot, then clinging to the beast’s back and madly plunging his sword into it.
The rest of the memory was not so clear.
It had been that difficult a fight.
Amid his daze, his chest began to swell with emotion.
“I, Rocarno Matiasi, have slain an ogre!”
A precious victory won against an overwhelming foe.
“World! Stars! Did you witness it! An Ogre Slayer stands here!”
In the delayed euphoria of victory, he shouted again and again.
“Gasp!”
Then, belatedly remembering the other non-humans, he whipped his head around.
The battle over there had just ended as well.
He didn’t know what methods they had used, but the severed heads of the non-humans were rolling on the ground.
“Pant, pant.”
Beside them, the cadets of the Cradle lay battered and bruised.
It was a sight unbecoming of the renowned cadets of the Cradle.
But rather than looking undignified, he felt envious.
His legs were trembling.
Never before had the armor he treasured and never took off felt so cumbersome.
If he could, he desperately wanted to collapse on the ground just like them.
But as a knight, it was an act he could not bring himself to do.
“…You have all achieved a remarkable feat of arms.”
After watching them for a moment with an envious gaze, Rocarno Matiasi belatedly offered words of praise as their superior.
No answer came.
Only the sound of ragged breathing and pained groans could be heard.
Normally, he would have reprimanded them for ignoring a knight’s words as esquires, but now was different.
This was the monumental day he had earned the title of Ogre Slayer.
He could easily laugh off such indulgent behavior.
However, he couldn’t be so generous as to laugh off the actions of the insolent brat who had dared to interfere in a knight’s battle.
It was a grave offense that could not and should not be overlooked.
He intended to scold him sternly so that he would never commit such a crime again.
He was sure of it.
“How dare you interfere with the great Rocarno Matiasi’s…”
“Knight! Congratulations!”
“…What?”
“They say the redder an ogre’s skin, the stronger it is. Look at the one you felled, Knight! That hide, as if drenched in blood! That one is the ogre of ogres! If ogres had a king, would it not be him!”
That is, until the brat mentioned an ogre king.
“All hail the Ogre King Slayer, Knight Rocarno!”
He didn’t know if ogres truly had a king, but that was of little importance.
“…Its strength and ferocity were indeed incomparable to that of an ordinary ogre. So it turns out it wasn’t a common ogre, but the king of ogres!”
Not only had he never seen a common ogre, today was the first time he had seen an ogre at all, but that didn’t matter either.
“I, Rocarno Matiasi, have defeated the king of ogres!”
It was far more important to correctly amend his military achievement, which had been belittled in front of witnesses.
However, the witnesses themselves were more focused on something other than his feat of arms.
“…If that guy hadn’t become an esquire, what would he have become?”
“A con artist or a sycophant of the century?”
“That’s horrifying in its own way.”
“My thoughts exactly.”
The Cradle cadets whispered as they watched their cunningly smiling peer.
Though they spoke as if disgusted, their expressions were all bright.
It wasn’t an enemy as strong as the ogre the frontier knight had defeated, nor had they fought alone, but they were all thrilled by the fact that they, as mere esquires, had achieved victory against a foe they shouldn’t have been able to face.
But the situation was not good enough to savor the victory.
The wall of fire separating them from the non-humans was dying down.
Beyond it, the surviving non-humans’ eyes gleamed, ready to charge the moment the flames weakened further.
“Is this damn battle ever going to end?”
Staggering to their feet, the cadets gripped their swords and shields with trembling hands.
The frontier knight, who had fallen silent and was staring beyond the dying flames, suddenly turned his head.
“Don’t tell me…?”
“You’re kidding, right?”
A moment later, the Cradle cadets followed the knight’s gaze and turned their heads.
A giant with skin as red as if painted with blood was breathing heavily.
It was an ogre.
Its build and frame were slightly smaller than the one the frontier knight had defeated.
“…It’s a female.”
“A mated pair, then.”
“Looks like she’s here to avenge her husband.”
The cadets muttered with drained expressions.
“An Ogre Queen…!”
The frontier knight blurted out nonsense with a dumbfounded look.
It was impossible to know if the ogre before them was truly the mate of the fallen one.
What was certain was that the frontier knight and the cadets, having exhausted all their strength in the previous battle, had no way to overcome the current crisis.
The option to retreat was never in their minds to begin with.
They had abandoned the principle of one-on-one combat for the greater good, but they had no intention of forsaking their creed of never retreating.
“It’s do or die.”
“Looks more like die or die.”
The cadets exchanged unfunny jokes, steeling themselves for a fight to the death.
“Little runts, already learning strange things and putting on weird acts.”
Just then, an irritating voice was heard.
It was their infuriating peer who had stood at the back running his mouth throughout the battle.
“Don’t waste your energy. Rest.”
“What…?”
“Because your fight ends here.”
No sooner had the words been spoken than the sound of a horn echoed.
And the fortress’s forces poured out all at once.
*Clank. Clank. Clank.*
A wall of shields formed before their eyes.
They were the Empire’s heavy infantry.
Middle-aged commanders wearing ornate helmets decorated with red tassels approached them.
*Nod.*
After showing their respect with a silent nod, they stood before the short cadet.
“A marvelous battle.”
“Thanks to you, I won’t have to worry about paying for drinks for the rest of my life. Just telling the story of what I saw today will have the drunks buying my rounds.”
The young cadet let out a small laugh at the joke, which was out of place for the situation.
“More importantly, are you truly all right?”
“What’s there to be all right or not about? This was our job in the first place.”
The commanders replied curtly and turned around.
“You just watch. See how we put it to use.”
“The things you showed us, that is.”
With those words, the commanders disappeared into the ranks of the heavy infantry.
“What did he show them…?”
A cadet asked.
To this, the peer who would have become a sycophant of the century if not an esquire replied.
“If you’re curious, just watch.”
***
The appearance of the female ogre, as if it had been waiting for its cue, wasn't surprising at all.
I'd experienced the Valkyries' dirty tricks, pulling stunts like this at the last minute, so many times in my past life.
The moment their opponent let out a hasty cry of victory was the very moment the insidious Valkyries were waiting for.
They were probably certain.
That we had no more cards to play.
That we had used up all our hidden cards, and now was the time to finish us off.
They couldn’t have been more wrong.
My last hidden card wasn't Rangfin Haime, it wasn't Rocarno Matiasi, and it wasn't the Cradle cadets.
It certainly wasn’t the ill-tempered witch who had extorted an immense amount of vitality from me under the pretext of repaying a debt.
My real card was them.
“Unit, battle formation!”
The soldiers of the Empire, who had become unrecognizablely stronger through the recent battles, were the final card that would crush the last move the Valkyries had prepared.
“Each century to your positions!”
“Remaining personnel, keep the other enemies in check!”
The imperial army, which had naturally learned how to face powerful enemies while following my command and raiding enemy bases, began to move with perfect coordination.
‘The battlefield is not a playground for knights.’
The tactics of a certain genius mercenary who used to say, like a mantra, that the battlefield didn't belong to superhumans alone.
‘The knights will soon find out. Just how terrifying a well-trained army can be.’
The essence of group warfare, known in my past life as the Anti-Knight Encirclement Formation, or the Knight-Slaughtering Formation.
“Listen up, kids. Open your eyes wide and watch.”
Because a preview of the vicious world described in the Apocalypse is about to begin.