The Pale Knight Astorius

The Thief's skill had an impressively long cast range, and thanks to that we covered a serious stretch of ground. The instant his skill ended, Erinn took over path-clearing duty, then the Thief picked it up again, and so on.

That was how the entire party reached Les Blanc Mountain in half a day. A little farther and we would hit the foothills. The journey I had expected to take at least a full day—maybe two—had been finished before noon. I was a little speechless.

Why are they this competent?

The two-month deadline I had bet with Erinn was starting to feel shorter by the minute.

Am I even going to be able to catch up to these people…?

"Allen, now?"

Ser-Aria asked. She was checking on the order I had given her earlier. I ran the distance in my head and nodded.

"Do it now!"

"Ohhh!"

With that bizarre cheer, Ser-Aria drew her bowstring taut. Her mana flooded into a single arrow in an instant.

Another warning message. The same one had popped up earlier when Erinn used a skill. Apparently anything past a certain threshold of gathered mana triggered it.

It never did this in the Lizard Lord dungeon, though.

I thought back over the changes since we cleared that place. Come to think of it, the Magic Condensation trait had appeared after we entered the kingdom. Was this because of that?

The mana-charged arrow blazed like a star. Exactly on the timing I had called—twenty seconds before we hit the foothills—she released the string.

Fwoooooosh—!!!

KRAAAAAAASH!!!!

The arrow split the wind and slammed into the massive tree I had indicated. The tree toppled onto the slightly smaller ones beside it, and those began to fall in turn.

"Full speed—get inside!!"

"You meant to seal the entrance."

Freya had already grasped the intent behind my order to Ser-Aria. By dropping the trees across the path we had just taken, we would cut off the monsters' pursuit.

On my command the whole party spurred their horses and plunged into the mountain before the trees finished falling.

The moment the Thief cleared the gap last, the chain of collapsing trunks slammed down one after another—thud, thud—and sealed the monsters charging after us outside.

"You dummy scrub, you blocked our escape route too~♡ Now what~?"

She wasn't wrong. We had effectively cut off our own way back as well…

"We close the Canal and leave the way we came."

"…Pfft♡ Nice talk~?"

"That's why we came here."

I swung down from my horse first.

"We'll have to go on foot from here. Everyone dismount."

"Sure~."

"Puhaha! Now the real fun starts!"

If we turned the horses loose they would run off on their own. We weren't in a position to spare concern for the lives of warhorses that were treated as expendable in battle. Closing the Canal as fast as possible mattered more—we needed to move every second we could.

Freya, however, seemed to see things differently.

"Gather the horses in one place, please."

She herded the mounts we had ridden into a cluster, then raised her divine power and spun a small protective barrier around them.

"They'll be safe here."

"They're just expendable warhorses. You're going this far?"

"Allen, they aren't expendable. They're living things."

With that, Freya turned away. A saintess's way of thinking really was too far from ordinary people's for me to follow.

"Yeah, well…"

I still didn't see the need, but I had no intention of arguing with her. If the horses that had carried us this hard could be kept alive, that wasn't a bad thing.

Finished with the thought, I started after the others who were already climbing—only to—

"Urgh?!"

"Allen?"

—drop flat on the spot.

Apparently half a day of riding at full gallop had left my legs completely drained. The strength wasn't totally gone, so I could have stood right back up, but…

"……."

Everyone else was fine. Only I had fallen. The sheer embarrassment made it impossible to get up. Erinn let out a little puhuhu of laughter.

"Even your stamina's scrub-tier, just like a scrub~♡"

"…Shut up."

You're the stamina monsters here.

"……Are you okay, Allen?"

"Are you all right? Can you stand?"

"Uh…"

Even Erinn, who had been teasing me, waited with the rest of them for me to get back on my feet. I braced a hand on my thigh, stood, and brushed the dust off.

"…Sorry. Let's go."

"If it's too hard we can rest a little… We did arrive earlier than expected, after all."

Letisia offered, but I shook my head.

"I'm fine. Like you said, we got here early…"

I might not be able to help in a fight, but I at least didn't want to be dead weight.

"We should move while there are still fewer monsters."

I fell in behind the party and began climbing the mountain with them.

The Canal should be around the mid-slope…

While I was gauging the location, Letisia spoke up.

"Allen, how should we fight?"

"Hm? Ah…"

She was waiting for orders. I nodded and laid it out.

"Letisia and Erinn, handle the lower-tier monsters—there's a lot of them. Aria and Thief, snipe the higher-tier ones. Things like basilisks don't travel in packs and there aren't that many of them, so they'll be off on their own. Should be easy to pick off."

"Understood."

"Got it!"

"Freya, you remember what we talked about earlier?"

"Yes."

A Canal that spat out monster waves was, of course, something the Demon King's army installed. The only people with the authority to operate one were corps commanders—the highest officers of the Demon King's forces—and their direct subordinates, the vice-commanders.

But there was no officer of any kind near the Canal that had appeared in the Estire Kingdom this time. Given that the event grew harder with each passing day and even came with limited-time achievements, a powerful presence from the very start simply wasn't possible.

In the original Dungeon in Evil, the officer who planted the Canal in the Estire Kingdom showed up on day thirty-five of the event. One week after the wyverns appeared, that Demon King's officer walked onstage as the NPC who ended the event.

Ended it in failure, that is.

The moment the party faced a Demon King's officer, the still-weak hero's party of the story ran into an opponent they simply could not overcome. The event flipped to a clear-fail screen and a retry prompt.

So the Canal we were heading for almost certainly had no officer-class enemy either. Today was only the day the shaman-type monsters ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had started appearing. As long as Freya handled debuff cleansing the way I had told her, it would be enough.

There were still plenty of monsters on the path to the Canal. But once the penalty of fighting from horseback was gone, my party members—stronger than ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠I had even accounted for—cut through them even more smoothly.

Everyone fought well in their own way, but Ser-Aria, bottle clamped in her teeth while she put an arrow clean through a basilisk's eye, took the prize for sheer absurdity.

"Puhyaaah~!"

…How do you even hit that?

Thanks to party members who treated circus stunts like everyday business, we climbed fast and reached the mid-slope where the Canal was supposed to be. Half a day plus about three hours total.

There were lizardman shamans and goblin shamans throwing curses around, but Freya's purification and the Thief's assassinations handled them without trouble.

Compared to the arrival time I had expected, we were flying. I figured closing the Canal itself would be just as easy.

The moment we got close, I had to revise that thought.

"……What the hell."

The words came out on their own.

"Foolish… humans…"

Something I had not expected was standing there.

Just as the Canal pouring out monsters came into naked-eye view, a very particular monster appeared.

It wore armor cracked and rusted to rags in places. Its faded cloak was so torn and worn that the original shape was barely recognizable. The hand gripping a long spear was withered and twisted, the skin deathly pale.

The horse it rode was the same. Ribs showed through hide stretched tight over bone; the flesh was the same bloodless white. Eyes with no pupils—only the whites—were unsettling enough on their own.

"You cannot close the dimensional passage…"

Erinn was the first to size it up.

"Looks strong~♡"

She was right. It looked strong. Definitely not an ordinary monster—for a second I almost mistook it for a Demon King's officer.

Which only made it stranger.

Who is this…?

As far as I knew, this thing was neither a corps commander nor an original vice-commander of the Demon King's army. It wasn't among the mid-tier officers who showed up here and there either—nothing like this existed in my knowledge.

I had never seen a monster like this even on Extreme difficulty. Had reality diverged the way it had with the Obsidian Golem in the Lizard Lord dungeon? Or…

Is this a world that reflects Extreme Hell difficulty, so things I don't know keep showing up?

…I really hoped that wasn't the case. Between the Obsidian Golem and this thing, it was starting to feel more and more like settled fact.

I still didn't know what it was, but a few things were certain.

This was not a boss monster. Monster-wave events weren't dungeons; they didn't have separate bosses. The only boss was the officer who appeared on day thirty-five to end the event.

If this thing were a boss added for Extreme Hell, a warning message would have fired. Nothing of the sort had appeared, so it wasn't a boss.

Which meant… it was either an elite-rank monster just below boss tier, or something that had never existed in the game and only appeared once the world became real.

"…Nobody attack recklessly."

I gave the order and checked its status first.

The status window was visible… in a manner of speaking. Almost every stat was blacked out. The only thing I could actually read was the name.

So the monster was called Pale Knight Astorius. Not that the information helped. I had never heard the name before, so I couldn't extrapolate anything from it. Had something like this even existed in Dungeon in Evil?

And unlike the Obsidian Golem, where everything had simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠said "Unable to View," this one let me open the window only to hide everything inside it. It felt like the system was mocking me.

Or is it because this thing is just that much stronger than me?

If so, maybe thrashing it a bit would make the stats readable the way the Obsidian Golem's had become visible once its body started breaking.

"…We do this by the book."

"Understood."

With no information, the standard party formation was the right call. The others already knew my orders weren't wrong; they moved into position at once.

Frontliner Erinn charged first. Midline Thief and Ser-Aria provided cover. Matching their timing, Letisia commanded her four spirits and took rear firepower.

"……."

The knight raised its spear. Bone-white powder sifted down from the weapon, and a warning flared.

"Erinn! Something's coming!"

In a situation where I couldn't read detailed information, the best I could do was call it out immediately. Erinn narrowed her eyes a fraction.

"Hmm~?"

She dodged on my word, but her expression said she didn't understand why. A moment later she understood perfectly.

CRACK—!!!

The tree standing where Erinn had been a heartbeat earlier split clean in two.

Honestly, I hadn't even seen the spear move. That speed… at least as fast as the Thief driving a dagger home.

"…That was really fast~?"

A thin thread of surprise colored Erinn's usually easygoing voice. She had lost track of it for an instant too.

Even Erinn can't read it?

If the frontliner who had to stand at the tip couldn't track an attack, things got dangerous. And if a strike came without a warning message, I wouldn't be able to call it out either.

"Erinn! Fall back for now! Thief, Aria, Letisia—pin its feet!"

"Right, got it!"

"……Okay."

I ordered Erinn to withdraw. She looked unhappy about it, but she followed the order.

While Erinn pulled back, the other three locked down the knight's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠footing. In the opening I turned to Freya.

"Put a blessing on Erinn, Freya!"

"…Ah, yes. One moment."

Her answer came a beat late. With everything happening right now, where exactly was her head? I pressed her.

"What's wrong?"

"Freya~?"

"That knight… something about it is strange."

"Strange?"

That was when it happened.

"Something like this… is nothing…"

The knight raised its spear once more.

KRA-KOOM!!

The spear moved in a grotesque arc, and every skill the party had used to pin its feet was dismantled in a single stroke.

"Wha—!"

"What the…!"

"……It blocked everything."

This time the thrust wasn't as fast as before; the motion was actually visible. And that let me understand what Freya had been trying to say.

"Just now, its arm moved strangely…"

"Hmm~? It bends like it doesn't have bones~?"

"The super-fast thrust earlier was the same."

"You saw it?"

Even Erinn hadn't caught that one.

"Not all of it. I was too far—I only saw the wind-up… but even then its arm pulled back like it had been dislocated."

"But it doesn't look boneless~. You can see the forearm bone right there~?"

"True."

"So it's a monster that doesn't care if its bones snap and break."

A monster that didn't care if its bones broke…?

That was basically the same as saying wounds to the body didn't matter. A creature with a skeleton shouldn't be able to do that……

"…Ah."

I finally caught what Freya was driving at. That would also explain the unnaturally pale skin.

"Undead…?"

Freya nodded.

So that was why every stat had come up as question marks. It wasn't that the values were deliberately hidden—an undead's living stats simply didn't apply, so the deactivated fields displayed as ???.

"In that case, I should be the one to face it."

Freya smiled faintly.

"Erinn, look after Allen for me."

"Got it~."

As the Hero, Erinn had a divinity stat of her own and could hit undead effectively, but Freya was simply more specialized against the dead than she was.

Freya swayed her hips and stepped forward. As the distance grew, all I could see between the fall of her white hair was the bare line of her back and the deliberate sway of her hips.

The sight was so blatantly provocative it left me speechless.

…That's a saintess?

Then Erinn suddenly raised a hand. For some reason she held up only her index and middle fingers, spread wide.

"?"

Those fingers shot into my field of vision.

Poke!!

"Gyaaaah!!!"

This crazy girl just stabbed my eyes…!!

"Your gaze is filthy, scrub~♡"

"What… ngh, what the hell are you doing!!"

"How can you look at the saintess with eyes that lecherous~?"

She's the one walking around with her back and cleavage fully on display—why is this my fault!?

"Ngh… I can't see—I can't give orders like this…"

"Guess I've got no choice. I'll command in the scrub's place~♡ Everyone, support Freya only~."

She really was a complete lunatic. She stabs me and then offers to take over command?

"Ngh… fine…"

"Oh, you're already okay~?"

Of course she hadn't driven them in deep. She hadn't meant to blind me. With her strength she could have taken both eyes out clean if she'd wanted to.

By the time my vision cleared, Freya had both hands neatly folded together in prayer.

"You go support Freya too."

"Then who's going to protect the scrub~?"

"I don't need protecting."

"…That's not happening~♡ Letisia, send one spirit over here~?"

"Hey, don't waste combat power—"

"Move it, Undine! Do you want to get trampled like a pig again for not listening~♥"

Crack!

At the crack of the whip, the water spirit Undine came scrambling over and took up position at my side.

…You've got it rough too.

Freya, hands still folded, closed her eyes. Closing your eyes in front of an enemy was usually suicide, but for her it was necessary.

"Your faithful servant speaks. Here stands a being that has rejected the cycle of life and death and remains in this world."

The warning of Magic Condensation flared at the same moment the pale knight's massive spear moved.

The mana coiled around the spear turned into something like black shadow. Unbound by its skeleton, the knight thrust with the same impossible motion as before.

CLAAANG!!!

The spear never reached her. Erinn had already closed the distance and locked the strike down.

"I've got the whole wind-up mapped now~♡"

"……."

The pale knight shoved harder, trying to punch through, but Erinn's guard did not break. In that window Freya's prayer reached its end.

"I beseech You—grant mercy, and guide this being that has strayed… back onto the true and proper path."

Freya's closed eyes slowly opened. Her ash-gray irises now held sacred power.

"By the light of the sanctuary."

With the skill message, a radiant magic circle etched itself beneath Astorius's feet. The knight tried to spur its withered horse out of the zone—pointless.

The sanctuary was locked to the pale knight's own shadow.

KUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU─────────!!

Holy light erupted and swallowed the pale knight whole. The pillar of radiance shot upward, clearing the peak of Les Blanc Mountain and stabbing into the sky.

"……Do buffers these days have to do damage like that too?"

She could have just been a DPS at this point.

As an undead, the thing was helpless before a saintess's concentrated divine power. Against a party without a cleric—like Orlando's—it would have been a wall of pure despair. Having Freya, its natural hard counter, was a genuine stroke of luck.

A moment later the notification that the light-wrapped knight had been annihilated appeared.

When the towering pillar of light faded, only Astorius's ragged armor remained where it had stood. I walked over to Freya.

"Nice work, Freya."

"Hehe. It was nothing."

Now all that was left was closing the Canal.

"Erinn, smash it."

"I know~."

KRAAASH!

Erinn brought the Holy Sword down on the Canal hanging open in midair. The portal sucked every monster that had been trying to crawl through back inside, then sealed shut and vanished.

"Done~?"

"Puhaha! One job finished!"

"Yeah. Good work, everyone."

No more monsters would come through. All that remained was clearing out whatever was left in the grain fields and on Les Blanc Mountain.

I looked at the armor the pale knight had left behind. Seeing it up close, the design felt familiar…

"Hm? This is…"

"……It's the armor Estire Kingdom paladins wear."

The Thief confirmed what I had been thinking. I had thought it looked a lot like the gear the paladins under Orlando wore…

So Astorius had been the name he used while he was still alive.

"Thief, have you ever heard the name Astorius?"

"……No. I don't know it. Sorry I can't be more help…"

"…It's fine not to know."

No one else recognized it either.

He had apparently been part of the kingdom's forces before becoming undead… Maybe we could find out more once we got back.

An undead's strength was always rooted in how strong it had been in life, so he might have been someone famous. There might even be people hoping his remains would come home.

I moved to gather the pieces. Freya spoke up.

"These were worn by an undead. Just to be safe, it's better to purify them one more time before we take them."

"Ah, right."

Freya bent slightly at the waist and laid a hand on the armor. Warm divine power flowed from her pale fingers and spread through every joint of the battered plate.

…Everything about it was fine except the way she was touching it. She could have just crouched. Instead she insisted on bending at the waist, which meant the deep valley between her full breasts was on full, unobstructed display. There was nowhere safe to look…

"All done."

"…Yeah. Thanks."

I collected the armor Freya had purified. She gave me a bright little smile and reached out.

"?"

Then she lightly patted my head.

"You've really become a kind person, Allen. No one would have said a word if you'd just left this here."

…Not "kind"—she said "become" kind. What's that supposed to mean.

More importantly, I wished she would stop petting my head. It wasn't that I disliked it, but stretching her arm like that put her underarm and everything else right in my face…

I gave a small shake of my head. Freya pulled her hand back with a soft, bashful smile. She really was beautiful enough that the smile stole my eyes for a second.

I cleared my throat and turned to the rest of the party.

"…Good work, everyone. Let's head back."

"You worked hard too, Allen."

"Puhaha! One job down!"

"……Yeah."

"Right~ If we stand around any longer the scrub might not be able to use his legs tomorrow~♡"

…It's not that bad.