We Held the Line
Turning back time a little, to the annex a short while earlier. After the red flare signaling the beast wave had exploded in the sky and Giselle along with the knight order had marched out through the castle gates.
A single small pigeon flew toward the annex window. A slip of paper was tied to its leg.
The North Wind's gone mad. It's a beast wave. I'll pull every last supply I can, even if I have to push it past the limit.
And just now, Baron's private troops started moving toward the armory. Be careful, Your Highness. — V
It was an urgent message from Viola. Without her information network, they would have noticed Baron’s faction moving far too late.
No time.
I immediately changed into the black combat gear that had been shoved into the corner of the closet, then grabbed a self-defense longsword and a dagger.
And now.
“Follow me, you old fart.”
I walked down the darkened corridor and jerked my chin at Hexion and the second company knights behind me. Hexion still wore a confused expression, but as a warrior down to his bones, he silently followed.
It happened the moment we entered the passage leading to the second district courtyard.
“Wh-who goes there!”
We came face-to-face with dozens of Baron’s vanguard troops holding torches in the darkness. The private soldiers who thought they had moved in secret were visibly panicked at suddenly confronting armed elite knights.
“Damn it, so there really were rat bastards inside the castle!”
Hexion’s veins bulged as he raised his sword. “Your Highness! Please step back! These bastards—we will—!”
But before Hexion could finish, I kicked off the ground and shot forward.
“Your Highness?!”
Hexion was horrified by the insane act of leaping straight into the enemy formation. I knew it too. I was just an ordinary modern person who didn’t know the first thing about martial arts.
But.
The sword in my hand traced a bizarre arc and sliced clean through the lead soldier’s carotid artery.
Blood gushed out like a fountain.
…Incredible.
It wasn’t my brain—it was this body of Kael’s that already knew exactly how it needed to move. Kael, infamous as the empire’s greatest trash. Yet because of his lowly blood, he had endured countless assassins and murder attempts since childhood. In order to survive, he had carved dirty, practical survival skills into his very bones.
Chivalry? Flashy sword aura? I had none of that.
I kicked dirt into an approaching enemy’s eyes to blind him, then drove my dagger into the gaps in his armor—the groin and under the armpit. Dirty and underhanded, but all that mattered was clearing the obstacle in front of me.
“Aaaargh!!”
The fact that I was a prince bought me a crucial moment of hesitation from the soldiers. It was the motivation the wavering allies needed. A gamble, but a rather successful one.
“You just gonna stand there watching, old man?!”
I licked the blood splattered across my face and shouted at Hexion. “Block the right passage with shields! Drive the rat bastards into the middle of the courtyard so they can’t scatter! Don’t leave a single one alive!”
Hexion reacted instantly. “…! Second Company! Obey His Highness the Prince’s command!! Shield bearers, forward!!”
The elite northern knights charged with terrifying momentum and the real slaughter began. As expected, frontal clashes and massacres were best left to actual knights.
I took a step back, reading the flow of battle, and swiftly cut the throats of any enemies trying to break formation.
A short while later, in the courtyard of the Grand Duchess Castle.
“Kuhaha! The vanguard must have already seized the armory by now, yes?”
Baron was leading the main force and strolling leisurely into the courtyard. His face said he already considered himself the new master of the North.
But.
“…Huh?”
The moment Baron stepped into the courtyard, his jaw dropped. The yard reeked of blood. The vanguard he had sent lay in a mangled heap of corpses.
And atop that mountain of bodies stood a man in black combat gear soaked crimson with blood, calmly wiping his blade with a rag.
“Y-Your Highness?! How are you—?!”
Baron’s eyes shook violently. The eighth prince who was supposed to tolerate his rebellion and cover for him was standing before the knight commander who had just butchered his troops, wiping blood from his sword.
I slowly rose from the pile of corpses.
“Ah, you’re here, you pig bastard.”
At my voice, Baron staggered backward, trembling. “Y-Your Highness! What is the meaning of this?! Why would you slaughter our soldiers… W-weren’t we in the same boat?!”
I let out a low chuckle at his cry, walked down the corpse pile, and stopped right in front of him.
“Same boat? This crazy bastard still doesn’t know his place.”
Slice.
“Aaaaaaaaagh!!!”
I immediately severed the joint of Baron’s right knee. His leg buckled and he screamed as he collapsed.
His private troops were crushed by the killing intent radiating from Hexion and the second company knights; none of them dared draw their weapons.
“Why the hell would I share a boat with a backwater pig like you?”
I grabbed the writhing Baron by the hair and yanked him up. Only then did true bone-deep terror and despair flood his eyes. This prince had planned from the very beginning to use him to gather every rebel in one place and wipe them out at once.
“S-spare me… Please spare me, Your Highness!!”
Faced with the terror of death, humans sometimes do absurd things.
“You demonic bastard!!”
Baron shrieked and pulled out the dagger he had hidden in his clothes, stabbing it toward my abdomen.
“Your Highness!! Dodge!!”
Hexion rushed forward in horror. In my eyes, the dagger’s trajectory moved in slow motion. Of course it did—Baron had zero athletic ability. With Kael’s reflexes, I could have stepped back lightly and taken his head.
But I didn’t dodge. Instead, I leaned my upper body forward into the blade.
Shunk.
“…Kuhk.”
The cold steel sank deep into the flesh of my side.
“Ah…”
For a moment my vision went pure white.
Fuck. Fuck. This really fucking hurts!!
My organs were untouched. It was only the skin and muscle on my side, yet the pain burned like fire. The reason I had deliberately allowed the wound despite knowing how much it would hurt was the emperor.
If I annihilated Baron’s faction without so much as a scratch, the emperor would immediately conclude I had betrayed the imperial family and sided with the North. He would dispatch a massive punitive force. To prevent that, I needed an alibi. Not a political decision, but the excuse that this pig had stabbed me in the gut and I had simply lost my mind and killed him.
That was why I had offered my own flesh.
“I-I stabbed… I stabbed him…!”
Baron, still holding the dagger buried in my side, trembled as he muttered.
“…How dare you.”
I clenched my teeth against the pain and swung my sword horizontally.
Slice.
“…Eh?”
Baron’s fat neck spun through the air before landing with a wet thud in the snow. The headless body sprayed a fountain of blood and collapsed.
“Your Highness!!”
Hexion rushed over, face ashen. Blood poured from my side, completely soaking the black combat gear. My vision spun. I felt like I would faint any second, but I couldn’t fall here. I still had to put the final period on this night.
Staggering, I grabbed Hexion’s collar with a blood-soaked hand as he tried to support me.
“Your Highness! The bleeding—!”
“Shut up. It barely grazed me.”
I slapped his hand away and forced the most deranged, madman’s smile I could manage.
“Old man. Burn this into your memory.”
I curled my lips. “This is the fate of the rat bastard who dared to covet what belongs to me. Grand Duchess or whatever—let them all remember who the true owner of this castle is. How dare they test me?”
“What are you…”
“Anyone who goes against my mood… dies like this.”
I shoved Hexion away. While he and the knights stood overwhelmed and unable to approach, I staggered out of the courtyard.
“Haa… haa…”
The moment I entered the darkened corridor, my legs gave out and I leaned heavily against the wall.
It was a success. I had taken care of Baron, secured the list, and created the perfect alibi to deceive the imperial family.
Blood dripping in the darkness, I walked alone.
It had been an endlessly long and painful night.
Dawn was breaking.
Between the ash-gray clouds blanketing Snowy Sea Valley, dazzling morning light finally began to seep through.
“Graaaaaawr!!”
To the beasts that hated sunlight with every fiber of their being, that light was pure poison. The monsters that had been rampaging in the dark and hammering the knights’ shields let out screams like their flesh was burning the instant the morning rays touched the snowfield. They fled deep into the valley.
Until the last beast’s tail vanished completely beyond the blizzard, none of the northern knights holding the defensive line dared lower their weapons.
A heavy silence fell.
Then.
Clang.
A broken sword missing all its teeth slipped from someone’s hand and hit the ground. The sound acted like a signal flare, releasing the taut string of sanity.
“…They’re retreating.”
An old soldier who had thrown off his helmet muttered in a cracked voice. “The bastards… are running away…!”
Across the battlefield soaked in blood, sweat, and scattered beast entrails, some men collapsed as their legs gave out and wept, while others kept embracing the comrades beside them.
“We held them off!! We’re alive!!”
The soldiers erupted in cheers. We had managed to greet yet another dawn.
Giselle, watching the scene, slowly lowered her blood-drenched longsword. The hand gripping the hilt trembled faintly. Her silver hair was matted with dark crimson blood, and white vapor puffed from her lips with every breath.
The northern battlefield before her eyes was horrific—shredded shields, broken spear shafts, and a snowfield dyed completely red with blood.
But.
We survived.
Not a single one of the countless soldiers standing behind her had fallen forever onto the cold snow.
Giselle quietly stared at her blood-soaked hands and suppressed the hot emotion rising from deep within her chest.
We overcame this hellish night.
Thank goodness. We held the line.