Ranking Battle (8)
"Wh-what just happened?"
Silence blanketed the arena. The moment Iscal's trial began, fog surged up and filled the space. Iscal staggered through it, then collapsed — and the mist began to gather, coiling and compressing into something enormous.
What the fog forged, after all that gathering and knitting, was an oval mirror.
Its surface gleaming, the mirror rose into the air above the arena and began to show everyone something.
"Whoa! What is that?!"
"What the hell is that thing?"
"Look at that landscape! Where is that? It looks almost like…"
"A battlefield…?"
"Some kind of illusion? It looks so real."
There was a brief stir, but the spectators — who had already witnessed giants, serpents, a one-eyed colossus, and other impossible things — recovered their composure quickly.
Soon they were absorbed in the scene the mirror displayed. The vision was so vivid it felt as if they were standing there themselves, every faint sound coming through with perfect clarity.
Friga focused on the mirror's landscape as well. This trial was different from the ones before; she meant to study it carefully in advance.
Then something she had never expected happened.
"Huh?!"
"Isn't that Lady Friga?!"
"Why is Her Highness in there?"
Friga had appeared inside Iscal's trial. And not whole and unharmed — she was half-dead, no, practically a corpse already.
"Hey… run. Get out of here. They'll be here soon…"
Friga's face crumpled into a spectacular scowl.
"Oh, for fuck's sake…"
Why the hell was she showing up in Iscal's trial?! And if she had to appear, couldn't she at least look fine — what was this half-dead, gut-spilling wreck of a body supposed to be?!
The image in the mirror was so brutally lifelike that Friga found herself rubbing her side without thinking. Watching a version of herself spill intestines made her own side ache in sympathy.
Inside the mirror, Iscal's face hardened. He turned on his heel, abandoned Friga, and fled.
The crowd murmured at the sight.
"Lord Iscal is running…"
"But look — reinforcements might still come, Her Highness is badly hurt, and his shield's already broken."
"Exactly. Stay there and it's just a dog's death."
"Look at the number of monsters. Fighting that alone is suicide! Surviving comes first!"
The spectators talked over one another as they watched the mirror. Most of them understood Iscal. Those who had actually fought in wars, especially, went grim-faced as they stared at him.
They knew better than anyone what it felt like to leave a dying comrade behind — and they knew that even if you lived, the guilt would chain you forever.
"Ha… hahaha!!"
Iscal, who had been running and running, stopped and laughed like a madman. He laughed and laughed and laughed — then looked back.
Toward the place the beasts were coming from. Toward the place where Friga had fallen.
Thud—!
Iscal strapped a small buckler to his arm and turned around.
Toward the monsters.
Toward his fallen comrade.
The expression on Iscal's face as he walked toward death was so solemn, so sacred, that—
"…"
"…"
—not a single person dared open their mouth.
Iscal felt a faint tremor through the blood-soaked earth. The vibration of countless monster feet pounding the ground.
He knew full well that turning back was a fool's choice. Some would call it suicide.
But there was something he had to do — so he did it.
Friga, who had been clutching her wounds and lying collapsed, forced her body up with what little strength she had left. Her eyes went wide; she seemed genuinely surprised that he had returned.
"Kh… What the hell. Why'd you come back?"
"…I don't know."
"You don't know? Ha. Pretty pathetic for a dying man's last words."
Friga slumped back down as she muttered it.
Last words. Last words, she said.
She wasn't wrong. He might die here. No — he almost certainly would.
If he had kept running, he might have lived. The reasons to flee were endless.
Enemies beyond counting. No weapon that had carried him through countless battlefields. A comrade already at death's door…
Even if Iscal ran, no one would have the right to condemn him.
And yet.
There was only one reason he had come back.
"If not me — then who?"
Who would be the shield for his comrades? Who would show them an iron wall that never broke? Who would protect a dying friend?
There was no one else. Only he could do it.
He tightened the buckler bound to his arm. The firm pressure of the strap against his flesh steadied him, just a little.
"You stupid bastard… You're gonna die too for a half-dead corpse?"
"…If I hold on long enough, someone will come for us."
"Ha! That's some real hopeful bullshit."
Friga laughed coldly. Iscal knew it too. Reinforcements might never come.
"Run. Right now. You've still got a little time before they get here."
"How could I possibly do that?"
Thud-thud-thud—
The blood pooled on the ground shivered and sent out ripples. Eardrum-splitting roars and screams rose, and the trembling of the earth drew closer.
Iscal looked back at Friga and forced a smile.
"…There's a comrade behind me."
"Ha! You idiot…"
——————!!!
A monster's howl tore through the air at close range.
He could see them now.
Drool streaming from hideous maws, blade-like claws raking the earth, chewing and butchering everything that still lived and moved.
Even on all fours the beasts stood as high as Iscal's waist; reared up on two legs, they would easily match his height.
——————…
They fixed their eyes on Iscal and Friga. A pack of hunting dogs, massed and waiting.
——————!!!
The monsters loosed a hunting cry and kicked off the ground. Fast. Far too agile for their bulk.
Iscal clenched his teeth and locked strength into his legs. His heart hammered as if it would burst in time with their charge, and instinct screamed at him with razor clarity.
Run. Run. Run!
You have no reason to stay here — run and live!
His teeth ground together until they felt ready to crack.
He did not want to run. He could not run. He would not allow himself to.
Because a comrade still lay behind him.
Even if she was dying. Even if no help was coming. Even if it meant a dog's death.
I can do this…
He was his comrades' shield.
He held the line in front — held, and held, and held.
And if he held long enough, his comrades cut the enemy down.
I can do this…!
So he would hold this time too.
He could do it.
He had to.
——————!!!
A monster's jaws yawned wide and lunged to crush Iscal's skull. Palm-sized needles streaked toward his torso. A serpent-like tail reared up and struck for his legs.
Iscal forced his eyes wide and took it all in.
The surging muscle of the beasts. The fangs dripping spit. The minute twitch of a lashing tail.
Skreeeech—!
Survival instinct pushed to its absolute limit seized his body. Before his mind could even decide, his body decided and moved.
A monster's maw scraped across the buckler and threw sparks. He shoved hard and drove the buckler's edge into its skull.
One down.
He twisted the buckler and deflected the flying needles. Caught one of the deflected spines and drove it deep into a charging monster's eye.
Another.
He snared a thrashing, whip-like tail and wound it around his arm. Yanked the beast in and smashed the buckler's edge into it.
One more.
The pack kept coming, endless, crashing toward him.
A despair settled over him like fighting something that never ended no matter how many he killed.
Clang—!
A foreleg shattered part of the buckler. He scooped up a sharp fragment and stabbed it into a monster's body.
"Ghk—!"
A tail from his blind spot raked deep across his back. Through the wound, white bone showed. He gritted his teeth, swung the buckler shard, and tore open a monster's jaws.
He jammed his arm into a gaping maw to shield his head and dragged his shredded legs forward in a desperate crawl. His shoulder ground and creaked. Every muscle in his body screamed that it had reached its limit.
Just a little longer.
Just a little longer and he could hold.
For a long while he moved between consciousness and oblivion, using pain as a prop and following wherever instinct led him.
Then Iscal stood among the sprawled corpses of monsters, swaying, and looked out at the horizon.
Another pack of beasts was visible far off. Far more of them than before. Monsters filled the world all the way to the distant edge of the sky, and they were coming.
"Ha… haah…"
Drip—
Blood ran down and made a small pool at his feet. Excessive bleeding blurred his vision. His arms, pushed past every limit, trembled and convulsed.
"Y-Your… Highness… haah…"
Staring at the horizon, Iscal called to Friga behind him.
There was no answer.
He did not look back. He held down the tears that rose for some reason and glared at the horizon.
She was… probably just asleep for a moment.
She would wake soon, grab him the way she always did, and drag him off to spar.
So he would not look back.
She was sleeping. A deep, deep sleep.
"…da."
The word he whispered was so small and soft that a breeze carried it up into the sky and away.
The buckler was cracked and broken — only a fragment of it left now. He forced his shaking hand to tighten the strap one more time.
Step. Step—
He walked forward. Toward that swarm of monsters. Toward tens of thousands, hundreds of millions of them.
In his fading mind, he even heard phantom voices.
Why go this far?
Why are you still here?
Are you going to die here?
Die… die… haha.
A dry laugh burst out of him without warning.
Iscal — born the timid son of a minor noble house in a weak border nation, who had wanted wealth and fame but feared a fight — dying alone on a battlefield, standing against the enemy by himself.
Laughter spilled out of him. Why he was doing this… he didn't know.
He simply did what had to be done. Even now he was terrified. Even now he was afraid.
But.
This was what he had to do.
Even if death waited at the end of it.
Please…
——————!!!
They came. The monsters charged toward Iscal — to tear flesh, drink hot blood, feast on soft entrails. A sea of slaughter that killed everything living poured toward him.
"Hh… hhh…"
And standing against it was one wounded, dying human.
Iscal did not take a single step back.
A shattered buckler. A body already dying. Blurred vision. No allies left… none of it was reason enough for him to run.
Iscal.
Born a coward — and at last reborn as a guardian.
——————!!!
"I—!!"
He roared at the monsters closing in.
"I am Guardian Iscal!!"
Hear me, you fiends!
Hear the words of Iscal!!
"Until you break through me—!!"
Not a single one of you.
"You will not pass!!"
Only over my corpse will that ever be possible.