Eclipse (2)
"Close your mouth, old man. You're going to get blood all over it."
Kaelen snapped back to himself at Ian Darkest's dry jab.
Was I standing here with my mouth hanging open?
He shut it at once, but his eyes stayed locked on Ian, still refusing to believe what they had just seen.
He cut down a goblin? Ian… Ian Darkest?
A fluke?
Or was there something here he simply didn't know about?
Kaelen's thoughts tangled. Only minutes ago, Ian's swordwork had been pathetic. The basic stance had been rough but present, yet every motion had screamed greenhorn — a boy with zero real combat experience, laid bare for anyone to see.
And then that last exchange?
Slashed across the side and he hadn't even flinched. He had seized the opening without hesitation and taken the enemy's head. The judgment in that instant, the way he moved — none of it belonged to a beginner.
And those eyes.
Calm. Unshaken. The eyes of a veteran soldier.
The air was thick with the stench of blood and the endless screaming of the dying. Any boy should have been coming apart. Yet this one's mind stood firm, unmoved.
That is supposed to be the bastard Ian?
A passing dog would laugh.
The Ian Darkest Kaelen had met back at the main house had always been cowed — watching the family head's face for every cue, trembling under his brothers' cruelty. A sniveling bastard son.
So what the hell was this?
No fear. No groveling. Instead, a strange, distant composure, as if he were watching a battlefield from far away… and even the leisure to read the fight while he was in it.
What in the world happened to him?
While Kaelen's mind spun, new enemies emerged from the dark beyond.
"KRAAAAGH!"
"Kieeek!"
Orcs far larger than the goblins came thundering forward, heavy bodies rolling with each stride, and behind them loped wolf-shaped beasts with claws that flashed like knives.
There were far more of them this time.
"Damn it! Second Wave! All units, defensive formation!"
Kaelen shoved the confusion aside, reset his grip on his sword, and roared the order. This was no time to dwell on a suddenly transformed bastard son.
The fighting turned savage.
The orcs' mindless charges hammered the soldiers' shield wall until it shuddered. The swift beasts slipped through every gap, snatching at lives.
"Traps! I set traps on the west side!"
Ian shouted.
The soldiers obeyed on pure reflex, as if taking orders from their lord.
The contempt, the dismissal — all of it was gone.
"GRAAAAGH!"
Several orcs in the lead plunged into a pit bristling with sharpened wooden stakes. The ones behind them faltered for a heartbeat.
"Now! Attack!"
Ian led the charge himself as he shouted.
Crude traps. They won't hold for long.
— Thuk.
The sensation of a blade driving into flesh.
Disgusting. But he had to get used to it.
Wait. Hold on.
"Why won't this damn thing come out."
Whether it was the orc's ridiculous muscle or the onset of rigor, the sword lodged in the body refused to pull free.
He was still wrenching at the hilt when a wolf-type monster closed in, seizing the opening.
"Grrrrrk!"
Drool dripped from its gaping jaws. A curse slipped out of him on its own.
"Shit!"
With every step the beast took toward him, his mouth went dry.
Come out. Come out already.
Unexpected Variable
— 【Combat Sense】 Unlock Rate: 51%
To hell with it!
He kicked the orc off the blade and wrenched the sword free. Using the same momentum, he spun and caught the lunging beast's claws on steel.
Clang!
His arm rang with the impact, but he held.
No — honestly, it hurt like hell.
So this is what they mean by your vision spinning.
But the one more rattled was the beast itself.
"Grk?"
The moment it lost its balance, he swept the blade upward from below.
Hide tore. Dark red blood sprayed.
"Th-that bastard…!"
Kaelen and the soldiers stared, eyes wide.
Shock filled every face.
Ian Darkest.
In the span of a few minutes his movement had transformed, and the traps and defenses they had mocked as lunacy were actually working.
In their eyes, Ian looked like a hero made flesh.
"He was hiding his swordsmanship all along!"
"The lord's insane preparations bought us time!"
Those words broke out among the soldiers. Contempt still clung to some of them, but something else had mixed in — something different from before.
And above all — lord.
A slip of the tongue, maybe. But that made it mean something.
The battle ground on.
Soldiers died, but the ones still standing fought with everything they had.
Everything Ian had prepared over the past year was shining through the despair.
The sharpened wooden palisade broke the charge of the oncoming horde. From atop the earthen walls, small adhesive mana rounds and cheap magitech tools — crude as they were — cut monsters down with ruthless efficiency.
How much time passed, he couldn't say.
The endless tide of creatures began, at last, to thin.
When the final scattered orcs collapsed, a brief silence settled over the long, grinding fight.
"…Hah… Is it… is it over?"
One of the surviving soldiers asked in a shaking voice. His armor was dented and soaked in blood.
"Did we kill them all?"
"W-we made it… We actually did it!"
Relief and cheers broke out on every side.
The surviving villagers clung to one another, weeping with joy. The entrance to Seorigol under the torchlight was a ruin — but they were alive.
Kaelen dragged in a rough breath and shook the blood from his blade. He looked over what remained of his men. More than half were dead or badly wounded. A bitter loss — but better than annihilation.
"You all did well."
As he said it, he glanced at Ian.
Ian Darkest stood covered in wounds, looking anything but fine.
And yet, somehow, he was still on his feet.
This was the same spineless bastard who used to collapse after the lightest training. Here, on this battlefield, he stood straighter and brighter than anyone.
Kaelen frowned without meaning to.
He's changed.
At the very least, the Ian Darkest he had known was no longer standing there.
God, I'm dying.
Am I actually going to die like this?
His first real bloodbath, and his body was done talking. Every part of him wanted to drop flat on the ground right now — except moving his joints at all had become impossible.
I swear I can hear my whole body creaking.
"Hah… hah…"
Every breath left a bitter metallic taste in his mouth.
Whether it was his own blood or monster blood that had splashed in, he couldn't tell.
One thing, though, was certain.
We held.
The losses were worse than expected, but they had held the line. Given Seorigol's pitiful territory level, this was likely the full extent of the Eclipse. In the game, a Lv.1 fief never got more than a wave like this.
It was rough, but… at this level… it was more manageable than I thought.
No.
Could he really call it manageable?
Half the soldiers the family had dispatched were dead.
The villagers seemed mostly all right thanks to the quick evacuation underground, but every one of them carried at least a wound or two.
…But we lived.
Yes.
They had survived.
That was what mattered most.
In a dark fantasy, the only real reward that existed was life itself.
Holding this speck of a fief counts for something, too.
There was no peace to be found here — only blood, soaking into everything.
But that blood could feed the territory's growth.
The corpses of those monsters, and the cores that would be found inside them, were worth no small sum.
That alone is enough capital to develop the fief.
Starting funds.
With that, he was confident he could grow this place.
Say what you wanted — he had been a hardcore veteran of Tales of Legend.
…His memories weren't entirely intact, but still.
He was sketching out a vague, happy future when—
"…Huh?"
A chill ran through him as if every hair on his body had stood on end.
The relief from a moment ago vanished. In its place, a formless wrongness closed around his heart like a fist.
The air around them was turning cold again — sharply, all at once.
No. Not cold, exactly… more like it was sinking, growing heavy.
And it was far too quiet.
Even the groans of the wounded from seconds ago seemed to have stopped. An unnatural stillness.
"Is something wrong, my lord?"
Even the dazed soldiers nearby were asking — but their voices didn't reach him.
— Rrrrrumble.
The ground was shaking.
No — the space itself was shaking. That was closer to the truth.
Something with an overwhelming presence was coming this way.
"…No. This isn't right."
Seorigol was the lowest grade of fief, barely worthy of a single star.
It should have been over.
The monster wave was supposed to end here.
"Looks like the shock hit him hard. Get him lying down."
"Please rest easy, my lord. We'll handle the cleanup — no, the villagers will."
Soldiers approached.
But his gaze stayed fixed on the darkness beyond.
"……It's not over yet."
Kaelen, mid-sigh, turned to him with a puzzled look.
He had no mind left for answering.
He needed to think.
Work, damn it. Move, brain.
He stared into the dark where the monsters had vanished. Every sense in his body was screaming. This was a different order of magnitude — an ominous, crushing presence.
Its rank? Unknown.
Type? The others haven't noticed it, so probably mental-class.
Objective? …Extinction, obviously.
Pattern. What's the pattern.
If it's a mind-control type, it will come in through words. Always.
An Aberration.
Those things knew how to use human language.
"…Everyone, cover your ears."
"What?"
The instant the words left his mouth, the air around them plunged colder still. This was no ordinary drop in temperature. It was a death-chill that seemed to freeze the soul itself.
And then… the whispering began.
The ominous whispers came from somewhere — no, from everywhere at once. They were not mere sound. They bored straight into the brain, dragging up the deepest buried fears and anxieties with a vile, resonant pull.
"Ugh… uwaaagh!"
The common soldiers broke first. They clutched their ears and thrashed in agony. One swung his sword at empty air, fighting an enemy no one else could see. Another wept and cried out for his mother.
"Y-you! Traitor!"
One soldier suddenly leveled his blade at the man beside him. His eyes glittered with terror and madness.
"Kh… save me… please…"
Another cast his weapon aside, curled into a ball, and sobbed like a child. All the mental fortitude drilled into them by training crumbled helplessly before this unknown psychic assault.
"Get a hold of yourselves, damn you!"
Kaelen bellowed — but his own voice was shaking hard.
Cold sweat poured down his face as he pressed a hand to his temple. His pupils had lost focus and were trembling with unease.
An Aberration is coming?
A real Aberration?
But those only respawn in territories rated eight stars and above—
Ordinary people writhed on the ground, foam at their mouths, wracked with pain.
A curse slipped out of him on its own.
"This is Seorigol. Not even one star, for fuck's sake."
…Unless.
Is Seorigol worth more than I thought?
Its voice rang through his skull.