Holy Fire Guardian Knights (1)
Accompanying the Helmet Knight, Najin learned a few things about him he would rather not have known. Contrary to the weighty, serious first impression the man gave, he turned out to be a far lighter person than Najin had expected.
In other words, he talked a lot.
"Don't you think lumping every person in the world under the single word 'human' is an extremely narrow-minded way of looking at things?"
"What are you on about all of a sudden?"
And most of what he said was pure abstraction, the kind of deeply philosophical question that never quite touched the ground.
"Think about it, Najin. 'Animals eat animals.' Does that sentence feel off to you?"
"It's just common sense, isn't it?"
"Right. Then what about 'humans eat humans'? How does that one feel?"
"A bit wrong. The first thing that comes to mind is savages."
"Yes! Exactly."
The Helmet Knight snapped his fingers.
"Animals are divided into countless species among themselves. Predators hunt other animals. No one questions that hunt. It's only natural. Naturally, no one regards a lion and a deer as the same kind. But what about humans?"
He raised his voice, holding forth at length.
"Their peoples differ. Their nations differ. Yet we still gather them all under that one word—'human.' That is why the idea of humans eating humans feels like 'cannibalism among one's own.' It triggers an instinctive revulsion. When in truth they might as well be entirely different species."
"Animals have to eat other animals to survive, but humans can live without eating humans, can't they? We find it repulsive because it isn't done out of necessity."
"Hmm. That is also true."
But, the Helmet Knight said.
"What about in the Outer Land?"
"Pardon?"
"In the Outer Land there are those who can only survive by eating human hearts. In that case, is their devouring of humans something repulsive? Or should we look the other way because it is essential for survival? By your logic, you could answer that there is 'no problem.'"
"That is..."
"Don't rush to answer. Think on it a little longer. Until we reach our destination."
He gave a short laugh.
"We have plenty of time."
The Helmet Knight strode ahead.
He had offered to introduce Najin—who knew nothing of the Outer Land's geography—to a battlefield suited to his level. After wandering these lands for so long, he claimed, he knew a fair bit about this and that. Listening to him, Najin glanced sideways.
Mmm.
Merlin chewed her lip.
Is it just me? Why does it feel like someone's stolen my job?
'It's not just you.'
...
With the Helmet Knight volunteering as "guide," Merlin fell silent. She pressed herself right up against Najin's side and wrapped her arms around his neck. As if making excuses, she thrust a sheet of paper in front of his eyes.
I—I was going to tell you too, you know? I have a few destinations picked out myself. Want to take a look? Top Ten Outer Land Destinations! A perfect route to accelerate your growth. I put it together carefully all the way from the Continent...
'I'll look at it later.'
Y-yeah? Okay. You will look at it later, right?
Leaving a dejected Merlin behind, Najin kept walking. He would visit Merlin's recommended destinations eventually, but for now the destination the Helmet Knight had spoken of was far more interesting.
"Look there."
Standing at the crest of a hill, the Helmet Knight stretched out his hand. At the tip of his finger lay an abandoned fortress-castle.
"That fortress is our destination."
He pronounced its name.
"Atula Fortress."
And, he added,
"The fortress occupied by the Holy Fire Guardian Knights."
Najin looked at Atula Fortress.
The Outer Land was full of fortresses like this one. Even on the walk here he had already seen a fair number of ruined castles. Not only castles, either. Cities, towers, ruins—abandoned structures of every kind were easy enough to find across the Outer Land.
Buildings left behind by fallen or forgotten nations. Or cities swallowed when the Outer Land's boundary line expanded and devoured them. Beyond those, structures abandoned for countless other reasons, or raised by the constellations themselves, filled the Outer Land.
And the architectural styles of those buildings were never uniform.
A tower from the ancient age a thousand years ago.
A fortress-castle of a kingdom that fell seven hundred years past.
Ruins from five hundred years ago.
Three hundred years ago, two hundred, one hundred...
From a thousand years past all the way to the modern day, buildings of every era coexisted in the Outer Land. Even on a land where transcendents dwelled and the laws themselves had broken, the structures raised by human hands still stood.
"The Holy Fire Guardian Knights. A knight order active about two hundred years ago. Do you know of them?"
"To some extent."
"Yes. The entire order threw themselves into the Outer Land together. About two hundred years ago. With the noble purpose of fighting demons and twisted transcendents in the Outer Land."
They would prove that even here their Holy Fire would not go out, that it would blaze all the fiercer. Speaking those words, they cast themselves into the Outer Land. So the Helmet Knight said.
"But after a certain incident, the Holy Fire Knights became a company of the dead."
He did not say what that incident had been. He merely continued.
"As they are now, they hunt humans. They devour humans and safeguard their Holy Fire. Do you see the smoke rising from that citadel?"
He did. Partly hidden by the walls, yet white smoke was rising above the fortress.
"Proof that the Holy Fire still burns. They keep the Holy Fire alight no matter what. They will protect it by any means necessary. Even if that means hunting humans. In your judgment, is that a righteous thing?"
"It doesn't seem very knightly."
"Is that so."
The Helmet Knight neither denied nor affirmed Najin's words. Instead he simply nodded and walked toward the fortress.
"In the Outer Land there are no answers. Only what you yourself decide is an answer. Then deliver your answer. To the master of that fortress."
They descended the hill, passed through dense woods, and drew near Atula Fortress. Knights stood posted along the walls and watchtowers; more guarded the firmly shut iron gate.
At a glance it looked like an ordinary fortress... The problem was that those defending it were anything but ordinary. The knights' eyes were hollow, and no intelligence could be felt in their movements.
"As I recall, a third of the Holy Fire Knights were of Sword Seeker rank. The order was roughly thirty strong, so about ten of them would have been Sword Seekers."
"Not easy opponents, then."
"Indeed. But as I said, they have been active in the Outer Land for two hundred years. Time enough for ten more Sword Seekers to have been born and then some."
A minimum of ten, and possibly more.
The Helmet Knight had somehow hidden his bulk behind a tree while speaking to Najin. Whether a frame that size could actually hide was doubtful, yet the knights guarding the fortress had not noticed them, so it seemed to be working.
Or maybe those undead just have terrible eyesight.
It was probably the latter.
"How do we get in? Taking a fortress doesn't look simple."
"How do we get in?"
"Well. Climb the walls, or obscure their vision and strike by surprise. There are plenty of methods, aren't there?"
"Tsk."
The Helmet Knight clicked his tongue.
"We are knights paying a visit to a citadel."
"Right?"
"Knights are fair and open. All the more so when we mean to point at the other's conviction and declare, 'You are wrong.' We must be just and upright. Is that not Atanga's way?"
He slowly rose to his full height.
"How could a knight climb a wall?"
"...What?"
"How could a knight climb a wall and launch a surprise attack? That simply will not do."
Then, with a heavy thud, he stamped the ground. The forest shuddered under his footfall. Even the knights on the fortress could no longer pretend not to notice; their gazes turned toward the woods where Najin and the Helmet Knight had been hiding.
Paying those stares no mind, the Helmet Knight swelled his already massive frame as if shouting, "Look at me!" He bent his knees, leaned forward, and tucked his spear against his side.
"A frontal breakthrough. That is true romance."
Spearhead leveled, the Helmet Knight kicked off the earth. With every step a booming crash rang out. Wherever his foot landed, the ground split with a sharp crack.
Once enough power had built, the Helmet Knight began to race almost as if vaulting forward. Each stride closed the distance in an instant. The knights at the gate reacted as well, but by the time they noticed, the Helmet Knight was already right in front of the gate.
And then—
KRAAAAAAAAAAASH!
With a thunderous roar the gate shattered. The thick-looking iron door did not merely buckle; it burst into fragments. As a bonus the walls shook. Quite a lot. Stone chips rained down from the battlements.
"Whoa."
Najin, racing after the Helmet Knight, could only admire it.
A lance charge that smashed the gate from the front. It was a perfect lance charge in every sense.
So. Given enough leg strength, a man could perform a lance charge even without a horse. As knights caught in the charge went flying into the distance, Najin looked through the broken gate into the fortress.
The movements of the undead wandering inside had gone rigid. Their gazes locked onto Najin and the Helmet Knight. Even the dead who had lost their selves, it seemed, could still feel surprise at so sudden an assault.
A brief silence.
Then—
Kakakakakang!
They drew swords, spears, and halberds and charged at Najin and the Helmet Knight. Their momentum was anything but ordinary. All the more so because aura charged with mindscape was rising along their weapons.
"Is this really the right way?"
"Well, they do say a frontal breakthrough is romance."
Romance, my ass.
Faced with an attacker who had simply smashed the gate open with a lance charge, the knights garrisoned in the fortress responded with surprising competence. They immediately formed ranks and began to encircle the intruders.
Even having lost their selves, their movements remained crisp and precise. Unlike the undead who wandered alone, they moved as a single collective.
Shaaaaa!
A dozen cold weapons swept in as one from the formation. It was genuinely threatening. Najin swung his sword to turn them aside and gave ground, while the Helmet Knight swept his spear in a great arc and battered the reaching weapons away.
He spun the shaft once and reversed his grip. The long spear—fully three meters if it was an inch—he handled as if it were a short spear. Despite its considerable weight he clutched it in one hand and drew his arm back.
Then—whoosh.
He whipped his arm and hurled the spear. The flying shaft punched clean through a knight on a distant watchtower who had been preparing to snipe them. "Punched through" was almost an understatement. It brought the entire top of the tower down with him.
The spear that had toppled the tower—knight and all—bent in midair at the Helmet Knight's gesture and returned to his hand. He snatched the returning spear with a solid thud and slammed the butt into the ground.
"What kind of technique is that?"
"A skill anyone who wields a spear in the Outer Land learns as a matter of course. Throw and recover. If we have time later, I will teach you."
The Helmet Knight shrugged and let out a long breath. Then he roared at the undead surging toward them—demanding their attention. It sounded less like a human voice and more like the snarl of a beast.
Once he had drawn every undead gaze to himself—
"See where the smoke is rising? He will be there. The master of this fortress."
The Helmet Knight clapped Najin hard on the back.
"Go."
He spun his spear-shaft and grinned.
"The dead should be met by the dead. What you must face is not the undead, but the master of this fortress."