Suspicious Movements
The Rancart Margraviate.
True to its reputation as a rugged border march, the territory boasted a battle-hardened culture, having weathered frequent clashes with monsters. While the land maintained no standing knight order of its own, it commanded several knights hailing from the Imperial Academy alongside a standing army of considerable size. From the Empire's perspective, it was a vital stronghold that could never be neglected. Thus, when the territory fell under attack by hundreds of lizardmen, it was only natural for the Imperial Guard Knights to ride out to its rescue.
Rescuing the common folk and cementing the loyalty of the lords who formed the Empire’s backbone was, by all accounts, a glorious duty. Yet the faces of the knights dispatched to relieve the margraviate were twisted in scowls entirely unbefitting warriors on an honorable mission.
“We should’ve gotten out of this somehow.”
These were the words muttered by the female knight Celine right after the battle, exposing her battered, bloodied body to the field medic. The medic cautiously readied his hands, walking on eggshells around her.
“Um, Dame Knight? If you could lift your arm just a little...”
“Is there no priest?”
“Ah, my apologies. The number of priests capable of healing magic is strictly limited.”
“So what, you're just going to wrap a few bandages around me and call it a day?”
At Celine's sharp rebuke, the medic flinched and cast a nervous glance her way. But shrinking in terror wouldn't magically grant him the ability to cast holy spells.
“...Ha-ha, please don’t worry. If we apply an herbal poultice to prevent infection, it will heal in no time—”
“This is driving me insane. Sticking chewed-up weeds on someone who got mauled while saving your territory?”
“...My deepest apologies.”
Celine clicked her tongue in disgust. The medic treated her wounds with trembling hands. Naturally, being human, he couldn't have felt pleasant about her abuse, but few people possessed the courage to argue with a member of the Imperial Guard Knights.
Celine was part of the expedition dispatched to relieve Rancart. The force numbered an impressive twenty-five knights. Considering that every member of the Imperial Guard was at least an Expert (Intermediate), it was a truly formidable detachment. After all, even an Expert Low-grade who could barely draw forth a shimmering haze of aura could slaughter five or six orcs without breaking a sweat. And so, at first, they assumed the relief campaign would be over in a flash. Celine was not the only one who thought so; the other knights had shared the exact same sentiment.
“Three hundred lizardmen? We’ll mop them up as quickly as possible and head straight back to the Imperial Capital.”
“Yeah. We’ve got no time to waste in a backwater like this. Right this minute, that bastard Eric is probably pulling schemes to hoard his fortune.”
“Um, seniors? I fought lizardmen during our Academy field training, and they’re definitely not easy opponents—”
“Shut up, Katie. Do you think there’s a single knight here who hasn’t dealt with those overgrown reptiles? Save your worthless chatter.”
Back then, Celine and the others were convinced of a swift return. They had possessed the martial prowess to back up that confidence. Though lizardmen were said to wield several times the physical strength of a grown man, at the end of the day, weren't they just savage beastmen? Furthermore, the Beast King who once commanded them had already fallen at the hands of the Hero. They believed a leaderless, chaotic rabble would be subjugated in no time.
Yet once they arrived on the front line and clashed, the lizardman host proved to be anything but a disoriented mob. Though somewhat crude, they maintained a discernible formation, and their equipment was surprisingly sound. Several of the stronger specimens carried armaments comparable to those of seasoned knights, and there were even a handful of individuals whose strength was blatantly exceptional.
Because of that, Celine had suffered a harrowing ordeal right from their very first battle: a desperate duel against an enormous lizardman warrior standing nearly 2.8 meters tall.
“I’ll take that bastard!”
She had known he wouldn't be easy pickings. Beyond his sheer bulk, the monster wore armor of an unusual alloy, his slit pupils gleaming with chilling composure. He was likely a champion representing an entire tribe. Celine had resolved to unleash her full strength for the first time in a while and lunged into the fray.
Yet reality had other plans. Her 'full strength' was nowhere near as formidable as she believed.
“Celine, you stupid bitch! What the hell are you doing?!”
The speed at which she channeled her aura was noticeably sluggish, and even the edge of the aura she forced out lacked its former sharpness. Flickering unstably like the aura of someone who had only just broken through to the Expert rank, it had left Celine herself utterly bewildered. And the aura was only part of the problem.
“Don’t block it, dodge...!”
Withstanding the lizardman’s relentless onslaught was an agonizing struggle. When she parried the full-force swing of his greatsword, the breath was knocked straight from her lungs, accompanied by a sickening tremor that echoed through every joint in her body. By the end, her vision was swimming, her consciousness slipping into a daze. Throughout the life-and-death struggle, Celine had scrambled to deny reality.
There’s no way I’m this slow, this weak. My aura reserves couldn’t possibly be this depleted. Is this bastard just ridiculously strong?
Such distractions had swirled through her mind while narrowly evading lethal blows. In the end, she barely survived and managed to bring the monster down thanks to a comrade’s intervention, but it had been a hair-raising brush with death.
Only then did Celine realize the truth: she had neglected her training for quite a while—no, for far too long. Over the past three or four months, she had spent the vast majority of her days tracking Eric’s movements and obsessing over Kodana price charts rather than training. She had scarcely performed any visualization exercises to hone her aura sensitivity, and she had treated sparring sessions with junior knights as a mere afterthought. Though she had occasionally ridden out to protect estates near the Imperial Capital, facing goblins and orcs had done nothing to keep her edge. To top it off, she had been drinking heavily almost every other day.
A knight’s martial prowess was an asset that rusted far more easily than one might think. Celine was only now learning that bitter lesson in Rancart. Up until this point, she hadn't even noticed her skills were decaying—her entire mind had been consumed by the Kodana coins in Eric’s hands. Though she was slowly regaining her combat instincts now, the blood she had spilled to pay for that lesson was far from trivial.
“...If it weren't for that bastard Eric,” Celine spat, recalling the agony she had endured.
“Pardon? Dame Knight, did you say something?”
“Shut your mouth and finish tying the bandage, will you?”
“Ah, yes ma'am.”
Exasperated by Celine’s prickly demeanor, the medic fell silent and tended to her wounds without another word. Even so, he made sure to tie the linen snugly so it wouldn't unravel. Foul temper aside, she was an indispensable warrior for Rancart right now.
“...You’re all finished, Dame Knight. Thank you for your patience.”
Without sparing the medic's courtesy so much as a glance, Celine turned and made her way toward a shabby command tent. It was time for the nightly gathering the knights held at the exact same hour every evening. If they were gathering to plan for tomorrow’s battle or offer each other comfort, it would have been a productive assembly. Unfortunately, that was not their purpose in the slightest. Their primary objective was to vent their miserable grievances and discuss the latest updates on Eric.
“Damn it. We’ve killed more than half the lizardmen already—can’t we just withdraw at this point? Rancart ought to handle the rest on its own.”
“...I understand how you feel, but where would this territory find the strength for that? Even its status as a margraviate is hanging by a thread right now.”
“Cut the nonsense and get to the point. What about Eric?”
“He bought Marquis Claudine’s villa for 2.5 billion, and it looks like he purchased a treasure belonging to His Majesty’s first cousin once removed as well. ...It means he’s diversifying his assets. Word is he’s looking into grain warehouses too.”
Ramsey, a veteran knight, rattled off the intelligence on Eric without hesitation. Gathering intel on Eric from a territory so far removed from the Imperial Capital was no small feat, yet the knights had mobilized every single contact in their networks to monitor Eric in near real time. And every night, they convened to pool their findings.
“...Hah. He’s buying up everything like a madman. Isn’t there any way to stop him?”
“How are we supposed to stop him when the Commander is backing him up? And even if we could, what do we stand to gain? There’s not a chance in hell Eric hands over that coin willingly.”
Surprisingly, the knights displayed a pragmatic attitude. They were forced to acknowledge that extorting money from Eric had become nearly impossible now that he had successfully diversified his assets. Even denial had its limits. Yet, separate from their shattered dreams of extortion, their hatred toward Eric was mounting by the day.
We’re crawling through the mud in this godforsaken hellhole, and he’s buying luxury villas?!
The moment the gathering dispersed, Celine ground her teeth, fury blazing in her chest. She knew deep down that her anger was irrational. But after rolling through deadly battlefields day in and day out, her judgment had long since clouded. Her deteriorated skills, her crushing exhaustion, the lingering wounds—in her mind, every last bit of it was Eric’s fault.
This isn't about the money anymore.
At the very least, she had to make him pay, if only to vent her spleen. And by venting her spleen, she didn't mean a simple slap across his face. She intended to join forces with her fellow knights to thoroughly ruin Eric’s future. To make him spend every waking moment trembling in paranoia, clutching his mountain of wealth in terror. With dozens of knights on board, it was far from impossible.
To do that, however, she first had to make it out of the Rancart Margraviate alive. Forcing down her boiling indignation, Celine finally turned in for the night.
The following morning brought good news and bad news in quick succession.
First came word of reinforcements. The Black Iron Knights—an order boasting formidable skill, even if a cut below the Imperial Guard—had dispatched forty knights. The problem was the reason behind the reinforcement.
“The hound-kin are marching to join the lizardman host. An outpost established on the margraviate's perimeter barely spotted them in time.”
Hearing this, Celine’s expression froze.
The hound-kin and the lizardmen.
While beastmen currently served under the Demon King’s banner, cooperation among their disparate tribes was notoriously rare. After all, they were not born and bred demons of the Demonic Realm; they were merely absorbed into the Demon King’s army out of necessity. Yet now, they were moving in synchronized coordination like a disciplined army. Almost as if someone capable of commanding the entire beastman race was leading them.
“B-but the Beast King was definitely slain by the Hero not long ago... How on earth...?”
Celine let out a low groan, her voice trailing off. For the first time, Eric’s name was wiped clean from her mind. The movements of the beastmen were just that suspicious.