Never Return to the North
"Kieeeek!"
"Skree!"
Five monsters were dropping out of the air above him, and still Rian could not focus on the fight at all.
That damned North!
A voice from some far-off memory brushed his ear.
…Rian. This place…
A thing from the distant past.
The North. Do not come back.
"Tch."
He clicked his tongue, sharp with irritation, and muttered under his breath.
"Filthy memories."
Steel hissed free of the wall. He had lofted the girl upward with care first, then wrenched the buried sword loose.
"Kyaaaaa…!"
"Kyaaa…."
There was no fighting in midair with one arm shielding a child and the other on a blade, so he had flung her briefly into the empty air, fully meaning to catch her again. There was absolutely no ulterior motive in it. None whatsoever.
His boot found a gap where the brickwork jutted out, and he kicked off, arm already moving.
"Kieeeeeek!"
"Skreeee!"
Two cuts followed, one on the heels of the other.
"I am…"
The five falling monsters came apart into chunks of meat and dropped away before they could so much as touch him. He leapt again to receive the snow-white girl still hanging far overhead, and roared until it felt as if his throat would split.
Through the cloud of dust thrown up by the tumbling carcasses, Rian came down along the wall and showed himself.
"Kid, are you all righ— no. You're not."
"…Ueh…."
The girl in his arms had already fainted, her face flushed crimson. The monsters must have frightened her so badly the blood had rushed to her head. He could hardly leave her behind. She kept burrowing into his chest for reasons he preferred not to examine, so he gathered her up and started for the lord's manor, doing his best to ignore the soldiers staring after him with their mouths hanging open.
"…Uh. Uhhh…?"
The first thing Kebeg saw as he stepped out of the lord's manor was a scene from hell.
"Kreeeeeeeek!"
"Kiiiiiik!"
Grotesque shrieks poured in from every side. Soldiers and knights were fighting the monsters with desperate fury, but the despair lasted only a moment. Black figures were racing along the top of the wall.
"…Who are they?"
They moved faster than the monsters could climb.
"Khahaha!"
"And where do you think you're crawling up to!"
Knights in black armor surged up and down the ramparts, dropping the monsters one after another. No—sweeping them away.
"It can't be…."
Kebeg's eyes went wide.
"Viscount Rian!"
Relief broke across his face.
Butcher Kaisén. He's come!
He had never imagined the man would arrive this quickly.
"Thank the heavens…."
Kebeg let out a sigh of relief. And then something felt wrong.
"What are these screams? They aren't human."
The monsters' shrieks packed the inner castle to the brim. Why?
"…Wait. What are they doing…."
"Khahahat! Kill them! Die!"
"The hell you will! We're not supposed to kill them!"
"Ah—right!"
They were bounding along, shearing off arms and legs with casual ease. Strange as it was, the black knights were not actually finishing the monsters they had already crippled. A few of the quieter ones were even frowning as they hauled the dismembered creatures off to a single spot.
"My lord, what is that…?"
Kebeg's expression turned peculiar.
"Why… aren't they killing them?"
Just then, soldiers' voices carried from nearby.
"W-we're not to kill them, they said! Only take their mobility and pile them up…!"
Kebeg blinked.
"…Why?"
"That, we don't…"
The soldier looked deeply uncomfortable. These people had arrived barely ten minutes ago. That was all the time it had taken to nearly settle the inner castle.
"Reinforcements!"
"Aaaaaaah!"
Only moments before, the defenders had been cheering the arrival and pouring out their thanks. Then, at some point, their faces had gone white at the newcomers' bizarre conduct, and they had backed away to stand there staring.
"Ahahaha!"
"Don't kill them—dump them in that clearing! The Commander will handle the rest!"
"W-who… who are you people?"
"We serve Rian…"
"Who are we, you ask? Khaha! Knights of the Northern Grand Duke, that's who!"
"We serve Viscount Rian…"
"Yeah! Ahahaha! That's right! We're the bulwark of the North!"
"Shut up! I said shut your mouth!"
They laughed and shouted even in the middle of the monsters, even while hanging off the wall. A question rose in Kebeg's mind.
The Northern Grand Duke? These ought to be Viscount Rian's men.
"Got one!"
"Hey! I said don't kill it! You trying to get yourself killed by the Commander?!"
The noise was as rowdy as a hunt. Kebeg's face had just hardened when a knight appeared, ash-gray hair swept neatly back.
"What in the world…!"
"Baron Kebeg Sahar."
Kebeg turned toward the voice. The man's expression was calm, his appearance so impeccable it was difficult to believe he had been standing in the middle of a battlefield only moments ago.
"You are…?"
"You are the baron, I trust?"
"I am."
The knight bowed with perfect courtesy.
"It is an honor to meet you. I am Alfred, butler and chief administrator to Viscount Rian."
"Ah."
Kebeg hastily returned the courtesy.
"Then those knights are indeed…"
"Viscount Rian's knights."
Kebeg breathed out in relief.
"A great mercy. You have my thanks."
His expression hardened again almost at once.
"More pressing—I was told there were three Sand Howlers, and that one of them was an elite. We must send support that way at once…"
"As to that."
Alfred answered as if it were nothing at all.
"Viscount Rian and the Vice Commander have already gone."
Kebeg was briefly speechless. Gone to face all three? Viscount Rian and the Vice Commander themselves?
"Then… no, wait! My daughter!"
His voice went sharp with panic.
Damn it!
The carnage had seized his attention so completely that he had forgotten why he had come out in the first place.
"A girl with white hair! Have you seen that child—"
That was when a black figure dropped down in front of the lord's manor, and Kebeg turned his head. He froze where he stood. Years had passed, but the man's face was familiar. Cradled unconscious in his arms was a snow-white girl.
"Stella!"
She was alive. The moment he knew it, Kebeg's legs moved on their own.
"My daughter! Stella! Thank you—truly, thank you…!"
He took her from Rian's arms.
"Kaisén…."
The old name slipped out before he could stop it. He caught himself at once.
"No… Viscount Rian!"
Rian inclined his head slightly and offered a formal greeting, courtesy and all.
"It has been a long time, Baron."
Kebeg looked down at the daughter in his arms, then spoke in a trembling voice.
"I can hardly accept such courtesy. Please, speak freely, Viscount Rian."
Every eye in the place turned at once to the man who had just appeared.
"That gentleman is…"
"Haha, our Grand Duke has arrived!"
Pitch-black hair. Black armor. And the title his own knights had been calling him.
He surveyed the gathering in silence, gaze indifferent, and then he spoke.
"The situation is finished."
"Uh…"
"Finished?"
Baron Kebeg caught on at once and raised his voice.
"The battle is over! We are victorious!"
That single declaration was all it took.
"Aaaaaaaah!"
"We're alive!"
The people erupted in cheers. Rian's knights watched the spectacle and cackled among themselves.
"Thank you! Truly, thank you!"
"Thank you! We'd be dead if not for you!"
The cheers of the living, the grateful. Every gaze bright with victory and relief gathered on a single man—the man who had carved through countless monsters without his breathing so much as hitching, who stood there expressionless and utterly unbowed. They began to shout his name.
"Thank you! Northern Grand Du—"
"Heheh, and how was that giant? Your Grace the Grand Du—"
The gathering went dead silent.
Rian let the quiet sit for a moment, then bowed with perfect courtesy, as if nothing whatsoever had happened.
"A pleasure to meet you all. Rian West, Viscount of the West."
I spoke to them the way I talk to my knights.
An awkward silence drifted through the stilled crowd.
"Ahem!"
Baron Kebeg coughed, suddenly and far too loudly.
"Now that I think of it, I never properly introduced him!"
He looked around. One sweep of the soldiers' faces, and Baron Kebeg extended a hand toward me as naturally as anything.
"This gentleman is the founding head of House West—Viscount Rian!"
"And long ago, he is the very man who saved this old baron's life from an ogre pack's assault!"
"…Ah!"
"That mercenary…!"
"These are the people who protected us until just now! Thanks ought to come before anything else, wouldn't you say?"
The soldiers snapped back to themselves and cheered, and the frozen crowd grew loud again in an instant.
Well.
The years he had lived as a baron had clearly not been wasted. Kebeg unraveled the mood with a practiced hand and was smiling as if nothing at all had happened. And with that, the situation began to settle.
"Move the wounded first!"
"Leave that rubble. It's late—it'll have to wait until tomorrow."
The injured were seen to, and the ground around the collapsed wall was cordoned off. I was watching the people move in crisp order, just catching my breath, when a voice found me.
"…Commander."
"What?"
"The Vice Commander… where is she?"
The mood hardened on the spot.
"Wait. Rupia?"
"Yes."
The knights looked around.
"We haven't got that many people as it is…"
I searched as well. Rupia was nowhere to be seen.
"…Don't tell me."
That was when it happened.
"Commander!"
A knight in black armor came sprinting like a madman through the inner castle gate.
"The Vice Commander! She's lost it again! Hurry!"
She's gone berserk!
I drove my foot into the ground and launched myself forward.