The Forbidden Land and the Knight (1)
The reason No Man's Land is called No Man's Land is simple and clear. It is because it is a place without people. More precisely, it is a place where people cannot exist. Among the countless demonic realms scattered across the world, the No Man's Land situated to the east of the Liant Kingdom receives special treatment. A zone of death where one must not set foot, where one must never enter. A place where the monsters, relics of a bygone era, encroach upon human territory. In Liant, the front lines are not limited to the borders alone.
“How strange.”
“A strange place indeed.”
The sound of hooves echoed across the wasteland. The horses pulling the supply wagons shook their heads and snorted. Maxim nodded in agreement with Christine and glanced around once more. From horseback, the borderlands of No Man's Land looked as desolate as a mountain after a wildfire. The sky was filled with twilight, making it impossible to tell whether the sun had risen or set. Layer upon layer of clouds only deepened the sense of foreboding. The scorched earth and blazing sunlight vanished abruptly at a certain point, replaced by a chilling cold that felt impossible in early summer.
A vast plain stretched out before them. Strange stones rolled along the roadside, and bizarre rock formations stood like statues scattered across the plain. Sparse weeds grew here and there, but they had lost their green hue, cloaked in a dull gray-brown as if painted with dye, lying still and silent. Not a single crow could be seen, though one might expect them in such a landscape. Though they still had a long way to go before reaching No Man's Land proper, the border region showed no signs of life save for the procession of the Raven Knight Order. The wilderness leading to No Man's Land was quiet and eerie.
“Anyone coming here for the first time says the same thing.”
Paola rode up beside Maxim and Christine. Her rough, intimidating appearance suited the wasteland perfectly.
“Have you been to No Man's Land before, Senior?”
When Maxim asked, Paola’s lips twitched as though she were struggling to hold back words. Realizing he might have made a careless mistake, Maxim hurried to take back what he had said.
“Ah… if you haven’t—”
“Haven’t? Of course I have. Back when I was still a soldier, I came here once.”
Paola began to unravel her story with the fervor of a blazing furnace.
“It was a long time ago. I was nothing more than a lowly soldier who hadn’t yet earned a knighthood. Those were my younger days.”
Before Maxim could get another word in, Paola launched into her tale of valor. Roberto, who had been lagging slightly behind, began to show interest in her words.
“What’s this, Uncle Paola? I’ve never heard this story before.”
Seeing that someone was interested in her story, Paola grinned, baring her teeth. It was as if bellows had been applied to her already blazing narrative.
“Right, I never told you this one. Want to hear it now?”
Though the story threatened to grow long, Paola was fundamentally a skilled storyteller. Entertainment was guaranteed. Maxim gave up and decided to listen attentively. Christine had been interested from the start, and with Maxim’s gaze now upon her as well, Paola pulled out her material like a glowing ingot from the forge and began hammering it into shape with relish.
“We still have two days until we reach our destination. Listening to my story along the way should keep things from getting dull.”
To Maxim’s ears, that sounded like confidence that she could spin a single tale for two full days. An impressive talent.
“…Where to begin? Ah, yes. About two years before I became a knight—near the end of my time as a soldier.”
Paola’s brow furrowed, and the corners of her mouth curved. Her eyes, tinged with a distant look, seemed to gaze far beyond the horizon. Her lips parted again as she reached back into the distant past.
“Back then, I wasn’t part of the royal army. I was an infantryman under Marquis Bendam. I’d been recognized for my skills, earned a few promotions, and had plenty of experience under my belt… My confidence was sky-high. I felt like I could make anyone kneel if I fought them.”
Paola let out a hearty laugh.
“Well, that’s not the important part. Following a royal conscription request, I left the marquis’s domain for a while and embarked on a long journey across cities and mountain ranges without knowing a thing. The order had been to send the most capable soldiers and knights.”
After slipping in a bit of self-praise and receiving no reaction, Paola scratched the back of her head awkwardly.
“It wasn’t a modest procession of thirty like now. Hundreds—perhaps even a thousand—skilled fighters and knights joined along the way. We were given a single command.”
Paola raised her hand and pointed in the direction the Raven Knight Order was heading.
“Go there and subjugate the monsters that dared to invade the kingdom’s territory without knowing their place.”
She wiggled her finger up and down as if drawing the horde of monsters beyond the horizon.
“How splendid and romantic those words sounded. The young knights trembled in their armor at the thought of earning merit, and the soldiers followed them with eyes full of admiration.”
Roberto burst out laughing at her words.
“Wait, Uncle, you admired knights?”
“Listen here, I was the exception. Even as a mere soldier, my confidence and arrogance in my own martial prowess reached the heavens. I respected knights and regarded them as my superiors, but I never once thought their skills surpassed mine.”
She’s much gentler now, Maxim thought, recalling how Paola had approached him with humility. Indeed, her current demeanor was far more pleasant to behold than one brimming with arrogance.
“Anyway, with nearly a thousand such people gathered, you can imagine how high our morale was. We arrived a full day ahead of schedule.”
Paola lightly tugged the reins, slowing her horse that had begun to pull ahead.
“We received a grand welcome from the stationed soldiers… but regardless of the welcome, we were thrown straight into the field without even a moment to rest. From that point on, I had a bad feeling.”
Paola boasted that she had been the only one among her comrades to sense the unease.
“We should have found it strange at least once—why the kingdom’s proud eastern border knights needed reinforcements. They had never requested support before.”
Like a nursemaid telling a frightening tale to a child, Paola lowered her voice.
“The knights rode, and the infantry walked. As we drew closer to No Man’s Land from the border outpost, we caught a scent we had never smelled in our lives, and sounds we had never heard began to reach our ears.”
Paola’s lips curled upward.
“How long do you think it took for the mouths of those high-spirited knights and soldiers—including myself—to fall silent and their momentum to sink? Before we even reached the battlefield, several soldiers were already completely crushed in spirit. The clanking of armor had never sounded so different.”
The twilight lingered unnaturally long. Maxim gazed down at the unchanging length of his shadow as he listened to Paola’s words.
“We walked and walked until we arrived. At the final cliff, the final stretch of land that divides No Man’s Land from Liant. And the sight we witnessed there… I can hardly call it shocking. How should I even describe it so you’ll understand?”
“It was just a horde of monsters, wasn’t it, Uncle?”
Roberto snorted, but Paola shook her head.
“These were different from the monsters we used to hunt as a side job while on duty together, Roberto. Those were merely creatures that happened to carry mana—dangerous beasts that could harm people, nothing more.”
Roberto frowned, but the expression on Paola’s face held no trace of bravado.
“The final cliff is truly the end. It’s as if the world itself is warning you that this is the limit of where you can go—the land simply cuts off. So cleanly, as if someone had sliced it with a blade.”
Paola brought her fingers together, then raised one hand and lowered the other to illustrate the cliff.
“We couldn’t see directly beneath the cliff at first. Monsters were already crawling up over the edge—ogres, trolls, fenrirs, basilisks, mantises, hellhounds…”
Names of monsters that should have inhabited different regions were all mixed together. Maxim could hardly imagine such a bizarre sight.
“Every single one of them had at least one chunk of flesh torn away, blood pouring from their wounds, missing limbs—it was commonplace. The first mantis I saw had its head ripped off, yet it was still thrashing its legs, trying to crawl forward. In fact, it moved much faster than the others, swinging those dangerous forelegs while splattering transparent blood everywhere.”
Paola shuddered at the memory.
“A monster twice the height of a man, walking forward with its head missing—you have no idea how horrifying that is. And the problem was that dozens of such monsters were rushing toward us.”
Maxim listened quietly. Even Roberto could no longer interject and focused entirely on Paola.
“We swung our weapons in a daze, driving them back and killing them. But the will to survive that allowed those monsters to climb even the final cliff… it was truly terrifying.”
Paola spoke bitterly, saying they had never imagined that someone would fall to the monsters right upon arrival.
“When we arrived, the sun was high in the sky, but by the time we drove the monsters away, it was already completely night. We cleared the corpses and gathered them to burn. That was when I finally saw what lay beneath the cliff. One of the soldiers threw a torch down to light the way.”
Paola mimed throwing a torch.
“I only caught a glimpse, but I can never forget that sight.”
“What did you see?”
Maxim asked the question of Paola, whose fists were clenched tight.
“Monsters trying to climb the cliff were being eaten by other monsters, who were in turn being eaten by yet more monsters.”
When Paola finished speaking, a long silence fell over the marching column. Roberto glanced around nervously before asking her a question.
“So in the end, why did so many knights and soldiers have to be sent as reinforcements to No Man’s Land?”
“Monsters are always plentiful there, but that day was especially bad. It was as if they were all fleeing from something.”
Paola’s brow furrowed again.
“From what?”
“Behemoth.”
Behemoth—the mythical monster born with the fate of devouring all living things. Maxim doubted his ears at the name that sounded like a joke. But Paola’s hardened expression made it impossible to ask if she was telling the truth.
“The horde of monsters fleeing from that creature caused all the trouble that day.”
“…What happened to the Behemoth?”
Roberto asked.
“It revealed itself faintly from afar. Then, not long after, it disappeared again. You might think it was a hollow ending, but for us back then, it was as if the heavens had granted us one more chance at life…”
Paola finished her story with a murmur, as if speaking to herself.
“There haven’t been many times in my life when I’ve felt fear. That was one of them.”
The smell of burning firewood filled the air. Pale smoke rose in soft billows toward the sky. Unlike the night sky Maxim had last seen in the capital, no stars were visible. Clouds covered the heavens. On the final night before reaching No Man’s Land, Maxim stood watch over the blazing fire.
“She really does tell a good story.”
Maxim mulled over Paola’s tale of No Man’s Land. Though No Man’s Land itself wasn’t facing such a crisis right now, the story was more than enough to send a chill down any knight’s spine through imagination alone. A mantis charging without a head. A hellhound with its legs severed. And Behemoth. The raw, unromantic tale left everyone who had listened to Paola feeling unsettled.
Maxim picked up a long stick and poked a protruding piece of firewood back into the flames. The smell of burning wood. He did not call it a fragrance. The word “scent” felt too refined to describe it. Crackle, crackle. The longer the wood burned, the better the smell became. The timber embracing the red flames lost its initial stiffness and grew generous. A rich, fresh aroma carrying hot smoke. Maxim loved those burning flames. Watching sparks fly like water droplets on gravel helped clear his mind of many thoughts.
Rustle.
Maxim snapped out of his daze at the sound of movement. Turning his head toward the noise, he saw someone rising from their spot and approaching. Was it already time for the shift change? He set down the stick he had been using to poke the fire and looked at the approaching relief.
Ah.
“…”
“…”
The relief, who had been rubbing sleepy eyes, flinched upon seeing Maxim. Maxim’s gaze met the eyes of the relief—Theodora.