The Master of the Frost Field
The Frost Field.
"Keep pushing them!"
"Swing with everything you've got left!"
The Northern army under Grand General Ganiro had shelved any thought of retreat, stubbornly pinning the North God's undead legions in place.
"Grand General! The right flank has been breached!"
"Too many men are deserting!"
Bad news kept pouring in. The warriors' strength was already spent, and the undead's counterattack showed no sign of relenting.
But.
"Advance!"
Ganiro roared, blood flecking his lips.
"Fight until you die! Fall to some pathetic wound, and you'll only rise again as the North God's puppet! Fight until your head is severed and your heart is pierced! Or would you lie down and become undead as tamely as those kingdom soldiers did?!"
OOOOOOH!
"Fight to the very end—!"
"Grand General!"
At that moment, an aide came sprinting over, shouting.
"U-Urgent report, sir! The North God's undead that were attacking our army—!"
"What about them!"
"They've stopped moving entirely! They're not retreating! They've stopped completely!"
It was true.
The undead tightening their encirclement around the Northern army began, one by one, to cease all action—as if a ripple were spreading outward through their ranks.
"What... what is this?"
"C-Come at us! Wh-why won't you come at us?!"
The warriors could only stand there, bewildered.
Among them, only Ganiro was curling the corners of his mouth upward.
Did he do it?!
In Bilkenos, the Fourth Brother had been brought down at last—but the chaos was only deepening.
The undead raised by black magic had gone inert when the Fourth Brother was destroyed, yet through the gaps in the city walls he had torn apart, the North God's other undead, waiting outside the territory, came flooding in.
The zombies prowled every corner of the city, hunting down the living.
"F-Fall back!"
Bilkenos's defense force, having poured every last ounce of strength into felling the Fourth Brother, had nothing left to hold back the walking corpses inside the city itself.
Worse, the Grand Duke's underground shelter was packed to bursting, leaving the people scattered throughout the city all in dire peril.
"AAAARGH!"
Here too, a horde of zombies was blocking the road and closing in.
Wounded Northern warriors panted for breath, waving their spear tips in weary arcs.
"Wh-what do we do?"
"Where's the vampire girl?"
A warrior turned his head. A girl in an academy uniform was huddled in one of the soldier's arms, shivering and struggling to breathe.
"She's in bad shape. She needs treatment, and fast."
"Damn it all—there's no time to sit around here dithering!"
One warrior rose to his feet.
"That girl risked her life fighting for strangers like us, people she owed nothing. Even if every last one of us dies here, we're getting her out alive. Any objections?"
The warriors met each other's eyes and nodded grimly.
"Alright! On three, we go!"
"We go on three, y'know? After we finish counting three, right?"
"Obviously on three! Here we go! One, two—!"
Thud.
In the very instant the warriors were about to charge out—
a single zombie collapsed to the ground.
Crash!
Thud!
As if that had been the signal, every zombie began dropping like puppets with severed strings. The warriors who had been about to charge blinked stupidly.
"Wh-what just happened?"
"...Well."
The warrior holding Camibarez slowly raised his head.
The snowstorm that had been swirling thickly across the leaden sky was thinning, and a clear blue heaven was beginning to show through.
"...Looks like we won't have to die after all."
The undead under the Fourth Brother's control, along with the North God's other undead pouring over the ruined walls, had all lost their bindings and gone still.
There was only one meaning to that.
The North God was dead.
All across the city, the cheers of residents who had sensed victory were erupting into the air.
"Miss. Are you all right?"
Just then, Camibarez opened her eyes.
She looked out over the zombies collapsing to the ground and the cheering Northerners, then murmured with a weary smile.
"I just know it..."
"Hmm?"
"I know Simon did it."
At the same moment, in the Abyss.
Simon was brushing off his hands and stretching with a long, satisfying groan.
Then he could hold out no longer and flopped flat onto the floor of the Abyss.
"...I'm dying. Seriously, I can't move a muscle."
"Kuhahaha! Well done, boy!"
"You did plenty yourself, Pier."
Simon turned his head.
"How does it feel? Gyros."
As Simon asked, a massive eye burst forth from the blank wall of the Abyss.
The North God.
But neither Simon nor Pier regarded it with wariness anymore.
"An unpleasant body, this—but it moves far more conveniently."
Simon and Pier had erased the North God and, in its place, implanted the core of Legionified Gyros.
By the letter of theory, it was a summoning rite deemed impossible—yet it had worked because, in truth, the North God and Gyros were practically one and the same.
Where the North God had once commanded Gyros, now Gyros commanded the North God's body.
Shhhk—
The great eye sank back into the wall, and this time tentacles surged up from the floor, weaving themselves into Gyros's form.
It wasn't his true body, of course—but Gyros seemed to find moving about in a form like his old one far more comfortable.
"I have ordered every undead to cease all hostile action at once and return to the Abyss."
"Thank you for your work."
Then Gyros slowly sank to one knee before Simon.
His eyes glinted with dark blue jet-black energy.
"My lord."
Simon, who had been lying sprawled, scrambled upright where he sat.
"From this very moment, I, all of the North God's undead, and the Frost Field itself are yours. We swear upon our souls to follow only your commands and to submit to you alone."
Simon laughed awkwardly and waved his hands.
"Ahaha, isn't that a bit grand?"
The legendary Ancient Undead North God, ruler of the Frost Field for a thousand years.
And the armies he had led.
Every last ounce of that force now belonged to the 7th Legion.
It was a reinforcement of power beyond all imagining.
At that moment, a new voice spilled out from Gyros's body.
—The humans must be exterminated! All the dead must join forces! Unbound by any Legion Commander—!
Smack!
Gyros punched himself in the cheek. The voice cut off, and Gyros returned to normal.
"My apologies. Son of Yona."
"A-are you really okay with this?"
"I am."
In the process of Gyros seizing complete control of the North God's body and mind, a faint trace of the North God's residual will seemed to have lingered behind.
That was why Gyros had become something of a split personality—but it was, quite literally, nothing more than a lingering afterimage. It could no longer exert any influence over Gyros whatsoever.
That stray personality might occasionally pop out to curse and carry on, but that was the extent of it.
"Kuhahaha!"
Pier laughed too, thumping Simon's shoulder in satisfaction.
"You've done what even Richard could not. Feel a little prouder of yourself, boy!"
"Should I, now."
Simon was still blinking with a somewhat dazed expression when Gyros spoke.
"Then—give me your command, my lord."
"Hmm."
Simon regarded the North God-turned-Gyros with a slightly tense face.
Considering this guy's personality... if I give some careless half-baked order, something bizarre is going to happen.
The thought that this entire affair had spiraled out of a single command from Richard—protect the North—was enough to make his head spin.
After long deliberation, Simon spoke.
"F-for now, maintain the status quo!"
"...?"
"The specifics will need to be discussed with the Grand Duke. For the time being, just hold to the guidelines I mentioned and stand by."
Those guidelines were nothing remarkable.
Do not attack humans.
Do not invade the North.
Should a situation arise demanding any major decision, report to him before acting rashly.
Gyros nodded.
"I have a question. If someone learns that we cannot attack humans and enters the Abyss intending to destroy us deliberately, what then?"
"Huh? Then obviously you drive them out."
"Does that not violate the directive against attacking humans?"
Simon smacked his forehead.
That had been close.
Gyros was an undead with not even a shred of flexibility.
"Then let's carve out an exception. If a situation is judged to pose a direct threat to your safety—"
"And how is a threatening act to be distinguished?"
Simon's head was beginning to ache.
—Why bother distinguishing? Kill! Kill every living thing and raise them as undead—!
Smack!
In the middle of it all, Gyros struck his own face again and shut the North God up.
"...Are you really okay?"
"I am. The wretch can no longer do me any harm."
Cold sweat beaded on Simon's brow.
"For the time being, you'd better just report everything to me one item at a time."
"How is the report to be made?"
"There's a way."
Simon opened a subspace.
Grand Duke Jean Arskalt had returned to Bilkenos.
With the killing cold relenting and the weather clearing in her wake, the Northern army too was able to make its way safely home.
The residents had demanded answers—was the North God truly dead? What exactly had happened?
What a headache.
The Grand Duke pressed a hand to her brow.
If every undead had ceased to move, then Simon had surely destroyed the North God.
But before the two of them had parted, Simon had made her promise in advance.
—Please don't announce that I destroyed or subjugated the North God as my achievement.
The deployment under the Special Lesson Curriculum was classified, and the fact that Simon Polentia was in the Carlos Northern Territory was unknown to the public.
But the subjugation of the North God was big news bound to spread across the entire continent. If word got out that Simon had captured or bound the North God, someone was bound to start asking questions.
The fact that Simon Polentia was the Legion Commander of the Legion of Betrayal.
With the entire continent already on a hair trigger over the 7th Legion affair, all the more caution was warranted. For now, lying low and leaving no openings was the wiser course.
Nothing for it, then.
"Grand Duke!"
The butler Godric opened the door and came in, beaming.
Bandages wrapped his whole body from his wounds in this war, but his expression couldn't have been brighter.
"Everyone is waiting!"
"Very well."
The Grand Duke strode after Godric.
Out of the office, down the corridor, and soon she stepped out onto the terrace, flung open the window, and advanced to its edge.
"The Grand Duke has come out!"
"Grand Duke!"
Below the window stretched a sea of Northern folk packed shoulder to shoulder with no room to set a foot. Inside the castle grounds and far beyond the walls, countless people had gathered like storm clouds, waiting for word.
"Hear me, all people of the North."
Raising the amplification crystal Godric had handed her, she began.
"Together with our fierce warriors, our loyal 2nd Legion, and our honorable allies, we marched into the Frost Field. There were certain hardships along the way—the kingdom army, defying my orders and marching out unlawfully, was annihilated and became the North God's lackeys, barring our path."
A tense silence spread through the crowd.
"But we annihilated that kingdom army as well and pushed into the Abyss itself—where we succeeded in driving out the North God we had warred against for over a thousand years!"
WAAAAAAAAAGH!
Hot cheers erupted from every corner of the square.
And yet a few of the warriors who had actually been there raised their hands with puzzled expressions.
"B-but wasn't the thing we drove out of the Abyss back then a fake North God?"
"The undead kept moving afterward, after all."
"No—that one was real."
The Grand Duke closed her eyes.
"The coward feared our offensive and slipped away with nothing but its core, tail between its legs. It attempted flight—but the Legion pursued the North God to the very end and succeeded in destroying it completely."
She lifted her eyes and raised her arm.
"I declare it here and now! We have all severed a thousand years of bitter enmity and succeeded in destroying the North God! I proclaim that a new Era of Peace has dawned upon the North!"
WAAAAAAAAAGH!
Leaving her cheering people behind, she turned on her heel, long hair whipping, and walked back inside.
Within the castle, Ganiro, the generals, the elders, and all the other officials stood with heads bowed.
"Our deepest gratitude, Grand Duke!"
"Mm."
She made her way along, shaking hands as she went, until she came upon an unfamiliar face.
A vampire girl with bat wings and pale lavender hair.
"F-finally meeting you!"
The girl bowed deeply.
"I'm Camibarez Ursula, from Kizen!"
"I have heard of you."
The Grand Duke smiled warmly and extended her hand.
"A friend of my student, I'm told. You have my thanks and my respect for fighting for the North alongside us."
"Oh, not at all! It's an honor to meet a hero of humanity!"
That famous Grand Duke of the North stood before her. Camibarez, her face flushed crimson, shook her hand.
"Does Kizen hold many students as remarkable as you?"
At the question, Camibarez's cheeks burned scarlet.
"R-remarkable? Me? I'm just... just... ordinary!"
'Ordinary,' says the daughter of the Vampire Lord.
The Grand Duke curled her lips upward.
What kind of place is Kizen, that it keeps such young and capable necromancers in its halls?
"And, umm...!"
Camibarez knitted her brows as if hesitating, then gathered her courage and spoke.
"Didn't Simon come with you?"
At that question, the Grand Duke silently raised her head and gazed toward the castle's back gate.
"He should be along any moment now."
"?"
Clang—
The castle's back gate swung open.
Everyone turned to look.
Sunlight poured into the dim castle hall, and beyond it, someone was walking toward them.
"You called me a hero of humanity earlier, I believe."
The Grand Duke gave Camibarez a faint smile.
"I am hardly fit to bear that name. The true hero of humanity is that young man there."
Step—step—
A boy with blue hair streaming behind him was striding forward, proud and unhesitating.
And then, with a bright grin, he spoke.
"Sorry I'm late."
With every eye in the hall fixed upon him, Camibarez's eyes welled up with tears of joy.
"Simoooon—!"