The Battle of Semek (1)
The carriage advanced no further.
With the miasma surging toward them, and with everyone now certain of what lay at its source, pushing the wagon forward would have done nothing but turn it into a useless lump of baggage.
If they lined up their forces from strongest to weakest, it would go something like this:
First, Ludwig. He was the Hero, and he wielded the Light Spear—the weapon of heroes—with effortless mastery, making him a devastating force against the dead.
Second, the Holy Knights. Only ten of them, but they were anti-demon weapons forged through relentless, grueling training—drilled from before they ever earned their knighthood for the specific purpose of fighting demons, the enemies of the Heavenly God.
Third, Kayak. A Silver Rank adventurer, proficient with any weapon that could be gripped in both hands. As a Lizardman, his hide was exceptionally thick and hard, which meant he could fight relatively safe from the dead ones' claws and bodily fluids alike.
And after him came James, Alec, and Yona, in that order.
"…Hold on, why'd I get left off the list? Combat-wise, you and I aren't exactly worlds apart."
Yona pressed the point in a sulky voice.
Vigrind just stared back at her with an expression that said she couldn't believe what she was hearing.
"I have to stay with the carriage, maintaining every buff I can on the Hero. Did you think I was like you, someone who can only heal through direct contact? I'm not exactly someone you calculate into combat strength, now am I?"
The retort shut Yona right up.
It was fair, too.
As a healer who had to move pressed against a patient's side, Yona had every right to be counted as combat strength. But Vigrind could channel holy power from a distance, as long as her target was within her line of sight—she had no particular need for combat capability in the first place.
"Scared?"
At the hand resting on her shoulder, Yona snorted. Alec's fingers stroked her shoulder gently for a moment, then his other hand came up too, kneading the tension out of her.
"Don't be so wound up. This isn't even a hard mission for us."
"…Leaving you behind is what worries me most, you shiny-ass bastard."
Lips pursed, Yona smacked Alec's hands away.
That was it. That was her biggest complaint. The force that would push forward against the surging tide of the dead consisted of Ludwig, Kayak, and the Holy Knights.
Vigrind would handle Ludwig's healing, protection, and buffs—but that was strictly for keeping the Hero alive as a top priority, not for looking after Kayak or the Holy Knights.
A priest's healing was full-body restoration by default, which devoured enormous amounts of holy power. There simply wouldn't be any left over to tend to Kayak and the knights.
And so Yona had been added to the roster as the healer for Kayak and the Holy Knights.
"…Alec, if you get hurt, I swear I won't let it slide."
"You watch yourself, Yona. Don't go bounding around like a lunatic and get yourself hurt. You're the one I'm worried about. You."
What remained behind was Alec, covering Vigrind.
Yona followed after Kayak, but kept glancing back at Alec again and again, unable to shake her unease.
Alec, for his part, kept waving at her as long as she looked.
One of the more unexpected qualities of a good adventurer was a sense of humor.
In a life where any given day might be your last, hemmed in by creeping dread and fear, laughter turned out to be a surprisingly effective way to burn off stress.
Guffawing at absolute nonsense—jokes that would normally earn a furious shut up with that garbage—was all part of the same mechanism. Could I make it back alive from this one? Could I grab a beer at Anne's inn, pound the ass of some worn-out old whore until she's limp, pour my heart out at leisure, and sleep like the dead? Cracking jokes was the valve that let that fear escape.
"I still don't understand why you humans bother burying your dead. Why not just set them adrift down the river? Call it an offering to the Water God and be done with it."
"And what happens when something like Alec floats by and the Water God throws a fit about how blinding he is?"
That one apparently landed pretty well, because Kayak ruffled Yona's hair with his clawed hand. Getting her head scrubbed by a rake-like paw was nothing short of annoying, but Yona didn't deliberately push it away.
Because she knew perfectly well it wasn't meant unkindly.
"So, uh, is Mister Alec really bald and all?"
Ludwig had been swinging his spear around in wide arcs when he drove it into the ground with a thud and asked.
He picked at his ear as he spoke, and it was obvious the question wasn't out of genuine curiosity so much as a conversation starter—just something to say to Yona. She didn't bother picking a fight over it.
"Bald as an egg. Says he shaves it himself every morning."
"Aw, come now. That's just talk, isn't it? I mean, if he actually shaved it himself, then the leftover stubble would be all scratchy and—"
What is with this guy?
Yona frowned slightly. Then she turned her head to look ahead, and the tide of the dead had somehow closed the distance by several long strides. They'd be meeting it soon.
Up front, the Holy Knights had formed their shield wall, silver shields raised and maces lifted high. The shields were enormous—so tall that the knights stood slightly crouched to keep their whole front covered, and wide enough to conceal their bodies from side to side.
As for the raised maces, their heads were vicious enough to earn the name of true morningstars. Iron spheres bristling with jutting spikes, ugly things that looked like they'd splatter whatever they came down on.
"…Don't besmirch Alec's honor, sir Hero. If that's how he is, then that's how he is. So what if he's bald? He's handsome enough as it is. Nothing about him lacking, really."
"My, you've grown quite fond of him rather quickly, haven't you?"
Yona shot the grinning Ludwig a sour look, then decided to give up on him entirely. She'd tried to loosen up a little and all she'd gotten for it was a rotten mood.
"Now then, Miss Yona. I'll be your escort, so worry no more. Your place is safely back beside Mister Alec, isn't it?"
James twisted his tusk-jutting mouth into a smile. Coming from James—who was far more genteel than his face suggested—the words actually eased Yona's nerves somewhat.
"Well then, I'd say it's about time."
It was the very moment Ludwig spoke that it happened. Lewis, at the dead center of the shield wall up ahead, raised his mace high and roared with all his might.
"To the great Heavenly God—upon the wicked rabble who defy His will, let the radiant brilliance of morning light descend!"
"Brilliance!"
"Brilliance!"
"Brilliance!"
"Knights of Carpithia Cathedral—the hour has come to show your majesty!"
"It has come!"
"It has come!"
"It has come!"
By Yona's eye, the tide of the dead numbered well beyond several hundred. It was impossible to pin down an exact figure, partly because skeletons and zombies were mixed together, making even a rough headcount by sight a hopeless task.
A gray wave—a gray wave steeped in rot, corrupt blood and putrid flesh blended into one—was bearing down on them at full charge. Yona watched it for a moment, then bowed her head. Nausea surged up her throat violently. But even as it rose, one scrap of petty pride—as an adventurer, as a healer standing on the front line—shoved the vomit right back down.
…It's terrifying as hell.
Yona's hand swept the empty air. It wasn't where it always was. She swept again. Nothing. Only then did Yona lift her head and look forward. Kayak's bluish hide was in front of her. Not a shoulder. Not the shiny one. Alec wasn't there. She couldn't see Alec's shoulder. It was supposed to calm her down, resting her hand on Alec's shoulder, and it wasn't there. Yona's hand trembled. Her hand shook, and the corner of her lips trembled with it. Only then did she understand. She needed to be able to put her hand on Alec's shoulder—that was how it was supposed to be. And that shoulder wasn't here.
"All knights—advance—!"
Lewis's bellow reached her faintly, mixed into a ringing eee— in her ears.
Yona, who had bowed her head, raised it again. She had to do this anyway. It was her job. She was an adventurer; she'd taken the money. And Rubina was back there, but Alec would protect Rubina. Vigrind was there too. That miserable little brat was a Saintess now, after all—she'd probably be fine. But who was protecting me? Me? I'm scared too. Scared. Scared to death, honestly.
"Yona, you alright?"
"Huh?!"
A thick palm patted her shoulder. That shark-headed face—Kayak, covered in scars—curling the corner of his mouth into a crooked grin.
"So even the great Yona has her moments of fear. Don't worry. You won't get hurt. And I'll go easy on them too."
Arrows whistled over Kayak's head. A few flights later, James came to stand beside Yona, holding position.
"Best not to tense up, missy. Keep your mind easy-like. Well now, what's this—such a spirited young thing going white as a sheet."
"…I'm not a 'young thing.'"
"Whatever you say."
Kayak advanced slowly, keenly aware of Yona behind him. The shield wall was handling the head-on collision up front, and the Hero Ludwig was there as well. This was a battlefield where Kayak had no need to rush to the fore. That was what an adventurer was, in the end.
Lewis roughly wiped the zombie fluids spattering against his visor and shouted.
"Push forward—! Don't give ground! We are the Holy Knights—!"
No answer came. The force shoving against the shields was feeble, but when the enemy pressed with sheer mass rather than strength, even knights struggled to hold the line.
They came pressing in in uncountable numbers, the skeletal remains of skeletons stabbing down through armor gaps with hideous screeches again and again, and every time a zombie's skull was smashed open, its fluids spattered out in a sickening spray and stench.
"Heavenly God most high—by Thee I was roused from my slumber, and thus I open mine eyes—!"
Reciting the battle-prayer litany of the Holy Knights, Lewis kept smashing down the skulls of the zombies and skeletons that shoved against his shield without pause.
These damned dead things barely suffered at all from losing limbs. Cut off a leg and it merely became a worse nuisance, crawling along the ground to gnaw at your lower body. From the start, crushing the skull was the only sensible solution.
"Hold the formation! Push—!"
It was someone other than Lewis who shouted. These were men who had dreamed of becoming Holy Knights since childhood, and who had trained without end even after achieving that dream. They were not the kind to fall to mere dead things like these. They would sooner burn their own bodies than yield a single step to the dead.
Push, and push, and push, and keep pushing them back. Rather than crumble here and show a shameful spectacle before the Saintess, they would die right where they stood.
They kept pressing forward. Without so much as a passing thought for the phrase outnumbered and outmatched, they held their ground as if their steel greaves were nailed to the earth, and kept pushing.
"Sir Lewis—by your leave!"
Ludwig's voice rang out. Before anyone could wonder what leave he was asking for, someone stamped onto his shoulder and launched him skyward.
FLASH—
A burst of light so brilliant one might believe the sun had risen into the sky a second time.
The sun had long since been swallowed by ash-gray clouds, invisible—but in that single instant, they truly thought it had revealed itself again.
—KRAKOOM!
Lewis watched the sun fall beyond his visor, and then the fragments of zombies and skeletons were shredded as if ground between millstones, bursting into pieces that soared skyward before raining back down.
Incongruously, beautifully—like petals scattering on a spring breeze, like green shoots swaying in wind racing through a summer barley field—every time that golden spear flashed, the pieces of zombies and skeletons scattered in a truly lovely dance.
"Perish, every last one of you, you wicked wraiths—!"
As Ludwig's roar swelled louder, something in Lewis's chest began to burn hotter and hotter.
And it crested the very moment he watched Ludwig drive his lengthened spear into the ground, ride the rebound of it into the sky, and then bring the spear crashing down again.
Lewis pushed up his visor. Surveying his surroundings with his bare eyes, he screamed at the top of his lungs.
"—The Hero of the Heavenly God fights at our side—! Let us lay these wraiths to rest, here and now—!"
Lay them to rest—! The answer roared back across the line.
Bursting the head of a zombie that had been gnawing at his shield with a crushing downward blow, Lewis shouted again.
"We are the Knights of Carpithia Cathedral—!"
The Knights of Carpithia Cathedral would not retreat from this place—so Lewis cried out with everything he had.