March into the Darkened Lands
After that, Jeraid fell frequently ill.
The trouble was that it never rose to the level of genuine agony — just painful enough that wandering outside became miserable, yet dull enough that holing up quietly in his room felt like a sentence of pure boredom.
Akina had first assumed he was faking it, but a prince was still a prince, so she sent a priest and ordered him to rest.
Even after the priest treated him, Lilith never gave Jeraid the leisure to vent his malice at Kaisent. Tormenting him without pause would only invite suspicion, so she deliberately arranged meetings with Kaisent and then draped illusion magic over the prince, letting him savor the hollow satisfaction of having tormented the boy.
Thanks to everyone working in concert to keep Kaisent from being harassed, they managed to pass four months.
In the remaining month, Akina’s territory shifted onto a wartime footing. Everyone moved in a constant rush, armies from other domains began to arrive, and the quiet corners suited to underhanded torment simply vanished.
With the problem of Jeraid finally something they could ignore, Kaisent’s party poured every last scrap of remaining time into their final training.
On a certain day six months after the campaign against the Saryeong Kingdom had been declared — a winter day when white breath hung in the air — the armies gathered.
Forces sent by lords hungry to earn merit and claim territories rich in Black Soil. Akina’s own army. The royal army. And the knight order of the Medelgard Church, which governed dawn and purification and specialized in anti-undead warfare — all of them assembled in one place.
"This isn’t quite what I expected."
"Right? From the stories the ones who fought in the civil war told, departure ceremonies are supposed to be lavish affairs."
After six months of training and having tactics built around magic guns drilled into them, the members of the Wolf Mercenary Group found themselves puzzled by the sight of units departing in orderly sequence with no grand send-off at all.
Nobles were present. Even the royal army was present. Yet everything had ended with a short speech from Akina, who held overall command.
"Guess they don’t have the luxury for that kind of extravagance anymore."
It was partly a matter of the supreme commander’s temperament — but this war was also the product of every last reserve the Halrot Kingdom could wring out of itself.
The king had drained the nobles of their strength while simultaneously aiming to seize Black Soil territories and restore the kingdom’s power in a single stroke, pouring countless “donations” into hiring the Medelgard Purification Knights. The lords, for their part, had sold off anything of value and scraped together every soldier and every sack of grain they could, desperate to claim even a little more merit.
Neither the kingdom nor its aristocracy still possessed the leisure for a leisurely festival.
"For us, that’s actually a blessing."
"Exactly. You think those bastards would toss so much as a scrap of meat our way while they feast among themselves?"
From a soldier’s point of view, there was nothing enjoyable about watching nobles indulge while filling one’s own belly with thin soup and hard crusts of bread. If a man were very lucky, or served under a generous lord, he might taste a single piece of meat — but in a kingdom this thoroughly impoverished, even that was too much to hope for.
"We move as well!"
A short while later, Wolf — Lillian — mounted on horseback, issued the order to the mercenaries.
Having trained for half a year under Akina, whose troops were already famed as elite, the mercenaries began to move with crisp discipline. They were still a mercenary unit, but through Akina’s consideration they had been folded into her forces, and so they advanced mixed among the Karayden army.
Even the Karayden soldiers advanced with tension coiling in their chests, fully aware that they were now marching toward the Saryeong Kingdom’s domain — a place they had only ever watched from atop the walls.
The expedition numbered twelve thousand: far too few to assault an entire kingdom. Even so, the army’s morale was not especially poor.
"Are those the Purification Knights?"
"Whoa. From the helmets to the armor — that’s no joke."
Some two hundred knights clad head to toe in pure white plate, looking for all the world like figures stepped out of a fairy tale, moved under a protective wall formed by other knights — a clear signal of how critical they were. Ordinarily, ordinary soldiers formed that wall so that the knights — the army’s most precious assets — could conserve their strength. But the Purification Knights were the core of this war, and so other knights took that role instead.
"I hear the Purification Knights will handle the powerful undead monsters on their own."
"Then all we have to do is deal with zombies and skeletons and the like."
Soldiers who had already grown thoroughly sick of fighting the undead expected the war to end more easily than they had feared. Some even considered the cold a greater enemy than the dead.
It was in that relatively relaxed atmosphere that the expedition, still on the march, suddenly sensed something and looked up at the sky.
"The clouds…"
"It’s broad daylight and clear everywhere else, but here it’s packed with them…"
"It’s a kingdom ruled by vampires. Of course they’d fear the sun."
"I know that. Still — this is too dark."
Behind them the sky was cloudless and bright. Ahead, as if they had stepped into another world entirely, the clouds hung thick. The deeper they advanced, the denser the gloom became, until what was unmistakably midday felt like evening.
"Darker than I expected."
"Darkness like this in broad daylight. Once the sun goes down, it’ll make any forest look bright by comparison."
"Knights could manage, but for ordinary soldiers it’ll be too much."
The captain and vice-captain — Lillian and Priscilla — rode near the head of the mercenary column, conversing as they went. Lilith and Kaisent, both stronger than either of them, rode at the very front. Arty walked alongside Kaisent’s horse like a bodyguard.
"So how well trained are your mercenaries by now?"
Lilith had scarcely watched their drills after the earliest days, and so she had no clear sense of their current level. Lillian and Priscilla, by contrast, had spent the past month under Akina’s training, inspecting the mercenaries’ condition and coordinating with them, and were in a position to judge accurately.
"They’re elite-grade. As long as they don’t suddenly have to fight something far above them, there won’t be a problem."
Lillian stated it flatly: barring an asymmetrical powerhouse on the level of a true knight, they would not be crushed in some absurd fashion. Lilith was relieved. If that was the case, she would not need to protect them. She was far better suited to attacking than to guarding anyone.
Heh. I’ve changed quite a bit myself.
Honestly, it was not as if she had grown fond of them. She simply paid attention so they would not die carelessly — because if they did, Kaisent would grieve that much more.
"Kaisent?"
"Ah — yes?"
"You look like something’s weighing on you."
Lilith had noticed him riding in silence, lost in thought, and asked whether something was wrong.
"Weighing on me?"
"Is there some kind of problem?"
Given the earlier trouble with the Third Prince, the mere suggestion that Kaisent was troubled drew the eyes of Lillian, Priscilla, and Arty as well.
"Ah — it isn’t that sort of problem. It’s only… I keep wondering whether this war is truly right."
"…"
Ordinarily, Lillian would have been the first to object with heat. This war was meant to be the first step toward reclaiming her kingdom; to call it unjust cut close to the bone. Yet neither she nor any of the others raised a counterargument. They did not even open their mouths.
They had expected constant small-scale clashes along a border shared with the Saryeong Kingdom, and the undead’s characteristic underhanded assaults. Instead the frontier had been peaceful — far too peaceful. When they asked whether this was somehow exceptional, they were told that after the Saryeong Kingdom’s founding, only a few masterless undead had ever attacked, and never in large numbers.
For a kingdom of wicked undead, it was strangely still.
"I thought perhaps we ought to try talking to them at least once… Ah — I-I’m sorry."
"There’s nothing strange about thinking that way."
To Lillian, whose kingdom had been destroyed by the Saryeong Kingdom and who had been left a princess of a fallen realm, they were little better than mortal enemies — and yet Kaisent spoke of dialogue. He hurried to apologize, but Lillian herself had begun to feel that something was off.
If what happened that day was nothing more than misfortune… then what am I supposed to do…?
If the enemy were simply evil undead, the matter would be simple. But if they possessed reason and rationality enough to hold a conversation?
"Let’s not think about that right now. Whatever intentions the Saryeong Kingdom may have, we can’t turn this tide with our strength alone."
"…Yeah."
As Priscilla said, no matter what the Saryeong Kingdom truly was, Lillian lacked the power to change the expedition’s course.
"I’m more interested in the Shinmok, myself."
Lilith, agreeing, turned her attention to the Shinmok — the Divine Tree bound up with the founding legend of the Luciarkenel Kingdom. Anything that had enriched an entire nation’s soil even before the Black Soil appeared must possess considerable power.
"Unfortunately, the Shinmok lies farther back than the capital. Without a special reason, we can’t go there."
"Do we really need to go with the army? We could just go ourselves."
"And what about the mercenary group?"
"Tch."
Lilith, who had been eyeing the Shinmok, clicked her tongue at Kaisent’s objection once she realized that reaching it would mean abandoning the mercenaries.
"It’s not me who’s in a hurry — it’s them. Do as you like."
With that, she dropped the subject of the Shinmok entirely.
Meanwhile, the Wolf mercenaries, noticing that Lillian’s party was deep in some heated discussion, began murmuring among themselves.
"That demi-elf Lilith — she’s gotten pretty close with the captain’s lot before we knew it."
"Yeah. Used to feel like a lone wolf who wouldn’t get friendly with anyone."
"I hear Countess Akina keeps summoning her as a sparring partner."
With her demon blood awakened, Lilith was no ordinary knight but a magic archer strong at mid- and long-range combat. She could fight up close with a rapier, but nothing compared to the destructive power of her magic and of Castitas, the mithril bow. For Akina, a magic archer who had stepped into the Origin realm was a rare opponent, and she had called Lilith out to spar many times. Lilith herself knew how precious the experience of fighting someone of Akina’s caliber was, and had accepted.
"Not long ago we were just a solid, reliable mercenary company."
"Now we’ve got two at Master rank and a powerhouse recognized by Countess Akina herself."
"If this expedition succeeds, the captain will become a proper noble."
"From mercenary to noble. I always thought that only happened in old fairy tales and novels."
"And even those were ancient. These days mercenaries only show up as villains."
The mercenaries watched their captain grow like a hero from an old story and felt a quiet thrill of expectation. And there was something else that fed that expectation.
"Speaking of which — Kaisent trained under Countess Akina for half a year. How strong has he gotten?"
"Right. He’d never had systematic training from anyone before."
"I hear he learned swordsmanship and the rest on top of magic."
Of course, that information was a rumor planted by Lillian and Priscilla. If Kaisent suddenly started using sword techniques no one had ever seen him practice, people would find it strange. Until now he had limited himself to magic and archery out of consideration for the mercenaries’ eyes; a single line about having learned from Akina now let him use every skill he possessed without question.
A sharp whistle cut through the air from the front of the column.
The army, which had been advancing in loose chatter, transformed at the sound of that single blast.
"Enemy!"
"Prepare for battle!"
Until now the Wolf Mercenary Group had only ever faced enemies in the hundreds, and when foes appeared everyone would confirm the threat with their own eyes and form ranks. Now they were trapped inside a mass of more than ten thousand. In the old days they would have flailed, unsure what to do —
They’re waiting for my orders without panicking.
Lillian felt a smile form beneath her helm at the sight of her mercenaries holding steady amid the surrounding uproar, waiting for her command.
An undead legion advancing in perfect order. Rank-and-file zombies and skeletons, but the numbers can’t be ignored. Roughly five thousand.
Surveying the field from horseback, Lillian felt tension tighten at the sight of an undead host that looked to number about five thousand. Unless the undead of the Saryeong Kingdom had rotten brains as well as bodies, something far stronger would be hidden among them.
"Form the spear-and-gun line! Infantry, close up toward the near side!"
"Move to the front!"
When Akina, overall commander, shouted the order, the junior officers set the soldiers in motion. Lillian, issuing commands of her own amid the press, led her people forward to the front.
Because no one knew when the Saryeong Kingdom might strike, the expedition had been advancing already half-formed for rapid response. Now they closed ranks toward the nearer flank and built a classic spear-and-gun formation: spearmen in front, gunners sheltered behind them to fire.
"Aim!"
"An upper-tier undead could burst out at any moment! Stay sharp!"
The junior officers kept the soldiers’ focus from fraying under the strain. Lillian, now a junior commander in a force of ten thousand, led her troops while quietly stealing every useful method she saw, thinking how valuable the experience would be when she built an army of her own.
"Fire!"
"Loose!"
A rolling crack of discharges tore the air.
The moment Akina confirmed the undead had entered effective range and gave the order, the junior officers echoed it. The magic gunners laid down a curtain of fire. Because the weapons produced none of the smoke or stench of ordinary gunpowder, the soldiers could see the results of their own shots at once.
"Whew."
"Swept clean."
Using magic guns in true combat for the first time, the Wolf mercenaries took a grim satisfaction in the ruin they had made. Watching large holes punch through undead bodies and skulls, watching the dead topple in heaps, carried a strange, sharp pleasure.
"Hm?"
"What is it?"
"Doesn’t it look like more of the undead went down on our side?"
"What are you talking about… just your imagination…?"
A comrade who had been about to scold the first mercenary for nonsense realized it was not nonsense at all. On other lines, two or three ranks of undead had fallen. On theirs, four or five ranks lay broken. By simple comparison, their magic guns were performing at nearly twice the power of the others.
That gap, however, was instantly filled by undead that suddenly swelled forward. They were skeletons — but unlike ordinary skeletons, they wore armor and carried weapons.
"Aim!"
Even without an order, the soldiers had already recharged their magic guns with mana and raised them again.
"Fire!"
Another massed volley. The crack of exploding mana should have dropped the skeletons where they stood —
"Huh?"
"They’re not falling?"
These new skeletons endured the magic guns behind their armor. Only a bare handful went down. And in the eyes of the ones that had withstood the barrage, a red light began to kindle.
Thousands of undead kindling that glow in the artificial darkness of the clouds was a sight that chilled the blood.
A heavy, rolling thunder of footfalls rose.
As if they had only wanted to test the magic guns’ power, the armored skeletons that had weathered the fire lifted their weapons and charged straight at the soldiers.