VIII. A Knight Craves Battle (3)
VIII. A Knight Craves Battle (3)
The moment Keldric saw what lay beyond the door, he knew.
'It's them!'
The people who had planted the Erosion Larvae inside Sir Ortvin were standing right before him.
The creatures crawling across the floor looked exactly like the Erosion Larvae he had seen before.
The old man and the burly, copper-skinned young man standing beside him looked suspicious at a glance.
The copper-skinned young man's dark-gold eyes gleamed as he stared at Keldric.
His bright copper complexion and curly beard were striking. Keldric had no idea what purpose the flame-shaped brand on his forehead served.
Keldric immediately recognized that the young man was not from the Empire. The old man beside him looked Imperial, but the burly youth clearly did not.
The Erosion Larvae had supposedly originated in sorcery practiced by heathen witches in distant lands.
The possibility that this man was a heathen filled Keldric’s thoughts.
Keldric shifted the mace in his hand. Its links clattered through the silent house.
"Surrender now, and I'll only break your limbs."
Tension inside the cramped house reached its peak.
Keldric alone seemed large enough to fill half the room. With two other men inside, the space felt suffocating.
"...Sir Knight, we don’t know anything."
The unknown old man was the first to answer. Keldric turned his bucket-like helm toward him.
"You know nothing?"
"Y-yes. We only did what we were told. We don’t actually know what these things—"
"What is that in your hand?"
The old man stared blankly at the vial in his hand. A suspicious gray-white liquid sloshed inside.
"Th-this is..."
"That cauldron looks as though it was in use moments ago. If it contains the same substance, then you’re lying."
Cornered, the old man worked his lips as he searched for an excuse.
There was nothing he could plausibly say.
"...Ah, fuck it! Jamash! Kill the knight!"
The old man’s patience finally snapped, and he shouted.
Keldric had already noticed the curved sword in Jamash’s hand and quickly stepped back.
Clang!
As Keldric retreated and raised his mace, the deeply curved blade swept past his nose.
The mace caught the blade and sent sparks flying.
'Fast!'
Keldric regarded Jamash with mild surprise. His swordsmanship was no amateur’s.
He was remarkably quick for his build. Most men would have taken the opening blow before they could react.
But that would only work on an inexperienced mercenary.
It would not work on a knight—a monstrous human battering ram encased in heavy armor.
Wham!
Keldric simply kicked Jamash as he tried to recover his blade.
Jamash crossed his arms and barely blocked the kick, but Keldric’s strength was too great for him to absorb the impact.
"Ghk!"
Jamash crashed through the table and had barely gasped for breath when Keldric’s mace flashed toward his head.
His eyes widened in horror, and he ducked desperately.
Crash!
Dust and chips of stone rained down. The wall struck by Keldric’s mace caved inward and cracked.
It was an old house in a dingy alley. No decrepit wall could withstand a full-force swing from Keldric.
The instant his first attack missed, he launched a second.
"Hup!"
This time he drove a fist forward with all his momentum. His left hand, faster than the mace, shot toward Jamash’s side.
A warning chill stopped him. Keldric retracted the punch and sprang back.
A stream of flame swept through the place where he had been standing.
Keldric narrowed his eyes and traced the fire to the old man’s hand.
Clutching several suspicious vials, the old man shouted a warning at Jamash.
"Jamash, you fool! Don’t try to match him in strength!"
"Urgh...!"
Jamash quickly recovered his stance, but his arms had lost some of their strength.
Blocking Keldric’s kick had clearly injured them.
That worked in Keldric’s favor. He flicked his mace and shot forward like an arrow.
He did not charge Jamash. He drove straight toward the old man.
The mace lunged like an enraged wolf, aimed at the old man’s half-bald skull.
The old man was not defenseless. As he scrambled backward, he smashed one of his vials against the floor.
The vial shattered with a sharp crack, releasing a revolting stench. Keldric immediately leaped away from the spreading liquid.
Hissss—!
The gray-white liquid hissed and smoked where it touched the floor. Stone cracked and slowly dissolved beneath it.
Whatever it was, it looked capable of eating through armor and flesh alike until it bored clean through his body.
Keldric raised his guard against both men.
Fortunately, the liquid was viscous enough that it did not splash in every direction.
A curved blade suddenly swept toward Keldric’s neck.
He started to evade, then changed his mind. Dodging forever would never end the fight.
Keldric’s stamina would not fail first, but he had no idea what other bizarre attacks Jamash and the old man might use.
His gauntleted hand clamped around Jamash’s curved sword. A single-edged blade became harmless if one seized its unsharpened back.
Keldric caught the spine of the blade between his fingers and squeezed.
"Y-you ignorant brute...!"
Jamash tugged desperately, visibly flustered.
The curved sword did not move at all. It might as well have been fixed in midair.
Quick-thinking, Jamash released the weapon and raised his clenched left fist to his mouth.
Keldric immediately sensed danger. At the same time, the old man prepared to throw another vial.
But he could not keep retreating. He had to finish at least one of them quickly.
"You damned knight! Just die!"
Whoosh!
At the old man’s shout, flames erupted from Jamash’s mouth like a dragon’s breath.
Glittering powder crackled in the flames while the old man’s vial flew toward Keldric.
For one instant, everything seemed to slow around him.
Extreme concentration could stretch human potential beyond its ordinary limits.
Keldric had reached that state. He could evade both attacks by slipping diagonally aside, but then the two men might escape.
'Can I do it?'
Jamash’s flames crackled toward him like fireworks.
The old man’s vial had been thrown directly at Keldric’s head.
Keldric was already charging Jamash. There was no time to retreat.
There was no time.
'I can do it.'
For Keldric, that moment was enough.
Whoomph!
The flames scorched the air above his head. As he kicked off the floor, Keldric dropped so low that he nearly skimmed across it.
Jamash’s golden eyes widened as they belatedly tracked the impossible movement.
The vial barely clipped Keldric’s left shoulder and flew off course through the open doorway. The old man screamed soundlessly.
They had practiced that combination repeatedly, yet Keldric evaded it while charging straight at them.
Neither man had time to process what had happened.
Rather than retreat, Keldric closed the distance. His iron fist drove into Jamash’s side.
Crash!
"Ghhk...?!"
Jamash made a grotesque sound. His face went white and his copper-skinned body folded toward the floor; Keldric had struck him squarely in the liver.
Keldric pivoted immediately toward the old man. As he turned, the mace in his right hand whipped into Jamash’s arm.
A sickening crack—the unmistakable sound of bone breaking—rang through the room.
Jamash’s eyes bulged as he struggled for breath. Keldric ignored him and charged the old man.
"W-wait! Sir Knight! We can talk—"
"It's useless!"
Bang! Bang! Crash!
Keldric's mace swung toward the old man, but the old man, nimbly rolling on the floor, barely dodged it.
The wall split ominously after three rapid blows from the mace.
The old man swallowed as he glanced at it. Wherever that weapon struck, flesh would burst and bone would be ground to powder.
He scrambled away while fumbling another vial from inside his robe.
He hurled it at Keldric, who avoided the nearly invisible projectile with a tilt of his head.
The vial shattered against the wall and bubbled violently, releasing a sour stench.
It was the old man’s final desperate attack. He had little talent for combat and nothing else left to try.
'Oh, fuck...!'
The old man bit his bloodless lips. Death seemed to flicker directly before him.
Three knights had already died by his hand: one inexperienced knight from the Kingdom of the Franks and two aging Imperial knights.
The Keldric before his eyes was markedly different from them.
Keldric was young, yet neither careless nor arrogant. His powerful body was at its physical peak and offered no opening.
The old man could not defeat him. No one he might summon would fare any better.
"You fucking dog of a knight!"
The old man’s shrill voice rang through the house. A moment later, he shuddered and fell silent.
Keldric strode toward him, cold as a block of iron.
A killing machine in steel armor, trained from childhood to take human lives. A butcher of the battlefield.
The face hidden behind his helm felt almost inhuman. Surely no guilt appeared there when he killed.
Defining and killing the enemy was a knight’s honor—a glory and privilege reserved for knights.
Fear had gripped human hearts since ancient times. A knight did not surrender to it in battle; he wielded it as a weapon.
Keldric was skilled at doing exactly that. Every heavy step carried dread.
Was this truly the same species as an ordinary man?
"Stay still if you want to live."
"...!"
Keldric's mace was raised high. Realizing that it was meant to shatter his limbs, the old man shouted in a voice driven by spite.
"Jamash! Now!"
"...!"
Keldric whipped his head around. Jamash, who should have been sprawled on the floor, had somehow forced himself upright.
Golden light blazed in Jamash’s eyes and in the flame-shaped brand on his forehead.
For the first time, a chill ran down Keldric’s spine—a clear warning of danger.
His body moved before conscious thought. Guided by animal instinct, his hand seized the old man by the back of his robe.
"Ghk! Hack!"
Ignoring the old man’s choking, Keldric dragged him along and hurled himself through the doorway.
He rolled across the ground and put as much distance between them and the house as possible in roughly three seconds.
――—!!
An enormous roar hammered against Keldric’s ears.
His helmet amplified the sound until he nearly lost consciousness.
Then a tremendous cloud of dust and fragments of stone rained down.
Afraid the prisoner might die, Keldric instinctively shielded the old man.
Stone fragments battered the ground like rain. The dense dust cloud reduced his vision to a pale blur.
After a time, the falling debris finally stopped.
Keldric slowly rose. His greaves had been scraped and dented as he slid low across the ground.
"Cough! Cough! Kah-hak...!"
While the old man coughed as though dying, Keldric swept the dust aside with one enormous hand.
"What..."
When the air cleared, only something that had been a house moments before remained.
The hideout was not the only building that had collapsed. Two neighboring houses had also crumpled, and it was a miracle the debris had not buried Keldric.
Keldric stared at the destruction in disbelief.
Jamash had vanished without a trace.
Keldric did not need to ask the old man to know that Jamash’s body had caused the explosion.
'That crazy bastard...'
The sudden battle ended in a way Keldric had never imagined.