Border Guards (2)
Border Guards (2)
A few days later.
I was standing atop the fortress wall alongside the other knights.
Today was my turn to stand guard with them.
It wasn't originally my scheduled shift, but I'd swapped it for today under the pretext of taking orders from the Princess.
Both when I first asked the knights for their understanding and throughout the process, I felt a bit like I was dropping the Princess's name left and right without her permission. But I had no other choice.
I simply had to produce a good outcome so that everyone would ultimately conclude that all's well that ends well.
Forcing my way onto this fortress wall was all part of bringing about that very outcome.
Today was the exact day Senior Havier had told me about before I died—the day when the largest number of people crossed the border.
Tonight, people who hardly looked like civilians would scale these fortress walls and sneak into the Duchy.
The knights assigned to guard duty alongside me gazed out beyond the walls and sighed.
"To think that even after becoming a knight, I'd end up standing guard atop a wall like this..."
"Have you ever done it before?"
"I stood guard a few times after my father caught me causing trouble. It was a small domain, so I even snuck out to hunt with the soldiers on watch."
"No wonder you got caught."
"Still, to become a Royal Knight only to end up keeping watch like common soldiers on a Duchy wall..."
"It's not much different from keeping an eye on the Empire, is it?"
"We're defending someone else's country, though."
Since the Duchy soldiers were stationed far away, the knights standing guard with me kept chatting until the sun sank and the stars came out.
Most of their talk consisted of complaints about our current situation, but before long, my name came up too.
"Hey, junior."
"Yes?"
I answered dutifully as the burly knight paused his conversation to address me.
"You don't slack off on your duties, and your skills are great, so why do you keep getting on the seniors' nerves?"
Hmm. It was an ambiguous mix of praise and reprimand.
"Seriously. Your personality isn't bad either, and frankly, even if you are an illegitimate child, you're still the son of the Duke of Gracia. If you just acted out a little less, you could get along just fine with everyone."
The knight beside him chimed in with a similar sentiment.
This was the result of working diligently alongside the knights over the past few days.
After openly invoking the Princess's name as my backing, my surprisingly diligent work had unexpectedly earned me favor among the knights.
Since I'd declared from the start that they shouldn't mess with me, I still came across as obnoxious, but our relationship was much better than it had been on the first day.
Thanks to that, the senior knight and the officer in charge easily granted my request to swap shifts today.
The two knights standing guard with me were currently offering me their own version of pseudo-advice.
"Honestly, if it weren't for us, you wouldn't hear advice like this."
At the burly knight's words, the other knight nodded in agreement.
"Except for the knights sent here, most of the others belong to one faction or another. They blindly worship power and rank, so the moment they hear 'illegitimate son,' they'd turn their backs on you."
"That's right. There are barely any Royal Knights left who are loyal to the Kingdom rather than a faction."
"Is it really that, or is it just that the factions wouldn't accept you?"
"Well, while there are guys like me with mediocre skills and mediocre family backgrounds, our senior knight isn't like that."
"Well, the senior knight is like that because he follows the Vice Commander."
They'd started by talking about me, but somehow ended up veering into the order's internal factions.
Now I understood why I hadn't seen the knights stationed here back at the ruins.
The knights I saw at the ruins belonged to the First Prince's faction, while a few were probably aligned with the Second Prince.
There was no way the princes would involve factionless knights in an affair like that.
Factionless knights, huh...
It felt like I might be able to make use of them somehow...
In the past, I wouldn't have spared a single thought for a conversation about something that didn't concern me.
But I had made a resolve before I died.
Since I had vowed a few days ago to give everything my absolute best, I couldn't just turn a blind eye right away.
I tucked the knights' words away in the back of my mind.
I didn't know how things would play out, but I at least intended to talk to them about it.
Time ticked by, and the knights' banter eventually came to an end.
As the night deepened, thick clouds gathered and obscured the sky.
Torches illuminated the top of the fortress walls, but the ground below was pitch-black and completely invisible to the soldiers.
'Is it time?'
Slowly, the mana I had spread far and wide began to snag on things one by one.
Because I had stretched it as far as possible, it was difficult to identify them precisely, but whatever my mana touched definitely possessed mana of its own.
There was no reason for monsters to appear here right now, so they were undoubtedly the people I had anticipated.
I leaned against the edge of the wall and peered down.
By channeling mana into my eyes, I could make out figures sprinting over from the direction of the Empire.
They were heading toward a section of the wall some distance from where my fellow knights and I were keeping watch.
It was a post guarded by the Duchy's soldiers.
"Don't tell me... did information leak beforehand for this, too?"
"What are you talking about?"
Seeing my posture, another knight approached and asked.
I raised a hand and pointed toward the sprinting figures.
"It's hard to make out, but doesn't that look like people?"
"What do you see?"
A faint glow shimmered in the knight's eyes.
A moment later, he looked around and bellowed at the top of his lungs.
"Emergency! Border crossers—they're mercenaries, no, knight-level!"
At his shout, the other knights rushed over to confirm it.
More and more knights took up the cry of "Emergency!" and soon, alarm bells began ringing across the top of the fortress wall.
Watching the knights sprint off and the soldiers scurry about in confusion, I readied myself to move as well.
'Alright, looks like the initial disruption was a success.'
But merely raising the alert level had done nothing more than buy a little time.
Rather than just buying time, I needed to thin their numbers.
"I'll be taking independent action from here on out. My mentioning earlier that I might leave my post, as well as my swapping shifts today, were all in preparation for a situation like this."
Speaking in a tone that implied I was acting on high-level orders, I immediately vaulted off the wall.
"Uh... Wait!"
I heard a knight shout in surprise behind me, but as I slid down the wall, his voice was hardly distinguishable from the passing wind.
Things might get complicated later over who had authorized my actions, but I intended to wrap everything up before anyone could even figure that out.
And if it became a real problem, I could always ask the Princess for another favor.
As I scaled down the wall, I stowed the Academy standard sword I was carrying in my pouch.
Instead, I drew a dagger from my pouch.
On a dark night outside the fortress walls, where thick vegetation grew, few weapons were as useful as a dagger.
Fortunately, the Academy uniform I wore had no flashy gold trinkets attached to it.
I landed silently at the base of the wall and immediately dashed toward the person my senses had picked up.
As I ran, I began concealing my presence step by step.
'Suppress my mana.'
So no one could sense it.
"Envelop my feet with mana."
This minimized my footsteps as much as possible.
I stayed low, minimized my movements, channeled no mana into the dagger, and infused no mana into my eyes.
Before long, I had become a dark shadow.
Just like a true assassin.
Ever since my encounter with an assassin in my childhood, I had trained step by step out of others' sight.
I had never needed to use those skills until now, but in a place devoid of light, I was confident I could move even more quietly than the assassin I had seen when I was young.
Even when crossing damp ground or pushing through bushes, the only sound I left behind was like a passing breeze.
Running like that, I soon closed in on my first target.
As I drew closer, the target's exact appearance came into view.
The opponent was a knight clad in jet-black armor.
It was the exact same armor I had seen before I died.
Bingo. I let out a faint smile.
It was just as I had reasoned after hearing Senior Havier's words before my death.
There was no way the Empire's knights had entered the Duchy through official channels.
If the border had been chaotic before the incident, it was highly likely that the knights had crossed over amid the confusion.
I was a little worried since it wasn't 100% certain, but now I had confirmed it with my own eyes.
Now that it was confirmed, it was time to return the favor.
Hum.
Even at such close range, the opponent still hadn't noticed me.
He seemed far more concerned with the noisy commotion atop the wall than with me.
Looking at the opponent right in front of me, I surged mana into my dagger.
"Ugh, who—?"
Only then did he realize someone was nearby.
Too late.
My blade was already thrusting toward him.
Thump!
Before the dagger even made contact, sword aura drove through a gap in his armor.
Right into the tiny gap between his helmet and breastplate.
"Huk."
With a faint groan, the black knight collapsed.
'One.'
I counted silently.
Fortunately, my technique worked remarkably well against knights, too.
The moment I moved my mana, I'd be detected, but until then, I could conceal myself almost completely.
'Shame. If this worked on monsters too, things would be so much easier.'
Since monsters sensed mana differently from humans, stealth techniques had to be different as well.
I was looking for ways to do that, but against monsters, I was only slightly better at hiding than others.
Honestly, it was just greed on my part.
'Two.'
For now, this was plenty.
After leaping up from behind and plunging my blade into the back of his neck, I took off in search of another target.
'Three.'
As the body count rose, it became progressively harder.
The third target noticed me from a bit farther away.
Because of that, disposing of him took some time, and I had to watch several others pass by.
With the fourth one, our swords ended up clashing, making a sound.
As a result, I had to engage the fifth opponent in a full-on head-to-head fight.
In the end, I had to wrap up my assassination spree at five.
One of the knights sprinting toward the fortress wall shouted at the top of his lungs.
Well, since they had already been exposed anyway, there was no reason for them to move quietly anymore.
"Enemy attack! Everyone scatter! Rejoin at the destination!"
Judging by the voice, it seemed to be the opponent I had exchanged blows with until the very end.
Five, huh. It wasn't a huge number, but it was a decent count to start with.
And I had thoroughly verified my assassination skills as well.
Still, I hadn't expected these knights to prioritize dodging my surprise attacks over fighting...
Normally, they would either give up on crossing the border or try to eliminate me for blocking their path.
They were in a much bigger hurry than I had expected.
'Still, among those dodging me right now, some won't manage to scale the walls.'
With the Kingdom's knights rampaging and running all over the place, the moles planted among the soldiers wouldn't be able to move recklessly. It would be impossible for all of them to cross the wall as they had before.
'Not that they'll be able to stop every single one, though.'
In fact, it would actually be troublesome if they stopped them all.
Just thinning their numbers a little more was more than enough.
In the meantime, I decided to move on to the next phase.
"Shall I follow that voice, then?"
Anyone giving these guys orders was bound to be at least a senior knight or above.
There was no way a knight of that caliber would fail to scale the wall or find the destination.
Since I had roughly gauged their abilities before I died, I could easily judge how far back to tail them without getting caught.
'Now, lead me to your meeting place.'
I began sprinting after the faint trace of mana leaking into the night.