Ruins Exploration(?) (1)
Ruins Exploration(?) (1)
By the time I made my way down to the carriage, a massive battle was already underway.
"Aaargh!"
"Damn it! Block them!"
"Die!"
Shouts and screams pierced my ears as blood splattered in all directions.
The carriage had already been destroyed. The soldiers who had been guarding it lay dead, scattered around the wreckage.
If that were the case, there shouldn't have been anyone left to fight, yet dozens of soldiers were now clashing with mercenaries clad in leather armor.
Some of the soldiers were unfamiliar to me, but I recognized a few from guard duty.
Knights could also be seen among the soldiers.
Their swordsmanship was on a completely different level from that of ordinary soldiers.
Yet the knights were unable to strike down their foes. No, they were actually being pushed back.
Their opponents were clearly wearing clothes no different from the mercenaries'. Yet the swords they wielded were on par with, if not superior to, those of the knights.
"Which order of knights do you belong to?! To think knights would mingle with mercenaries to launch an ambush—have you discarded your honor?!"
The knight bellowed furiously, but the man with his leather helm pulled low scoffed at his words.
"I've never possessed such honor to begin with. Well, once this job is over, perhaps I might stand in that position myself."
Both the knights and the soldiers were being pushed back by these unfamiliar mercenaries. No—though they dressed like mercenaries, they didn't look like them at all.
I figured something was afoot, but I never expected a situation on this scale to unfold. It was like a mystery novel suddenly turning into a war epic.
Those mercenaries were likely enemies who had come to kill us, while the knights and soldiers were supposed to be hidden forces stationed here to spring a trap and capture them.
I could understand that the plan had changed and the hidden forces had gathered to fight the enemy.
But why the hell were they losing?
It made absolutely no sense for a force prepared specifically to trap and capture the enemy to be overwhelmed like this!
Yet here and now, the knights and territorial soldiers were being relentlessly pushed back by the enemy.
Soldiers were collapsing. A knight struggling against one mercenary was stabbed in the back by another.
Though some soldiers were hurrying to the scene, arriving late, the territorial forces were collapsing far faster.
Some of the mercenaries, meanwhile, weren't participating in the fight at all.
Men and women on horseback were simply watching the battle unfold.
Among them, a middle-aged mercenary who appeared to be the leader raised his sword and shouted.
"It's Adria! The target is over there!"
His voice pierced the din of the battlefield and reached everyone's ears.
The fighting ground to a halt.
Everyone turned to look at us.
"This is troublesome."
I should have had her disguise herself before we came down. The hostile stares fixed on us felt painfully sharp.
The silence didn't last long.
"Seize them!"
The next instant, the battle erupted once more.
Unlike before, this was a chaotic melee where no one could even establish proper formations.
"Out of the way!"
"Block them! Don't let them get close!"
While the soldiers held off the enemy, the knights joined our group one after another.
"Sir Hugo! It's difficult to hold the enemy back! Retreating won't be easy, either."
"How about we retreat to the fortress to buy some time? Reinforcements should arrive soon."
At the knights' words, Sir Hugo, the knight leading us, shook his head.
"It's too dangerous. We will break through the encirclement and retreat."
"What? That could be even more dangerous. If we hold out until reinforcements arrive, we can turn the tide of battle."
Sir Hugo pointed at Simon.
"The Young Lord is with us. Right now, the absolute priority is the safety of Young Lord Simon."
"Good heavens."
"Why is Young Lord Simon here...?"
The knights gasped in shock when they saw Simon.
"Ugh! Will we even be able to escape?"
Another knight shouted as he blocked a mercenary who had already lunged at him.
The number of mercenaries breaking through the soldiers' defenses and rushing toward us was steadily increasing. The knights hurriedly stepped in to block them, but judging by the oncoming mercenaries, it seemed unlikely they could hold them off for long.
Sir Hugo bowed his head to Adria.
"I am sorry. It seems we must split our forces."
Adria tilted her head, not understanding what Sir Hugo meant.
Protecting Brother Simon was the priority, and if they split the group on top of that, only one conclusion made sense.
"Are you telling us to be decoys?!"
Bianca flared up in anger.
"A decoy?"
"What do you mean, a decoy?"
As Simon and Adria voiced their confusion, Sir Hugo answered quickly.
"They are targeting Lady Adria. I am sorry. To escort the Young Lord to safety, this is the only way."
Even to save the Duke's heir, using a Marquis's daughter as a decoy was extreme.
It was bound to cause a massive issue later, yet not a trace of fear could be seen on the knight's face.
Adria bit her lip, and Bianca was about to lose her temper again. But someone else exploded in anger first.
"What on earth are you talking about?! Asking her to be a decoy instead of protecting her—is that something a knight should say?!"
"Yes. I am a knight of the Gracia Dukedom."
The reason Sir Hugo showed no fear was simple.
'Loyalty to the Dukedom, is it...'
Even amidst the chaos, witnessing this facet of the knight's loyalty left a bitter taste in my mouth.
"Escort Young Lord Simon and escape. I shall attend to Lady Adria."
"Understood."
The other knights replied as they held off the enemy.
Only after hearing their response did Sir Hugo ask me.
"What will you do, Young Lord?"
No matter how much skill I showed, how much recognition I earned, or how much younger I was, in the end, a bastard was still just a bastard.
The stark difference between how he treated me and how he treated Simon was enough to draw a hollow laugh from me.
I replied with a slight, self-deprecating smirk.
"From our perspective, it would be better if I stayed behind, wouldn't it?"
"Yes. If one member of our family remains, the Marquisate won't be able to complain later."
He answered as if it were the most natural thing in the world.
What a cold, calculating man.
Experiencing this firsthand made me feel incredibly sorry for the two women who had suffered through it before me.
Though it was absurd for a knight to say such things, he wasn't wrong.
If I'd known it would turn out like this, I wouldn't have tried to be so clever... No, if I hadn't, I probably would have died long ago.
There was no helping it. If I abandoned the mission and fled, knowing the Duke's personality, things wouldn't end well.
Simon would get chewed out thoroughly when he returned, but if I ran away alongside him, I would most likely be thrown to the Marquisate as a scapegoat.
'Still, if I couldn't regress, I would have run away without looking back.'
Although dying meant I would have to relive those five years all over again, the knowledge that I could return to life let me make my decision.
"Sigh, I'll stay too."
"A wise decision."
It was a brief conversation, but the enemy was already surging forward.
"Move out immediately! We are retreating to the ruined fortress!"
Adria bit her lip and turned around. Escorted by Bianca, she began climbing back up the path they had just descended.
Sir Hugo and I followed behind them, fending off the enemies.
"The target is fleeing! Pursue them!"
It was exactly as Sir Hugo had anticipated. Seeing Adria flee, the enemies bypassed Simon and the other knights to pursue us.
Thanks to that, Simon and his knights were able to slip through the encirclement quickly.
Having heard something from the knights, Simon ran north, following them.
"I will bring reinforcements right away! Please hold out just a little longer!"
Simon shouted at the top of his lungs as a parting cry, but Adria's stiff expression didn't soften in the slightest.
Of the five who had descended the path, only four were now climbing back up.
The ruined fortress drew closer and closer.
Perhaps because they were retracing their steps, the group was able to shake off their pursuers quickly.
As they entered the ruined fortress, Sir Hugo took the lead.
He navigated the paths in no time, as if he knew the fortress inside out, heading deeper into its interior.
Adria and Bianca, following behind Sir Hugo, wore incredibly solemn expressions.
They looked like people who had been abandoned by those they trusted and were now prepared for death.
Adria's steadfastness in such a situation was highly admirable, especially since she was still only a teenager, but she seemed to find me even more remarkable.
"Aren't you scared? We might die, yet your face doesn't look frightened at all."
Adria, who had slipped beside me before I knew it, spoke to me.
At Adria's words, Bianca also stole a glance at my face.
Honestly, I wasn't scared. I had died far too many times to be afraid of death now.
That didn't mean I had any intention of dying like this, though.
Even though I believed I could return to life, I still detested the painful experience of dying, and I had no desire to relive those five years.
This time, I intended to survive until the very end and make it back alive.
Well, there was no need to tell her the truth.
"I'm scared too."
"I knew it. I'm scared too."
My answer seemed to put her mind at ease. Her expression looked much better than before.
Even as we shared this brief conversation, we continued deeper into the fortress.
Bianca finally questioned Sir Hugo, who was running ahead.
"But where are we going? Won't going deeper inside just make it harder to escape?"
Since they weren't pursuing us right away, it seemed the enemy intended to establish a proper encirclement.
We had no idea when reinforcements would arrive, and at this rate, we would end up like rats in a trap.
Sir Hugo replied without breaking his stride.
"Do you know why I was appointed as the person in charge? This place was my playground when I was a child. I know this fortress inside and out."
He pointed toward the inner section of the fortress.
"I did not stay behind to commit suicide. I stayed to protect Lady Adria and Young Lord Alex."
In the direction he pointed, a statue stood, looking entirely out of place amidst the ruined fortress.
A short while after the group disappeared into the depths of the fortress, mercenaries began to appear through gaps in the fortress's outer walls.
The mercenaries at the front tracked the targets by following the marks left on the ground; behind them came those who had fought the knights, along with those who had been on horseback.
At their center stood the middle-aged mercenary who had been commanding them earlier.
Unlike the fleeing group, they weren't rushing. They advanced steadily, systematically eliminating any variables.
A nimble-looking mercenary approached them from behind and spoke.
"The encirclement is complete."
At the mercenary's words, the middle-aged leader nodded.
"But the enemy's counterattack is fierce. I don't think we can hold them off for long."
"Tell them to just buy time and then pull back."
"Understood."
At the leader's command, the messenger turned around and headed back.
Once the messenger disappeared, the only female mercenary in the group spoke to the leader.
"This turned out much easier than expected. It's all thanks to that boy who fled with the knights. Could he have been the Duke's son?"
"He is indeed the Duke's son."
Surprise spread across the woman's face at the leader's reply.
"What? But you just let him go?"
"He is not our target. It would be troublesome if he accidentally died."
"True, we wouldn't want the Gracia Dukedom to start running wild. But is it really all right for us to cause such a ruckus right in the Dukedom's backyard?"
"As long as we eliminate the target and withdraw, there won't be any issues. They can't launch a war without evidence. Even if they find proof later, it will already be too late."
"Yes, yes. I'm sure the higher-ups know what they're doing. Still, it's a bit of a shame, since we went through all that trouble to set up a trap."
"Since they had the wrong idea from the start, there was no way the preparations would go smoothly."
"Indeed. Preventing a marriage alliance by killing the bride... It's absurd to kill such a cute young lady over something like that."
"Hold on."
The middle-aged mercenary raised his hand, cutting off her rambling.
The mercenaries tracking the targets up ahead had stopped.
They had gathered in one spot, looking down with serious expressions.
The middle-aged leader made his way over to them.
When he reached them, his expression grew as grim as theirs.
"Oh dear, a variable has popped up. What do we do now?"
No one answered the woman's question.
On the ground in front of them was a passage leading underground.
And beside the passage lay the statue that had been covering the entrance until moments ago.
The mercenaries stared down into the passage.
The brick stairs leading down were shrouded in darkness, their end nowhere in sight.