The Pitched Battle (3)
The Pitched Battle (3)
A suffocating battlefield.
A battlefield where limbs flew and blood blurred their vision was just as grueling, even when they weren't fighting monsters.
After all, monsters were for the knights to handle, while regular soldiers, unable to pierce their hides, could do little more than hold them at bay.
In fact, fighting fellow humans might have been even harder.
And the humans they were facing belonged to the army of their very own kingdom.
If a familiar face appeared before them, curses were bound to spill from their lips.
Matos, a squad leader in the Carlos Kingdom's Eastern Regional Army at Soroka Fortress, was no exception.
To be fair, thanks to the Princess's speech, the Count's shouts, and the ability deployed across the fortress walls, Matos and his soldiers had been in higher spirits than ever before.
But that morale eventually deflated like a popped balloon beneath the barrage of abilities raining down overhead and the limbs flying in every direction.
Brought back to reality, Matos and his soldiers had no choice but to grit their teeth and fight the enemy soldiers.
After fighting like that for a long while, the formations had become so tangled that it was difficult to tell the two sides apart.
Fortunately, his own men remained around him, but the other squads were nowhere to be seen.
Instead, his eye was caught by a soldier in uniform—no, an officer.
Grind.
His teeth ground together involuntarily.
Only six soldiers remained by his side now; the rest had been swept away by the lightning unleashed by that enemy officer.
He didn't know which noble had used that ability, and there was a good chance this particular officer hadn't been the one to kill them, but that noble officer had undoubtedly been slaughtering his allies elsewhere.
He couldn't just leave him be.
Besides, the officer was pale and looking around for an escape route; his mana seemed to be completely depleted.
Matos threw an enemy soldier lunging at him behind him and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"There's an officer ahead! Take him down first!"
"Agh! Why are you tossing this guy to me?"
Thunk! The sound of a spear piercing the body of the enemy soldier he'd tossed to his subordinate rang out.
"Is he even someone we can take down?"
"Hey, is this the time to be picky? Let's take him out quick and get out of here!"
Then came the grumbles of his other subordinates.
Fortunately, it seemed his men had not yet been swept up in the madness of the battlefield.
In that case, was he the one who was most worked up?
Matos dashed forward with that thought.
Though they grumbled, his men followed close behind.
On top of that, luck was on their side.
For some reason, the battle lines surged once again.
The enemy forces between them and the noble suddenly swarmed to one side, leaving no enemies between them and the noble.
"Don't let him gain distance! He can't use his ability if we're close!"
Matos bellowed again, accelerating even further.
The distance between him and the enemy officer closed rapidly.
Perhaps unable to find an escape route, the officer stopped looking around and stared straight at him.
Their eyes met.
A shiver ran down the back of Matos's neck. At the same time, the enemy officer let out a sigh.
Then the officer reached out toward the charging Matos.
'Damn it! Did he still have mana left?'
Matos gritted his teeth.
It was already too late to turn back.
"Get down!"
He screamed and threw himself forward, lunging with his spear with all his might in the hope of wounding the officer before his ability activated.
Regrettably, an ordinary person couldn't move faster than an awakened noble.
Crackle!
Lightning crackled from the officer's hand.
His vision flared white, and his body convulsed.
He collapsed mid-stride. The arm holding his spear curled inward, and his entire body contorted.
He'd thought it was a different officer, but it was indeed the very same officer who had killed his men.
The lightning that struck him now hadn't come down from the sky, but it was the very same bolt that had slain his subordinates.
As expected, challenging a noble had been a fool's errand.
His inflated morale had made him forget his place.
The sounds of his men collapsing echoed from behind.
Even as his body shuddered, he found it absurd.
For his entire squad to be wiped out by a single noble officer—and to meet their end while trying to avenge their comrades, no less.
It was the kind of story that would make anyone shake their head in disbelief.
The officer was clearly exhausted as well, so the strike wasn't enough to kill Matos instantly. But seeing the smoke rising from his own body, Matos knew he was unlikely to survive.
With what little vision he had left, Matos glared at the noble officer, determined to remember his face even after death.
But the officer had no interest in a dying soldier.
Instead, he scowled and tried to flee the area, looking as though someone were pursuing him.
Fidgeting anxiously, the officer looked in one direction and spat out a curse.
"Damn it! It's really him!"
Then he raised both hands toward the direction he was looking.
But this time, nothing shot forth from his hands.
Instead, his raised hands were severed and sent flying into the air.
And then, a knight appeared before the officer.
Matos had no idea how the knight had suddenly appeared.
He knew ordinary people couldn't keep up with the movements of knights, but this knight seemed even faster.
"Is this officer one of those who needs to be killed too?"
The knight, who seemed slightly shorter than the other knights, asked the empty air.
It was a bizarre sight, but the response that followed was even more baffling.
"...Yes."
An answer echoed from the very empty air he was staring at.
"Good."
The knight severed the head of the noble officer, who was screaming with his hands cut off.
Then he flicked the blood from his sword and turned around.
Since he wasn't wearing a helmet, the knight's face was clearly visible.
An incredibly young face.
Matos could recognize who the knight before him was.
He was undoubtedly the young knight rumored to be the Princess's guard.
They said he was an extraordinary knight who had defeated the enemy's representative knight in a duel, and the rumors were indeed true.
"...Th-thank you..."
Matos forced himself to speak.
Though the knight hadn't done it for his sake, Matos felt he had to say thank you before he died.
The young knight, though, seemed to ponder for a moment at his words, then sheathed the sword in his hand across his back.
Then he reached into his chest and drew his hand back out.
A sacred sword, drawn from his chest.
Perhaps because he was dying, Matos didn't find the sword being drawn from a human body terrifying. Instead, it felt incredibly mystical.
The Princess's knight approached him with the sword in hand.
'Is he going to end my life?'
Believing the knight intended to spare him any further pain himself, Matos felt grateful to the young knight.
The knight stood before Matos and held the sword upside down.
Then, indifferently, he plunged it down.
Matos squeezed his eyes shut.
He believed that once a brief moment of pain had passed, peace would follow.
As he waited, holding on to that thought, the pain truly began to fade away.
He wondered if he had died, but strangely, he felt no pain from being stabbed.
And as the pain vanished, the sensations throughout his body returned.
He slowly opened his eyes.
This was not the afterlife the temple spoke of.
The noisy battlefield. He wasn't dead.
He could also hear the voices of his men beside him. They were definitely the subordinates who had collapsed along with him.
"Uh, my wounds are healed. Did that knight heal us?"
"No, he just stabbed the ground beside us with his sword and pulled it out."
"Then is he like a priest?"
"No, he was clearly a knight. Is there even a priest who heals with a sword?"
"A priest who heals with a sword... I feel like I've heard of that somewhere before..."
Hearing his men's words, Matos looked around.
A mark remained where the sword had been driven into the ground, right next to his head.
It seemed the knight hadn't stabbed him in the head, but had driven the sword into the ground beside him.
Had he really healed them with that sword? And had he done the same for his men?
Though countless questions flooded his mind, he hastily scrambled to his feet.
The battle wasn't over yet. He couldn't afford to die again after barely being saved.
"Get a grip! Do you want to die a dog's death?!"
"Ah! Yes, sir!"
At Matos's shout, his men hurriedly stood up.
Then they all looked around. Fortunately, no fighting was taking place in their immediate vicinity.
And the clashes in other areas were gradually losing steam.
Since the momentum of the fortress forces hadn't changed much, the shift in atmosphere had to be coming from the Second Prince's besieging soldiers.
They were fighting passively and gradually retreating.
The tide of battle was in their favor.
Matos intended to lead his men back into the fray.
But before he could, a whistle blast rang out from the fortress.
Fweeeet!
It was the signal to retreat.
Although they had the upper hand, unless they planned to annihilate the enemy, this was also a perfect opportunity to withdraw.
Matos let out a sigh and began to fall back with his men.
His first battle against fellow soldiers of the same kingdom had been more grueling than he'd imagined, and far more astonishing than he'd expected.
Matos rubbed the back of his neck and looked around.
But the young knight who had saved their lives was nowhere to be seen.
Instead, several noble officers lying on the ground caught his eye.
Most of them were officers from the Second Prince's side.
It seemed far more nobles had died than he'd realized.
For a moment, the image of the young knight beheading the officer flashed through his mind, but he shook the thought away and focused on entering the fortress.
He couldn't afford to lose any of his remaining men to a careless mistake.
The whistle blast from the fortress marked a turning point, and the battle gradually died down.
The soldiers fell back, and the knights, who had been looking for another opportunity to disrupt the enemy lines, turned their horses back toward the fortress.
The Second Prince's army couldn't even dream of pursuing the retreating soldiers.
Their chain of command was already half-collapsed, and they were barely holding their ground against the enemy.
There was no one left to order a pursuit of the retreating enemy, nor anyone to deliver such an order.
I returned to the fortress along with the retreating soldiers.
Although I'd given them a heads-up beforehand, everyone was overjoyed to see me return safely after staying behind alone in the enemy camp.
I climbed the fortress walls with the others and watched the retreating enemy forces.
The Princess, who had been moving with the knights, asked me,
"Do you think it went well?"
I shook my head.
"We'll have to wait a bit longer. I did my best, but we still don't know the outcome."
The best actions didn't always lead to the best results.
If they did, there was no way I would have died so many times.
Still, it seemed things had gone well this time.
A short while later, Glan, whom I'd left behind in the enemy camp, returned and reported on the enemy's situation.
"It went exactly as expected. The commanding officer, who holds no real power, strongly insisted on retreating again, and this time, the other officers didn't object. Or rather, the officers who would have objected were nowhere to be found."
Since I'd selectively killed only the officers who opposed the retreat, there was no way any objecting officers could remain.
Glan reported the outcome of their meeting with a weary expression.
"The enemy has decided to withdraw tomorrow morning, regardless of whether reinforcements arrive."
Just as Glan had said, the following morning, the Second Prince's army, which had besieged the fortress, lifted the siege and began to withdraw.
And the other units that were supposedly coming to reinforce them turned their horses around as well.
This was because a new incident had occurred in the capital.