Those Who Lost Their Way
With a tremendous crash, the walls of the Caelon Empire shattered. At the same moment, several magical devices activated and began launching indiscriminate attacks. The invasion-prevention system had come online.
"Fall back."
McDeras stepped forward and stretched out a hand. From the crimson sphere hanging in the air, a colossal barrier erupted and slammed down into the ground. The surrounding area shuddered under the overwhelming vibration; people staggered, then caught themselves and held firm.
Whether they did or not, McDeras focused solely on what lay before him. He blocked the invasion-prevention system's magical and physical assaults with the barrier while simultaneously searching for the system's core components.
They tried to hide it in their own way, but it was pointless.
The magic circles that countless mages had spent years refining and modifying were dismantled in an instant. He had found the location of the key components that powered the invasion-prevention system.
McDeras flicked his hand. A long spear shot free of the crimson sphere, tore through the air, and drove forward.
With a crackling, shattering sound, the main component of the invasion-prevention system—layered in concealment magic and defensive wards—was smashed to pieces. No further attacks came.
"Advance."
The moment the word left his mouth, the forces behind him surged forward as one. The Caelon Empire's remaining troops tried desperately to hold the line, but against overwhelming numbers it was meaningless. Most of their knights were cut down on the spot or fled.
"To think the Caelon Empire's invasion-defense network could be destroyed so easily..."
Knight Commander Tekeloman of the Fibron Empire stared in stunned disbelief.
Until now, even when they themselves had been under aerial assault, they had never managed a single counterattack—precisely because of the defensive systems buried inside enemy territory. Those systems were woven densely across the land, their power immense; locating the control towers that ran them was nearly impossible, and forcibly disabling them by destruction required pouring in unimaginable quantities of mana. That was why a reverse conquest had never even been an option.
Yet the man before him had, without a moment's hesitation, found and destroyed them single-handedly. The mighty, terrifying invasion-prevention system of the Caelon Empire had been reduced to so much scrap metal by one person alone.
Every time another node of the system appeared, McDeras casually crushed it and pressed forward. Tekeloman allowed himself a brief, grim fancy: if this man had been their enemy, what would have become of them?
We would certainly have been annihilated.
Had the man sided with the Caelon Empire, the Fibron Empire would never have escaped total destruction.
Knight Commander Tekeloman.
He had spared Saintess Plimia because he wanted to preserve his pride as a knight. At the same time, it had been too pitiful to watch a saintess who had thrown her entire body into service for her allies simply be discarded. So instead of killing the enemy, he had saved Plimia.
McDeras had told him he had come here at Plimia's request—to save the innocent civilians of the Caelon Empire from the war and from its leadership.
If I had chosen differently back then...
Plimia's request... repeating those words to himself, Tekeloman imagined it. If he had cast aside a knight's honor, ignored the saintess's life, and simply slaughtered the enemies before him...
Instead of killing some five hundred enemies and the saintess, he might have been forced to face this walking catastrophe as an enemy.
Perhaps the Goddess Ruasta truly does exist after all.
Watching countless people die in this damned war, Knight Commander Tekeloman had long since stopped believing in the Goddess Ruasta. Yet looking at the situation now, he could not help but wonder whether there really was no god.
If the Goddess Ruasta truly existed, then the crimson sphere floating above that man's head was divine punishment itself—the instrument of heavenly judgment.
"Charge!"
"Do not lay a hand on the civilians under any circumstances! Even if they are knights, spare those with no will to fight—and if any come at us to kill, slaughter them without hesitation!"
On a battlefield that had once been a scene of indiscriminate massacre of civilians and knights alike, an ironic new priority centered on mercy began to take shape.
"My son... please, at least spare my son..."
"Out of the way. We do not kill civilians."
"Y-you mean it... you're really... going to spare us...?"
"I will not say it twice."
A middle-aged woman of the Caelon Empire—one who had not managed to evacuate in time—clutched her son and fled toward the rear. No Fibron knights pursued her. Unlike the knights of the Caelon Empire, the knights of the Fibron Empire did not massacre civilians.
Of course, she too was a citizen of the Caelon Empire that had invaded without cause. Even if she had never taken part in the fighting, the knights of the invaded Fibron Empire could not help the urge to cut her down then and there. Yet none of them slaughtered those who could not resist.
Because they were knights? Perhaps. But the true reason they swallowed their rage and refused to turn enemy civilians into prisoners or outlets for slaughter was only one:
McDeras had ordered it.
McDeras was dominating the battlefield with overwhelming power. The man who had slaughtered more than a million in an instant had now forbidden the killing of civilians. It felt alien—yet no one protested.
He said it clearly, didn't he?
Tekeloman recalled McDeras's words.
If invasion simply meant entering another country and attacking it, the dictionary definition of subjugation was more precise.
To strike the guilty with force.
They would wield force, but the standard of judgment was guilt or innocence. Of course that standard might be highly subjective. Yet few on a battlefield could hold even this much conviction.
What if a highly trained knight or slaughterer were posing as a civilian? What if a spy slipped in among refugees and stole intelligence? When one's forces were inferior or evenly matched, every one of those risks returned as catastrophic loss. That was why battlefields normally made no distinction between soldier and civilian. Set conviction aside even a little and there was no need to accept the risk.
But the Fibron Empire now had McDeras. A powerhouse of absolute strength who could kill tens of thousands—perhaps more—with a single gesture.
Tekeloman felt it in his bones once again.
To realize even a fraction of true peace required overwhelming power.
McDeras was no ordinary butcher. He was a man fit to be a sovereign.
As Tekeloman watched, McDeras asked from the very front line:
"How long until we reach the Caelon imperial palace?"
"According to the intelligence we have, another two hours of advance should bring us there."
"Soon enough."
In less than three hours the walls had fallen and the enemy's invasion-prevention systems had gone dead. Fortresses they had spent centuries fortifying had been reduced to ruins in a single day.
Soon enough. What other words could possibly fit?
"Everyone halt."
Mid-advance, McDeras stopped the troops. He had sensed a living presence nearby.
They had invaded an enemy nation where people lived; a living presence was hardly strange. But every civilian in this sector had already evacuated, and the knights who had tried to hold the line had mostly died or fallen back. Only ruined houses remained. Yet someone was still breathing hard inside one of them.
Worse—thick killing intent was pouring out.
Tekeloman spoke in a flat, unimpressed voice.
"Did you think hiding would keep you from being found? Come out. Or I will blow the building away with you still in it."
Given the dense murderous aura, they had naturally assumed it was an enemy knight. The figure who emerged was someone unexpected.
The person who stepped out of the building was a boy of about ten.
He gripped a sword far larger than his own hands and was trembling violently.
"Hold."
At McDeras's command the troops froze as one. Seeing it, the boy seemed to grasp who held command and leveled his sword at McDeras.
"My mom... I'll protect my mom... You will never... never get past me..."
McDeras spread a detection spell. Behind the boy he sensed a faint living presence—so dim, like a guttering flame, that he had almost failed to recognize it as human.
Someone dying of illness, most likely.
"Run. We will neither chase you nor kill you."
The boy kept the sword raised, still radiating killing intent. By McDeras's own principles the boy fell into the category of those to be slaughtered. Yet of course McDeras chose to spare him. The boy had drawn the sword only to protect the parent behind him.
The boy, however, had no real choice. Even after being told he could flee, he stood as if his legs had turned to stone, blocking the doorway with his small body.
Only then did the picture come together. The guttering spark of life. And the boy who, even amid this chaos, could not leave this place.
"Your mother cannot move, I take it."
The boy's pupils shook. His body began to tremble harder; cold sweat ran down his face. As McDeras approached, the boy clutched the sword even tighter and shouted.
"Get... get away! You murderers!"
At the boy's cry, the faces of the surrounding Fibron knights twisted visibly. Until moments ago it had been the Caelon knights who were being massacred. To the Fibron knights, even a desperate child's scream could only sound galling.
Ignoring their reactions, McDeras stopped in front of the boy and looked down at him.
"Do you want to live, or do you want to protect?"
The boy did not answer. McDeras forced the choice on him again.
"If you want to live, turn and run. I give you my word of honor that I will not pursue you. But if what you want is to protect, then raise that sword and attack me. Land even a single blow on me... and I will spare both you and the mother inside the house."
The boy did not hesitate. He raised the sword and charged at McDeras.
Ssshk.
The boy's clumsy blade kissed McDeras's cheek—McDeras who had not so much as twitched—and drew a thin line of red blood.
For the first time since entering the battlefield, a shallow wound appeared on McDeras's cheek, a face that millions of knights had failed to scratch.
Plimia could not bear the sight and covered her eyes, certain McDeras was about to take the boy's head.
But after a moment she cracked her eyes open. McDeras was looking down at the boy with no emotion whatsoever in his gaze.
"This is the result of your choice."
McDeras began walking toward the boy. Every knight nearby held their breath and watched him. All of them focused every nerve on what decision the man would make.