The Cave of Rotting Blood
They quickened their pace and arrived at their destination earlier than planned.
Since they had used a temple visit as the excuse for this wildly unofficial outing, the moment they arrived they were supposed to at least pay their respects to the lord and make a show of inspecting the territory and the border region.
But that whole ceremony had been skipped thanks to Arendt's forceful insistence.
"You all seem to have a great deal of free time on your hands, don't you?"
"......"
In the end, their first destination was the mountain where the explosion had occurred.
The Security Captain, who had been leisurely enjoying the comforts of the countryside, choked on his tea when a contingent of Imperial Knights came crashing in unannounced.
"......?!"
CRASH!
He shot up so abruptly that his chair went rolling across the floor, but the Security Captain didn't even notice it fall.
"I-I am Luke Mayer, Captain of the Security Department! It is an honor to meet Lord Henry Lu Lancelot and Knight Commander Laios de Winfried—"
"That's enough."
But the first to actually speak was a green apprentice knight. Shouldering past Laios and popping out in front, Arendt asked point-blank:
"The place where the explosion happened recently. Where is it?"
"......"
The Security Captain's jaw hung open as he dumbly looked back and forth between Arendt, Laios, and Henry—but Laios, who had grown fairly accustomed to these kinds of situations, simply pushed Arendt back once more and stepped forward himself.
"This is a matter of some urgency. Lead the way."
After dumping their luggage carelessly in the Security Department building, the group set off following the captain.
"But truly, it hardly seems worth the trouble...... the site has already been dealt with, so there was no need for the Knight Commander himself to come all this way to inspect it."
"We have our reasons."
The captain, who had been speaking carefully as he tested the waters, clamped his mouth shut at Laios's firm reply and focused on walking.
The mountain terrain was too rough to bring horses any further.
The mountain was made of bare rock and stone, with only the occasional tuft of grass. The barren landscape of gnarled trees and scattered pebbles stretched on and on.
"You two should descend here. Please don't go any higher......"
"Oh, come now. We've come all this way—I couldn't possibly miss the view."
At Richt's recommendation, Henry flashed a playful smile. Arkus, who had been trudging along in silence, showed no intention of turning back either.
"It could be dangerous."
"I'll be fine. I can at least look after my own skin. Believe it or not, I even have some combat experience."
"Do that and you'll die, you will."
At the sudden gruff voice, both Richt and Henry shut their mouths at once.
Arendt was marching up the mountain, staring straight ahead.
"If those young lords die here, who do you think takes the blame? Surely not us?"
"Probably. We were with them, so we can't dodge responsibility for failing to protect them."
"If we announce that the two of them were killed by the Evil God Cult, we could issue a much more sweeping border alert, couldn't we?"
"Of course we could—but wouldn't we get our knighthoods stripped before that ever happened?"
"Arthur, you shut up too."
Unable to bear listening to the back-and-forth between Arendt and Arthur, Richt growled.
No tension at all, even at a time like this.
Henry let out an awkward laugh.
While the pointless chatter continued, the group arrived before a cave whose entrance had collapsed. The explosion must have been fairly large—the ground was torn open, and shattered rock from nearby boulders lay strewn about, leaving the area a complete mess.
"This is the place...... but as you can see, there's nothing here. The interior is just a small cave. Even before it got like this, it was probably only ever used by mountain beasts for winter sleep, so no one ever touched it."
"Much obliged. You may return to your post now."
"Pardon?"
"Return. We can make our own way back."
At Laios's order, the Security Captain could only bow his head deeply in a final salute before turning and beginning his descent.
Once he was sufficiently far away, Laios drew his sword himself.
"Fall back."
"Don't send us flying in there along with the rocks—go easy on it."
"Understood."
When Arendt interjected, Laios nodded.
Having confirmed that the others had put enough distance between themselves and the cave, Laios activated Shadow of the Strong.
BOOOOOM!
At the noise that shook the very mountain, the group instinctively clapped their hands over their ears.
Dust billowed in thick clouds, and shattered stone sprayed in every direction.
A moment later, when they raised their heads, the cave's entrance stood open and clear, as if it had never been blocked at all.
Henry and Arkus's jaws dropped. But Arthur, as if he had fully expected it, burst into admiration.
"You just pulverized it completely, didn't you?"
"Cutting it as-is might have triggered a secondary collapse. The young lords will wait out—"
"We're coming with you."
Once again, Henry refused to bend his will.
When Laios cast him a troubled look, Henry smiled brightly, almost mischievously.
"My father gave me an order. He told me not to disgrace the dignity of House Lancelot. Allow me to do my part in the subjugation of the Evil God as well."
"If that is the Duke's will, then so be it."
In the end, Laios gave up on trying to stop him.
The cave was cramped, just as the Security Captain had said. There was no real need to enter—its end was visible right from the mouth.
"It really does look like nothing's here, doesn't it?"
"No. I can feel mana."
At Henry's puzzled question, Laios gave a stiff reply. Arendt and Arthur had already slipped inside and were searching the place over.
"Commander, found it. A magic stone."
A short while later, Arthur shouted from the deepest part of the cave.
When he pried out the magic stone cunningly hidden among the rocks and crushed it, the cramped cave's interior vanished like a mirage, revealing a passage leading deeper underground.
An illusion spell had been laid to conceal the true entrance.
"Well done."
Offering only that brief praise, Laios strode forward and was the first to step into the depths of the cave.
"It looks like this space was carved out deliberately."
Arthur's voice echoed and reverberated. Sure enough, there were traces everywhere of rock having been chiseled away to expand the cavern.
How far had they walked in?
Laios, at the head of the group, came to an abrupt halt.
"There's a smell of blood."
At those words, the others froze in their tracks as well.
The cave was nearly at its end now.
The knights pressed their mouths shut and sharpened their senses—and then, all at once, they drew their swords.
"Commander?"
"Prepare yourselves. It's coming."
At Laios's resolute words, Henry and Arkus reflexively drew their blades as well.
Thud. Thud.
An ominous resonance began to echo from somewhere.
The source of that irregular sound lay beyond the cave walls. It sounded like something was charging hard and slamming its body against the rock.
Arendt opened his mouth.
"Arthur, Lord Henry."
"Y-yes?"
"This is friendly advice, man to man."
His grip tightened on the hilt of his sword.
"Turn around and run. Right now."
"Arendt, what are you—"
Almost in the same breath as that grim pronouncement—
BOOOOM!
The walls on both sides of the passage collapsed as if blown apart, and unidentified monsters came surging out in a writhing tide.
"KREEEE!"
"GHYAAAA!"
The creatures' shrieks filled the broad cavern.
Henry, who had been standing dumbfounded, moved his lips.
"Mon...... sters?"
No—they didn't look like any monster he knew.
It was his first time seeing such a creature. More than that—could this thing even be called a living being?
Its sickly pale skin was patchworked with the scars of being stitched together. Its blank white eyes held not a trace of intelligence, and its wriggling body was a hideous mass that looked as if every manner of beast had been fused into one.
"Hey, run! Unless you want to get eaten by corpses!"
Only at Arendt's irritable shout did the two young lords snap back to their senses.
Having assessed the situation, Arkus seized Henry by the scruff of the neck and began dragging him bodily toward the exit.
Sensing the commotion, the monsters—the ghouls—craned their grotesquely twisted heads toward the knights.
"What in the hell is that?"
"Ghouls. Stitched together from corpses. The cult was planning to make Count Stadler produce them."
He hadn't expected these things to come crawling out of here. Vincent was dead, after all—he'd assumed he would never have to lay eyes on these creatures again.
"Do you know their weakness?"
"You have to destroy the head and the heart. They aren't truly alive—they're being forcibly controlled through mana."
Arendt supplied the answer to Laios's calm question.
"So that mana gathers in the head and the heart."
There was no time for a longer exchange. The ghouls, baring their teeth indiscriminately, began hurling themselves at the knights.
Laios leapt forward and cleaved the ghoul charging head-on clean in two with a single stroke, then cut down the endlessly flooding horde one by one.
He didn't even need two strikes to target the head and the heart. Anything touched by Laios's blade aura sprayed black, rotted blood as its limbs were torn apart helplessly.
Even so, their numbers were simply too vast for him to handle alone—but Laios had not come alone.
Arthur's sword plunged into the skull of a ghoul that had slipped past Laios and was sprinting for the cave's exit.
Ripping his blade out mercilessly and driving it clean through the heart as well, Arthur kicked the corpse aside and severed the head of the next creature lunging at him with bared teeth.
"These things aren't even that strong!"
"Don't get careless, Arthur! There's an enormous number of them!"
Richt shouted as he staggered back a step.
Judging by the surging tide of writhing bodies, there had to be at least several hundred.
Richt and Arendt too kept hacking the creatures down without pause, but the numbers showed no sign of thinning.
In an instant, the cave was flooded with a nose-stinging stench of blood.
Rotted blood clung thickly to the knights' faces and clothes alike.
"Ah, damn it. Enough of this. Arthur, Richt—get out of my way!"
"What?"
Arendt squeezed himself between the two men and forced his way to the front.
With things already this hectic, his junior pulling some nonsense made Arthur explode with irritation.
"What are you doing?"
"Just cover me!"
Taking his place beside Laios, Arendt raised his mana.
From that alone, Laios grasped his subordinate's intent. He stepped forward and swung his sword in a great arc.
The ghouls caught in the fierce blade aura burst apart all at once, opening up an empty space before Arendt. Seizing that opening without hesitation, Arendt pushed his mana even higher.
The ghouls forced themselves back into the void.
Their target, naturally, was Arendt standing at the very front.
Just before the claws and teeth of creatures craving living human flesh could reach him, a frigid chill flooded the cavern.
Hssssss.
White frost settled outward from where Arendt's feet touched the ground.
And a moment later, instead of blade aura, his sword—steeped in freezing cold—carved sharply through the frozen air.
Shhhk.
It was a scene as if time itself had stopped.
The creatures that had been about to tear into Arendt's throat all froze solid where they stood. The ghouls behind them likewise found their feet frozen, their movement sealed in an instant.
Then it was Laios's turn.
Drawing the power of Shadow of the Strong to its utmost, Laios layered blade aura atop his sword and took a single step toward the enemies choking the passage ahead.
KUAAAAAANG!
With a sound like a massive explosion, the cavern shook to its roots.
Like fallen leaves swept away by a broom, the ghouls caught in Laios's slash were ripped apart and burst all at once.
Splatter, splatter-splatter.
Half-frozen black blood poured down like snow, and shreds of icy flesh flew in every direction.
Nothing moved anymore.
Arthur, who had been staring at the sight in a daze, licked his lips.
"......Monsters, the lot of them......"