Episode 3: Waning Glory
Einzel let out a deep, weary sigh. Right. As if my life would ever be anything else.
A fighting retreat against an undead host spearheaded by Death Knights? The very idea was preposterous.
Yet he had no choice. If they didn’t intervene right now, an entire fortress garrison would be slaughtered to the last man. Einzel found himself wondering if he should have punched that envoy from the Imperial Palace a few more times instead of stopping at one. That was just how wretched their predicament was.
Undead were entirely different beasts compared to humans or demons. For starters, piercing strikes barely phased them. Fighting undead essentially forced you into close-quarters combat, wide-area magic, or divine miracles to obliterate them in swaths. But when you were the one being hunted, engaging in melee was outright suicide. In the end, pure, overwhelming firepower was the only answer.
Undead ran wild if their master didn't maintain strict control over them, so cutting down the necromancer might have offered a glimmer of hope. The problem was that the master commanding this legion was Grandis—the monster rumored to have shattered fortress ramparts with a single dark spell. Trying to strike at the master directly was no different than jumping into a lion’s maw to escape a pack of wolves.
This wasn’t a battle they could win; it was simply a battle they had to fight. The battlefield was calling his name.
"Please don’t worry," Beatrice said gently. "We will prevail, no matter what."
"...The situation is completely different from last time, isn't it?" Einzel replied flatly.
Last time, they had been defending a stronghold. Now, however, he had to rescue soldiers in the middle of a retreat—routed remnants who, for all intents and purposes, were already fleeing for their lives.
"Still... you have me, don't... you?" Beatrice murmured, twirling a lock of platinum-silver hair around her finger.
"...Are you planning to fight the entire war by yourself?"
Einzel stared back at her with thoroughly unimpressed eyes.
"Well, no, that's not what I meant..."
"Holding onto hope is fine, but... I think it would be best to look reality in the eye."
Even if the Saintess had attained the realm of a Master, learning that Death Knights were in the field meant there was zero room for optimism.
"Ah... dammit. Why the hell am I even going?"
Then again, facing reality didn’t mean their morale had to crater quite so catastrophically.
Lena stared blankly ahead, muttering under her breath before her delayed fury finally boiled over. "...What the fuck! Is an archer! Supposed to do! Against undead!"
Einzel walked over and patted Lena on the back. Last time Sayne had ended up dead weight; now it was Lena's turn.
"Normally archers are the most crucial part of a rearguard during a retreat, right?! But against undead? What kind of sick joke is this!"
One of the terrifying things about pursuing undead was that an archer’s volleys were practically useless. An archer capable of felling high demons with a single shot was reduced to doing little more than sticking toothpicks into rotting meat against the undead. Lena took immense pride in her marksmanship, but even supreme skill counted for nothing against foes who couldn't care less about an arrow through the chest.
"Fuck... Shitty human bastards... If it was going to be like this, they should've deployed me somewhere else... What the hell am I doing here when I can't do shit..."
The profanities were starting to flow thick and fast, but Einzel did his best to ignore them. He looked up at the sky. It was clear and bright, yet an inexplicable sense of dread hung in the air.
"...I knew this would happen," Peria muttered.
"Shut up and keep running!" Sayne snapped.
"...Haah." Beatrice pressed a hand to her forehead.
The moment they approached the heart of the enemy concentration, a staggering multitude of undead greeted them.
"Zombies... skeletons... Wow, look at them all," Peria remarked in involuntary awe. What kind of monster was this Grandis woman to command a legion of this scale? Peria thought to herself that on this scale, she might rival the Lich King himself.
"That's not important right now! Saintess! Clear a path on one side!"
"Understood!"
As Beatrice offered a brief prayer, radiant brilliance surged forth like a storm. A blinding flash reminiscent of the midday sun blazed across the field, melting the undead away without leaving a trace.
"That way!"
Einzel shouted urgently. Ridiculous as it seemed, he had chosen to dash directly toward the enemy's center alongside his soldiers. He had to save their allies.
They had the Saintess, and there were no Death Knights in sight yet. Under these conditions, accepting some losses might have allowed them to defeat the horde nipping at their heels, but his own troops would suffer casualties, and their advance would grind to a halt. A stalled force couldn't rescue anyone. Gather our allies as quickly as possible and break out, Einzel steeled his resolve.
And at last, Einzel spotted the retreating Imperial troops, who had somehow managed to shake off their immediate pursuers.
"Ah! Are you the relief force?!"
The man who appeared to be the commanding officer greeted Einzel with overwhelming relief.
"I am the Hero, Einzel Leonhardt. We've come to break you free from the pursuit."
"Ah! The famous—"
"The Empire hasn't abandoned us!"
Several soldiers cheered. Einzel cut in quickly. "We're going to punch through the encirclement right now. Move out."
"Yes, sir!"
The soldiers fell in behind him. Einzel felt the crushing weight upon his shoulders grow heavier. If this operation failed, it wouldn't just be his own life at stake—countless souls would be snuffed out. That alone was something he could not bear. Even if it meant enduring multiple deaths, he had to save these people.
...I don't want to do this.
As his thoughts trailed on, the true feeling crawling up from the depths of his soul was undeniable: I hate this.
He hated shouldering such crushing responsibility. When he had first taken up the sword, he possessed the baseless confidence that he could bear whatever burden was thrust upon him. But look at him now. He couldn't even take responsibility for his own solitary life.
A coward who shivers in terror at death, at pain, at fear itself—did you really think you'd accomplished something? Just because people shower you with praise, did you fool yourself into believing you earned it? A pathetic wretch who stabbed his own belly because he couldn't endure the sheer terror—
Stop.
Einzel shook his head, driving away the ringing tinnitus in his ears. What mattered right now was executing the plan. Nothing else.
"We'll head toward the plains first."
"...The plains?"
The commander looked at him with sheer incredulity. Small wonder; they were practically encircled, and Einzel was suggesting the open plains where the enemy could spot them with ease. But Einzel had other calculations.
"Moving into the plains makes it easier for us to spot the enemy as well. And when it comes to raw marching speed, the undead are far slower than humans."
The terror of the undead lay in their tireless pursuit, in never knowing when or where they might ambush you. Once you knew where they were, that terror ceased to exist. However...
"What if we are spotted and enveloped on all sides?"
Exactly as he said, just as easily as they could spot the enemy on open terrain, the risk of encirclement multiplied. But Einzel shook his head.
"We simply need to break through before the encirclement closes. Besides, we have the Saintess."
Beatrice was their trump card, capable of tearing a siege line to shreds in a single stroke. Putting his faith in her power, Einzel chose to press forward.
"And above all else, it's the closest route to our allied fortress."
Indeed. The plains offered the shortest path to safety. Scurrying along the shortest route to friendly lines was perilous, but the allure was undeniable.
"If we waste time, Grandis might tighten the noose even further. Sprinting straight for our fortress as quickly as possible is our best option."
Hearing that, the commander nodded reluctantly. Dangerous as it was, the logic was sound.
"Furthermore, the longer this retreat drags on, the more exhausted the men will become. In a retreat, supplies are already scarce. You know as well as I do what happens under those conditions."
"...Yes. Put that way, you are correct."
Their own soldiers steadily losing stamina versus an enemy that didn't even possess the concept of fatigue. There had never been another choice from the beginning.
Einzel and the soldiers cut across the open plains. Enemy presence was lighter than expected, and the scattered undead they encountered could easily be bypassed. Einzel began to feel that his gambit had succeeded.
Finally.
He had achieved his objective without dying a single time. Realizing this sent a surge of quiet emotion through his chest. Yes. Just a little further, and—
The moment that thought crossed his mind, an impossible spectacle unfolded before his eyes. An inexhaustible sea of undead blocked the way ahead.
"...What in the world...?" Peria murmured in disbelief.
Einzel's face contorted into a grimace. "Detour! Change direction!"
In a crisis like this, decisions had to be instantaneous. The grand plan had already crumbled; they needed to pivot immediately. Hesitation meant death. Then, the undead surged from the flanks as well. And not just the flanks—they appeared from behind.
Einzel felt the cold realization settle in: they had stepped right into a noose.
"The encirclement! We have to break through the encirclement!" Einzel shouted to Beatrice.
"...I don't think I can," Beatrice replied, her voice trembling.
"What?!"
As Einzel yelled in sheer dismay, Beatrice pointed in one direction with shaking hands. Standing there was a Death Knight.
"...You've got to be kidding me."
It wasn't just one. To their flanks, to their rear—Death Knights stood sentinel on every side. Though they were knights, Death Knights possessed a fundamental ability to ward and anchor their lesser brethren. Half-hearted strikes would never breach their perimeter.
"...I'll exhaust all my Holy Power to strike one spot," Beatrice said. "You must break through that gap."
Einzel gave a sharp nod, and Beatrice began murmuring her holy incantation.
Soon, the heavens split open. A colossal war hammer descended from the sky. The maul of pure holy light brought down divine judgment upon the defiled dead. The enemy ranks—even the Death Knight holding that sector—vanished without a trace beneath the ground where she had summoned God's War Hammer.
Einzel wasted no time leading his troops in a desperate sprint toward the smoking breach. And there, in the very direction they thought had been cleared, another countless horde of undead stood waiting.
"...This is just absurd," Einzel muttered.
In the brief moment he froze in numb despair, the undead swarmed over him.
He died.