Draw Them Out

Whoooosh—

A cold wind swept over the cliffs behind the abandoned mine. The trail there was a steep mountain path fit only for wild beasts, and up it a dozen-odd armored knights bounded like deer.

"There."

Edwin muttered it from the thick brush at the cliff's summit. Below the drop he was watching lay the ruins of a forsaken village. Almost nothing of its old shape remained. Across that wasteland, crude bonfires flickered in scattered points of light, and between them writhed ugly green shapes.

Orcs. Ordinary ones, a little larger than a grown man, and orc warriors a full half again their size. And at the center of the village, beside the largest fire, stood something far more massive.

A green ogre. Well over three meters tall, with shoulders spread so wide it looked as if a blue-green hill had risen out of the ground. Ominous patterns peculiar to ogres were carved into its hide, and beneath them muscle bulged as if ready to burst.

"Young master. We are ready."

One of the knights came up beside Edwin to report. The full knights who had climbed with him had all taken their places, prepared to leap from the cliff the instant the signal came. Edwin nodded, then turned his gaze toward the front of the village.

By now the unit under his older brother, Lucas, ought to be closing in on the orc band. Edwin and his knights were not to move until those orcs had been drawn some distance out of the village.

"Wait for the signal."

"Understood. But... will this really be all right?"

At the knight's words, Edwin looked him straight in the eye. He did not need to ask what the man feared. It was his brother Lucas—no. More precisely, it was Edwin's own decision to hand Lucas command.

"......"

Edwin closed his eyes for a moment. There had been several reasons for that choice. First, they were short on men. Among the apprentice knights, there was no one fit to command an operation, and if he posted one of the full knights there instead, the main force—barely ten strong—could not spare even a single sword.

So the best alternative was Lucas. He was an apprentice knight, and he was also the one who had drawn up the plan. He would understand better than anyone what the bait unit had to do, and if he took that role, the main force's strength could be kept intact.

"I understand that, but..."

Even after the explanation, the knight trailed off. Edwin knew how he felt. What kind of man was Lucas? A beast for whom even "human scum" was too kind a name. By rights he was a villain who should never have been allowed anywhere near a mission like this. Command, of all things? Until yesterday, Edwin had thought the same. But someone had changed his mind.

"Yesterday, I met Sir Walter."

Walter—Lucas's escort knight. After quarreling with Lucas, Edwin had nearly tarnished Walter's honor, and the guilt had sent him to apologize. Walter accepted the apology, and then said something Edwin had not expected at all.

"If you go with Young Master Lucas tomorrow, watch him."

"Watch him? Are you telling me to keep him under surveillance?"

"No. The young master... seems to have changed."

Edwin had never imagined a day would come when Walter would say such a thing. After all, it was Walter who had suffered most at that wastrel brother's side. The recollection finished, Edwin looked at the knight again.

"So... I mean to place my trust in him. Once."

"In Young Master Lucas?"

"No. In Sir Walter."

Edwin still could not bring himself to trust Lucas. Sir Walter was another matter. That old knight had devoted long years to the ducal house, and he was the master who had first put a sword in Edwin's hand. Never arrogant, and never servile to anyone—a character as unchanging as bedrock, the very model of a knight. Edwin respected him for it, and if Walter said a thing was so, Edwin judged it worth believing.

"Understood. If that is your judgment, young master."

The knight who had voiced his worry respected the decision. Then—

Bwooo—!

From far off, straight ahead, a horn sounded: faint, but unmistakable. The bait unit's signal to advance.

"It has begun."

Edwin's eyes sharpened. His gaze went to the figure that had appeared in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠distance. Lucas.

The ground before the old mining village where the orcs had settled was open plain. Whether they had set the fires and felled the trees themselves, it was black earth without a single scrap of cover. The bait unit I was with crossed that field of ash and came on to the blare of a horn.

"Halt."

I stopped the unit at a suitable distance—just barely outside an orc ranger's range. The orcs showed themselves from behind the palisade to meet us.

"Hm..."

The first things I saw were, of course, the orc rangers. About twenty of them, carrying bows so huge a human could not even have drawn them, and beside them several ordinary orc archers as well.

Thung!

One of the rangers loosed at us. An arrow like a javelin cut across the sky.

Thud!

It buried itself deep in the ground a little short of the unit.

"Ha..."

A hollow laugh escaped me. An orc ranger would know better than anyone that we were outside its range. Wasting a shaft anyway was an open threat—the huge arrow driven into the earth, and the weight behind it, flaunted as if to ask whether we truly meant to come through that. We had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠never intended to break through it in the first place, so it was neither a threat nor anything else. Unfortunately, the soldiers and apprentice knights behind me did not seem to see it that way.

"......"

I glanced back. Their faces had gone stiff. What they were thinking was obvious. They ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠had drawn a worthless commander, and they might have to take those lethal arrows with their own bodies.

"What are you going to do?"

Only Greg asked me that. I looked at the palisade again.

"We draw them out."

The bait unit's job was to provoke the orcs from outside the rangers' range. While we pulled even some of them out of the village, the main force would strike them from behind.

"You think they'll just crawl out on their own?"

"Orcs? That's not hard. They're insanely aggressive. The problem is..."

The green ogre. As warlike as any orc, and yet able to rein that aggression in with an ogre's caution and cunning. A troublesome enemy. Shaking the orcs free of that control would take something a little special.

"You wait here."

"What?"

Greg called after me, but I walked forward without another word, to the spot where the ranger's arrow had stuck, and pulled it free. Over a meter long—closer to a ballista bolt than an arrow—and heavy in the hand. A direct hit would kill an apprentice knight outright.

"......"

I held it and looked at the orcs. From here I was inside their range, and still they did not move, not even while I drew the shaft from the ground. Were they looking down on me, or wary of me?

Either way, they're about to snap awake.

I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠opened my inventory and used a stat elixir.

The attributes I had honed through steady training since the last battle, lingering around thirty, shot to fifty in a single breath. By the numbers alone, that strength had climbed to the level of a two-star knight, and for an instant it resonated with the aura core etched into the arrow.

Whoosh!

With a fierce rush of wind, I hurled the very arrow they had fired. It flew as fast as it had on the way in and punched clean through the throat of the orc ranger who had shot it.

"Kueh—"

Pierced by his own shaft, the ranger collapsed with an ugly groan.

"Kraaaah!"

The orcs who had watched their kin die began to rampage. Rangers and archers who had been still loosed a storm of arrows, and the orc warriors hiding quietly behind the palisade roared as if they would burst out at any moment.

Clang!

I struck the incoming shafts aside in plain view, flaunting myself all the more, so they would stop enduring it and come for me. Then—

"————!"

A monstrous cry erupted, as if it would shake the earth. A howl carrying a chilling presence, qualitatively different from the orcs. At that noise, the frenzy that had been ready to boil over went still in an instant.

Just as I thought.

The green ogre. As expected, it had the orcs' aggression under perfect control. To shake that control, I raised my sword. The Scream Sword, a unique-grade weapon. It resonated with my core and shed an eerie aura in streaming threads.

"What kind of aura is that...?!"

Greg gasped at the dark crimson aura coiled around the blade. The other soldiers and apprentice knights stared at me with their mouths hanging open. Small wonder. For a one-star knight's aura, its presence was far too outstanding.

"All of you, remember this."

I said it, but they only blinked, as if they had not understood. That was fine. Once they heard it, they would understand whether they wanted to or not.

"Scream."

At my command, the evil spirit dwelling in the sword stirred.

Fear, one of the Scream Sword's traits. A scream that sowed terror in everyone who heard it. I applied the effect to the orcs alone, but it was no less a bone-chilling shriek for that.

"W-what was that...?!"

The men, who had been fixated on my aura, jumped and looked wildly around. Fear had not even touched them, and still they looked like sleepers startled out of a nightmare. Then what of the orcs? I turned my gaze on the monsters.

They were still. As if they had heard nothing at all. But that very stillness was proof that Fear had taken hold—just as it had with Walter, when he faced the Branded Monsters. A being under Fear's influence is seized by terror for an instant, thought and action both frozen.

"Krk...!"

Soon the orcs began to come back to themselves, one by one. But they were not as they had been. What was carved into their eyes was a muddy fear. They had only just clawed free of panic, and this was the aftershock of having been swallowed by terror, even for a moment. A monster faced with that kind of confusion usually does one of two things. It flees in blind fright, or its aggression deepens. Orcs were usually the latter.

"Kraaaah!"

An orc warrior roared and vaulted the palisade, and ordinary orcs poured after it in a rush. Even the rangers climbed the wall and loosed arrows wildly. Too late, the green ogre raised a shout, trying to check their confusion. It was not enough to stop orcs who had already lost their reason to Fear.

Watching them come, I turned my back.

So far, according to plan. Now we have to hold.

"Shields up! Form ranks!"

At my shout, the soldiers who had been standing dazed scrambled into motion. The distrust that had been aimed at me only moments before had vanished without a trace.