End Game

"Hup-!"

Mary, who had stood watch at her master's side atop Afterglow Fortress for days on end, twitched her brows as she shoved aside the ice chunks that came flying one after another.

The frequency of the siege attacks had increased. Subtly, but unmistakably.

And the reason sat right before her eyes.

"They're still multiplying even in a situation like this."

An undead legion packed the ground before the fortress so thickly that not a scrap of earth showed through. Behind them, fresh undead of every kind and rank continued to stream in and join the ranks without pause.

"By ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the way, where on earth has Sir Stark—haaah-!"

Thwump!

Gordon had been called away and was momentarily absent. Not only Gordon—some of the adventurers, soldiers, warriors, and knights who had been manning the walls had all been summoned at once to the command room.

The moment she realized it, Mary clicked her tongue.

For even a short while, a gap had opened in their fighting strength. That meant secondary damage elsewhere along Afterglow Fortress would only grow worse.

Worse still, Gordon had been single-handedly intercepting most of the siege projectiles aimed at Catherine. With a man like that gone, Mary felt her breath come short for the first time since this contract began.

"Just what could be important enough to pull the contractor away like this—"

She crushed a crawling skeleton underfoot, intercepted every mass attack that came flying in, and blasted away the still-untreated boar zombie with a burst of wind pressure, grumbling the whole while.

"Hsss. Freezing out here. Meal delivery's arrived."

Wedged among the servants and maids hauling oversized barrels up the stairs, a well-bundled Karem climbed the wall in full protective gear, both hands carefully supporting a wide tray with its lid still on.

"Oh. Is it mealtime already?"

"I had a few things to finish first, so I'm a little late."

"Suddenly a lot more people are coming up. What's going on?"

"Well, let's just say they can finally use holy water to their hearts' content."

Karem's eyes flicked this way and that. The moment the servants set the holy-water barrels down and muttered something, the soldiers immediately began scooping the water into buckets and flinging it over the walls—or loading entire barrels onto the catapults and launching them wholesale.

"You lunatics! I said use the holy water freely, not haul the whole barrel up and fling it!"

"Ack! Use your words, Sir Alric! Words—!"

"Looking at those things melt is downright refreshing."

"Makes me strangely hungry for pudding."

"...Guess pudding's off the menu for a while."

The wind was too strong for Mary to catch what the servants had said. But even a glance told her the soldiers and adventurers had recovered their composure.

Their officers and the rank-and-file alike. No—rather than composure, they had turned vicious. They were dousing holy water so enthusiastically that ballista bolts, catapult stones, and ice chunks were all soaked past the point of excess. A few of the more overzealous ones even got chewed out for it.

"Anyway, Mary, take a short break and get something in your stomach."

"I think I'll have to eat later."

"What?"

Without a word Mary stamped a foot and thrust her palm forward—lightly, yet with force. The calf-sized ice chunk that had been sailing toward them shattered, fragments scattering outward in a shockwave.

"As you can see. Sir Stark is away, so I'm rather busy."

"Come to think of it, Gordon's nowhere in sight. Something happen?"

"I don't know the details myself. All I can tell you is that Sir Stark and a few others were summoned to the command room. Perhaps it was Margrave Hadrianus who called them? They all went down together."

"Hmm. Did we miss each other on the way?"

Karem let out a noncommittal hum and set the tray down.

"Then shall I take care of Lady Atanitas for you?"

"...What did you just say?"

"You said Gordon's gone. You said you'll eat later. And it doesn't look like you have any room to wait on Lady Atanitas right now, does it?"

Oh no.

Mary, who had just dropped a boulder with another shockwave and was staring straight ahead, clutched her head with both hands without changing her stance.

What kind of blunder was this!

Yet the more her brownie sensibilities and her own head chewed over Karem's words, the more infuriatingly correct they proved to be.

"Silence means agreement, I take it?"

"Khh. Even so, the menu's always the same, isn't it?"

At present every meal in the fortress had been standardized to two dishes: pies stuffed to bursting with every kind of meat, and thick, greasy vegetable stews loaded with chunks of meat.

Rationally and strategically it was the right call. Troops fighting through bitter cold needed high-calorie food and hot broth simply to maintain combat strength.

The food was tasty enough—but the same menu for days on end. If you ate the exact same thing at every meal for over a week, of course you would get sick of—

"I borrowed the kitchen and put my skills to work."

"What do you mean...!?"

Caught off guard, Mary instinctively turned around. And realized Karem had been telling the truth.

White steam billowed thickly from a neat rectangular pie sitting in the cold air. At first glance it looked identical to the meat pies they had eaten to death. But the warm fragrance rising from it was nothing like the surrounding chill.

"Cinnamon and apple."

"Apple pie."

"And next to it—"

Mary's gaze slid sideways.

"That's a crepe cake!"

"It is."

Layers of crepe and whipped cream stacked one atop the other, the whole thing finished with a final coat of cream and dusted with a deep-brown powder that looked like a miniature snowfield. The alraune powder—ground finer than flour—lifted and swirled in the wind like real snowflakes every time a gust swept across Afterglow Fortress. Where the powder had blown away, pure-white cream peeked through, squeezed out a little by the weight of the stacked crepes and decorated with roughly crushed walnuts.

"Isn't the kitchen under lockdown right now? How on earth—?"

"Well, it is under lockdown, yes."

But Karem had been thoroughly displeased. To think that Catherine, who had been suppressing a Great Mage all night for days on end, was being served nothing but the same meat pie and meat-heavy vegetable stew every single meal.

So he had bribed them.

'Young master Karem. No matter how earnestly you ask, this is the Margrave's strict—'

'One sauce recipe.'

'...!'

'Two sauce recipes.'

'—and of course His Lordship will understand. How could he possibly fail to understand a small consideration for the highest magical advisor who has been awake all night!'

Even then the restrictions remained: the oven could only be used when they were already putting pies in or taking them out, the central hearth was off-limits, and he was allowed only a single burner, among other petty rules.

"She's been living on meat pie and stew with neither dessert nor snacks. The moment the holy-water problem was solved and a little breathing room appeared, I whipped these up."

"That underhanded—wait. Holy-water problem?"

"Yeah. They said the holy water would have run out in a few more days."

"And you're saying you solved that crisis?"

"Yep."

"How, exactly?"

"I made them holy water."

"So how did you—"

Mary, still fending off undead and siege attacks, suddenly closed her mouth. Come to think of it, Karem did have one ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠reliable method. After all, when you considered the sacred relic he had supposedly received directly from a god ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠(he hadn't) and which Catherine herself had vouched for (that part was true)—

"I dumped sacks of salt into a sealed well and dropped the relic I was carrying in with a plonk—"

"You absolute madman. Treating such a precious relic so roughly—"

"Oh, big one's coming."

"Whoops—hyaaaaaaah!!!"

While Mary focused on the front, Karem portioned out the pie and cake and looked up at Catherine.

He had never seen her look this exhausted. Even last autumn and winter, when all-nighters and overtime had been daily fare, she had merely complained that it was disgusting and radiated an aura of pure annoyance. Now she looked far more worn. Standing on the magic circle with her staff planted, a week-plus of sleepless nights had painted thick dark circles under her eyes and given her a decadent air. Her golden hair floated like fine threads, mingling with drifting snowflakes, and the dreamlike atmosphere drew a small breath of admiration from Karem.

"...Phewuuuuu. What are you staring at?"

"Ah. Um. I was wondering whether I could step onto the magic circle. Wait—you can talk?"

"The other side seems tired as well. I've got a little room to breathe."

At Catherine's gesture Karem carried the portioned plates into the circle.

"No—bring the whole tray."

"Huh? Oh."

Mary could stop the main attacks, but not every flying shard. Before ice and rock fragments could fall, Karem hurriedly lifted the tray and stepped to Catherine's side.

"This meal is nothing but dessert."

"I heard, faintly. Hmm? Pie?"

"Don't worry. It's apple pie."

"Haaah, good. And that powder on the crepe cake is the alraune powder we had before. But no drink?"

"Ah, I forgot. I got so focused on the dessert. I should've brought milk at least."

Nothing for it. Following Catherine's piercing stare, Karem cut a generous slice of crepe cake and held it out.

She took a bite.

The cold touch of the fork and the faintly bitter alraune powder had barely registered before the soft texture of the crepe cake spread through her mouth. From tongue to cheeks, palate to the whole mouth, then down her throat—the sweet, gentle sensation left a rapturous aftertaste. The sticky residue left by days of dense meat pies and greasy stew was swept clean by the sweetness; Catherine let out an involuntary moan.

"Mmm. Hmmmmmm."

"Seems it suits your taste."

"It does. That soft texture, together with the bitter alraune powder, just rinses the dry mouth clean, and then the sweet cream... sugar is soaking into my body."

"You're eating a little fast."

"Less talking, more feeding."

"Yes ma'am."

Watching Catherine savor each bite as if half-fainting from pleasure, Karem kept the fork moving, steadily supplying sugar. It had been more than a week since she last tasted dessert. That something as ordinary as a crepe cake could taste this good...

The dense, pasty sensation from earlier meals was gone without a trace. The alraune powder, mixed into the whipped cream, released a soft, nutty fragrance that seemed to knead the fatigue from her exhausted mind.

There's no way this has any actual fatigue-recovery effect.

Yet the softness—so different from the dense pies—gently loosened the weariness that had settled in her mouth. The cream's sweetness, sharper after so long without it, carried a faint bitterness and a roasted, intensely fragrant note that traveled from her tongue into body and head.

Only after demolishing four slices in succession did Catherine finally bite into the apple pie.

"I'd heard there would be no exceptions, but I never imagined I'd be eating nothing but meat pie and stew for nearly ten days."

"It's tasty, but you get sick of it. Even freshly baked it would get old."

"I never particularly liked or disliked apple pie, yet eating it like this it's so good I can't believe it. What trick did you pull?"

"It's the exact same pastry dough I used for the meat pies."

"...Is that so."

Catherine, who had asked with such confidence, chewed the apple pie with exaggerated vigor to hide her embarrassment. Oblivious to his employer's mortification, Karem simply matched her accelerated sugar intake and kept feeding her pie and cake in silence.

Creeeak—

Then a sudden discordant noise rolled across the entire battlefield. As if on cue, Catherine and Karem both looked around openly. The sound had been clear even over the din of combat; every soul atop Afterglow Fortress began to murmur.

"The gate is opening!"

A traitor? But they said they'd caught them all!

Karem absently set the plate down, slipped past Mary, and sprinted to the battlements. And then—

KWA-AAAAAANG!!!

The fortress gate—impossible to breach with any siege engine—exploded open.

Bwooooooooom—

Pirriririri—piriririwoong—piriripiiiiil—

"Felwinter! Felwinter! Felwinter! Felwinter! Felwinter! Felwinter!"

"Time to make a killing!"

"Fall behind and you die! Run like the wind!"

"Full gallop! Double-time! Lance chaaaaarge!!!"

A distinctive instrument—leather bag bristling with pipes and flutes—was being blown until lungs nearly burst. Stalwart men in swirling kilts, each shouldering a massive barrel, charged out alongside heavily armored soldiers, knights, barbarian warriors, and adventurers of every stripe, smashing through the undead as one solid mass.

The bagpipes' characteristic roaring, tearing tone pulsed outward. With every blast a faint orange aura wrapped around the soldiers, knights, barbarians, and adventurers as they ground the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠undead to pulp.

While the fortress gate slammed shut behind them, that powerful sound thundered across the field and drew every undead gaze and attack toward the charging force.

At the very tip of the spear:

"Blow those bagpipes with everything you've got! Like a nursing infant! Loud enough to shake the entire Gogmagog Mountains!"

"This is pure insanity!!!"

"Hahaha! And yet you're running harder than anyone!"

Between Baston swinging his siege hammer and Richard swinging his war hammer, Gordon raced forward, sword flashing.

A picture ChatGPT drew for us.