The Final Struggle
The special forces unit was flustered.
Just for a moment. A very brief moment.
It was not because of the giant larger than most large monsters, nor the fortress support fire landing dangerously close, nor the fortress troops who had belatedly joined the battle by exploiting the chaos the special unit had created.
"Kyaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!"
"Aaaaaaaaaargh!!!!"
"This is driving me completely insane! Why are these things so damn tenacious!?"
Everyone in the special unit silently agreed with the knight who had finally snapped and shouted that out.
Frankly, it was irritating.
The battle itself was nothing special.
Of course the combat power of the Grizzly Beaver pack armed with metal equipment was considerable, but they were only bronze weapons and armor.
Compared to the countless battles they had endured so far, it paled completely. The high-ranking undead they had fought while breaking through were stronger, and next to the ice troll hordes swinging logs they had faced before, bronze armaments were little more than toothpicks.
Yet the Grizzly Beavers facing the special unit now charged as if throwing their lives away.
A Grizzly Beaver riddled with spears instead seized the spears and refused to let go; one that had lost its spear and shield, even after being slashed by a sword, grabbed a knight and swung him around. When its tail was severed and it lost balance, it simply crushed an adventurer party beneath its bulk. The fighting spirit that tried to bite the enemy even after collapsing from fatal wounds, the thrashing that continued right up to the brink of death unless the neck was completely cut through.
"Somehow it feels like we've become the bad guys...?"
"What nonsense is that when we're fighting monsters!"
"Damn it! I thought this would wrap up easy!"
Of course, as already said, this was mere thrashing.
The combat power of the armed Grizzly Beavers briefly flustered the special unit. In return they could not even buy meaningful time and were cut down several at a stroke.
The special unit's peak strength was no different.
Richard, Baston, and Gordon's fight looked much the same.
"Baron Bolton! Why the hell are you dragging this out so long!"
"Young man, what's taking you forever!!!"
"Argh! Please wait just a little!"
Gomot, who could demolish a small castle single-handedly by hurling boulders, swinging stone blades, raising and collapsing rock walls, was cracked all over; his left arm had long since been smashed and lay on the ground.
His armor had been wrecked ages ago. The successor, large and small wounds gaping across his fur and streaming blood, swung his obsidian magic sword and clung to Gordon with total disregard for death.
And Dru had no choice but to watch it all.
From the youngest of the young kin to the oldest.
The successor was dying.
He was witnessing the destruction of the tribe.
The future of racial prosperity that might have been was guttering out.
He wanted nothing more than to end this standoff at once and save his kin with magic. But he could not. Doing so would unleash the enemy of equal attainment at Gravestone Fortress from her leash.
Having reached the same height, Dru knew better than anyone.
The hand of destruction that had been creeping closer would then howl down like the cutting wind from beyond the mountains.
So even as the tribesmen and the successor thrashed and died, Dru prolonged the standoff with a body that should have perished long ago, clinging to a hope that would never arrive.
Swaaaaaaaaa-thud!
Even if an aura-charged longsword came flying.
"Kiiiiiiiiiiiiik!?!?!?"
"Finally!"
The precarious balance that had held until now shattered completely under a single attack.
The mana of the two archmages who had been locked in contention for initiative reverse-flowed entirely toward Dru.
"Kahaack! Cough! Grrrrgh-!"
Dru felt life draining from his chest, his back, his mouth.
And he forced his eyes wide open.
Clang-!
"You're being a nuisance!"
The successor's neck was severed.
With the successor's own sword, no less.
The one who had cut it took the blade and simply ran off with it.
Even though the proof of the chieftain had been stolen, Dru unconsciously reached out an arm at the tragic reality. Tried to reach. His arm did not move.
Instead came the pain of every muscle and every scrap of hide tearing without remainder. The rebound that had been forcibly interrupted and the accumulated price of the black magic used countless times exploded through his body.
But a fire burns brightest just before it dies.
With a sensation he had never known, Dru could at last see the enemy who had tenaciously held him from atop Gravestone Fortress beyond the blizzard.
He also saw the small male cub beside her.
And the enormous karma the male cub held—enough to blanket the entire fortress.
How could such a life form even exist? Dru, who had dabbled in every dark art including necromancy besides black magic, and whose every sense had opened on the threshold of death, was staggered.
He knew it by instinct.
That was the karma of his kin. The death-karma of the countless Grizzly Beavers who had already died and who would yet die.
He knew it by instinct.
That male cub—no.
That was the true architect of this entire catastrophe.
The demons had not betrayed them.
"Ki-kiik-"
You... you....
The death he had postponed was trying to drag him away at any second.
Yet even if his soul were shredded to ribbons, he could not die now.
Moving so much as a single finger sent pain he had never experienced before raging through Dru's entire body. Still he stretched one front paw toward the wall.
Whoooooosh-
Rejecting the fate already written, he ground his entire soul using the dust-like life force he had desperately clung to as a catalyst.
All the pain and grudges the tribe had piled up across generations.
At the price of his soul's annihilation, Dru wove the death he should originally have met yet had postponed—old age itself—into a curse.
"Hmm!?"
"This is—"
"What the hell!?"
The three Sword Masters finishing off Gomot sensed it as well.
"Crazy, why is that thing still alive!"
All three moved as if racing one another.
No—they tried to move.
Kuuuung-!
A high rock wall surged up as if to cut Dru off from the three Sword Masters.
-Yes... so that was it! Hahahaha! How bitter!-
Gomot too grasped what Dru intended.
Whatever it was, it would not be good for the enemies.
He could not allow interference.
"You worthless giant who crawled back from the dead...!!!"
Of course a Sword Master's physical ability was no decoration.
A rock wall lower even than the walls of Present.
They could clear it with a single powered leap.
But the moment the three Sword Masters crossed that wall—
A creature that should not exist.
Gooooooooh—pshuuuuuuung!!!
The curse had already been launched long ago.
Dru could no longer feel anything.
The bloody reek of himself and his kin.
The sound of undead being smashed and shattered.
The cries of suffering kin.
Even the hated wind from beyond the mountains.
Last of all he saw the male cub sent flying backward as his shield shattered under the curse, and the golden female who had been facing him all this time.
All the undead that had surrounded Afterglow Fortress and Present collapsed on the spot in unison.
Because the caster had been killed.
Compared with the fierce day-and-night fighting that had gone before, the ending was almost anticlimactic, yet no one in the fortress or the city could throw down their weapons and rest.
"Aigoo, fighting all night and now this mess."
"Edmund, stop the nonsense and move that shovel already!"
The battle was over, but the undead corpses could not simply be left. Once the weather began to warm, the bodies blanketing the entire snowfield would rise again as undead.
There was one small mercy.
In the Highland region, undead only arose naturally in the warmest part of summer.
Even so, there was no guarantee that mobilizing every soul in the city and fortress would clear the far side of the mountains and the inner reaches in time.
Of course—
"Oh, a magic stone. Lucky break?"
"Jealous, huh? There's one here too?"
"Hey! Every single undead here has a magic stone!"
"Oh Godddddddd!!!"
When greed entered the picture, the story changed.
Of course ignorance is bliss. Later most would rage at the reality that the stones were the lowest of the low grade, not even worth a round of drinks—but right now people were flipping over the unexpected windfall.
Guests, however, also gathered in twos and threes elsewhere.
"Crazy! An owlbear!"
"Retreat! Retreat! Where the hell are the adventurers!?!?!?!?!?"
Monsters and beasts hungry for the relatively intact corpses.
At first, of course, fights broke out.
But soon everyone understood.
The corpses on the field were abundant enough to satisfy everyone(?).
Before long the battlefield visitors began ignoring one another like cows and chickens sharing a pasture.
In any case every man, woman, and child of Present threw themselves into the cleanup.
And Catherine was concentrating just as hard.
"...."
"...Um, Lady Atanita?"
"Quiet!"
At her words Karem, who had stripped to the waist, lifted his head again and stood with his arms spread. Catherine glanced once at him and began running her hands over every part of his body.
Catherine was serious.
It had been a curse even she could not simply dismiss in the sudden chaos.
And this child had blocked it with nothing more than a shield, without any countermeasures.
No—since the shield had shattered under the impact, it was essentially the same as having been cursed.
Yet she felt not the slightest energy.
That was why she examined him with an even more grave attitude, reading the flow of mana.
The insidious quality of never knowing where or how it might erupt was the hallmark of black magic.
Brisket dry-brined with pepper and salt, smoked low and slow for eight hours... Clam chowder needs fresh clams, cream, onion, bacon—
Karem, on the other hand, felt like he was dying.
In several other senses of the word.
Slender, soft fingers without a single callus glided and pressed across his skin. He felt with perfect clarity the warmth of those hands on a body that had gone cold from standing half-naked for an hour.
Moreover Catherine's hair and face still held moisture.
She had bathed the moment she came down from the fortress tower.
On top of that, the decadent beauty that clung to a face deeply etched with fatigue was far too lethal for a man who had never once been close to a woman in his previous life.
And the faint, soft fragrance that drifted whenever she moved lightly shook the iron fortress he had spent the past year building and adapting to.
Of course he knew she was worried.
If he felt no gratitude he would not be human.
What employer in the world cared this much about a subordinate's health?
Across both lives, Catherine was the first for Karem.
But the situation and the conditions—ha, damn it.
Just holding onto composure and focus was already his limit.
Karem found himself absurdly proud of himself.
In the middle of that, his eyes met Gordon's.
Gordon, standing behind Catherine, grinned with open mockery, endlessly wiggling his eyebrows and flashing eye-smiles. The incomprehensible little hand signals that went with it made Karem's blood boil.
"...Suspicious. I feel nothing at all. Fine. We'll end the examination here for now. A thorough check will continue once we return to Winterhome. Then—"
Huh? Catherine rose with a yawn and looked down at Karem.
His entire upper body had flushed scarlet as if about to explode.
She turned and looked at Gordon and Mary.
The laughter in Gordon's eyes and the subtle quality in Mary's gaze.
Only then could Catherine re-examine her own situation from a third-person perspective.
The time on the fortress tower, the bath, Karem's state of undress, the way he had gone red enough to burst, everything she had been doing until a moment ago.
Even she found it a little embarrassing.
No—actually she felt her skin heating from rather a lot of embarrassment, but who was she? Catherine rapidly recited five potion recipes in her head and forcibly calmed herself.
Wait—why am I feeling embarrassed in the first place?
This was nothing more than concern for a subordinate.
He had blocked the curse the enemy had hurled at her (or not) in the end; this much worry was only natural, wasn't it?
Catherine settled on the conclusion she had reached.
She could not lose the kid over something like this.
Granted, considering their ages the whole picture looked a bit ridiculous. But a reason to be this embarrassed—here she cut the thought short.
Gordon was still sending her looks.
"...What. Mercenary. Explain the nature of that gaze."
"No. Well. I was just watching."
"Yes. And what exactly is the emotion contained in it?"
"Who knows? I don't really know myself. Feeling guilty about something, are y—"
"Shut up!"
"Ouch—"
Starting with a mana-laden kick, Gordon began bouncing every which way to avoid Catherine's dainty barrage of attacks.
Karem covered his flaming body with his clothes and lifted his head.
Mary was still giving him that subtle look.
"May I go outside the fortress now?"
"...Since the contractor has permitted it, of course."
"All right! Mammoth!"
Karem left Catherine's room in a hurry, as if something were chasing him.
In the middle of the commotion caused by the archmage's one-sided fury, Mary's head tilted slightly.
"Mammoth?"
There had been quite a few mammoths visible beneath the fortress tower.
But still—undead?
...They might look decent enough for corpses, but surely not?
Mary closed her eyes for a moment.
Then she ran through Karem's probable actions in her head.
"Oh Titania."
Mary shot out the door like a bolt.