Too Many Cards to Die Quietly

"How… how the hell are you still alive?!"

At Laud's frost-sharp roar, Messi let out a dry little chuckle.

"I had too many cards in my hand to just lie down and die."

With that brief reply he whipped his sling and sent a stone screaming through the air. Laud slipped it with almost insulting ease. Too much to hope for, then.

His senses ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠were already telling him as much. The man locked with Ramang was a cut above Ken and Vlado. Worse, the crimson aura coiling around Laud's body was painfully familiar — the same phenomenon that had appeared when Ken and Vlado had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠used a Red Scroll.

"Looks like he's using that same strange magic."

"Black magic… the Red Cross Magic College? That enhancement spell, and this barrier… I haven't been able to smell a thing around here for a while. They must've done something with black magic."

His master had told him about them once — lunatics who committed every kind of atrocity in the name of reviving and researching the dark arts. Those lunatics, it seemed, had managed to produce something genuinely useful. If there was no scent at all, then the smell of blood wasn't a concern either, was it?

"Messi, run! I'll pin this bastard down — you go tell the Young Master what's happening here!"

Ramang, who had been slumped on the ground, suddenly hurled himself at Laud. They had barely crossed blades before it ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was obvious he was being driven back.

I can't just abandon Sir Ramang… If I save his life here, he'll be a card I can play for as long as I need. He's that kind of man.

Ramang was a stubborn, earnest soul. A debt of gratitude was something he would spend a lifetime trying to repay. And besides — the only one who could even weather a single exchange with Laud was Ramang. Losing him here would make the road ahead all but impossible.

Better, then, to bring the bastard down right here.

Messi sent another stone screaming. Laud slipped it without breaking stride, still fencing with Ramang as though the sling were a mild inconvenience.

His reaction speed and field of vision are a cut above Sir Ramang's. That's a realm above Lavish.

Keeping his distance, Messi kept the sling whirling, circling wide, hunting for a blind spot. He had thrown more than ten stones before something finally flickered across Laud's blank face. Annoyance.

"A mosquito that just won't quit."

"Messi…! Y-you fool! Can you not hear a word I'm saying?!"

Ramang had thrown himself in to buy time. Instead, Messi had given up on running and joined the fight. For a man like Ramang, it was enough to make him want to tear his hair out.

Then came the blow he never saw. In the split second Laud's attention flicked toward Messi, a kick erupted from below — and Ramang, too late to even register it, took the full force in the ribs.

The impact was enough to bury a man in full plate in the forest floor. Ramang's ribs screamed. Even so, he had to get his head clear, and fast. If he gave up here, Messi would die.

"Kh…!"

"Sir Ramang, I'll just go swat that mosquito. You sit tight and rest."

"You filthy bastard — kill me and then go! You betrayed us and now you've forgotten even the first rule of a fight?!"

"Haha. Killing that outlander in front of you will hurt far more, I think. Keep those eyes wide open. I want you to watch every second."

He slipped one more incoming stone, then drove off the ground and tore straight at Messi.

"N-no! Run!"

Ramang's heart sank. Messi had clawed his way back from the dead — and now there was nothing he could do to save him.

Even as Laud closed the distance, Messi showed not the slightest intention of fleeing. He simply held a small pouch out in front of him.

Laud ignored the outlander's bizarre little performance. He was already bringing his sword down, meaning to split pouch and man in a single stroke.

That was when Messi called out.

"Hey~ I know you followed me all the way here! If you don't come out right now, your princess dies!"

What the hell is he talking about…?

Even in the middle of the cut, confusion snagged at him. A man about to die, grinning without a trace of fear?

A strange unease crawled up his spine. And that instinct was right.

A violent crack split the air — and a black harpoon came screaming out of the trees.

The force packed into it was nothing he could ignore. Laud yanked his descending blade back and caught the attack on the steel.

The collision detonated. His ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠body was hurled backward; he turned a reverse somersault and landed, and even then the force shoved his boots through the dirt.

That attack… he knew it. And it was an attack that had no business appearing here.

It can't be…

Laud stared into the forest, unable to believe it. The thing walking out of those trees was a fatal variable that had no place in his plan.

Thud. Thud.

The General Ant.

A humanoid ant, gripping a weapon shaped like an antenna. The same creature from the Ant Tunnels. The wounds it had taken then seemed to have healed; it looked whole.

"How — why is that thing even here?!"

Question and scream tangled in Laud's throat. Watching from the ground, Ramang was no less stunned.

No… why is that thing coming out of there?

The General Ant's sudden appearance was absurd — but Ramang, who had crossed blades with it one-on-one, knew better than anyone how strong it was. As an enemy, it was despair. As an ally, it was a fortress.

"You filthy outlander bastard — so you've been in bed with the ants!"

"Still better than a traitor who threw his own lord away."

"What did you just say, you outlander—"

"Yeah. A mutt who betrayed his own master. You're not a knight anymore. You're nothing."

He realized, then, that he had no moral high ground left to stand on. All it did was make his blood boil.

"I'll kill you… I swear I will kill you!"

"You were going to kill me anyway. Don't act like it's news. General — handle him."

He said it as if the creature walking out of the trees were his own subordinate. The General Ant's huge compound eyes — they took up a full third of its face — locked onto Messi. It was a look heavy with things unsaid, pointed and meaningful. Messi, for his part, was shamelessly unbothered.

"What? So you're not going to fight?"

The General Ant seemed to heave something like a sigh. Then it thudded forward and squared off against Laud.

"General, stall him. Drag it out as long as you can. That enhancement magic of his isn't going to last."

He felt rather like a trainer barking orders at a Pokemon. No… the General Ant was closer to a Digimon.

The antenna-blade came up. In that stance, the General Ant was every inch a knight ready for war, and Laud felt it in his bones.

That's Brillant-rank at a minimum… If Ramang joins in behind it, there's no winning this. I put this thing down as fast as I can.

Ahental Swordsmanship's sword intent had always been speed. Pressed now, Laud's blade came out even faster — fast enough, he was sure, to rattle anything on the receiving end.

A streak of light lanced at the General Ant. It simply turned its head and let the cut whisper past, then answered.

Slip the blow. Step in.

In a blink the General Ant was inside Laud's guard, driving the pommel of its weapon up into his solar plexus.

Laud caught the pommel-strike on the palm of a steel gauntlet and locked with it, strength against strength — then felt, almost at once, that there was no winning that contest, and gave ground.

Even as he opened the distance, the General Ant did not pause. Its unique weapon unfurled joint by joint, lengthening into a whip, and began to lash.

Every flick of the General Ant's wrist put a dozen transformations into that antenna-whip, as though some exquisite, unorthodox technique from the martial world were unfolding in steel. It feinted at Laud's shoulder and snapped onto the hand that held his sword. It seemed to miss and strike the ground, then ricocheted up from a blind angle to continue the assault.

A vicious crack.

"Kh — you damned insect…!"

The ant's whip-blade had caught him across the forearm and torn past. Fortunately it was the unedged section — impact only. Even so the damage was ugly; the muscle beneath was already trembling.

Thud. Thud.

So this was what it felt like to be worked over. The General Ant's chaotic, shifting offense kept finding the gaps in his guard, bleeding him with a thousand small cuts. His body was starting to feel heavy.

He had not been falling back for ten seconds before he admitted the mistake. Opening the distance had been the wrong call.

An assault that fifty men together had once barely managed to receive, and he was trying to take it alone. His eyes, his arms, his legs were all suddenly too slow. His mind was a mess.

And then—

The sling sang again.

God damn it.

He could no longer afford to ignore Messi's stones. The outlander fought as if he knew Ahental Swordsmanship inside and out, picking out only the points that would wreck a stance and putting a rock through each one.

Urgency took him. Laud's sword grew wilder, more linear than before. And the more it did, the more obvious every cut became in the General Ant's eyes — which slipped them cleanly and answered in kind.

Laud wanted to scream.

The situation, however, was not finished with him.

"Die, you filthy traitor!"

A few stolen breaths had been enough. Ramang, strength returning, threw himself back into the fight.

"Damn it!"

The General Ant, as if it had understood Messi's orders perfectly, kept stalling, whittling him down with chip damage. Ramang came on in a blind fury, ready to spend his own life if it meant putting a traitor in the ground. And Messi's sling-stones kept finding the seams, wrecking his form just enough to be impossible to ignore.

Too many variables. His mind felt close to overload. Even Laud had to admit the situation was sliding out of his hands. His body was growing heavier by the second.

I can't keep this up… Better to put Ramang down first. He's already hurt — I can finish him fast.

Rushing to clean up the General Ant had been an arrogant plan, and he knew it now.

The moment he faced reality and set his mind on killing Ramang first, a flash of light lanced toward the wounded knight.

Color flooded back into Ramang's face. Even the blood trailing from his lips was gone.

It can't be…

Laud's eyes snapped to the source of the light. In the dark of the forest, it burned all the brighter.

Messi's Heal. The moment his wounds closed, Ramang began pouring out Ahental Swordsmanship the way he had at the start of the fight.

"Haha! That Heal's doing a damn fine job!"

"You little— damn it…!"

And then the Heal that had been shining on Ramang drifted, just for a breath, across Laud himself — and was gone.

Faint as the touch had been, Laud felt his condition tick upward.

You idiot! You used a Heal on me too?!

It meant nothing almost at once. A few of the General Ant's crushing blows, a handful of Ramang's cuts weathered by a hair, and that scrap of recovered condition was gone. Meanwhile Ramang and the General Ant, bathing in a continuous Heal, were only getting sharper.

Part of it was their recovery, yes — but he was dulling, too. The black magic's duration was running out.

Laud's confidence was sinking, inch by inch.

How did it come to this?

Before they had even reached Benuda Village, the plan had been perfect. It had all gone according to the First Young Master's design.

From feeding the Young Master information about the Ancient Ruins, to forging the documents and passing them to Ramang. On the road here he had drawn in a pack of orcs to bleed the mercenary company. Wounded men meant that once they entered the Forest of Resentment, the monsters would come swarming.

The Young Master would have used the villagers and the mercenaries as a meat shield — and even so, he would have been swept under and killed in the monster wave.

A bloodless, tearless murderer who had dragged even innocent villagers to their deaths. An incompetent lord who had gotten every last mercenary, and every knight who was like his own right hand, killed. Laud would have been the sole survivor, returning to testify, and the whole affair would have been wrapped up without a seam.

That had been the plan.

This perfect picture — how the hell did it end up like this?!

A stone hissed past his cheek. And in that instant, Laud understood who had wrecked it all.

Yes. Him.

It started the moment that one showed up… Everything went sideways. My greatest mistake was not killing the guide the second I had the chance.

The first time he had seen him in the village, he had dismissed him as an outlander and thought nothing of it. Even when Messi had warned them about the dangers of the Forest of Resentment, Laud had believed nothing essential would change. A small wrinkle, that was all.

When they had decided to push through the Ant Tunnels, he had been pleased — they were walking into a deathtrap of their own accord. He had a black-magic scroll; he had been confident he could escape no matter what.

But they had broken through the Ant Tunnels. They had reached the Woodsman's Fortress. The Young Master — a man Laud had never even heard of in his life — had given Messi his recognition.

That was when Laud had understood that Messi had to die.

The problem was that he had understood it too late.

He should have cut him down before he ever had to watch the man stand at his back, throwing stones and casting Heals, while he himself was the one in the noose.

No…!

Laud felt the strength draining out of his body. The black magic on him had run its course.

A long, fading hiss. The crimson aura began to bleed away. If this kept up, he would be dead in moments.

In that case—

"…Then I'm taking you with me!"

"What—?!"

He detonated every last reserve in his body, smashed aside Ramang's and the General Ant's attacks in a single burst, and used that heartbeat of an opening to hurl himself at Messi.

"DIIIEEEE!!!"

Laud ran with every scrap of obsession he had left. Spittle ran from his mouth; the whites of his eyes were shot with dark blood. He looked like a madman. He raised his sword. The cut had the weight of a mountain in it. He put no thought into defense. Every ounce of what remained went into a single blow.

Even as Laud closed, Messi only smiled. From his coat he drew something out.

A Red Scroll.

"…?!"

Horror broke across Laud's face.

The instant Messi tore it, a crimson aura wrapped him from head to heel. And he was not finished.

Messi pulled a gem from his coat, clenched his fist, and crushed it. In an instant the mana flooding into his body was amplified, and a fierce, overflowing fullness rolled through him.

"You think the likes of you using those will change a damn thing?!"

To Laud, Messi was still nothing more than a weakling who could not even handle mana.

Messi's answer was different.

"Yeah."

Click. Click. Messi's wrist rolled with the idle habit of a knight — one Laud knew in his bones.

"…What?"

Ahental Swordsmanship erupted from Messi's blade. A single flash of sword-light, so bright it hurt to look at, was born in the mouth of the scabbard and tore toward Laud.

In that instant, Laud lived the strange experience of watching the world slow to a crawl.

His own all-or-nothing cut drifted down toward Messi's skull as if through water. The sword-light that had exploded from Messi's scabbard, by contrast, was already racing for his throat.

His mind filled with questions.

Why, after living all this time as a knight of Ahental, had he chosen a mere overhead chop for the one strike he had staked everything on?

Why was Ahental Swordsmanship unfolding not from his own hands, but from that outlander's?

And what did it mean that everything before him was moving so slowly now?

He understood at once.

Ah. So this is my life flashing before my eyes.

A wet, shearing sound.

A searing heat at his throat, and at the same instant his vision spun. The black earth rushed up to meet his eyes, and Laud's consciousness snapped.

In the instant before it went out, he saw her — the wife who had always greeted him with a smile.

Mary.