The Siege of Andrassy (6)
The demon host had committed its main force against the north gate. The gate had already been blasted apart, and the wall behind it was breached. Through those two wounds in the city's defenses, a vast army of monsters was pouring in.
The castle's reserves were barely managing to hold back the infiltration squads the flying monsters kept ferrying over the walls. The ones holding a fortress that should have long since fallen were adventurers — men belonging to no banner and no army.
People who had made hunting monsters their living.
They were weaker than knights, but far stronger than common soldiers. And it wasn't as if adventurers lacked for heavyweights, either. Because the materials from high-grade monsters fetched prices beyond imagination, plenty of warriors skilled enough to become knights instead chose the freelance life, chasing coin and thrills in equal measure.
The ones holding the north gate right now were exactly that kind — veteran adventurers.
"Ralph, eyes open!"
"They're open!"
A bull-like monster came thundering toward them. Ralph thrust his enormous steel shield forward and braced into a low, forward-leaning stance.
BOOM!
It felt as though his whole body would be driven into the earth. His heels were dragging trenches through the dirt.
"HYAAAAAH!"
Ralph let out a roar and swung his shield, and the minotaur that had slammed into him staggered backward.
"That monster of a man…"
Violet clicked her tongue. The minotaur stood over three meters tall and ranked as a Grade 4. Watching Ralph hold his ground against a beast like that through sheer strength, it was no wonder the word "monster" came to mind.
"What are you doing, Violet? Finish it!"
Ralph barked urgently. Violet darted out beside him and slashed hard at the leg of the stumbling minotaur.
"GGRRRAAAAGH!"
The minotaur flailed its arms in a frenzied tantrum. Violet leapt quickly out of range. She had no hope of weathering a monster's blow the way Ralph could. What she had instead was Razor Wind — an awakening that could cut through anything, so long as she rode the direction of the wind.
Ralph held the line; Violet struck.
The minotaur couldn't withstand their combined assault for long, and at last it collapsed, hacked to ribbons.
"Haah… what a shit-fight."
Ralph swore under his breath, down on one knee. As he caught his breath, he glanced over at Violet. She had climbed atop the minotaur's carcass and was carving up its hide with her dagger.
"What are you doing?"
"What's it look like? Harvesting materials."
"Are you insane? What good's money if you're dead?"
Ralph grabbed the back of her head. Dragged backward, Violet snarled furiously.
"Ah, damn it! I got everything already!"
"Harvesting waits until the fighting's done."
"Still haven't figured it out? The second it's over, those cock-sucking bastards start swearing they made the kill."
"Focus on staying alive first, I'm telling you!"
More monsters came swarming in. Grade 5 this time — but five of them. The two of them instinctively broke off their argument and dropped into fighting stances.
"Hey, Ralph!"
Violet shouted as she cut through a Grade 5 monster's throat.
"If the goal is getting out of here alive, isn't it about time we pulled our stakes and ran?"
Ralph surveyed the area over the rim of his shield. They stood roughly three hundred meters from the north gate. Originally, they'd entrenched themselves at the fifty-meter mark.
Back then there had been fifty veteran adventurers alongside a thousand free mercenaries. Driven back some two hundred and fifty meters, half of them were already dead.
"If only the two of us bail, what happens to our reputation?"
"Wanna hear that back? What good is reputation if you're dead?"
"Reputation matters even in death."
An orc shrieked and hurled itself at him. Ralph batted it away with his shield, and the orc went flying off in a bloody pulp.
"Staying alive matters more."
"There you go with the knight nonsense again."
Violet sneered.
"Still don't get it, Ralph? We're destined to crawl through the mud our whole lives and die in it — just like this!"
Her slender blade punched clean through a monster's neck. Drenched in the blood spraying from its throat, she burst into a wild, ringing laugh.
"And the reason you never got to be a knight is Lord Iden's destiny, not yours. Everyone just lives out their own fate and moves on. So give it up already. Far as I can tell, you're not the type to die wiping some noble's ass."
Ralph pressed his lips into a hard line. A silent protest — disagreement without words.
He had failed the entrance trial for Lord Iden Esterji's knight order. After that, aimless, he had drifted for a long time, making his living as an adventurer.
Violet was a woman he'd tangled with while working as a hunter. Their awakening abilities paired well, which was why they traveled together — but their personalities mixed about as smoothly as water and oil.
"Drop dead!"
An orc warrior lunged with its spear. Ralph crushed both spear and orc into pulp with the edge of his shield. But another monster immediately filled the gap.
Fate isn't decided yet.
Ralph clenched his jaw.
Like a moth flinging itself into flame, he wanted to live without regret — even if it was all for a hollow dream.
"Hey! Focus!"
Violet's warning cut sharp through the din. A massive minotaur came charging in, shoving the orcs aside.
CRACK.
The moment Ralph blocked its club, he felt the bones in his arm splinter.
A Grade 3!
A chill ran down his spine. This one was a superior breed, a full tier above its kin. The force packed into a single strike was on another plane entirely from that first bull.
"Violet!"
Ralph shouted without looking back.
"Get out of here! Run!"
"Why all of a sudden?"
"I've made up my mind to hold this line to the end. I have to earn battle honors here if I'm ever going to catch the young lord's eye."
The minotaur hammered the shield again. The coldsteel plate groaned and buckled. Ralph clung to it with both hands and screamed with everything he had left.
"But you're different! Unlike me, you're a free spirit. A real adventurer. So let's end it here — you and me."
"Ah, I see. Send me off so you can hoard the Grade 4 materials all to yourself?"
"Violet, damn it—!"
Violet shot forward. Her blade bit into the minotaur's thigh. But even with her awakening unleashed, the sword managed only a shallow gash across the muscle.
"Tch!"
She clicked her tongue in frustration. Ralph looked into her eyes. They were the eyes of someone who had accepted death. She had no intention of abandoning him. Which meant Ralph had no choice but to change his mind too.
"HYAAAAH!"
Ralph slammed his shield into the minotaur's belly. In the same instant, the beast's fist crashed into his flank. The impact hurled him sprawling across the ground.
"Ugh…"
Several ribs felt broken. His muscles had come apart in strands; his limbs refused to obey him. Face down in the dirt, Ralph stared up at Violet with dead, helpless eyes.
"Ah… fuck."
Violet let out a hollow laugh as she looked up at the minotaur towering over her.
No.
Ralph screamed inside. In all his years as an adventurer, he had always been Violet's shield. She had no defensive ability of any kind.
CRUNCH.
A terrible sound. Violet's small body went flying backward like a snapped kite, trailing its string. Ralph hauled himself up on a broken leg. He stumbled and fell, fell and rose again, and finally shoved the minotaur aside.
"Violet!"
He sprinted over and checked her condition. Blood was coming from her nose and mouth — and the blood was dark, nearly black. A sign of organ damage.
He cleared her airway first. Violet coughed up pink-tinged foam. Struggling to lift her trembling lashes, she flicked her eyes toward the space behind Ralph.
"Hey — I said keep your eyes open."
Ralph turned. The minotaur was right on top of him. He raised his right hand on pure reflex — and realized there was no shield in it.
Solitas…
For one instant, the world seemed to stop. The minotaur raising its club overhead looked unbearably, endlessly slow.
And then, while everything still hung in that slow motion, a single bolt of lightning came down and skewered the beast.
"GGUUUOOOAAAH!"
The minotaur was charred to cinders while still standing. Ralph felt gooseflesh race across his entire body. Static electricity made his hair stand on end with it.
From the sky, a white-haired boy drifted down like a snowflake, leisurely as a bird. He touched down on the charred minotaur's carcass light as a feather.
The moment Ralph laid eyes on the boy, his heart pounded like a child's drum. There was no mistaking who he was. Ralph had once dreamed of devoting everything he had to that boy. And the dream was still alive.
"IDEN ESTERJI!"
A shout rose from the demon lines. A demon noble who had recognized Iden flung out an arm and bellowed across the field.
"That's their commander! Kill that one and the victory is ours!"
Ralph saw it. The boy at whom every finger now pointed wore an attitude of boundless composure.
"Thunderclap of the Vault of Heaven."
The lightning went feral. Ralph couldn't find a better word for it — feral was what it was. Whips of electric light coiled like dragons and burned the monsters to ash without regard for rank or breed.
"Sea of Raging Flames."
Next, a colossal wall of fire rose like a wave. The two walls — fire and lightning — swept the length of the enemy's column, erasing the monster troops that had stretched out along the road.
Ralph doubted his own eyes. The enemy elite force that had cost them hundreds of lives over two hundred and fifty meters was melting away like something beneath contempt, like chaff.
The climax came with the enemy's siege giant. When Ralph saw the hill giant that had torn down the city gate split clean in two at a single gesture from Iden, he knew in his gut that the war was over.
"Retreat! RETREAT!"
"RUN!"
The sight of the giant splitting apart like a broken toy struck friend and foe alike as an enormity beyond comprehension. The enemy — demons and monsters alike — wheeled about and fled. Iden hammered fire and thunder into their fleeing backs without pause.
Ralph just stared, dumbstruck, like a man watching a spectacle from across a river. Which was why, when Iden turned and looked at him, he startled like a man who'd met a ghost.
"Are you all right?"
"Yes, we're fine—"
Mid-answer, Ralph realized the question hadn't been meant for him.
"—she is not. She needs treatment, urgently."
"I was on my way back from sorting out the medical tents. She can be treated in the rear."
"Th-thank you!"
Ralph answered, flustered. He could hardly believe he was being shown this kind of consideration by his future lord. The instant Iden turned to go, Ralph shouted after him.
"It's Ralph!"
He raised his voice again at Iden's retreating back.
"Ralph, of Andrassy! Remember my name, my lord!"
Iden's footsteps slowed for a moment, and a finger rose to point back at him. It was enough to make Ralph feel as if he were dreaming.
"…Aiya, aiya."
Ralph snapped back to his senses.
"Wow. You're dead serious, huh. Filling out your own recommendation like that."
Violet had meanwhile pushed herself upright and was propped against the wall.
"How's the body?"
"Even I can take one hit."
"That wasn't taking a hit, that was dying."
"Agh, just say I took it. Spare my pride."
"You took it great. Happy?"
Violet fished a dried herb roll from her coat. With shaking fingers she managed, barely, to light it. Against a battlefield where bolts of fire rained without end, the white smoke curled slowly upward.
"Then again…"
Violet snickered, watching Iden's back.
"I could probably wipe that ass for him too, at this point."