Chapter 208: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception (2)
Translator: RaidenTL
Chapter 208: The Tin Knight and The Forest of Deception (2)
"Go back."
Those were the last words their lord left for his knights.
It was a command given in a moment of mortal peril, as they fought against an endless tide of encroaching enemies.
For the first time since their birth, the knights protested against their lord.
Our lord. Our great lord.
Our lord, to whom we have sworn our swords, our loyalty, and our lives without reservation.
Our respected lord, heir to the blood of noble heroes, renowned as the finest in the kingdom.
How can you say such a thing?
How can you issue such an unjust command?
If there is any life here that must return, it is yours, our lord. How can you command us to commit the disloyalty of leaving you behind?
"If I try to flee, the enemy will never let me go. But if I stay, they will focus on me."
"So, you must go. You must return and tell them what happened here. That is my final command to you."
The knights swallowed their surging passion and tears.
Their lord, and the comrades who had chosen to remain and fight alongside him, comforted them.
The knights wished to stay as well, but tragically, there was no time for argument.
Leaving the wounded lion to its valiant rampage, the knights chosen as messengers fled.
Their breath came in ragged gasps, and their fatigue-ridden bodies felt impossibly heavy, but still, the knights did not stop.
The humiliation of being a knight forced to flee, abandoning the lord to whom they had sworn fealty.
Compared to the misery of leaving their lord as bait instead of protecting him or fighting by his side, the pain of the flesh was a trivial matter.
A blade as sharp as a guillotine lopped off the head of one of the knights.
A spear of rock, erupting from the ground, impaled another.
One was consumed by flames, his skin melting away, while another was swept up in a wave of cold, turned into a living statue.
And yet, they did not stop.
They had to return.
They had to return.
To carry out their lord's command, to avenge the bitter spirits of their fallen comrades, to find out the cause of this nightmare.
They fought with every last ounce of their strength, hoping that even one might survive to fulfill that wish.
And they failed.
It was a catastrophic failure.
A brutal death.
Their lord's struggle, their comrades' devotion, their own desperate flight—it all vanished, rendered worthless.
The enemy, as if to leave no trace, scoured the scars of battle from the land. The knights left behind no keepsakes, no last words, not even their corpses.
Worse, the enemy used necromancy to tear apart the very souls that lingered in the earth.
And so, it seemed that everything was over.
"─Shall I help you?"
A voice awakened the knights.
It gathered the knights who had been shattered into pieces, who had lost their intellect and sense of self, and were scattered like mere fragments of thought.
"If you want, I can help."
It was a beautiful girl.
A girl as dark as jet-black.
A girl who suited the red flower decoration in her hair.
With a face as innocent and pure as a child's, the girl extended her hand to them.
"Here, tell me what you desire. What do you want?"
A knight, once small but nimble, approached the girl.
A knight, once praised for having the greatest strength in the domain, took her hand.
A knight, once known for his witty banter with the soldiers, opened his mouth.
The knights, once many but now a single mass, answered the girl.
Let me (us) return.
It was a prayer.
A desperate, earnest wish.
To that wish, the girl responded with an angelic face.
"Alright, I'll help you. Well, it's fifty-fifty whether you'll succeed or not."
As she spoke, the girl handed them a small seed.
At that moment, vitality bloomed within their bodies, which had been nothing more than intangible phantoms.
But it was faint.
"Now, go and fulfill your wish. But you must be careful. Once a wish is forgotten, it's hard to remember it again."
With those final words, the girl vanished.
She hadn't told them how to create a body, but they already knew instinctively.
Slash!
The necromancer, who had been disposing of the remaining victims' souls in the forest as if taking out the trash, became the first sacrifice.
Slash!
A mage, who had gone looking for the necromancer, annoyed that he hadn't returned, was next.
Slash!
The subordinates sent by a mage from the tower to assess the situation were added to the list.
Slash!
The mage who, belatedly realizing something was wrong, tried to contact the tower became their prey mid-call.
The seed, planted in the heart of the knights, converted all of it into their power.
Their phantom-like presence grew stronger, and their bodies filled with might.
Nevertheless, they did not stop.
Far from stopping, they craved more blood and slaughter.
To return, they could not be hindered.
To not be hindered, they had to kill all who would hinder them.
To kill the hinderers, they had to devour more lives.
It didn't matter that this drew more obstructors, making their path back even more difficult.
They no longer possessed the reason to make such judgments.
Why they had to return, what they had to do when they got there—the knights did not know.
Perhaps they once knew, but their souls were now too mangled to recall it.
The girl's advice not to forget their wish had long been lost amidst the soul-burning thirst for revenge and slaughter.
A purposeless specter. A corrupted soul. The remnants of once-honorable knights, now sowing death.
Something that had become a single entity, forgetting all individual names, with only the name they were once collectively known by remaining.
The Death Knight, ‘Friedel’, discovered another group of obstructors and charged.
"Keuk!"
"It's a Death Knight! How—how did it get so close without being detected!?"
"Report to Lord Rognir! Quickly!"
*
It didn't take long to realize a battle had broken out.
The intense pulse of mana and the sound of explosions could be felt even from a distance. The tingling on my skin was proof that all sorts of attack magic were being unleashed.
Inside the speeding carriage, Sophia asked me, "Was it alright to leave Sir White Knight behind?"
"Couldn't be helped."
The White Knight, ordered by Gale to 'protect the party,' had tried to follow us, but I had shaken him off, not hesitating to use the half-threat that his master would be in trouble if he came along.
And that threat was no exaggeration.
"We don't have any real foundation or position in the Magic State, so if things go south, we can just bolt somewhere else. But it's different for Gale. If a conspicuous guy like that is with us, forget hiding our identities, we'll be found out immediately."
If word got out that the star pupil of the Witch of the North and a 4th rank mage of the Tower of Protection had picked a fight with an elite unit from the Tower of Control, the fallout would be a headache just to think about.
Of course, even with this, those who wanted to find fault would dig through our past actions to do so, but as long as he didn't participate in the battle directly, there would at least be room for excuses.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ says that the person in question probably wouldn't care, and that you're worrying too much!]
"It's not about whether he cares or not. It's about whether I end up owing him or not."
I spoke bluntly, but no one here believed that was my true reason.
The Tin Knight wanted to tease me a bit more and see my reaction, but unfortunately, he couldn't.
Ahead of the carriage, a massive fireball came flying through the darkness of the night.
Fwoosh!
The Tin Knight leaped forward and swung his shield, and the fireball exploded on impact.
[The ‘Tin Knight’ notes that the power isn't bad, but using a highly visible flame in the middle of the night is a bit questionable!]
Naturally, no one answered the Tin Knight.
Instead, a barrage of various spells flew at us.
My right hand, clad in its navy glove, activated its power, storing the horse and carriage.
My pitch-black staff let out a cry, blocking every incoming spell.
My eyes grew cold as I assessed the utterly lethal power of each attack.
The mages' attacks showed no signs of restraint.
If they knew the carriage's identity, it meant they were attacking despite knowing Gale might be inside. If they didn't know, it meant they were trying to kill whoever it was simply for approaching.
In that case, there's no need for me to hold back either, I thought, drawing up my mana.
The spirits I had gathered while scouting wrapped around our bodies like a fluttering curtain.
It had no defensive capabilities, but it was a rather useful spell for concealing our appearances.
"Go!"
The moment the camouflage spell was complete, I released the staff's barrier.
As if waiting for that signal, two shadows—one gold, one gray—shot forward.
Of course, the enemy didn't go down easily.
They hid themselves in the darkness while simultaneously sending out their respective familiars to block the Tin Knight and Adelaide's approach.
The types of familiars were varied.
There were Golems, spirits, and even a few magic dolls.
They used all sorts of threatening abilities to hold back the Tin Knight and Adelaide, buying time for their masters to cast new spells.
It was a textbook mage battle.
However.
Slash!
CRASH!
A fish-shaped spirit was shattered into dozens of pieces.
A stone golem, easily over two meters tall, was sent flying like a kicked ball.
In the pitch-black darkness, I could feel the enemy's silent astonishment.
Barring some extraordinary exception, a familiar's performance is proportional to the mage's skill. Familiars handled by the tower's elite were beings capable of slaughtering dozens of soldiers on their own.
For them to be knocked aside in a single blow like mere small fry, the enemy's shock was understandable.
If they knew that I, watching from the rear, was thinking, 'They must be high-level, since he's dealing with them one by one instead of wiping them out in a single sweep,' they might have been struck speechless with a mix of bewilderment and indignation.
Of course, I wasn't just spectating.
Spirits, imbued with my mana, clung to the mages and cursed them, while the poison mist I had spread around my body sought to poison our foes.
It was a tactic that could have caught Adelaide in the crossfire—the Tin Knight being an undead was another matter—but Sophia's holy power was protecting Adelaide, allowing me to freely spam indiscriminate wide-area attacks.
The enemies were also highly skilled, each attempting to resist with their own magic, so the actual effect was minimal, but that was enough.
While the mages were tied up dealing with my necromancy, my two vanguards had pulverized all of their familiars.
And unless you were an unusual type like Gale, the fate of a mage who had lost their front line was obvious.
"Keuk!"
After lightly cutting down the mages blocking our path, our party advanced deeper into the forest, toward the place where the signs of a fierce battle were emanating.