The Art of Proof, Part 14
"Protect the lord!"
"Kill that fat bastard!"
The ones trying to defend him and the ones trying to kill him crashed into each other. But their momentum was clearly different. The defenders were rattled and stunned, while the killers charged forward with a devotion so fierce it almost felt like madness.
"Aaaah!"
Baron Baut turned and fled at the sight of the black-armored monsters that had descended from the sky, throwing themselves at the knights who came running in such a panic.
"Where do you think you're—"
And Lena gave chase. She did not care about anything else; with a single-minded desire to kill him, she hurled her spear at his back.
"Stop right there!"
At that very moment, someone barely managed to intervene and knock the spear aside. Lena, her face twisted in disgust, came to a halt and glared at the man who had deflected her weapon and barred her path.
"I know you can understand human speech."
"And?"
"What is it you want, exactly?"
The white-haired old knight, his body wiry and powerful despite his age, stood in her way with his sword leveled at Lena.
He had been with Baron Baut for a very long time and was the strongest knight in the castle. But even he was on high alert now, fully focused on the threat before him.
"What do I want? Naturally, your deaths. Why are you protecting him? Because he's the lord of this land? But if he's a lord, shouldn't he be taking care of his people? Not turning them into disgusting corpse monsters!"
"Wh-what nonsense are you spouting?"
At Lena's sneering outburst, the old knight's beard trembled. Her furious words were a little different from what he had expected.
He did know about the horrific curse that had recently swept through the domain, but he had never imagined Lena would bring it up.
Meanwhile, Baron Baut behind him had gone deathly pale, all the blood drained from his face.
"That bloated pig turned his own subjects into monsters and used them however he pleased. That's the truth of it. They're not just rampaging mindlessly, you know. They're an army following orders."
With a sneer, Lena revealed the truth to him. Whether he believed it or not did not matter. It was enough that her words made him waver.
"Perco! Ignore her and strike her down. Those are the words of a monster trying to deceive you!"
"My, my. How defensive. Looks like I hit a nerve."
That was when Baron Baut finally got a grip on himself and shouted in a trembling voice. Lena did not even blink, but hearing the cry, the old knight reflexively tightened his grip on his sword.
"In any case, if you intend to keep attacking us, I can't back down!"
Then he kicked off the ground and rushed at Lena first. Lena clicked her tongue at the sight of Baron Baut's retreating back as he fled once more, but the old knight she was facing now was clearly different from the knights she had fought so far.
"Don't get cocky, girl. There are plenty of knights in this world better than I am."
"..."
Old Knight Perco's eyes flashed. In this age, with mana training and awakening methods so developed, knights were everywhere and there were plenty of mediocre ones—but the reverse was true as well.
Lena clamped her mouth shut and frowned, focusing on taking his attacks head-on as she met his precise, lightning-fast swordsmanship and dense, solid mana.
As expected, a man with real experience was on a different level from the half-baked frontier knights she had fought until now.
Still not enough.
Lena gritted her teeth. Compared to the days when she had been forced into life-and-death struggles with nothing but a common mercenary, she had grown tremendously, but the wall standing before her was still towering.
"Looks like you've got plenty of combat experience, but that's about all. You lack finesse."
His blue-glowing blade finally split the crimson-black mana Lena had been forcing back as she retreated, snapped her spear in two, and in that same instant, he was certain of victory.
"Ghk—th-this is... miasma!?"
But at that moment, Lena, her wings spreading wide, twisted her lips into a feral grin and opened her mouth wide, spitting out a mouthful of black vapor as though expelling it in one breath.
The old knight, caught entirely off guard by the vapor, recoiled in shock—but by then, his breathing had already turned ragged, and his face began to flush red.
"You're right that I'm not very delicate with mana. I never had a teacher like you did. But it doesn't matter. That kind of fighting isn't our way."
While he staggered, veins bulging across his entire body, Lena crossed the two spears in her hands and swung them down.
"This is our way."
And the two slashes she unleashed tore through the floor and nearby objects as they flew, burying themselves in his body.
It was the basic method of attack she used: releasing mana in a single overwhelming burst with a power impossible for a human body. But the effect was excellent.
Lena trampled over his corpse, cut into four pieces and scattered in a spray of blood, and continued onward.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
"This is bad. I think we'd better leave this place!"
"Seems like we have no choice. The reinforcements that came from the Brandt domain have shattered the balance of the battlefield."
Deep within the lord's castle, there was no more time to waste. Baron Baut, having finished preparing his family for evacuation, including his young son, hurried toward the skull.
As for the skull himself, no matter what chaos raged outside, he merely muttered at the crystal orb in front of him. Within it, the scene was starkly clear: Lark, having already crushed the Brandt domain and brought reinforcements, had stormed in and begun slaughtering the zombie legion.
"That was my mistake. I failed to account for the limits of Insight, and because of that, I misunderstood the extent of my opponent's power."
"What are you talking about? That's not what's important right now. The black wasp is coming! He's trying to kill me!"
Baron Baut, already frantic, ignored the bewildered looks of his family and raised his voice at the skull he could not understand, even as it seemed to be giggling to itself.
But the skull did not hurry. On the contrary, it slowly rose to its feet, the crimson gleam in its empty sockets burning with unreadable intent.
"Of course. We can't end things here. We've already taken everything worth taking..."
"Listen to me, Diego!"
Driven half-mad by frustration, Baron Baut stomped the floor and shouted the skull's name. But then the skull raised its staff and pointed it at him.
Corpse Creation
"Urk... Gaaah...!"
The moment the staff flashed, a violent force swept through his body. Along with his family's screams, Baron Baut convulsed and twisted violently, as if he had been infected and turned into a zombie like the other citizens of the domain.
-HP
"Corpse Frenzy"
"Rampage all you want and buy me time. Useless trash."
Diego, the skull, had tucked the crystal orb into his subspace leather pouch and clicked his tongue as he watched Baron Baut—now a rampaging zombie—attack his own family.
Although his plan had failed because the opposing player's forces overwhelmed him, that didn't matter. He could slip away alone and use this as a lesson for the future.
Besides, there was no longer any need to hide his appearance or move in secret. He could turn even the lord's castle residents he had left untouched into zombies and use them as time-buying bait.
"Stand down."
"Ha! Tell your master this, wench. No, actually, he's probably watching right now! I don't know what kind of life you're living in the real world, but it's truly vicious."
Lena, who had appeared behind the skull after killing Baron Baut in a single blow as he ran wild through the lord's castle like a common zombie, clenched her teeth and hurled her spear.
But the skull blocked it with a bluish barrier and launched himself into the sky. Even then, he never took his gaze off Lena, as if inviting her to come after him if she could.
"As if I'd let you get awa—"
[2. Abandon Pursuit]
Lena naturally tried to pursue the skull, but at that moment, a stronger will forced her to give it up.
She could not resist that will. In the end, she could only grit her teeth and settle her frustration by dealing with the zombies rampaging through the castle.
"I know cleaning up the aftermath comes first, but still, it's a shame you lost him. You did win the first clash, though. Do you have any plans going forward?"
"We've already shown ourselves. Now they'll surely join forces and move to check us. We need a countermeasure and a plan for victory. Can we beat the local powers when they're united like this?"
The ones watching Lena with bitter smiles felt the same regret. At Agares's words, Hajin, watching the scene on his screen, immediately began thinking about what would come next.
Exchange Goods
"What is this?"
"It's a function that unlocks when you build a certain level of trust with a unit in the game. Literally, item exchange. A feature that lets you trade goods with each other."
A new function had appeared on his screen. The idea that he could cross the wall of space-time and exchange items with the units on the screen made his eyes widen slightly.
"How about using that function to reward your units for their accomplishments? Just looking at it, they seem like they'd be thrilled."
"If trust is the condition, why is this opening now?"
"Well... don't you already know the answer to that?"
Agares sounded almost offended by the look on his face, as if to say, What are you asking me for?
Was I the problem? Did I only just now start trusting Lena?
Hajin, too, realized the reason not long after.