Chapter 53
The voices of the ten knight trainees trembled faintly.
“Do you really want to fight?”
“Yes! We want to fight!”
I believed in the sincerity of their words.
I trusted the sweat they had shed until now.
“…..Kill them all!”
“Waaaaah!”
The knight trainees charged. There was no strategy.
All they had to do was cut down the quokkas leaping at them.
There were about seventy quokkas. We had seventeen on our side. What we lacked in numbers, we would make up for in skill.
“Inferno, go wild.”
Inferno dove into the group of quokkas. Like the hellfire it was named after, it roared and incinerated them. The quokkas’ deep brown fur burned easily.
The moment a scorched one strayed from formation, a knight’s sword came crashing down.
Rumble!
Quokkas were vulnerable to fire.
Those hit directly by fireballs never got back up.
“Dimes.”
Dimes appeared before me.
A dark orb that absorbed light.
“Blind those beasts.”
Dimes descended upon the quokkas. Enshrouded in shadow, they panicked and leapt about. Even the marked quokka leader shrieked in confusion, letting out a sharp ‘Kiiieeek’.
With the spirits joining the battle, the tide turned in our favor. But we still hadn’t revealed our full strength.
“Bloodie.”
The spirit of blood, displeased by its own name, responded irritably.
—What?
“Let’s begin.”
The blood inside me surged.
The remnants of emotion buried deep in the abyss floated to the surface. Those fragments tried to dominate my feelings, my mind, and even my body.
My power was rising.
Baaaaaaaaa!
Syang rammed into a quokka.
At that exact moment, I leapt from its back.
Swish!
My sword sliced down the quokka’s spine.
The nearby quokkas scattered in all directions after seeing one of their own slain instantly.
They tried to deceive my eyes with swift movements.
Swish! Swish! Swish!
Quokka hide was tough, but an aura-infused blade could cut through it.
Then it happened.
Kiiiiiiieeek!
The quokka leader screamed, and the ones hit by fireballs, who should’ve been dead, suddenly sprang back to their feet.
‘Playing dead!’
Quokkas were monsters known to feign death when faced with a predator. But never had there been a case where they used that skill offensively.
This had to be the marked one’s trick.
“Gaaaah!”
One of the rider’s arm was torn off. He screamed and swung his sword wildly, but four quokkas pounced, tearing into his head.
“Formation!”
Ambrod shouted, and the knights and knight trainees rallied around him. They moved in surprisingly good sync, or rather, Ambrod led them well.
‘So this is the difference a viscount’s knight commander makes.’
That ambush had killed three knight trainees and wounded Knight Loka.
Ambrod didn’t panic.
As if he had anticipated the attack all along, he calmly fended off the quokkas and reorganized into a solid defensive stance.
“Open the central gate! Combine!”
The cavalry that had split left and right converged again.
As they regrouped, they slashed skillfully at the quokkas and broke to the west, where the encirclement was weakest. It wasn’t a retreat, it was a move to gain acceleration, something only cavalry could do.
Dududududu!
While the cavalry temporarily withdrew, I charged straight into the quokka group.
I held the sword I’d named ‘Serenade’.
Serenade, which I had taken after pursuing the Sardia Bloodline, held a hidden mechanism.
A slight twist beneath the hilt would release a hidden needle, triggering a spell.
The sword that had accepted me as its master and devoured my aura.
Click! Click! Clank clank clank!
Iron oozed from the hilt of the sword and wrapped around my forearm.
An armor had formed. At the same time, the blade of the sword grew even sharper.
“Bloodie, scatter the blood!”
—Drink the blood, you beasts! Be drunk on it! Breathe in my scent! Fall under my spell! I am the spirit of blood, the origin of life itself! Hahahahaha!
Bloodie sprayed a mist of blood. It had come from my own body, and it had the effect of luring monsters.
As the blood scattered, the eyes of the quokkas changed. Even the leader, who had kept a cool head while commanding its subordinates, lost control and lunged at me in a frenzy.
Clang! Clang! Clang! Clang!
If they were trying to flee, it might’ve been a different story. But those charging at me were easy prey. Serenade was sharp, and the armor now covering my forearm was sturdier than any ordinary armor.
Kergh!
I stabbed the leader through the throat. It couldn’t resist, just writhed a bit before dying. Among the marked monsters, this one was relatively easy to deal with.
“…Incredible.”
The young knight Solon praised me.
Judging by the expressions of the other knights, they were equally astonished.
“You’re just weak. I suppose I’ll have to revise your training schedule.”
While the knights’ sharp gazes focused on Solon, I turned my attention toward Hebron. I’d heard something from that direction.
‘What? Why is Hebron’s army coming here?’
Gaius, who I thought had retreated to the lord’s manor, was returning in a carriage, followed by Hebron’s soldiers. It seemed he had used his royal power to mobilize them.
Sticking his head out the carriage window, Gaius shouted urgently.
“Viscount Hebron, please save my guards, too!”
“Where are the guards, Your Highness?”
Gaius pointed toward the road he’d just traveled.
“Back that way. I’ve been riding for more than ten minutes, but I’m not sure of the exact distance. There were too many monsters, so I fled first. My guards said they’d buy me time to escape.”
“There were more quokkas than this?”
“Far too many to count. And I saw a few red-furred quokkas.”
I glanced back at the quokkas.
Ordinary quokkas were only as dangerous as blood wolves, but red quokkas were in an entirely different class. By mercenary standards, normal quokkas were C-rank, while red ones were A-rank.
It takes at least three or four knights working together to take down a single red quokka.
“How many… did you see?”
“I saw three myself.”
Red quokkas were not only physically powerful, but could also breathe fire like dragons. Their flames rivaled those of a mid-tier fire spirit.
‘Gaius has disturbed the hive. Damn it.’
I began to doubt whether aligning with Gaius had been the right decision.
I gave an order to the cavalry.
“Contact the outpost immediately and send a messenger hawk. This is a state of emergency.”
“Yes, sir!”
“Your Highness, please retreat to Hebron for now.”
“Put your full strength into holding them back. What is this world coming to, tsk tsk…”
The world was far more peaceful than Gaius believed, at least until someone like him came along and disrupted the natural order, trampling into territories that weren’t his.
He didn’t understand the chaos he had brought. And likely, he never would, not even at the moment of his death.
With a relieved expression, as if his job were done, he turned around and began retracing his path.
“Ambrod, prevent the quokkas from entering the estate.”
“Yes, sir!”
Ambrod deployed his soldiers with five knights at his side.
Quokkas didn’t just look like giant squirrels. They moved with speed and agility and could leap through the trees, which meant heavily forested areas actually gave them the advantage.
Ambrod withdrew his soldiers, and I advanced with the slave soldiers.
Despite being formidable monsters, quokkas were still beasts, driven by instinct.
“El, observe the enemy’s movements.”
“Yes, my lord.”
El, the wind spiritist, summoned five lowest-tier wind spirits. Five bluish birds flew off in different directions. They shared their vision with El, but this ability rapidly drained her spirit energy.
A moment later, El screamed.
“Five hundred, no, a thousand! I-I can’t tell! I’ve never seen so many monsters in my life!”
The thought of over a thousand giant squirrel-like monsters clustered together sent chills rippling through my entire body.
Could we really stop something like this?
“Follow me.”
“Yes, sir!”
I led 200 slave soldiers. A hundred of them were still trainees and fairly unskilled, but none of them would dare ignore my commands.
El stood by my side, relaying battlefield intel as the wind spirits fed her information.
“…Estimated at around 1,200. Two corpses believed to be guards have been found.”
There was a reason I had brought only the slave soldiers.
It was a matter of security, I couldn’t allow others to witness my abilities.
My plan was to reduce the number of quokkas using my power, then let our allied forces sweep up the rest.
“Dimes, bring out Iredem!”
Dimes retrieved Durahan’s skull from the realm of darkness. I threw it and shouted.
“Iredem!”
Iredem possessed the skull.
Dark energy wafted thick around it as the skull slowly rose into the air beside me.
“You will guard the rear. Do not scatter, hunt down the quokkas as they pour into the pass. No acting independently. If you retreat, you all retreat together. I’ll leave the judgment to El.”
The slave soldiers drew their swords and lined up. Being slaves didn’t mean they felt no fear. Their emotions hadn’t been erased.
But I could overlay commands atop their instincts.
Leaving the soldiers behind, I advanced with Syang.
Rumble…!
The ground shook violently.
The group of over a thousand quokkas stampeded forward, shaking the area like a tidal wave. Even the wild beasts fled in fear.
“Iredem, it’s time to show your power.”
Iredem began absorbing my aura. The skull he had possessed belonged to Durahan. Known as the headless knight, Durahan was famed for carrying a skull harder than steel and fighting with it.
From the skull, a torrent of death energy poured out. It quickly formed a torso, then shaped into a lower body.
A full-bodied knight had emerged.
“Can you keep up?”
—Death always follows life.
“I’m counting on you.”
Iredem hovered close to my side.
Syang began to pick up speed, and Iredem glided through the air. If he truly willed it, he could probably fly faster than Syang.
—It looks like a river of black water. A landscape soaked in death, a beautiful sight indeed.
That was Iredem’s impression of the 1,200 quokkas we now faced.
The overwhelming stench they emitted was enough to numb the nose.
“Here. A gift.”
I handed Iredem a dagger.
It was something I’d acquired while hunting down the remnants of Sardia, a relic of ancient Antaria, engraved with sacred script.
As Iredem grasped the dagger, death energy rippled from him.
He glared at me with a hostile look.
Which made sense, the dagger had once belonged to a holy knight of Antaria.
It was imbued with divine energy, which ran directly counter to the death energy.
‘Opposites attract.’
That was a truth I had learned while trying to deal with the dragon’s breath. Extreme forces, when combined, could create unexpected synergy.
“Iredem, infuse your energy into the dagger.”
Iredem didn’t protest. The dagger might be damaged in the process, but that wasn’t his concern.
I had fully deciphered <Introduction to Necromancy>, and was using it to analyze four other books I’d found in the dungeon.
<Introduction to the Necromancy> contained the fundamentals of a ‘corruption’ spell, a technique that converts divine energy into death energy. Using that, I slightly altered the sacred magic circle engraved on the dagger.
—Ooooh! Do you hear it? The dry bones dancing in the darkness! The clatter of bone against bone! What an eerie sound… and how it sends me into ecstasy!
Iredem’s power saturated the dagger. My aura rapidly drained in the process, but it remained within a manageable range.
