In the city, people said the season of salamanders had ended and the season of harvest had returned, so they were preparing for a festival.
Which meant crowds would gather. And if news about salamanders or monsters were suddenly delivered to the city now?
People would scramble to flee first, causing chaos, and some would be trampled to death by the crowd before any monster ever reached them.
'Orderly evacuation is impossible'.
Kraiss's judgment was precise.
The Border Guard and the nearby cities had expanded like never before. Within the swollen city, just as many people had gathered.
The Safe Road, the trade route they called the Stone Road, and commerce with the trade cities—
Everything drew people to this place.
What would happen if such a population had to embark on a mass evacuation?
'The country would collapse, of course.'
There was no need to see it to know.
'Perhaps it's fortunate this is happening now, at least.'
During the festival, people would gather.
What was fortunate was that this year's festival was to be held in the city of Lockfried. The city of Lockfried had been built on flat land, not in the mountains. From the start, it had been planned not as a military city but as a city specialized for trade.
So its walls were relatively low, and its roads were wide. Wells had been dug in various places, connected by water channels, and the storage district and commercial district had been clearly separated. In short, it could be called a merchant-friendly city.
It was not designed with the possibility of invasion and war in mind.
Large roads and clearly divided districts were advantages in peacetime but disadvantages in wartime.
The wells dug throughout would be of great help to enemy supplies.
'The roads will be perfect for enemy troops to move through.'
The warehouses would transform into their supply depots.
Of course, such possibilities had been considered, and various countermeasures had been prepared, but one war would be enough to render the city nonfunctional.
Still, the important thing now was that it was Lockfried. A city built on flat ground.
'If things go wrong, it'll be easy to escape.'
They had deliberately built the city gates wide.
And what of the Border Guard?
'The Border Guard is too close to the Pen-Hanil Mountains and the frontier.'
That was how Kraiss saw it. Moreover, it was a city built on terrain well-suited for a military city or fortress.
Therefore—
'The last bastion.'
If salamanders descended from the mountains and they failed to stop them, then they would have to fight here until every last one of them burned out.
'Chilling thought.'
His heart pounded and sweat threatened to dampen his back. Kraiss thought of himself as a rather shallow opportunist. Honestly, he did not believe anyone could expect heroic qualities from him.
It wasn't about others' expectations—he himself had none of that. Nor did he want it. But situations never went entirely the way one wished. That was why one had to prepare.
'If things go badly, do I have to tell everyone we'll die here together?'
Kraiss reined in his stray thoughts. A surge of anxiety was rising.
"Wasn't all of this to prepare for such a situation?"
Right at that moment, Abnaier spoke at his side. Kraiss thought of this man as half his teacher.
He possessed the confidence and talent Kraiss lacked, and his depth of thought was extraordinary.
"Well, that's true."
Kraiss answered.
Inwardly a teacher, outwardly—despite the age difference—they had come to live as friends.
"So set aside your anxiety. The arrow's already been loosed."
"I've seen knights snatch loosed arrows out of the air and hurl them back."
Anxiety was always an element that ate away at him. Abnaier replied with a deft answer.
"That knight is on our side, Kraiss."
Kraiss had seen Enkrid's growth from right beside him. He had watched him do the impossible. So Abnaier's words were correct.
"I know."
So he only needed to do what was his to do.
At the moment Kraiss was feeling that flicker of unease, the standing army moved. From those at the outpost along the Safe Road, soldiers turned their backs on the city and raised their spears and swords toward the mountains. And they fought.
***
At first, it was only one.
A quadrupedal monster made of flame stomped along, leaving black footprints on the ground. The stench of burning began to spread, and smoke rose from the spots it passed.
Branches caught fire, flames spread, fields of grass turned to gray ash. The blaze engulfing its body made clear this was no small matter.
It had no eyes. No nose, no mouth. It was simply a blazing lump of fire.
"We're supposed to fight that?"
One soldier muttered.
"Should we just leave it, then?"
Another soldier replied.
"Well, no, not saying that."
The first soldier shrugged and leveled his spear. They were part of the standing army's spear infantry.
Clink, clink.
The soldier twisted the joint between the spearhead and the shaft and set the blade at a slanting angle. The front twenty men all carried spearheads imbued with magic.
Where else would Kraiss have poured all the coin he earned?
Most of it had gone into armament. And now part of it was shining.
Pak!
Without even a howl, the wolf-shaped flame lunged, and three spearmen set their weight evenly and thrust. Their stances were clean, their thrusts stable. They had drilled this over a thousand times, and there was no wavering.
Crunch.
The flaming wolf was skewered on the spearheads and scattered, the fire dimming and falling to the ground. The way the fiery lumps dripped was sticky enough to remind one of animal entrails.
All that remained where the fire went out was a handful of black ash.
The real difficulty was when weapons didn't work at all. When they did, it wasn't so much of a problem.
Then dozens of fire-bodied monsters began descending from the mountains.
"All units forward, maintain five-rank formation. Adjust speed to the retreat signal. No deviations."
That was the commander's order. He judged that these blazing lumps did not possess high intelligence.
In fact, they had no reasoning at all, closer to magical constructs than creatures. They didn't even have the base cunning of ghouls, which made them all the easier to face.
The five-rank formation was arranged so that the rear ranks covered the gaps in the front, creating a layered wall.
Spacing was kept so even those in the back could thrust their spears.
"Magic unit."
The commander called again.
Not all soldiers carried magically imbued weapons.
Those without stood from the third rank onward.
In front of them, Esther's magic unit raised their hands. Casting spells to destroy each fire monster individually was impossible, but imbuing weapons was far easier.
"May the power of the Blue Star dwell."
Esther's spell left a blue glow shimmering on the soldiers' swords and spearheads.
It was a spell called the Blessing of the Star.
"All units, ready spears."
At the final order, spearheads leveled forward. It was a phalanx trained to stop even a cavalry charge. To them, blocking a rush of this level was no difficulty.
"Pierce!"
"Die, you bastard!"
With shouts matching their temperaments, they drove their spears into the flaming beasts. The fight was one-sided.
The amusing thing was, by standing army standards, these were near ordinary soldiers. The true elites were elsewhere.
For example, the sacred martial infantry led by Audin with Teresa as his vice-commander.
Official names aside, others simply called them the Fanatic Troop.
"Those things don't seem to have souls."
"Then even if we kill them, we can't send them to heaven, can we?"
They were those who had awakened to divinity through faith. If the holy city of Legion ever learned of their existence, they would surely be horrified.
Audin knew how to cultivate people in his own way. Within the order, beyond the body modifications, when it came to raising fighters, he was the best.
Even Legion had a similar kind of combat unit, but these men were cut from a different cloth.
All of them had large, solid muscles.
They wore modified gauntlets that locked in place with a metallic clack over their wrists. That weapon was their main armament.
They also wore white cloth armor, tied at the sleeves and ankles with cords.
"All units, free combat."
They were the ones Audin and Teresa had raised with tireless effort.
The gauntlets on their hands gave off a faint glow.
They had awakened to divinity, but could not yet wield it freely. So they relied on weapons. Their gauntlets had been blessed by Audin and Teresa. When they fought, they could wrap their fists in divinity. And they did so—smashing and breaking the heads of the flaming beasts.
The number of fire monsters exceeded hundreds. Some fought against Rem's assault troops, others clashed with Ragna's small sword squad. Even Enkrid's personal guard moved.
"No one here is going to get injured from this level, right? Right?"
The female squire once nicknamed Clumsy Clemence now commanded Enkrid's personal guard.
She was also known within the Border Guard as Pervert Clemence.
Rumors spread that she had the twisted hobby of tormenting her subordinates, earning her that bizarre nickname.
"If you get injured, you'll see what happens."
Her words carried no trace of humor.
The guardsmen behind her clenched their teeth. If they even picked up a minor wound here, that madwoman would drill them to death.
The standing army's total strength was ten units, and Kraiss had committed only six. The rest had to be kept in reserve.
And with just those six, the tide of monsters descending from the mountains was completely blocked.
***
'Strange.'
Enkrid advanced with Dawn Tempering in hand, his thoughts racing.
He was headed toward the spot Garrett and Finn had observed inside the Pen-Hanil Mountains.
Along the way, a fire giant confronted him. Bigger than Audin, its blazing heat was felt even twenty paces away.
It stood still, not burning down the surrounding trees. Then, as if noticing Enkrid, it turned its head.
'It's standing on two legs.'
Its form resembled a human. And that wasn't all. Flames burst from its hands and shaped into form.
'A greatsword?'
No—the long rod-shaped flame with a lump at the end was a mace.
'A flail, then.'
Enkrid did not rush. Left hand on the scabbard, right hand resting on Dawn Tempering's grip, he walked.
Neither fast nor slow.
The fire giant shaped massive flame flails in its hands, large enough that even Audin wouldn't have looked out of place wielding them.
Whoosh—
All of it was fire.
It made him think of walking fire, and of Balrog. As such thoughts flickered, Enkrid shifted the Will coursing within him.
'For Line Explosion.'
Like wind, like storm.
Boom—
The inner explosion resounded as his foot pressed into the earth.
Enkrid split the seams of time itself as he moved. Anyone watching would have been left dumbstruck.
It was acceleration in the very posture of walking. His center of mass hardly shifted, no sign of preparation, not even the tightening of thigh muscles.
The reason for such abnormal movement? Naturally, Will.
Enkrid's skill at wielding Will had advanced by leaps and bounds. Without that, he could not have stood here.
The experience of killing Balrog had not left him.
He became a blue line and passed by the fire giant.
Whooosh!
The wind surged.
B-Boom!
Compressed air burst with a roar behind him.
Fwoosh.
The giant's flame flail carved empty air.
As Enkrid passed, Dawn Tempering's blade sliced through flame, scattering it into nothing.
It was a single strike.
The giant split in two and crumbled to ash.
The gust of heat blew his hair back, revealing jewel-blue eyes beneath.
'My body feels light.'
No injuries. A strange sensation—not omnipotence, but—
'Feels like I could do anything.'
His body moved exactly as he wished.
Enkrid kept walking. Simply moving his legs forward, each step pressed the ground and propelled him ahead. Leisurely in appearance, yet faster than most men could run. Not quite a sprint, but unstoppable.
And yet he stopped. An incline appeared, and though branches and thorns blocked the way, he had been brushing aside and leaping over such obstacles with ease.
"Who's there?"
Enkrid asked.
Beside a bent tree, a man stood. Dressed in thin cloth, wielding a white, guardless rod-sword, his narrow eyes had slit pupils.
Clearly not human. He stared at Enkrid for a moment before speaking.
"You die. Go. Here, I. Can die."
The pronunciation wasn't awkward, but the meaning was strange.
But who was Enkrid?
The master listener who always managed to decipher his knights' teachings.
He understood the man's meaning instantly.
"Are you saying you'll kill me? Or that if I go past you, I'll die?"
The man thought briefly, then replied.
"You die. By me."
Still awkward, but clearer.
What was strange—
'No hostility, no killing intent.'
Yet this one would surely keep his word. It was pure instinct, but that's how it felt.
"Sounds like a threat."
Enkrid replied and drew Dawn Tempering.
Chring.
The blue blade pointed at the stranger. The man continued to gaze calmly at him.
Then he spoke again. Enkrid was about to strike, but—
"Stop. Cease."
At those words, his body halted.
Everything was unexpected. Unlike the oppressive aura of Balrog, this man's words alone had forced his body to stop.
The Will swirling within Enkrid resisted that coercive force, and reflexively, his Will of Rejection burst forth, shattering the command.