206

Chapter 206 — Life Is Cruel (1)

After firing no fewer than five emergency flares in rapid succession, the captain immediately chose to return without even looking back.

I wasn’t confident I could handle that kind of sheer quantity either, so I obediently urged Frederick onward.

Frederick alone seemed delighted to finally be running at full speed after such a long time.

“Knight Dietrich is coming!”

“Open the gate!”

Should I call it fortunate?

Apparently the merman horde had not yet reached the city.

Thanks to that, the soldiers opened the gate without hesitation.

If enemies had already reached the surroundings, that might have been considerably more difficult.

Creeeak.

As an aside, it looked like they had prepared to open the gate in advance.

The sentries opened it at exactly the right moment.

The soldiers who had returned before us had probably warned them.

“Captain! The Lord is on the wall!”

“Thank you!”

The same went for the torches illuminating the streets so that we could race through the city on horseback.

People heading toward the fortress easily noticed us and moved aside, and because the road ahead was clearly visible, we could continue all the way to the wall without stopping.

Creak.

Still, the residents opening their windows to see what was happening looked almost like stone statues beneath the darkness of night.

I hate to say it, but I feel like I’ve seen this in a horror game before.

Prrr, prrr.

“Hold out just a little longer!”

But there were far too many torches around to actually get scared.

Besides, if the torches weren’t flickering, that meant there weren’t any ghosts nearby.

Hah!

Proud of the nerve I had built through countless horror-game jump scares, I focused on Frederick’s breathing.

He had raced all the way to the city at a speed somewhere between a canter and a gallop, so I was rather worried about his stamina.

There was no other choice since we had to deliver the news as quickly as possible…

but I still worried we might have pushed him too hard.

Seeing Frederick drooling saliva and foam, I silently urged him to hold out just a little longer.

We were almost there.

“Knight Dietrich! You’re back!”

A soldier atop the wall spotted us and shouted.

“Where is the Lord?!”

“Sector Four!”

“Adventurer, left!”

Wow.

Bemurchen really was huge.

I mentally calculated how long it had taken us to get here as I followed the captain’s signal.

There were many soldiers and Adventurers moving around beneath the wall, so our running horses automatically began slowing down.

“Demon Knight?”

Oh.

I had no idea where Sector Four was, but at least I found the Inquisitor.

And she wasn’t alone.

Deathbringer and the Archmage were beside her, along with a face I didn’t recognize.

“My Lord!”

“Dietrich!”

Ah.

So that person was the Lord.

Then again, someone standing beside the Hero’s party was hardly going to hold an ordinary position.

There were a lot of soldiers around too.

“My knight!”

I hurriedly dismounted while watching the Lord leap down from the wall—and I mean that literally. The Lord actually jumped down.

The horses breathed heavily now that the sprint had finally ended.

The captain’s horse looked half-dead, while Frederick still seemed to have some strength left.

Either way.

“Are you injured? No… thank you for coming back. God must have watched over you.”

The heavily bearded Lord grabbed both of the captain’s arms.

The captain, who had just been about to kneel and express her loyalty, smiled awkwardly.

Perhaps she was used to this sort of behavior.

“Dietrich has returned in service of the city, my Lord.”

Then her expression gradually filled with pride.

The captain saluted according to their custom.

“My Lord, more importantly, there are mermen along the coast……”

“How serious is it?”

“Very. The shoreline is packed with mermen.”

“Rotten fish bastards. Anything else unusual? Can you estimate their numbers?”

“There were too many mermen. We could not properly observe whether anything unusual was among them or estimate their total number. My apologies.”

“I see… Then it could not be helped. It is fine.”

The Lord patted the captain’s shoulder several times and told her she had worked hard and should rest.

The captain looked slightly moved, then immediately insisted she could still continue working.

Their relationship between lord and knight seemed healthy enough, but as an unrelated third party, watching it felt slightly awkward.

Prrr.

“Wait.”

Well, if you told me they were giving me time to water Frederick, I had no complaints.

I poured some of the water I had stored into my hand, sprinkled in a little salt, and let Frederick drink.

The reason I poured it into my hand was because letting him gulp down too much water at once immediately after sprinting at full speed didn’t seem like a good idea.

Lap, lap, lap.

The leather glove I’d bought recently became soaked in Frederick’s saliva.

“Um, Demon Knight……”

Then, for a moment, the Inquisitor, who had just come down from the wall, watched me cautiously and tried to speak.

Deathbringer was the same.

He stood dejectedly behind the Inquisitor and stared at me.

A long wooden box was held in his arms.

“How did you end up with the knight……?”

Hmm.

A major battle with demons seemed likely to happen soon, so it probably was right to start speaking to them again.

But did I need to reveal everything I’d been doing?

“Take this one too.”

“Ah, yes.”

I handed Frederick’s reins to the soldier collecting the captain’s horse.

Perhaps because the soldier was unfamiliar, Frederick shook his head and tried to refuse.

“…Once you reach the stable, give him this.”

“Yes, sir.”

Fortunately, I had prepared a special countermeasure for exactly this situation.

I handed the soldier the pouch containing the blueberries as well.

The moment Frederick recognized the blueberry pouch, he became docile again.

Seriously, what a cunning horse.

“Let us continue our discussion, Great Sage.”

Why was everyone’s timing so good today?

The moment I sent Frederick away, the Lord finished talking to the captain.

One foot was already on the staircase leading up the wall.

“Very well. And you… Demon Knight, would you come up as well……?”

The Archmage called to me with the slightest hesitation in her voice.

I had no reason to refuse.

Learning where people would be deployed was, unexpectedly, a privilege afforded only to a minority.

Strip away my label as a member of the Hero’s party, and I was merely an ordinary Adventurer.

Without their help, I would have no way of hearing any of this.

“My Lord, may he participate in the discussion as well?”

“How could I object to someone the Representative has accepted as a companion?”

Fortunately, the Lord also accepted my presence.

Maybe the captain had said something about me, because the Lord’s gaze was rather favorable.

“We have received some additional information, but I do not believe we need to alter what I explained earlier by very much.”

Instead of speaking to me directly, however, the Lord returned to the top of the wall.

The two people who had been ignored and visibly deflated, along with me, followed and stood beside the Lord.

“Hero, remain near the center. Once it becomes clear where the enemy numbers are greatest, please head there.”

“Yes……!”

“The Archmage will be with the mages, and you……”

“Me? I’ll stay next to the Hero and support her. During another siege defense, there was an ambush that exploited the fact that she couldn’t move while maintaining the Sanctuary.”

“I will leave that to your discretion. But do not carelessly leave the Hero’s side. Soldiers or knights who mistake you for an enemy may attack.”

But haven’t we been missing someone this whole time?

I thought about the person I had expected to see on the wall, but who wasn’t there, and felt strangely unsettled.

“If we had more time, I would have made everyone aware of your presence, but unlike the Hero, you are not especially visually distinctive, and the enemy is about to attack… Hmm. Would you like to wear some sort of glittering ribbon so we can identify you?”

“I absolutely refuse.”

“Then I must ask for your understanding regarding that issue.”

“Understood.”

“In return, you may act at your own discretion. So long as you do nothing harmful to the city, I will protect your authority in my capacity as Lord.”

She didn’t disappear from duty because of that fight with me…

Read only on MUGEX

did she?

“And as for you……”

The fact that our relationship was so bad that I couldn’t even ask made the situation even more unpleasant.

I focused on the Lord addressing me.

“Strictly speaking, knights do not have much significance on this particular battlefield. We use the walls to fire arrows and thrust spears downward, attacking one-sidedly.”

As the Lord spoke, a hand pointed below the wall where we stood—the side facing the sea.

I saw another wall built farther out, and beyond it an area packed with spikes.

Magic lamps erected at intervals were useful for illuminating the darkness.

A twisting network of embankments and turrets stood beyond that.

“Because of that, knights only step forward during reconnaissance, when dealing with mermen that break through or climb over the walls, or once the battle has ended and the water recedes, when they walk over the exposed embankments and kill any mermen that failed to escape.”

That did make it difficult for me to contribute directly.

Then again, most naval battles had been like that.

“So if there is somewhere in particular you wish to be stationed……”

Maybe I should go to one of the protruding sections of the outer wall.

I considered the bridges connected to the first row of turrets—they looked too insubstantial to really call them bastions, and aside from connecting the city to the turrets out at sea, they didn’t seem to serve much other purpose—and the soldiers standing atop them.

If I went there, I could probably fire sword energy and Mana Spears as much as I wanted.

Since I’d be surrounded by sea, I wouldn’t have to worry about friendly fire or destroying the surroundings.

“You wish to go there? That section is normally staffed by Adventurers, so I have no objection……”

The Lord gave me a strange look but did not oppose it.

Instead, I was warned that it had the highest fatality rate and that being able to use a bow would make fighting easier there.

I was reasonably confident I could survive even if I fell into the sea, and I could simply fire Mana Spears instead of arrows, so neither warning mattered much to me.

“I wish you fortune in battle.”

With those words, the Lord gestured, saying the soldiers responsible for that section needed to be informed.

Several waiting soldiers hurried away and soon brought someone over.

“I know you are not someone who would be stopped simply because I said so, and that I have no right to interfere……”

Meanwhile, the Archmage, who had only been watching everything, finally spoke.

“Come back safely.”

“…That’s right, Demon Knight! Please don’t push yourself too hard!”

“Don’t go collapsing for two weeks again this time……”

Technically, those were perfectly ordinary things one could say even to someone one wasn’t particularly close to.

Still, the inside of my mouth somehow felt rough.

“And……”

Perhaps it was because of the wooden box Deathbringer had been carrying all this time.

“Just in case, could you please take this… Sir?”

Click.

Inside the opened wooden box lay a white sword.

A sword of incomparable beauty and purity.

“This one is even better than the sword from before.”

…Deathbringer was still carrying the sword he had offered me previously.

Why?

Well.

Maybe because he still hoped I would accept it someday.

“If your sword breaks while you’re fighting—and that does happen to you pretty often—it wouldn’t hurt to have a spare ready. So……”

But…

the color doesn’t match.

Yeah.

The colpal—the color palette—is important, you know.

I turned my gaze away while deliberately filling my mind with the lightest thoughts possible.

The soldier who had just finished speaking with someone else seemed to notice the serious atmosphere around us and patiently waited.

“Do I simply go with you?”

“That’s all you need to do, but……”

Then that was enough.

I approached the soldier who seemed to be in charge.

The soldier gave me a somewhat peculiar look but said nothing about it.

“This way.”

The soldier led me away while explaining several precautions.

Unless the wall collapsed, I should remain at my assigned position as much as possible.

If there was no room and someone had died, I was free to push the corpse outside or move it aside, but I should continue attacking.

Unless given special orders, I was never to go onto the bridge.

If I was on the bridge and it showed signs of collapsing, I should evacuate toward whichever side was closer—the turret or the city.

“Do not force yourself to cross back toward the city just because you do not want to be isolated on the turret. More people die doing that.”

Even though armor covered most of the soldier’s body, scars could still be seen here and there.

The advice was delivered in a dry tone.

“The bridges collapse extremely quickly.”

According to the soldier, because they collapsed relatively often, they were not built to be extraordinarily sturdy—

not so much in the sense of poor construction as simply that they were not capable of withstanding bombardment.

“And do not pass the time chatting with the people around you just because you cannot see the enemy. Part of the reason is that you must not relax, but there is another reason too.”

The soldier explained that mermen sometimes gnawed at the base of the turrets to bring them down, and that remaining quiet helped them hear the sound.

That was definitely something I needed to remember.

“Watch the lamps illuminating the sea as well. They extinguish the lamps first to obstruct our vision, so once the lights begin going out, you can regard that as the beginning of the battle.”

Fortunately or unfortunately, the remaining information wasn’t anything special.

It mostly concerned meals, where to relieve oneself, and shift times.

“For now, Adventurer, I think you can stand over there……”

Then, in the middle of speaking, the soldier suddenly smacked one trembling person hard on the back.

“Relax! If you can’t keep your head straight, you’ll miss even the chances you have to survive!”

There was the weight of long experience in that seemingly random shout.

“Wahaha! Leave him alone. He’s a rookie. Even if a Priest came over, they couldn’t fix that!”

“Tch. Then why is a rookie here?”

“Because this place pays well! It’s the only place that pays you even if you die!”

“Money’s useless if you’re dead… tch.”

As an aside, the Lord hadn’t been wrong about the area being mostly staffed by Adventurers.

Looking around, I saw very few soldiers.

Almost everyone here was an Adventurer.

“You’re new here too?”

“You don’t look nervous, but just in case, here’s some advice. Don’t worry too much. Fewer people die than the rumors make it sound like.”

“Of course, if the turret collapses, everyone on it dies without exception!”

“Eek!”

“Wahaha! The rookie’s terrified!”

Despite being Adventurers, however, they seemed extremely accustomed to this place.

Their clothing was simply less uniform.

The way they moved wasn’t much different from the soldiers stationed here.

And that meant they had been coming here for a long time.

“Stop talking and watch the sea! Report immediately if any lights go out!”

“Yes, sir.”

“Damn, I sounded like a soldier just now.”

Well, from the Lord’s perspective, there was no reason to regularly throw soldiers into a position with such a low survival rate.

Soldiers didn’t simply pop into existence on command.

Training them required both money and time.

Adventurers, on the other hand, brought their own equipment.

Even if they were unskilled, the only one who died was the Adventurer, so the city suffered no loss.

And even if they died, more people would continue coming to fill the positions.

All the city had to do was spend money.

Put positively, it was efficiency.

Put negatively, sacrifice.

Still, they were paid proper compensation, and they had volunteered for the work, so it wasn’t exactly something one could condemn.

“Front! One light has gone out!”

At that moment, one of the few soldiers shouted.

The voice, coming from the top of the turret, rang loudly across the nighttime sea.

“Forget about returning to the city now! Everyone, arm yourselves!”

The lamps that had brightly illuminated the water well enough to see beneath the surface even at night began disappearing one by one.

“Remember! Every one we kill here reduces the burden on the walls!”

In the seawater that had risen higher with the tide, more and more tails began splashing.

“Attack!”