CHAPTER 80. Can You Fight Better Than Her?
When we returned to the Second Base Camp, Fixer was directing the Abiot mercenaries at the front, making preparations.
“……Hm. You came back right on time. But who’s that behind you……?”
Fixer’s eyes carried a wary light.
I had gone to catch the ringleader who had wiped out the Second Base Camp, and I returned with some unknown figure—of course he’d be wary.
No—was it only that?
A glance.
The way he subtly puffed out his chest while looking at Shine—it was exactly like a male gorilla facing another gorilla.
Like he was comparing physiques.
And as a result—
[……Hmph.]
Victory went to Shine.
Anyway.
“Call Oberon and Raileigh over. Ah—if you can, bring Plen too. I’ve got something to say.”
“……Hm, fine. I’ll do that for now. But you’ve got quite a build.”
[And you’re a bit scrawny.]
“Compared to me in my youth, this is nothing.”
[I used to be something too, once.]
A pride fight between a two-hundred-year-old twenty-year-old greenhorn and a fresh, almost-fifty-year-old.
‘A delicacy you don’t get to see often.’
Well, anyway.
Before long, Fixer gathered the people I called to one spot.
“Senior, are you alright?”
Maybe he’d heard the circumstances from Fixer—Oberon asked.
He swept his eyes over me, then pulled out a robe from Subspace and handed it to me.
“For now…… it’s a spare robe I received from my master. At least, take this…….”
“Mm, sure.”
I do have a robe I received from my own master too, but the more the better.
I didn’t refuse and took the robe.
Meanwhile.
“……While everyone else is working their asses off, where did you go to sit around? I thought you’d run off in the middle of the night again—”
“Like you did?”
“……Ghn.”
Raileigh threw out a sulky jab, then clamped his mouth shut without even getting his money’s worth.
And.
“…….”
Plen was silently assessing the situation.
‘Hmm……. His eyes are decent.’
They’re alive.
As expected of a mercenary who’s been rolled around until there was nothing left to roll.
Even after seeing his comrades butchered in a miserable massacre, instead of being terrified or cowed, his eyes were burning fiercely.
The reason I called Plen was simple.
‘That guy has the right to know.’
Who his comrades were killed by.
And for what purpose they were used.
And beyond that—what those bastards were aiming for when they did that.
I’d keep silent about Salvatium and the Forbidden Magic Society mage, but I planned to tell him the rough circumstances.
“So. The reason I was gone yesterday…… some of you will know, and some of you won’t.”
“Ah, yes.”
Raileigh, indifferent… and.
“…….”
Plen, staring at me with sharp eyes.
“Yesterday, I went and dealt with the rat bastards who wiped out the Second Base Camp. Now I’ll tell you what I learned from them.”
A cramped hut.
As my story continued, a tangle of emotions twisted and flooded through the hut.
When everything was finally finished.
“……Then that Death Knight, don’t tell me—?”
Fixer looked at Shine with trembling eyes.
I nodded.
Of course, I didn’t reveal Shine’s true identity—only her realm.
‘King Slayer…….’
Leaving aside the realm of being a Master Knight, her existence was more than enough to be taken as a threat.
Anyway.
“Tin can.”
[No, you damn—.]
Even while saying that, Shine von Lehmann obediently took off her robe.
It was the moment everyone’s eyes widened to the limit.
After Shine’s identity was revealed.
A wave of confusion erupted among the group.
“A Death Knight……? As far as I know, a Death Knight is definitely—”
The first to speak was Fixer.
“Remnants of black magic.”
“……Ha. I knew something felt off, but…… to think she was a Death Knight.”
Maybe because it was such an unexpected fact.
He seemed to struggle to find words for a reaction.
In the middle of that, Raileigh, his face drained pale, subtly backed away—and that drew Shine’s attention.
[Heh heh. You’ve got a soul that looks pretty tasty.]
“……Hiiik!”
[It’s a joke, a joke. I don’t eat souls. Honestly—big body, and your guts are the size of a bean.]
At Raileigh’s near-fainting state, Shine waved a hand as if it were ridiculous.
But the most serious one was Oberon.
“Senior, what is this…… how—how did this happen?”
Oberon’s reaction was quite different from the other two.
“Death Knights are…… Death Knights are…….”
“A cursed monster?”
“Yes, a cursed monster. And yet, how could such a monster…….”
“Hmm.”
With arms crossed, I looked at Oberon.
“So what do you want to say? That because she’s a cursed monster, we should hurry and cut off her head and kill her?”
[Even if you cut off my head, I wouldn’t die.]
“Anyway.”
[For the record, I’m already dead, so I can’t die twice either.]
As Shine spoke smugly, Oberon’s face grew even more grim.
Yeah. It was the reaction I expected.
‘That stiff, old-fashioned kid won’t accept it easily.’
But the reason I revealed Shine’s identity wasn’t anything else.
You could hush it up and hide it from other mercenaries, but hiding it even from the people here would be difficult.
‘Fixer is the head of the mercenary unit…… Raileigh has a duty to understand the party’s combat power. And Plen is…….’
That guy has the right.
At least he should know how his comrades died and what they were sacrificed for.
But maybe the shock was too great.
“…….”
Plen couldn’t continue speaking, eyes wide open.
I stared at Plen briefly, then turned my gaze again.
“Oberon.”
“……Yes, Senior.”
Even while answering, Oberon didn’t take his eyes off Shine, and a thick wariness seeped into his gaze.
Watching Oberon, I threw out a single line.
“Can you fight better than her?”
[Compare something comparable. Obviously I’m better.]
“You—shut up.”
After smacking the back of Shine’s head for her cheeky mouth, I continued.
“She was a Master Knight in her previous life. A cursed monster? Do you have any idea how many mercenaries one such ‘monster’ can replace before you say that?”
“Th-that’s…….”
I didn’t even reveal Shine’s identity while she was alive.
But since I’d already revealed her realm, I pressed the logic while watching Oberon visibly fluster.
A claim grounded in practicality.
Since my opponent was Oberon, I added this and that justification and fancy phrasing, but the point was this—
Just like the first line.
‘So, can you fight better than her?’
Meaning, the strong one even has logic.
“……Th-that…… hoo.”
For Oberon—weak and with flimsy logic—there was no way to handle this fight.
In less than five minutes, Oberon was pushed into a corner, and around then, Shine—who had been silently watching—opened her mouth.
[Young mage.]
“Please…… speak.”
Shine, pretending to be solemn in a way that didn’t suit her.
But what she said was truly a spectacle.
[Originally, I was a loyal knight of the Emperor. As you say, I became a cursed monster, but my loyal heart has not changed.]
……Would you look at this piece of work?
[Do you know the pain a soul suffers after becoming undead?]
“…….”
[I am still in pain, even now. Though I have no body, it is as if unquenchable flames are burning and eating away at me.]
That part was true.
When you become undead, the form differs, but you feel extreme pain of the soul.
That’s why black mages don’t use necromantic undead with a self and instead only use corpses.
‘Setting aside that they can’t…… the undead soul can’t endure it.’
That was why the Forbidden Magic Society mage who turned Shine into a Death Knight sealed her ego.
If the Death Knight she’d painstakingly made broke down from pain, that would be a pity.
This, too, was information learned through that Forbidden Magic Society mage.
‘Seen in that light…….’
So was she truly a madman who’d be remembered in history? Shine’s mental fortitude was no ordinary thing.
Did Oberon sense the truth in those words too?
He looked at Shine with a slightly softened gaze.
“But then…… why?”
[Why do I endure this pain? Didn’t I say it? I am the Emperor’s sword.]
Shiiing—
The greatsword at Shine’s waist was drawn.
With practiced ease, she assumed the formal posture of the Imperial Knights Order and met Oberon’s eyes.
[Though I am dead, I am the Emperor’s sword. Yet that black mage insulted the loyalty of this body.]
“…….”
[She awakened this dead body and made me swing my sword for filthy rabble who are not the Emperor. Mage—do you know?]
A sorrowful tone.
[The heart of a knight whose loyalty has been insulted—this pain!]
A cold silence settled over everyone.
[My lord is already dead, so I cannot even beg forgiveness. My breath has already been cut, so I cannot even atone by dying. Then what should I do!]
In that moment, Shine was a lion.
Not “the dead” (死者), but a lion (獅子)—that beast, king of beasts.
[There is nothing I can do. But…… there is one thing I can do.]
The dead lion poured out her wounded heart toward the young mage.
[Revenge. Yes—revenge. Only by tearing apart that damned thing who insulted my loyalty and insulted my lord can my dead life have a reason. But…….]
Clang!
It was then that the greatsword, which had been planted deep into the ground, was yanked back out.
“……Hiiik!”
Raileigh shrank back at that, and Shine swung the sword straight at Oberon.
No—she didn’t swing it.
“……!”
Before anyone knew it, she was gripping the blade itself and extending the hilt toward Oberon.
[If you cannot trust me, then cut me down right now with that sword. I swear it. On my lord’s honor, I will die by your hand.]
“…….”
Oberon stared blankly at the hilt.
Trembling eyes. Shaking breath. And finally—
‘He’s crying?’
A single line of water running down his cheek.
Oberon looked at Shine with moist eyes.
“I…….”
Oberon stepped past the hilt and approached Shine.
His slender fingers carefully brushed over the dark, tarnished armor.
“I…… am this lacking. Not even knowing your pain, I was narrow-minded again…… ah, how painful it must be for you.”
Oberon shed tears, as if deeply empathizing with Shine’s pain.
[…….]
Shine looked down at him with solemnity.
It was then that her eyes met mine.
‘See that?’
Like she was showing off her chest proudly, as if she herself had said it.
‘It’s ridiculous. It’s truly ridiculous.’
It felt like the magic in my core was swelling grandly.
‘The Emperor?’
Sure, Shine was the Emperor’s sword.
The problem was, she was the sword that “cut the Emperor’s throat.”
Not merely not belonging to the Imperial Knights Order—she was the legendary traitor who cut down the Imperial Knights Order’s heads and even cut down the Emperor’s own neck!
And now what?
‘……Do you have to be that kind of “Emperor’s sword” to cut an Emperor’s throat?’
My head spun.
After that, the wave of confusion passed.
“Then I’ll…… make preparations.”
“Yeah. Let’s hurry.”
Fixer glanced once at Shine, then immediately moved off.
Even if we only thought about Destrow, the schedule wasn’t exactly relaxed, but now that we knew there was a new enemy—
Frankly, any small reactions to Death Knight Shine were the least of our concerns.
Of course, there was one person for whom Shine’s existence was not a “small” matter.
Plen.
But his reaction was, in a way……
Quite different from what I expected.
- Is it true…… that your hands may be stained with my comrades’ blood?
- Well, that’s what they say. I don’t remember, but it’s not like the possibility is zero.
- You…!
As if the anger he’d barely forced down surged up again, Plen exhaled a rough breath.
But as if something jammed tight inside him, he clutched his chest like he was tearing at his heart and let out several heated breaths.
When he lifted his head again, his eyes were icy.
- I will think rationally.
- It won’t do you any good to hold it in. Do whatever you want. I’ll take it until your anger’s gone.
- Someone once told me. Even anger is energy.
- They did. You’re wiser than I was in my youth.
He was colder and more composed than I expected.
Rather than being swept up by anger and pouring out emotion, he was going to aim at the proper target.
‘Just looking at that, I can see why Fixer would want him.’
It was less like a mercenary and more like a cold, capable commander.
Well, I’d have to see his actual ability to know for sure.
And so we pushed through the Hamelin Great Forest.
With someone who had once been a Master Knight joining, the journey was, quite literally, smooth sailing.
- Crunch!
- ……Huh. Killing a Horn Tiger in one blow……
- What, with something like this? Back in my youth, things like these—just a glance, and, huh?
Maybe she’d decided to loosen up—Death Knight Shine took the lead and dealt with monsters.
‘She really is…….’
Even if she’d lost most of her strength from her previous life, it was still remarkable skill.
But what was a shame was……
‘The method that Forbidden Magic Society mage used is something I can’t use at all.’
The stage that Forbidden Magic Society mage laid out to catch me.
That method—driving out the monsters on all sides and creating a comfortable combat environment.
Since that method couldn’t be used without learning forbidden magic……
‘Even if you learn forbidden magic, there are constraints.’
Anyway, a rapid advance.
Before we knew it, we arrived at the Third Base Camp.
[Third Base Camp]
“So this is the Third Base Camp. It’s been a long time since I’ve come here in person. But……”
Fixer led the way into the Base Camp.
The sight spread out before us of the Third Base Camp—how should I put it.
It was desolate.
They hadn’t cleaned up the facilities like the First Base Camp. And it wasn’t a scene of disaster like the Second Base Camp, either.
The facilities were mostly intact, and as if preparing for war, there were all sorts of preparations around the defensive walls.
It looked like they’d even dug a moat of sorts around the walls.
They must have drawn in water from a nearby river……
‘They’ve set up a barrier too, in their own way.’
It seemed they’d cast a barrier to block monster intrusion as well.
It was like…… yes. Rather than having completely abandoned it, it looked like they’d left it in a state where they could return at any time.
It was then that a mercenary who’d been searching the camp approached with something in hand.
“Chief, I think you should see this.”
Fixer, walking through the camp with me, looked at the item the mercenary held out.
It was a sheet of parchment.
“……Hm. So it’s like that, then?”
Fixer read through the parchment for a moment, then nodded slowly.
“What is it?”
“It’s a letter left for me. He says he’ll go ahead and to join him as quickly as possible.”
“Only for you?”
“Yeah. Hallig, the Chief of the Second Base Camp…… wasn’t the type to join up.”
Naturally, it seemed they’d left word excluding Hallig.
It was then that Plen stepped forward.
“……Our Chief decided to join in the end too. Actually, I was the one who opposed it.”
“Hmm, is that so? My apologies. I spoke ill of the dead.”
“It’s fine. Looking at what he usually did, he was the kind of man who deserved to be cursed out.”
Over the past few days, maybe Plen had steadied his emotions—he even added a dry joke.
Though his face was still quite parched.
“What will you do?”
Fixer asked me.
“About what?”
“It’s still midday. If we move, we can. Resting comfortably before going is also one option.”
“We move. Obviously.”
We still had a long way to go.