Soldiers with bloodshot eyes came charging at me.
A laugh escaped me on its own.
I didn't step out to meet them under any circumstances.
Because making the bastards run even a few steps further worked to my advantage.
They were charging forward in a crazed frenzy, yet their legs looked heavy as lead.
Right after a grueling mountain march, they had sprinted four to five hundred meters at full tilt.
No matter how elite these troops were, they had to be exhausted.
"Hyaaap!"
Parrying a shortsword swung wildly along with a furious battle cry, I lopped the man's head right off.
Twisting my body to the side, I knocked away the shortsword of the next soldier lunging at me with all my strength.
As the impact forced his blade upward, I sliced off his sword-wielding right arm,
"Aaaargh! My aaarm!"
I kicked the screaming bastard hard in the breastplate.
He slammed straight into the soldier charging up right behind him.
Of all things, the shortsword in the second bastard's hand punched through the back of the one-armed soldier I'd kicked, piercing right through his breastplate and jutting out the front of his chest.
I smashed the flustered bastard's helmet with Dark Reaper.
The helmet crumpled violently and his skull burst open, one eyeball popping right out with the optic nerve still trailing behind it.
Hurriedly, I ducked my upper body low.
"Son of a—!"
A bastard who had swung his shortsword at my head mid-sprint cursed in frustration as he rushed past.
"Diiie!"
Another bastard thrust his shortsword forward like a spear.
Stepping a pace to the side to dodge, I smashed the back of his head with Dark Reaper.
These guys are more amateurish than I thought, aren't they?
Bellowing 'Take my attack!' and all that nonsense as you charge—aren't you being way too polite to me?
Weaving this way and that to enjoy the advantage of taking them on one at a time, I finally came face-to-face with the knight.
Look at this bastard,
Acting like a proper knight, he'd coated his longsword in a bluish Mana Blade.
"Tshaahp!"
As if afraid someone might think he wasn't a knight, his battle cry alone was booming.
Intending to split my head in two, the knight raised his longsword high overhead and brought it crashing down at full power.
I swung Dark Reaper upward from below to meet it.
Look at that bastard grinning from ear to ear.
It seemed he figured my Dark Reaper would snap in two.
CLANG—!
Tapping his blade just enough to deflect the trajectory of the longsword, I spun right around in a full turn.
I went to plant a clean strike into the knight's torso,
K-CLANG—!
And he blocked that too.
"Tch!"
Clicking my tongue, I retreated in quick, short steps and leaned my upper body back.
WHOOSH—!
A shortsword whistled through the air, grazing right past my neck.
"How dare you! Stay out of this!"
Snapping in fury, the knight lopped off the head of the soldier who had just ambushed me.
Thanks for thinning out the enemy ranks for me.
Does that make this a one-on-one now?
"To think you wiped out all my soldiers... Fine, I shall acknowledge you."
"Didn't you kill the last guy yourself?"
"Any fool who interrupts a sacred duel between knights deserves to die."
"I'm not a knight, though?"
"..."
Even after spouting that himself, he looked pretty embarrassed.
In that case, relieving him of his embarrassment is only polite, right?
THRUMMM—!
"Gasp! You?! You were a knight too?!"
As the knight asked in shock, I thrust Dark Reaper straight out at him.
SHUNK—!
"Urgh!"
Huh?
He fell for a sloppy attack like this?
I only meant to keep him in check—I never expected to finish him off like this.
"Y-you... were a knight..."
Dropping his longsword, the knight puked up mouthfuls of blood.
I couldn't understand why me being able to form a Mana Blade was something to be that shocked over.
Watching Dark Reaper sink into his belly and taking the hit without even managing to dodge.
"I'm not a knight, punk! What does it matter whether I'm a knight or not? What, do knights not die if you jam a blade into their gut? Tch!"
Clicking my tongue, I twisted Dark Reaper and wrenched it out.
"Ulp! Guuurgh..."
Spewing a torrent of blood from his mouth, the knight crumpled to the ground.
And that was the end of it.
Turning my gaze, I looked toward Fortress Bladers.
Our troops were holding their own firing arrows from the wall, but it looked like they needed a hand.
After retrieving the arrows stuck in the corpses, I sprinted toward the rear gate of the fortress.
With a strip of white cloth tucked into the plume holder of my helmet.
***
I never thought just getting inside the fortress would be this exhausting.
It wore me out way more than fighting in the Demon Realm ever had.
Back then, I had a skeleton soldier's body, so I could run and fight without ever getting tired.
Returning to a human body actually felt pretty inconvenient when it came to fighting.
Of course,
That didn't mean I had even the slightest desire to go back to being a skeleton soldier.
"That settles it, then. I acknowledge that you are a regular soldier of our Arden."
After grilling me with questions for a good while, the Squad Leader finally seemed to trust me completely.
He'd pried into every little detail so thoroughly that my fading memories of my hometown had become crystal clear again.
Then again, even to me, my presence here is about as out of nowhere as it gets.
A soldier out on leave showing up at the departure site of the Demon Realm expeditionary army must have sounded completely absurd to him.
Still, I had no choice.
Since that was the cover story I'd already set up back in the previous city, all I could do was stick to it to the bitter end.
"I came out on leave, lost my way, and ended up wandering out here. I apologize for causing you trouble, Squad Leader Henny."
Taking my military tag back, I pressed my fist against my chest.
The official military salute of the Kingdom of Arden's army.
Since it was a salute we rarely bothered with in the Demon Realm, doing it for the first time in ages felt a bit awkward.
The Demon Realm expeditionary army had been a mix of soldiers, knights, and nobles from different nations, so instead of formal salutes, a simple nod was all anyone ever did.
I'd roughly brushed it off as getting lost in the mountains.
Even so, the reason I'd been suspected was because of the affiliation stamped on my military tag.
Because I was a soldier from the barely known house of Baron Silverstone.
Even back during the Demon Realm expedition, the troops drafted from Baron Silverstone's territory had numbered a measly ten men.
And by rotten luck, the moment we set foot in the Demon Realm, we had been hit by a Lich's curse.
Everyone except me had been killed by our own allies.
Because Baron Silverstone's territory had been dirt-poor even back then, my background had drawn suspicion.
Had I not earned merit by wiping out those Kingdom of Belarus troops, there was a sky-high chance my identity would've been doubted and I would've been thrown in a cell.
Just thinking about it makes me shudder.
I almost ended up locked behind bars until the war was over.
"What is there to apologize for? Things like that happen. For now, I'll place you in my squad. We lost a few men in that skirmish anyway, so it's no trouble at all."
"As I mentioned earlier, sir, I'm currently on leave, so..."
I tested the waters cautiously.
Since I've earned plenty of merit here, shouldn't you send a guy on leave back on his way?
I even threw in a wistful puppy-dog look, but these guys didn't seem to care in the slightest.
"With the kingdom in crisis, what good is leave? As a fellow soldier of the kingdom, shouldn't you be proud to take part in the war instead? By evening, we'll likely be sent to defend the northern gate too. We're going to hunt down and slaughter those goddamn devil bastards from Belarus. Well? Doesn't that get your blood pumping?"
"...Yes, sir."
It doesn't get my blood pumping at all, though?
Fuck.
I served over ten years in the Demon Realm and got discharged, and right now feels like getting grabbed by the scruff of my neck the second I stepped out the gate and drafted all over again.
Had I known this would happen, I wouldn't have caused a scene back in Serenion.
If I hadn't gone crazy over a steak and lopped off that knight Jevon's head, I could've been kicking back and relaxing in Serenion until the war blew over.
"..."
No!
I don't regret it.
The steak I ate that day tasted so good one of two people eating it could drop dead and the other wouldn't even notice.
If someone wants to ruin the first proper meal I've enjoyed in ten years, they should be ready to put their life on the line.
They say you don't even bother a dog while it's eating, yet that bastard ruined a sacred meal just because a woman turned him down.
Even putting myself in his shoes, it was a capital crime where he couldn't complain if he died a hundred times over.
If you're going to try killing someone, you have to be ready to get killed yourself.
Hold on.
Come to think of it, doesn't that mean I ended up back in the army all because of that bastard?
Goddamn bastard.
"Bellun."
"Yes, Squad Leader."
"With everything going on, I'm only saying this now, but thank you. If not for you, we might have been wiped out by those bastards. That would have been a horribly dishonorable death."
"Don't mention it, sir..."
Hit with sudden praise right after a grueling interrogation, I wasn't sure how to react.
As I took his outstretched hand, shook it, and stood there awkwardly, the sound of several people marching up in step came from behind us.
"Yo! Squad Leader Henny! Heard you pulled off something huge?"
A voice cheerful enough to make you forget it was wartime rang out.
Releasing my hand, Squad Leader Henny walked over with a bright face to greet the newcomer.
"Nottingham, did you come to relieve us?"
"Pretty much. Heard you took down over a hundred of those devil bastards? Not bad at all!"
"We did, though that guy over there took down well over twenty of them himself. He's also the one who picked off all five of their knights with arrows."
Excuse me... I took one of them down with pure swordsmanship, though?
Damn it, what's the point of speaking up? Pointless. Totally pointless.
"Oh! A guy as thickheaded as you had an amazing kid like him under your command?"
When the man named Nottingham stared at me in surprise, I gave a slight nod.
I'd figured I would be a civilian once I crossed back into the Human Realm, yet barely a year and a few months had passed and now I was re-enlisted! It's infuriating!
I'd thought Squad Leader Henny was walking over with such a bright face because they were friends, but it seemed he was just thrilled about swapping duties with Squad Leader Nottingham's unit.
Back in the Demon Realm, too, there had been plenty of guys whose eyes flipped with madness every time a battle broke out against the demonic beasts.
Both Squad Leader Henny and the soldiers under his command... looked like men itching to get to the northern gate where our forces were facing off against the enemy.
"I left some of the loot behind, so once the war's over, let's use it to grab a drink together."
Speaking nonchalantly, Squad Leader Henny's voice trembled ever so slightly.
Reading the mood, he seemed to be telling his friend to stay alive until the war ended so they could drink together.
Saying that while scrambling so desperately to stand right in the middle of the meat grinder felt a little funny to me.
Still,
That feeling... I know it well.
He wants to end the war as fast as possible.
Because watching comrades die one after another makes you sick to your stomach.
Back when I was an undying skeleton, that had been truly unbearable for me.
Watching a comrade you were joking around with moments ago roll across the dirt as a corpse is a horrific experience.
Granted, in the final battle against the Demonic Dragon, every last member of the expeditionary army lost their lives.
Yet it had been a battle where death was certain, and they were people who had sworn not to mourn one another's deaths.
Remember, but do not mourn.
Because it was a meaningful death... for the future of the Human Realm.
Even so,
Their presence still sits heavy in one corner of my heart.
How could I not mourn the deaths of the people I'd rolled through the mud of the Demon Realm with for all those years?
If we could have survived together and returned to the Human Realm side by side, how wonderful that would have been...
To me, that was what a 'comrade' meant.
Someone you wished wouldn't die—no, someone you at least never wanted to see rolling around as a corpse right in front of your eyes.
The two men shaking hands and exchanging fiery gazes in front of me right now must be sharing that exact same feeling.
"Sounds good. Give 'em hell, then. And don't go dying some pathetic death over there."
"Might as well just curse me outright, you bastard."
"Thanks."
"I'm off."
Patting each other on the shoulder, the two men walked past one another.
I had a rough idea what had happened.
It seemed he had cashed in the merit of killing a hundred enemies to make this swap happen.
Bringing Squad Leader Nottingham to the rear gate so Squad Leader Henny could head to the northern gate in his place.
Truly the picture of genuine 'comrades.'
If only my existence hadn't been dragged into the middle of their little friendship routine, it would've been downright poetic.
"Tch!"
Time to go clean up the steaming pile of 'friendship' and 'camaraderie' these guys just dropped on my lap.
***
Damn it!
The tips of my index and middle fingers feel like they're about to burst open.
No, the bowstring I've been pulling non-stop has actually been soaked in my blood for a long time now.
It feels like the muscles in my back are cramping up.
Back in my skeleton soldier days, I could shoot a bow all day long without a single issue.
Becoming human again has its perks, sure, but when it comes to fighting a grueling battle like this, being a skeleton soldier was way better.
"Kuaaagh!"
"Kill theeeem!"
"Push the ladders back! Don't let the bastards climb up!"
KABOOM—!
CRASH—!
"Aaaargh!"
Furious screams erupting from all around and the deafening roar of boulders hurled by enemy catapults slamming into the fortress walls pounded at my eardrums.
Even amid this deafening chaos, a voice shook the top of the ramparts.
"Second rank!"
The instant I heard the command, I gritted my teeth and drew the bowstring with my index and middle fingers.
With my thumb, I braced the arrow so it wouldn't slip off.
Sharp pain shot up from my fingers all over again, and the muscles in my back swelled as if they were about to tear apart.
"Fire!"
A command barked half a breath later.
On reflex, I stepped forward one pace and loosed my arrow down below the fortress wall.
"Second rank, fall back!"
"Third rank!"
Right after loosing the arrow, I stepped straight back.
Shield-bearers raised their shields to block the arrows raining down atop the ramparts.
SHHHHHK—!
THUD-CLANG, CLANG—!
"Argh!"
An arrow slipping past the shield-bearers punched straight through one of the archers in the second rank.
The guy right next to me.
As I stepped back, I grabbed the back of his collar and hauled him along.
The top of the ramparts was a textbook demonstration of what 'drenched in blood' truly meant.
Piercing right through his breastplate, the arrow had sunk deep into the soldier's chest.
He was already dead.
As I fell back, I shoved the corpse I'd dragged along behind me, practically tossing it out of the way.
Behind me lay nothing but corpses.
It was to clear space so the archers could loose their arrows and cycle back without tripping.
Cold-blooded?
This isn't the time for leisurely thoughts like that.
I focused my awareness on the Core in my lower abdomen.
I guided my mana, now down to less than half, into my right arm.
A bluish light flickered across my arm and vanished.
Under the effect of the restoration magic, the aching pain around my creaking joints from drawing the bowstring faded away.
As if the restoration magic worked on the muscles covering my bones as well, the bleeding from my split index and middle fingertips stopped.
Normally, the way I shoot a bow is by pinching the nock of the arrow with my thumb and index finger.
When I picked off those knights before entering the fortress, I'd shot my arrows that way.
However, when you have to loose arrows mechanically without a moment's rest like right now, drawing the string with your index and middle fingers while supporting with your thumb is far less tiring.
"Second rank!"
The command rang out all over again.
Barely enough time to draw a fresh arrow from the quiver was all we got.
"Gasp!"
"Block them! Don't let them up!"
Of all times, that was the exact moment trouble broke out among the soldiers defending the parapet in front of me.
A vividly glowing blue sword split the head of a soldier thrusting his spear over the battlements.
An enemy climbing up a scaling ladder.
He was clad in full plate armor, his longsword coated in a Mana Blade.
"Uwaaaah!"
Letting out a fierce roar, a shield-bearer raised his shield in front of him and threw his whole body forward.
It was a desperate attempt to shove the enemy knight off before he could plant both feet on the ramparts.
CRRRACK—!
However, the enemy knight's longsword sheared clean through both shield and torso in a single stroke, sending the man collapsing to the stones in pieces.
"What a load of shit!"
I tossed my bow aside and snatched up a spear leaning against the wall.
The soldiers around me were already on the verge of collapsing from sheer exhaustion. If a knight made it onto the wall, none of the regular soldiers would be able to handle him.
Gripping the spear, I charged straight in.
By then, the enemy knight had climbed all the way onto the ramparts.
Through the eye slits of his helmet, the enemy knight's gleaming, bloodshot eyes met mine.
I thrust the spear straight out.
Just a feint.
"!"
By the time the knight swung at empty air and tried to recover his stance, I was already spinning the spear around in a full circle and slamming the shaft into his shoulder.
CLANG—!
"Urgh!"
The enemy knight staggered.
I lunged right in, and the enemy knight slashed his longsword horizontally at me.
Leaning my upper body back to let the blade pass, I snapped my foot straight out.
THUD—!
I kicked the plate-armored enemy knight square in the gut as if shoving him back.
Forced backward, the enemy knight caught his leg on the half-crumbled parapet—the low wall built along the ramparts to shield the soldiers—and plummeted over the edge.
That's an instant death.
Now that it's come to this, I have no choice but to hold this spot myself.
I'll just have to defend it until troops arrive to push the scaling ladder off the wall!
The instant I gripped the spear and took up position by the half-crumbled parapet,
"Fuck!"
You have got to be shitting me!
Knights were climbing up the ladder one right after another in a single file.