"Ahead, seven of them, Caution-class! Basilisks!"
"Hold formation!"
The Lionheart knights at the vanguard planted their feet hard into the ground. They waited calmly until the enemy struck, then swung their swords.
"Mind the poison."
"Shield bearers!"
Shields stacked in turn to form an iron wall. Hiss! Venom sprayed by the monsters gave off an acrid smoke.
But it could not pierce the Lionheart's thick full plate armor.
—FWOOSH!
Pure white aura burst out through the gap between them. Light bright enough to blind filled the space.
The next moment, the monsters were cut in two and rolled across the floor as thick sludge.
Third Princess Schnellia wiped out the enemy cleanly without so much as a battle cry.
'Strong, certainly.'
But definitely not sane.
Every single sword strike felt obsessively fixated on that one word, perfection.
Graceful, you might call it, or haughty.
To stand in the vanguard, the fiercest point of the battle, and still mind her bearing. She was a monster all right.
To the point that you had to wonder whether a guide had been necessary at all, Schnellia pushed straight on and succeeded in breaking through the third floor on the very first day.
Thanks to her, my knight order, the medical corps and I got to sit and watch with our thumbs in our mouths.
Today, the second day, she was brimming with energy as well, if you please.
"A fork."
Schnellia said it while standing at the end of the room.
Great staircases running to either side greeted us.
"Young Master, which way?"
"To put the conclusion first, both are traps. The left-hand stairs are broken off, and the right was a monster nest."
"And you know where the real path is?"
"I have it prepared. This way."
When I touched the lower portion of a faceless stone statue, there was a grinding rumble and the wall opened, revealing a new staircase.
Schnellia lifted the corner of her mouth in satisfaction.
"Having a map is convenient."
She seemed to regard me as roughly a living map.
Since that was in fact the role I had been brought along for, I had no complaints.
"Your Highness, I propose rotating the vanguard before we advance."
"The reason?"
I said it while looking back at Third Platoon, who were with her.
Their armor was stained from the effects of the fight just now.
"There are no wounded, but the basilisk fluid on the armor is toxic and lethal to the human body. It requires one round of irrigation and refitting. In the meantime, rotate Fourth Platoon into the vanguard."
"My knight order is not so feeble as to be laid low by mere basilisk venom."
"I am well aware. The problem is cross-contamination from residual toxin. As the knights mix together within the formation, the harmful components could transfer as far as the supply unit."
Schnellia gave a nod, as though the thought had not occurred to her.
"Thorough."
"The best treatment is prevention."
She seemed to like my phrasing; Schnellia crinkled an eyebrow.
"Command as you judge. Time is precious, so from now on do not ask me about every matter."
"Understood."
Click. Fearless, Schnellia advanced into the dark staircase. At my signal, Fourth Platoon moved forward and followed her.
I returned to the main body and carried out irrigation of Third Platoon's armor.
The Swamp of the Abyss was built like an ancient temple. Artificial structures ran on and on through an enormous cavity.
"Healing corps, bring water. We are irrigating."
"Yes, sir."
Hammer and the other Healing Knights briskly brought the waterskins.
One Lionheart knight receiving armor irrigation raised a question.
"I understand carrying out irrigation because the poison must be washed off, but will we not run short of water?"
"There is a lake on the fifth floor. We resupply there."
"Water that comes out of a dungeon...... will that be all right?"
"It was usable as drinking water, so there is no problem. We confirmed it on the last expedition."
"So the commander had thought it all through. It seems I worried needlessly."
Irrigation finished, I sent Third Platoon back. Charlotte, guarding my side, spoke up.
"There are fewer monsters than when we made our attempt."
"It is a road we have walked once."
"Caution is still required. The monsters visible here will be the ones drawn up from below by our aura. That is why only Caution-class and thereabouts are appearing. It means their intelligence is low."
"Even a Caution-class is at the level where one of them wipes out a village. You lot are the abnormal ones."
"Well, we are knights."
Charlotte said it flatly.
In the territory too, incidents in which a single monster like a basilisk killed dozens of people overnight were commonplace.
It was also why a knight patrol was essential to running a large territory.
I expected no great upsets down to the fifth floor. The problem was below that. Apostles, of course, and on the lowest level the Outer God's main body, the "Projection," was waiting.
'Can Schnellia beat that?'
If history went as in the original work, this subjugation becomes the first failure of a Schnellia who had been riding high.
She lost to the Outer God's Projection and lost many knights. Among the eroded knights was one who appeared as a boss-class in the original work.
Well, that one was me.
More precisely, the Outer God that was using me as a body.
I had no intention whatsoever of being caught unaware like in the original work. I had to keep my wits sharp.
"Young Master, what are you pondering so deeply?"
"Charlotte, if things get dangerous on the lowest floor, throw me on your back and run for it."
"My duty is your escort, so I will act that way in an emergency. You are quite the coward."
"If you are not afraid of an Outer God, are you even human?"
"Are you saying the Third Princess is not human?"
"You have truly struck the heart of it."
The vanguard entered the fourth floor.
The Lionheart main body moved calmly after them.
Just as the advance was proceeding without delay, as befitted veterans of dungeon subjugation.
Tok.
Something fell onto my head.
'Limestone?'
I picked up the small fragment of stone that had landed on the ground.
The third floor here took the form of a series of precisely built altars.
Limestone is the main component of caves. For this to suddenly fall meant.
"Young Master, what is it?"
"Above."
I raised my head and looked into the darkness of the ceiling far overhead.
"Air attack! Battle stations!"
—CRASH!
No sooner had I finished speaking than the ceiling collapsed and chunks of limestone came pouring down.
"Iron armor!"
"Haaap!"
The Lionheart's reaction was fast. When they raised their shields overhead, a barrier of aura formed.
"Yikes!"
Thud, thud! Dust rose from the falling limestone. The Physicians following behind lost their footing and sprawled on the floor.
"Young Master, get down."
Charlotte pressed my head down and raised her sword.
She was tall, too. I felt like a child being held by an older sister. I could not breathe.
The rumble of the rock mass raised thick dust for only a moment.
—Shaaaaah!
An enormous shape spread its wings and descended.
"Accident-class! It is a wyvern!"
"Unfurl your aura!"
The wyvern struck the main body in the blink of an eye.
A lower monster of the divine beast, the dragon, I supposed. The size of three sturdy adult men, hard-looking scales, sharp claws and all.
A pitch-black shape flying this way and that as it attacked was enormously threatening.
"Tch! The shields are broken through!"
"Cut it down when it comes low!"
Between the unanticipated ambush and their cramped formation, the knights could not bring their strength to bear.
"Charlotte."
"Yes."
"Your aura can produce a gale, correct."
"Yes. It is the aura of the North Wind."
"The next time it dives, fire a strong wind above its head."
"Not at its body, but above its head, deliberately missing?"
"Exactly."
"I will try."
Charlotte ran at once.
Thud, thud. She kicked off the shields the Lionheart Knight Order had arrayed overhead and sprang out with fine momentum.
She took a running start and leapt. That had to be ten meters.
"North Wind. I command you to dwell in this blade."
Whoosh! Green light wrapped Charlotte's arm and sword as though the two were connected into one body.
"Whirl!"
—SHWEEEE!
A gale visible to the naked eye swept through. It seemed ready to suck in all the air in the cavity. The wind was strong enough that I had to clutch at my clothes.
"Aiee!"
"Somebody help!"
Several Physicians rolled across the ground.
—Shaaaa......aaah!!
It worked. The wyvern, which had dived and was trying to climb again, lost the balance of its wings.
THUD! It pitched onto the ground, flipped over, and exposed the soft skin of its belly.
"Now! Do not let it go!"
"Run it through before it flies again!"
The knights rushed in and turned the defenseless wyvern into a pincushion.
Imperial knights really were different. They did not miss the brief opening and attacked without mercy.
—Shaaaa......
The wyvern resisted, but even an Accident-class could not endure an attack driven home by dozens of knights.
Soon only the corpse of the expired wyvern remained, melting into a thick black ooze.
"Haah, we finally got it."
"And it was an Accident-class......"
"That knight brought it down with aura."
"A knight of Grimwald......? Impressive."
Charlotte withdrew the aura from her sword. She came back to me.
"Subjugation complete. I will return to escort duty."
"Good work."
"But, Young Master."
Charlotte's eyes turned curious.
"You ordered me to release the North Wind deliberately off-target rather than at the monster's body. Did you anticipate this result?"
"More or less, yes?"
"That wind could be used this way. I have learned something new. You seem friendlier with the wind than I am, and I am the one who uses the North Wind."
Bernoulli's principle. Simple physics. Compared to medicine it was not that difficult a level.
"Medical corps!"
I heard knights calling for Physicians.
"Young Master."
"Right."
I immediately mobilized the Healing Knights and headed toward the sound. It was the Lionheart's First Platoon, which had taken the wyvern's attack most fiercely.
"Casualties?"
"Four. Struck by the wyvern's claws."
Knights collapsed on the floor and came into view.
"Diagnose."
[Valen / Abrasion, left shoulder]
[Pike / Suspected rupture of right triceps brachii, laceration]
[Kelly / Abrasion]
[Franz / Laceration, thoracic musculature]
I was assessing the patients' conditions when Hammer came running.
"Brought the medicine chest! What first?"
"Have the Healing Knights disinfect and stop the bleeding on those three. I will see the one with the deep wound separately in a moment. Hammer, you come help me with this patient."
"Yes, sir."
The knight named Franz. Blood was seeping out from a gap in the broken armor at his back. Hammer detached the breastplate and opened it so the wound was visible.
"The others I can accept, but this one is in bad shape."
"Young Master!"
Hammer called out urgently. A black mark was visible at the wound site.
"This looks like Erosion!"
"Hm."
Black mucous membrane was flowing from the gash torn horizontally across the middle of his back.
Going by symptoms alone it did look like Erosion.
But my instinct said otherwise.
For one thing, the mark on the status window was ○.
If a Seed had attached itself, it should have turned gray even slightly, but it was intact.
'Diagnose does not catch it, and there is none of the black abscess I saw on Charlotte before.'
Just as I was about to examine the wound more closely, the area around us grew noisy.
"Leave the wounded to us."
The medical corps physicians had arrived. One of them looked at the patient and sat down beside me.
"Erosion. I will use a potion. Move aside."
"It was Madeline, was it?"
"It is Journeyman Physician Marcen. How many times must I say it?"
The Journeyman Physician deftly opened the cork stopper. He was about to pour the potion onto the wound, so I hurriedly stopped him.
"Whoa there. Do you people hand out prescriptions without even diagnosing?"
"Erosion is an exception. This is an emergency patient, every moment counts. Do you think this is my first or second time doing this work?"
"What is your basis for the dose?"
"My instinct."
Unbelievable.
Why not pour narcotic painkillers down his throat too, calling it good medicine for the body.
"Do not interfere, Young Master Grimwald. However much command authority you hold, the medical corps treating the wounded is a basic principle that precedes orders."
"Of course they should be treated. But would a patient not rather be seen by a fine doctor than a quack?"
"Are you calling me a quack?"
"Failing to grasp the patient's condition properly makes you no different from one."
Grand Physician Archibald came running soon after.
"What is going on?"
"Grand Physician, this is an urgent Erosion patient. But the Grimwald young master is obstructing us......!"
"Quiet."
I examined the wound once more.
"It is not Erosion."
The mechanism of this disease had flashed through my mind in that instant.
"Potions are useless."
"Doctor Dunker, what do you mean by that?"
I looked back at Archibald and answered.
"It means a great many potions have been going to waste until now."