"Report the situation."
"Ah, yes!"
An urgent summons had come in.
It seemed a problem had arisen on Schnellia's side, who had gone out with the vanguard.
A messenger who had come running reported. I took one platoon and headed for the lower floors.
"We made contact with an Apostle on the seventh floor."
"An Apostle."
"It was a Cave Centipede. The seventh floor was structured as a single continuous tunnel, like a mine shaft."
"And you were advancing when you got ambushed from behind?"
"How did you know? It was a trap."
It was a mid-boss that appeared in the original work as well. A forced event in which you had to flee along the tunnel.
"An Apostle is Accident-class at minimum. If it was that size, it would be Catastrophe-class."
"Yes. Her Highness judged the same. The terrain made fighting impossible so we fled, and the vanguard found the eighth-floor entrance and escaped, but."
"And along the way Her Highness and her escort detail fell down a cliff."
The messenger swallowed hard and nodded.
Hammer, coming along with us, made a fuss.
"A cliff? A fall? That is serious!"
"Her Highness is unharmed. Only."
"There is a casualty, then."
"Yes. Escort knight Ersin."
That knight who doubles as head lady's maid, the one who was washing Schnellia's hair.
"The fact that you could not bring her here means you could not haul her up the cliff."
"That is right. According to the Healing Knight, a neck injury is suspected, so she must not be moved......"
"Hammer."
Hammer's shoulders shuddered.
"If the cervical spine breaks you die, don't you? Then she is effectively a corpse already."
"We have to go and check. If you know it's urgent, run!"
At my order everyone broke into a run all at once. We passed through the sixth-floor region and reached the seventh-floor entrance.
"This way!"
Until now there had been stairs when descending a floor.
Here there was only a hole punched in the floor.
Nothing for it but to go.
"Whoa, Young Master!"
I jumped down without hesitation. The knights came down after me.
I looked around. As reported, it was a single continuous tunnel.
"Do not go charging ahead. Did they not say an Apostle is hiding here?"
"It will not appear for a while. Do you hear that?"
Woom, woom. A bizarre sound echoed from far off along the tunnel walls.
"Given its size, it takes that thing a long time to make a full circuit. We have about thirty minutes."
"How can you be certain?"
"Instinct."
Because that was the pattern in the original work.
I could only pray it was the same.
"This way!"
We ran, following the messenger.
How long had we run? A cliff section with a wide split gap appeared.
The structure was meant to be jumped across to reach the tunnel on the opposite side. The vanguard must have been heading there.
Had they fallen while dealing with the Apostle?
I looked down.
"Good grief."
I could see Schnellia and three knights barely perched on a protruding section.
Seriously deep. It had to be a hundred meters.
"Whoa, that is far too high. I wondered what they meant by cliff."
"Hammer, prepare to descend."
I tied a rope around my waist and threw one to her.
Hammer recoiled and waved her hands.
"You want us to jump down there?"
"Do you have a better idea?"
"Young Master, I am not a combat knight, I am a Healing Knight. You seem to be confusing me with the Commander, but take a look at my belly fat."
Jiggle. Hammer showed off her soft belly fat through the gap in her armor.
"Does this look like the belly of someone who runs around on operations? No, no. There is absolutely no way I am going!"
"Then what am I supposed to do. Are you telling me to carry a fracture patient up on my back with no assistant?"
"Ugh, that is not what I...... anyway I cannot go, I cannot. Keep this up and I will soil myself right here!"
Hammer clung to the wall, terrified.
It was a waste of time to argue further, so I tied the rope around her waist.
"Oh, come on. Young Master!"
"Calm down, Hammer. I will go down with you."
Charlotte pulled Hammer's shoulder toward her and reassured her.
"You will, Commander?"
"Yes. If I tie our bodies together it will be safe."
"......Hnnngh."
"What are you doing."
"Putting back in what I was about to soil."
"I want to strangle you. I am going first."
I handed the rope to the knights. I leapt down the cliff without hesitation.
***
"It appears the medical corps has arrived."
At the Healing Knight's report, Schnellia raised her head.
Human shadows flickered in the gap above the cliff.
Schnellia looked down at the patient.
'Ersin.'
She had originally come from among the maids and had attended Schnellia since childhood.
It was a word that could not hold, given the difference in station, but if one were to compare, she was no different from a childhood friend.
One day Ersin's aura manifested by chance and she came to walk the path of a knight.
Even after that she had never once left Schnellia's side for a single day. Every day she rose earlier than her mistress to attend her.
She was a subject Schnellia trusted and cherished that much.
She was a person Schnellia could ill afford to lose in a place like this.
'Should I have fought the Apostle at once?'
Strategically, a temporary retreat had been the correct judgment.
Had they fought immediately, at least four would have been crushed to death in the process of stopping its charge.
On top of that, this seventh floor was the nest of an Apostle shaped like a cave centipede. The terrain favored the enemy, so they had to change ground.
As a result they discovered the eighth-floor entrance but shouldered a loss.
Schnellia bit her lip out of habit. Impatience crept quietly into that perfect, doll-like face.
That was when it happened.
"Commander Grimwald, you have come!"
A Healing Knight helped him land as he descended. Dunker untied the rope and opened his bag at once.
"The patient's condition?"
"The angle of the fall was bad. She landed on her head, so the bone appears to be fractured."
"Bring a light."
The Healing Knight moved to raise a torch. A hand touched his shoulder and stopped him. It was Schnellia.
—FWOOSH!
The longsword she held gave off light. The darkness lifted and it became bright as midday.
"Perfect."
"Dunker Grimwald."
With the vertically held sword between them, Schnellia met Dunker's eyes.
"Can you save her? An escort knight is an especially important asset——"
"Let me see the patient first."
Dunker gently pushed Schnellia aside and knelt before the patient.
Schnellia was momentarily struck dumb.
'He cut me off?'
Dunker had fixed his gaze on the patient as though nothing else existed.
"Suspected cervical fracture, you said."
"Yes. Her breathing is labored and she says her limbs are numb. When she tried to get up she said there was pain at the back of her neck."
"Knight Ersin. Can you hear me?"
"Nngh......"
The knight lying on the ground tried to answer, but only a strained breath came out.
"Bring the light over here."
"Ah."
Schnellia had, before she knew it, become a human lightbulb assisting Dunker's treatment.
Somehow.
Watching him concentrate on the patient, her impatience quieted without her noticing.
"How many fingers do you see?"
"Nngh...... two......"
"Can you feel your feet?"
"Nngh...... I do not know......"
More than twenty minutes had passed since the fall. Dunker judged that the symptoms were worsening.
"Guaaagh!"
Partway through, a sound like someone dying and coming back came from behind. Hammer had barely landed, clinging to Charlotte.
"Patient! Young Master, shall I put a brace on the neck bone first?"
Hammer scrambled over with a length of wood and cloth.
With a fracture, the important thing is to keep it from moving.
Dunker shook his head.
"I need something harder. In a shape that wraps the whole neck."
"Something harder?"
"It is not a complete fracture. If it were, paralysis would have set in. She is still conscious."
"Ah, I see."
To Dunker, in the middle of examining her, Schnellia said.
"If it is that severe, can you not bring her up first and then treat her? If we return to the encampment we could treat her in more detail."
"We cannot."
Dunker declared it flatly.
Schnellia knit her brow.
"Dunker Grimwald. You seem to be under some misapprehension, so allow me to correct it: carrying one knight up a cliff of this height is nothing to this one. And Ersin is a strong knight. She can endure that much——"
"It is not a question of means. Lift her as she is and the cervical spine could bend and cause quadriplegia."
"......It is that serious?"
Dunker did not reply further, as though the time to answer were wasteful. Instead he pointed at one of the Healing Knights.
"That, the shield! Bring it here."
He took the Healing Knight's shield and prepared to fit it in under her neck.
"A perfect fit. We fix the rear with this and attach braces to the sides."
"Yes!"
Hammer assisted rapidly. Dunker slid his hand behind the patient's neck. Stickily dried blood came away on it.
"The rock is......"
The Healing Knight groaned. The back of the patient's neck was being barely supported by the rock it had struck.
It was a razor-thin situation in which the slightest movement and strain could break the neck bone completely in that instant.
"......"
Dunker concentrated his entire mind.
With delicate movements of his hands he slid the shield into place.
Schnellia watched his face as he concentrated.
In that moment, something pure white flashed in his wide-open eyes.
'......Aura?'
It was a pulse strong enough to give that illusion for an instant.
No, it could not be aura.
But it glittered in too vivid a color to be called mana.
As though beyond what those eyes could see.
As though piercing through the entire interior of the patient.
Schnellia's gaze had been stolen by his eyes for only a moment.
"Support complete. Bind it."
"Yes."
Hammer rummaged through the bag and went white as a sheet.
"Young Master, there is no rope!"
"Are your eyes decorative? There is the rope we came down on!"
"Ah, yes!"
They lashed the shield and braces together with rope and tied them tight.
"Primary treatment complete. Signal above to lower a stretcher."
Hammer took out her hammer, loaded it with aura and swung.
The Healing Knights waiting above the cliff began to lower a stretcher.
"Commander! You need to look at this!"
A Healing Knight shouted urgently.
"Kh, khuh......!"
The patient began breathing in agony as though her breath were stopping, her body heaving.
"Wha? The support should be correct!"
Hammer, flustered, pressed the patient down with her body to keep her from moving. At the same time she looked back at Dunker.
"Young Master!"
Dunker immediately checked the patient's neck.
"Damn it."
A large lump was swelling larger and larger.
"Acute cervical hematoma."
At the urgency of the situation Schnellia too bit down hard on her lip.
"Hammer, blade!"
"Yes!"
Hammer immediately pulled a dagger from the bag and handed it over.
The blade flashed in Dunker's hand.
[Forgotten Journal]
"Was this one wrong?"
Rumble, rumble.
The terrifying sound of an enormous insect monster approaching echoed through the tunnel.
Schnellia von Kondenburg.
The princess's jet-black hair fell across the face of the knight whose eyes were closed.
"Was this one wrong?"
There was no answer from the one held in her arms.
Her breath had long since departed her life.
Of course there had been many times a subordinate died while she was out on expedition.
The Outer Gods' invasion was dangerous, it was powerful, and it was not on a level to be met with one or two lives.
She had always been prepared.
The knight order too was always prepared.
And yet.
"Ersin, answer me. This one is......"
That she had not been prepared to lose the person she had grown up with, the person who was there when she fell asleep and when she woke, the person she had been certain would be at her side for life.
That because of the difference in station they had never once shared a deep conversation, but that she had certainly been her friend.
Third Princess Schnellia realized it only after losing her.
"Your Highness, we must go."
An escort knight spoke to her. Beyond the pitch-black tunnel, the rumbling grew steadily louder.
Only then did the princess lay the body on the ground and rise.
"......Let us depart."
She turned to face the knights.
"The Outer Gods will be subjugated without fail."
With red fury carved into those eyes.
Page 58. Record of the Swamp of the Abyss Subjugation, 3.
[A page of fate has been rewritten.]
[You acquire a Boon.]