Field put on a face as warm as a spring breeze. "So you must be here to escort us, right? Just like the code of chivalry says. Praise the Valkyrie."
Connor was overjoyed, thinking Field hadn't seen through his purpose, and seized the offered way down at once. "Ah, yes, yes, yes."
"Wonderful. Hurry, dismount and have a cup of wheat ale. We were just about to set out — you'll have plenty of chances to show your chivalry along the way." Field gestured for Ashina to step back, then nonchalantly offered the cavalry a drink.
The cavalry dawdled, guilty and hopeful both.
Going toe-to-toe with a Chosen now would mean near-total annihilation, and fleeing was impossible too — when Ashina downed Connor, she'd taken the mist-dispelling lamp. Charging into the death miasma without a lamp was simply suicide.
"Looks like the baron didn't notice our plan."
"Makes sense. Field's always been a fool."
Seeing Field's sincere face, recalling his old softness and weakness, the men began to nurse illusions.
Coaxed off their horses, they nervously gulped a few mouthfuls of wheat ale, and only then did their hearts settle.
"My lord, I think we should head back and report." Connor cast about for an excuse to slip away.
Field nearly lost his composure. This pack of dimwits really took him for a fool to be conned.
"Your warhorses have been requisitioned to haul cargo. I'll return them once we reach the Nightfall Territory." Field brushed him off perfunctorily, then pointed to the front of the column. "You just said you wanted to open the road for us. Off you go — clear the way."
A bad feeling struck Connor; he grew anxious. "I've changed my mind. I'm very sorry, but I must hurry back to report. I imagine the count is growing impatient."
"Heh. I see you really don't get it~" Field gave a cold snort and signaled to Ashina.
"Shunk!"
Ashina's giant wolf bit down on a cavalryman's head; the teeth-grating crunch-crunch of chewing all but drowned out everyone's breathing. The headless soldier's blood fountained as he dropped, his body thrashing wildly from the sudden attack.
The whole company — even Field's own people — instinctively held their breath, gripped with terror.
The scene was savage beyond words.
"I was wrong! Baron Field!" Connor folded at once, throwing himself flat on the ground. "It was your second sister, Liz, who ordered me to do it!"
"Do I have to say it twice, Captain Connor?" Field answered with a sunny smile. "Scout ahead — or die right now."
Cold. Connor felt cold to the marrow.
Inborn gentleness and decency — all of it bullshit! He'd once heard other nobles chatting, calling Field soft as a little lamb.
Pah! All liars! Connor cursed those liars viciously.
Under the threat of the guards' halberds, eighteen now-horseless cavalrymen soon formed a small square and walked at the very front of the column.
And Field's little map showed a great mass of rotting corpses closing in fast ahead.
Letting out a long breath, Field gritted his teeth. "Move out!"
The Nightfall Territory lay to the southwest of the Northern Province.
With the little map's help, Field skirted the overwhelming majority of the monsters; it still took three more days to reach the grand manor. The Nightfall Territory's rotting corpses seemed impossible to fully kill — you could tell from Connor's trembling hands, his blade chipped and curled, his face gone numb, like a puppet on strings.
The ceaseless slaughter had broken him.
Of the road-clearing cavalry, only he remained. Say what you would, a man didn't become captain without some skill — but he too had been torn open in several places by the corpses, the granulated flesh writhing; he'd been partly corrupted, not far from death.
"Give him a clean end."
As Field's words fell, Ashina released the bowstring; a single arrow killed Connor. Then a slave stepped up, practiced, and stripped the supplies off his body.
"We've reached the Starnight Grand Manor! It really wasn't easy." When Field saw the manor's entrance, he heaved a long sigh of relief.
The others cheered as one.
Thanks to Ashina and the little map.
Without the map marking enemy positions, Field would swear it was flat impossible to wind a way in. The endless corpse tides on the road alone would have drowned them.
"Clearly no living soul has set foot here in ages." Ashina went forward and tore away the brambles thickly woven across the manor's gate. With an ear-splitting screech, the already-rusted gate crashed down. Ashina sprang aside like a cat and said, narrowing her eyes in embarrassment, "Er — looks like the gate'll need some repairs."
A tall, imposing European-style iron gate, refined stonework and statues, and a garden of ornamental plants — corrupted now into something ghastly and grim by the gray mist, yet still hinting at its former opulence.
Two slave-guards heaved the fallen gate aside, and through the corrupted plants Field saw the bones of humans, rotting corpses, and other nameless monsters.
The Starnight Grand Manor covered thirty hectares — about the size of forty football fields.
It held a swimming pool, gardens, farm cottages, woodland, a granary, a wine cellar, stables, villas, and more, with the main building at the central area.
It was inhumanly, obscenely lavish — Baron Sofia was a figure of real power who held a thriving city, no mere honorary title. Generations of family accumulation made her fixed assets formidable indeed.
And this was only a baron's fief. They said Her Majesty the Empress of the Griffin Empire owned a colossal estate of five hundred hectares. The Mary Sue-novel trope where the heroine wakes in a bed the size of a football field really could happen to the Empress.
A large place meant no shortage of monsters within it, either.
"It's been ten years of corruption. Places like the granary and stables have no value left." Field pulled out the manor map and held it against his little map, gesturing. "Likewise, ornamental spots like the garden are worthless."
"So do we clear the main building directly? Or take one of the villas?"
Besides the main building, the grand manor had three small villas, for the lord's relatives or guests.
Ashina looked thrilled; it was her first time encountering anything as grand and refined as a villa.
The slaves were even more so, whispering to one another, excitement spilling across their faces.
For the lowborn, having worked in a noble's villa — even just sweeping the floors — was enough to brag about for a lifetime, a glorious deed to tell their sons on their deathbeds.
Field stared a while at the distant main building, ghostly shapes thick behind its broken windows. Suddenly he felt something watching him, as if a heavy weight had clamped onto his chest, quickening his breath.
"There may be a great horror in the main building. Best not to provoke it yet." Field quickly looked away, rubbing his brow, and glanced at the little map. It was marked with a great many skull markers — but most striking of all was a huge red dot among them, down in the main building's basement. "Skull markers mean corrupted monsters. So what does the red dot stand for? Probably a demon-beast as well."