The Rune Master Tamuka.
He opened his mouth before the thirteen chieftains.
"As you all know, the war situation is not good now. The front is being pushed deep into our territory, and because the fighting has already gone on close to a year, the damage to the tribes is severe."
"Just so! The sowing season is coming soon... miss the time again this year and our tribe will all starve to death."
"How long must the war go on......"
The chieftains poured out complaints along with their laments.
The one who stepped in this time as well was Chieftain Rabata.
Having watched the display, Rabata said, as though tossing it out,
"Anyone watching would think we were the invaders."
"......"
"You fools! We have no right of choice, so what is the Rune Master to do about it however much you voice your complaints?"
"But the Rune Master is—"
"Yes, Sambala's wisest shaman. But even so, what he can and cannot do is clear. You are all chieftains, no less, and must I be the one saying this sort of thing?"
"......"
Rabata's words were correct.
If Sambala were the invader that would be one thing, but they were the defender.
And even with things come to this pass, the Kingdom of Fior had not sent so much as one of the surrender demands that would ordinarily be expected.
Only attacking, and attacking again.
Which meant that whether they liked the war or not, there was nothing at all Sambala could do on its own initiative.
No — there was exactly one thing.
Unconditional surrender......
An option the chieftains would never choose.
"I shall say a word."
"We shall listen closely, Rune Master."
"That we, who were on even terms with the kingdom, have been pushed back is a matter of these last few months. At first I thought it was because the Sword Master's appearance had raised the kingdom army's morale, but—"
"That was not it?"
"When we took prisoners and interrogated them, the reason was entirely different. Behind our defeat there is a unit called the Special Duty Corps......"
The Rune Master explained about the Special Duty Corps.
The Special Duty Corps was Fior's finest elite, made up of 300 men in all.
It was not a body of knights who used mana.
But in a way it was more troublesome to deal with.
Because for the sake of a mission they did not pick and choose their means.
They had been a headache to begin with.
But of late the damage had grown far more serious.
Perhaps knights now belonged to and operated within the Special Duty Corps... so the Rune Master judged.
"The burning of each tribe's grain stores a while ago, the obstruction of the palisade construction, the annihilation of the neutral tribes coming to join the battlefield — all of it is those creatures' doing."
"Hah! The grain stores we took the trouble of building in the cliff country — how in the world did they know?"
"So it was they who obstructed the palisade construction. And that a region our warriors barely retook after shedding blood like a river......"
"They are like ghosts."
"That the tribes meaning to join us were wiped out is the bitterest. The tribes are turning back to neutrality."
The last part in particular was the most serious.
Sambala was a confederation of a great many tribes, and so even in a situation like this there existed a small number of witless tribes keeping to neutrality.
They had barely managed to persuade those and bring them to the battlefield......
And then contact had abruptly been lost before they even arrived.
And that had been the Special Duty Corps' doing!
The various denunciations that came out of it.
Rabata summed up the situation simply.
"In the end, are you saying that if we can eliminate the rats called the Special Duty Corps, the momentum returns to our tribes?"
"Just so. We can push those hateful things out beyond this land the ancestors granted us. And even should we surrender, we can negotiate with a minimum of land."
"And I take it the Rune Master has gathered us here because such a method exists."
"You are a wise wolf indeed. Come, all of you, lend an ear and hear the stratagem this old man has prepared......"
The Rune Master Tamuka's design.
That hidden card was unfolded before the chieftains.
***
A peaceful forest in the continent's north.
A narrow road running between a stand of pinyon pines.
A train of carts was moving along it.
Rattle, rattle.
There were about ten carts covered with waterproof cloth.
What was inside them was food.
It looked scant, but it was enough to feed a thousand men for two weeks.
Escorting those carts were fifty barbarians.
But the barbarians were past being at ease and were even yawning.
This place was the very rearmost part of the Sambala tribal confederation.
Because it was a place where there was no possibility at all of enemies infiltrating.
SHWEEEEK—
THUNK!
"Gaagh!"
"An arrow!? We're under attack!"
No — that was what they had thought.
Until someone's head was run through.
"Under attack? This is our own land!"
"Hold them! Lose the carts and our kinsmen starve!"
The barbarians hurriedly put up a guard around them.
The way they hid behind the carts and raised shields was reasonably elite.
But the pity of it was the identity of the attackers.
The Kingdom of Fior's Special Duty Corps!
However fine they were, in the end they were a rear supply unit.
They were no comparison to a Special Duty Corps that received systematic training and support.
"I'll go first."
"Delam, we're counting on you!"
Thirty Special Duty men.
The first among them to break into a run was Delam.
Delam kicked hard off the ground and charged, using the run-up to step on a cart and vault over it, landing on the far side.
SHERRICK!
The barbarian holding a shield had no time to react.
Right up to the instant Delam's shortsword cut through his cervical vertebrae, the barbarian had merely been tensed, braced against the attack.
Splash.
Blood sprayed up around him like a fountain.
While the barbarians who had been drenched in their comrade's blood were still flustered, Delam bent his body like a snake and his shortsword flashed in every direction.
"Aagh!"
"Gaaah, my ankle!"
Three in one move.
Barbarians with their Achilles tendons cut collapsed.
At the same time another barbarian's scimitar came thrusting in.
Delam dodged it with room to spare, closed in with a strange crab-walk, and calmly drove the shortsword up.
Phssh.
"Khkhk......!"
A barbarian with an air hole under his jaw clutched his throat.
With blood leaking out steadily, death didn't look far off.
Barbarians were famed for valor to begin with.
Not only the barbarian warriors but the common soldiers were combative.
Because that is what living in nature means.
"Ugh......"
"Ah, a demon! That one is Fior's little demon!"
But that too was the story only up until meeting Delam.
Barbarians pointing at Delam and edging backward.
It was partly because of a rumor that had spread these past few months.
[Beware the brown-haired demon!]
The Kingdom of Fior raises a demon.
That demon of slaughter approaches with a young and innocent air.
And sends warriors into eternal sleep......
"No, these sons of bitches are really too much."
Delam, on the other hand, was uncommonly and sincerely enraged.
Being given a byname by enemies rather than allies was fine.
Since it meant he was performing that tremendously.
And naturally his own side knew it too.
A mere trooper reigning as terror over the barbarians!
If the upper echelons heard it they'd be dying to give him an award.
But the problem was—
"Why a demon, of all things!"
What had Delam's end been like?
Leading the Empire's elite in a life-staking clash with the demons, he had died with his gut punched through by a demon corps commander.
And to call a man like him a demon.
To call a man who had struggled to save humanity a demon!
"Thinking about it makes me furious all over again."
"Th-the demon is angry!"
"Run! You can't beat a demon!"
"Khueugh!"
The last scream did not belong to a barbarian.
Delam looked toward the side the sound had come from.
He could see the Special Duty men, who had charged in behind Delam after he ran out first, each engaged in their own fight.
And also that one of the men had his throat caught in the log-like arm of an enormous barbarian and was choking.
"And what are you!"
SHREEK!
The moment he saw it the shortsword flew from Delam's hand.
Naturally, a shortsword was not a throwing weapon.
And yet it shot out at a tremendous speed.
A speed that seemed to ignore things like center of gravity entirely.
"Haha... huh?"
The barbarian, startled, flung the trooper aside and dodged.
Reflexes astonishing enough to register a throw from a blind angle, and stripped to the waist like a madman even in this dead of winter.
He was unmistakably a [barbarian warrior].
"Delam! He's at knight level!"
"Don't worry, sir."
Delam answered the veteran and threw himself in.
Seeing that, the barbarian warrior was flustered and then promptly grinned.
Because he'd seen that Delam was barehanded.
Weapons were made to overcome differences in build.
They are tools devised because even if an opponent is bigger, faster and stronger than me, stick him with an edge and he freezes on the spot.
Put that the other way around?
Without a weapon, the remaining factor was build entirely.
And right now, the barbarian warrior was, without exaggeration, larger in build than three Delams put together.
"What are you smiling at?"
"Die, brat!"
WHOOM!
The barbarian warrior shouted it and swung his foot up.
A foot as thick as a building pillar went for Delam's skull.
But Delam was unimpressed.
If anything he narrowed his eyes and threw his upper body sharply back.
The foot grazing Delam's nose by a hair.
Delam took one step forward in that state.
The barbarian warrior's missed foot came to rest on Delam's shoulder.
And Delam hooked the man's other leg out.
CRACK.
"Whuh!?"
Naturally the barbarian warrior went over backward.
Delam immediately whirled around to take the barbarian warrior's rear and clung to his back like a cicada.
SQUEEEEZE!
Clinging wasn't all of it, of course.
Delam put his weight into his legs and choked the man's throat.
It was a ridiculous act.
With that much difference in build, doing this?
Even while being choked, the barbarian warrior laughed as though it were contemptible and tried to peel Delam off with one arm.
But he soon could only be flustered.
"Y-you little?"
Because Delam didn't budge!
Before, perhaps, but Delam was now a proper low-grade knight.
Insufficient muscle could be substituted for with mana.
And Delam was the [Weapon Master] besides.
[Weapon] naturally included the most primal weapon a human can use.
Which is to say, his own body was included as well.
There was no way a joint lock by Delam — who understood the body's structure, the principles of force, and action and reaction perfectly — was coming loose.
Thud, thud-thud!
"Nnnngh......!"
The barbarian warrior clubbing Delam with bear-like fists.
But in the end he couldn't hold out even thirty seconds.
He went limp in Delam's grip with his tongue lolling out.
CRUNCH!
And to finish, a twist of the neck.
How long had the barbarian warrior ground away to awaken aura?
But departing this world took him a mere minute.
An empty end, without question.
"I-insane."
"Does that make any sense?"
Even his own side, the Special Duty men, were astonished.
It wasn't as if he were plucking a persimmon off a tree.
FWOOOOSH!
And that was when it happened.
A long jet of flame came sweeping over Delam.
Namely the appearance of a shaman, of whom Sambala had few.
"And what's this now."
Delam snorted a laugh amid the blazing fire.
Exactly as his own nickname had it — a demon......