CRUNCH!
"Aaaaargh!"
The older boy shrieked that he was dying.
But it couldn't hurt all that much.
Delam had broken human bones — with only slight exaggeration — several thousand times over, and his instincts were telling him so.
That it had snapped very cleanly indeed.
'Or not? Does a clean break hurt just the same?'
Even while entertaining that idle thought, Delam moved.
He struck the older boy across the throat.
"Aaargh... khk!"
The older boy, who had been making such a racket, went limp.
This time as well he had struck safely, avoiding the neck bones and the vocal cords.
Delam caught the collapsing boy neatly and laid him down.
"D-Delam! What is the meaning of this!"
A sudden catastrophe!
The older boy's father shouted, belatedly.
But Delam's answer was nothing but perfectly composed.
"Sir, you know what your son is like, don't you?"
"......"
And that alone was enough.
The man who had been shouting in shock shut his mouth.
Because ever since the mercenaries came by a while back, his son had been spouting all sorts of nonsense about going to the battlefield and earning merit.
"I broke it well, so it'll heal fast with just a splint. Take him home and put him to bed. I'll explain to the chief."
"...Still, I think this was too far."
"Do you know your own son that poorly? With how he shows off, if he's taken this time he'll die in the first battle without asking a single question first."
"That's... true!"
"I've heard around that the conscription officer might come once more in about two years, around autumn when the harvest ends. So keep a close eye then too, and if things look off, break the other one right away."
"...Thank you."
"Not at all. Your son's your only child, isn't he. What kind of tragedy would it be if he got dragged to a battlefield and died?"
Delam grinned at the man.
This was the man who, for playing so well with his slow-witted son, used to share food with Delam and his mother even when he had little himself.
Thanks to him, his mother had gone hungry a little less often.
He must have been grateful indeed, for it to stay with him to this day.
Something from more than forty years ago, at that.
'Though my way of repaying a kindness seems a bit strange.'
Still, everyone came out happy, didn't they.
That was good enough.
Delam headed for the chief's house at a proud, martial stride.
He'd saved one man; now it was time to save humanity.
Re-enlistment was the first step toward that glorious undertaking!
"Haah......"
Delam let out a deep sigh.
Up ahead, the conscription officer and his soldiers had come into view.
***
Ordinarily, people don't gather much in a country village.
Everyone is too busy scraping a living to have the time.
But today was different.
People were packed thick in front of the chief's house.
"Ugh......"
Except that the mood was extremely heavy.
Because a young man was kneeling in the center of it.
With his face beaten to a pulp, no less.
Glaring down at the young man was a knight in armor.
Blood dripped from his gauntlet.
The man had probably been caught hiding and beaten for it.
'Making an example.'
Normally a conscription party consisted of one knight and some soldiers.
Which is to say, their numbers weren't especially large.
And since they didn't know the local geography well, if the natives set their minds to hiding or fleeing there was effectively no way to catch them.
So most of them used this method.
Beating the first one they caught like a rat.
Shiiing—
At last the knight even drew his sword.
The well-honed longsword bared its blade with a rasp of friction.
Naturally, the young man, who had spent his whole life herding sheep, was going out of his mind.
He was startled enough to wet himself and scrambled backward in a panic.
"Uh, aaah......"
"Name the ones hiding or run off. Do that and I'll spare you, specially. Speak while I count to three. One—"
"O-over there, in the pit! From outside it just looks like a thicket, but poke it with a pole and there's a cave underneath!"
"Well done."
The soldiers headed for the field at one edge of the village.
Soon the young men were hauled in one after another.
Two of them glared at the informer as they were dragged along.
"Chief, the count is certain this time, yes?"
"Th-th-that's right."
"Thirty-five men in total. By His Majesty's boundless grace, I shall take only fifteen. Bring the lots."
The soldiers, well used to it, immediately brought out a long tube.
Inside the tube were a number of sticks.
Draw a stick with a blackened tip and you were conscripted on the spot.
Of course, the two who had tried to run had no right to draw.
And so a total of thirty-three men lined up in turn before the soldiers.
Then came the hour of fate.
The men wept and laughed, each at his own result.
Astonishingly, the young man with his teeth knocked out was not drawn.
Delam had wondered whether he might be hauled off by force as punishment for the offense.
The knight seemed to have no such intention.
"Ah, aw......"
Just then a sound of disappointment rose from among the men.
One young man had drawn a clean stick and was crestfallen about it.
Then he asked the man beside him, who had drawn a black one, to trade.
Naturally the other man swapped fast, before he could change his mind.
"You, you out-of-your-mind fool......!"
"Father! I'll come back a noble!"
Watching from a distance, his father rushed forward, staggered half out of his wits, but the soldiers blocked him.
The powerless father wailed, and meanwhile the mother mumbled something with a bloodless face and then fainted.
The watching knight, of course, was gratified.
"A fine sight. A volunteer, no less — I shall make a special point of conveying that courage to the unit you are assigned to."
"Thank you, sir!"
The young man threw a military salute as though he had already enlisted.
Had he learned it from a mercenary, or some retired soldier?
At that clumsy posture the soldiers sneered openly.
In any case, every lot had found its owner.
The village clearing, where despair and hope crossed paths.
And that was when it happened.
"I would like to enlist as well!"
"Hmm?"
At the sudden declaration the knight's head turned.
The villagers standing over that way scattered in a hurry.
As if to say it certainly wasn't them.
What remained in the emptied space was a single boy.
None other than Delam.
"Who are you?"
"Delam. Thirteen years old this year."
"At thirteen you are not yet of an age to be conscripted."
"Even so, I wish to serve. With the burning passion in my breast, for the kingdom! For His Majesty, who shall live forever!"
Whirl!
And with that he spun a pole he'd brought from who knew where.
The pole turned with crisp discipline and locked into place.
It was the spear salute of the kingdom's army.
And not at the level of a child's game, like the young man earlier — sharper and more precise than a real officer's!
"Oh?"
"What's with that kid?"
It was impressive enough that the soldiers were all struck with admiration.
The knight nodded deeply as well, and asked.
"That was uncommonly fine drill."
"Thank you, sir! My late father would be glad to see it."
"You learned it from your father, then?"
"Yes, sir! Though the family fell on hard times, I have heard the tale of how an ancestor of mine once took up a single spear and swept across the battlefield like a gale."
"Nothing could be better. Welcome to the ranks!"
"Thank you, sir!"
The knight laughed heartily.
Delam laughed even harder.
The villagers looked at the pair of them like they were madmen.
And so Delam became a soldier once again.
***
Fifteen days.
That was how long the conscripted villagers walked.
At the start, counting the conscription party, there were barely twenty of them.
But the number kept swelling every time they stopped at another village along the way, until before long it had become a great column of over a hundred.
"......"
Many people were walking, but the column was quiet.
Not the silence of boredom — one steeped in fear.
The truth was that conscription was terror itself.
There were men like the one in Delam's village burning with the will to go make something of himself, but they were an extreme minority.
The overwhelming majority knew the fear of war.
Because almost none of those conscripted before had come back.
Get conscripted and you die, no exceptions.
That was common knowledge.
And yet here were a hundred young men driven into a dead end.
Men, moreover, with good enough builds to be picked as soldiers, and no disabilities.
Which meant... couldn't they beat the conscription party to death and run?
In fact, something along those lines had been attempted.
Around ten of them conspired and made a plan.
They would run in different directions.
The reasoning was that there were only a handful of soldiers and one knight, and that if they ran, the other ninety wouldn't just stand there.
-Desertion is summary execution.
-Gaaah!
-Furthermore, conscription is by royal command. To defy it is treason! Send soldiers to this man's village and ship his entire family to the mines!
And all ten of them died.
In an instant, truly!
He swung his sword and cut down three at once, then covered several hundred meters in a single dash and carved up the rest.
Survivors: zero.
After that, the column went silent as the grave, as it was now.
'Good grief.'
Delam had clicked his tongue too, watching that scene.
Because of all the men they could have gotten, they'd gotten a lunatic like that.
Knights came in three broad types.
The commander type, who lived with a reasonable amount of flexibility.
The talent type, who cared nothing for leading men and only trained his sword.
And last, the stickler type, who observed nothing but principle and precedent.
Regrettably, that knight was the stickler type.
The variety, moreover, who would die before admitting he was one.
Which was why, for all that he'd reached the [intermediate] stage — a level that would be welcomed in any order of knights — he was out here doing conscription duty.
He'd probably made himself thoroughly hated by his superiors.
'Mm~ what a blockhead. I'd better get on with my mana training.'
Delam tuned him out and focused his mind.
What he was going to do from here was mana formula training.
What was a [mana formula]?
Literally, a formula (式) by which one could gather mana.
And mana, then?
Regrettably, no one knew precisely.
Still, to define it simply, it went something like this.
[The origin of all things, present everywhere in the world]
[The so-called key to transcendence!]
'In other words... a necessity for getting ahead.'
Humans were fundamentally incapable of gathering mana.
But use a mana formula and it at last became possible, and from that point on a person carried new possibilities within them.
[Gather it in the heart for mighty aura]
[Gather it in the head for magic that bends the rules]
That is, knights and mages.
Which was why mana formulas were exceedingly precious.
'The mana formulas I know number forty-two.'
Of them, the one he would master was the last mana formula he had ever obtained.
The treasure of treasures bestowed on him by the Emperor upon his becoming Supreme Commander.
Delam recited its name inwardly.
'Flurex Arts!'