Step—. Step—.
After making do with a meal of stew roughly thrown together from dried meat and vegetables, Rian left the main force's campsite.
It was to head toward a hillock not far away.
No assigned troops followed behind him; his steps moved completely alone.
After all, his movements were closer to personal freedom than an enforced order.
"In a battle we've already won, why bother? I'd rather sleep with that time."
"They were all bolting while staring straight ahead, so what surprise attack?! It's a pointless waste of stamina and a waste of time. Everyone's so exhausted they don't even want to stand night watch, so what's the point...."
"While pursuing them all the way here, we searched everywhere from the treetops to the thickets, and there wasn't even a speck of Imperial Army filth left behind. Tell that Curse not to waste his energy for nothing."
After sending Sion's disciples out as a pursuit party, Monclay had gathered the company commanders together and conveyed his intention to assign soldiers for rear guard duty.
In the process, to make it clear where the responsibility lay, he had revealed that it was Rian Kade's suggestion.
Upon hearing that, the commanders had pushed back strongly and stubbornly refused the assignment order.
Despite Monclay's explanation that Rian had killed the mage and brought about the reversal, Rian still had not escaped the word "curse" within the battalion.
Perhaps it was only a natural outcome, as there was no way the commanders did not know Monclay was merely trying to use Rian to claim credit and benefits for himself.
Step—.
Thus, Rian left the campsite alone and concealed himself in the shadow of a tall tree towering atop a hillock.
He had not particularly intended to hide himself.
Rather, the fading starlight and the tilting moonlight—sinking as though its work were done—created a deep darkness, while the wisps of cloud that had been drifting leisurely swelled in force until they covered the sky.
The deepening veil of night had blanketed the entire forest, concealing Rian's presence along with it.
Only the terrain occupied by the main force, where campfires had been lit for the night, was pushing back the deep darkness.
Atop four hillocks, campfires cast a soft glow.
Around the middle slopes below them, and along the paths between the hillocks as well, lights stretched in lines that narrowed toward a small clearing where all the paths connected.
The sight looked just like a spiderweb holding light.
'Hmm. Was I being overly sensitive for nothing?'
With a layout like that, it looked as though they could respond immediately even if one side came under a surprise attack.
If he had to look for a flaw, perhaps it was that there was some distance between the units stationed atop the hillocks and along the paths before they connected to the interior?
Yet since a loud shout would carry to all of them, it was hard to even call that a flaw.
The real question was whether the night watch's vigilance was functioning properly.
Their opponents were the Empire's elite unit.
Assuming each individual among them was capable of taking on ten regular soldiers....
'Picking them off piecemeal, eating away at them one by one, seems doable.'
Intoxicated by victory, their vigilance had slackened. Their exhaustion had reached its peak after the grueling pursuit.
And now that their bellies were full too, they might even meet their deaths without realizing their own throats were being slit.
'I'd rather this all end with me just having overreacted.'
However, their opponent was the Imperial Army—the same enemy that had deceived them by hiding elite soldiers in the battle on the plains and made thorough preparations by even deploying a mage.
Therefore, it was far more reasonable to assume they had pulled some scheme to turn the tables even as they retreated.
As that thought crossed his mind, the worst-case scenario suddenly took shape in his head.
"What a shitshow."
Rian's gaze landed on the clouds that had covered the sky like a blanket.
If rain fell, the fires providing the only light by which they could distinguish friend from foe would be snuffed out.
In pitch darkness, having large numbers of troops would actually become a disadvantage.
A chill ran down Rian's spine.
They were called the Shadow Unit. The current environment made this the optimal place for them to throw a feast of slaughter.
Perhaps they were watching this camp from somewhere right now, planning a surprise attack or an assassination operation.
Or perhaps both.
'If they disguise themselves as allies and go on a rampage in the dark... that'd be the absolute worst.'
A mutual slaughter would break out, with allies suspecting and killing one another.
And if the enemy went after Commander Monclay's head amidst such an ambush, he would be helplessly cut down.
'What do I do?'
As damage bordering on total annihilation played out in his mind, Rian felt dizzy from the explosive surge of tension.
Even so, it was not enough to make him lose his wits and collapse. On the contrary, his mind grew crystal clear.
"What do you mean, what do I do? I've got to move."
Deciding not to sit still and wait for the worst-case scenario to happen, Rian hurriedly kicked off toward the campsite.
Dash—.
Leaving the battlefield altogether right now might have been the wiser choice.
These were people who still locked him inside the word "curse" and had shut their eyes and ears to his warning to guard against a surprise attack.
There was no reason anywhere for him to risk his life struggling all alone for their sake.
Yet not a trace of wavering could be felt in Rian's eyes.
They held only the will to do what he had set out to do.
It was not to save his allies. And it was certainly not to save the Battalion Commander.
'I won't run away.'
He would not run away from his responsibility.
He would not run away from his conviction.
He would not run away from the things he had resolved to protect.
Even if they were people who slandered, criticized, and hurled curses at him.
Once he decided to protect them, he would protect them.
Steeling his heart, Rian came down the hillock and approached the brown horse tethered near the campsite.
"Sorry, boy, but break time's over."
Snort!
As soon as it saw Rian, the brown horse snorted and shook its head.
***
No matter how widely the enemy spread their forces in pursuit, unless they had enough troops to cover the entire forest, gaps were bound to form.
Azrion's forces numbered roughly between sixteen hundred and seventeen hundred.
To form an encirclement encompassing the entire forest, at least five thousand troops would have been needed.
Because of that, detouring through the forest and lying in ambush had not been very difficult for the ten Shadows, including Gerard.
There had been no need to move all the way to the outer edge of the forest to avoid detection, either.
Since monsters driven away by the war would be swarming there anyway, detouring that far would only have been a loss.
Taking the unit members under his command, Gerard had dug into the ground near the edge of the encirclement to lie in wait, and—
"We are moving out."
Under the cover of darkness, they rose from the earth and trailed behind the Azrion soldiers.
Rustle—.
Since all of them were fighters ranked within the top thirty of the unit, their footsteps sounded like leaves brushed by the wind.
After all, the Shadow Unit had been founded as a unit specialized in ambush, assassination, and sabotage in the first place.
The current situation was nothing more than an extension of their daily training.
And what about the weather on top of that?
'Perhaps something even greater than assassination will be possible.'
Looking up at the sky, the corners of Gerard's mouth curled up slightly.
The scarlet gleam flashing beneath his disheveled red hair was eerie enough to make one wonder if he had been possessed by a demon.
Yet Gerard was saner now than he had ever been.
Clouds gathered and grew heavy.
Thanks to that, the moon and stars lost their light.
The darkness grew deeper and thicker, seizing control of the forest as though ready to swallow up every shape and form.
If the forest lost all light like this, picking off the Kingdom Army piecemeal to throw them into chaos, disguising themselves as the enemy to dig deep into their camp, and separating the enemy commander's head from his body would be child's play.
Two things would make all of this possible:
The sky pouring down rain.
And the enemy commander pulling the idiotic move of making camp right in the middle of the forest.
Gerard felt a strange thrill at the opportunity for a reversal that this crisis seemed ready to hand him.
In his mind, he pictured himself buried in thick darkness, slaughtering the Azrion soldiers.
He pictured the Azrion soldiers branding each other as enemies and waging a bloody fight to the death amongst themselves.
And he pictured a future where he gripped the enemy commander's head and returned home in triumph with his unit members.
If things went as he imagined, the responsibility for failing to guard the mage could be lightly brushed aside.
He could shift the blame for the army's defeat entirely onto the battalion commander, frame those pathetic noble scum as traitors and have them executed, and root out the weak unit members who had tucked their tails to save their own skins—forging a Shadow Unit where only the truly strong survived.
'All martial might stands beneath the knights?'
He would not refute those words.
However.
Authority could place even knights beneath it.
That was all he needed.
If he could not become a knight himself, he simply needed to hold the authority to wield their strength.
This very day, he would offer up the soldiers of Azrion as sacrifices to fulfill that dream!
Step!
Wearing his blazing desire plainly on his face, Gerard maintained his distance from the Azrion soldiers.
Before long, seeing the Azrion soldiers gathering in one place to set up camp, he let out a low breath.
"Ha!"
He did not believe in God, yet it felt as though the Goddess of Fortune herself were praying for his victory.
His subordinates found it hard to hide their bewilderment at the expression Gerard was showing for the very first time in his life.
'What is it? Why's he acting like that....'
'Damn it, did I stay behind for nothing? I'm starting to get creeped out.'
'Did his suppressed madness finally explode now that he thinks he's going to die?'
Beneath those cold, sharp eyes, the corners of his mouth were stretched from ear to ear in a grin that would make anyone think of terror first.
Gerard did not stop at just an expression.
"Listen to me. Perhaps the Goddess of Fortune is about to grant us honor and status."
His unusually assured and excited tone was also utterly unfamiliar to his subordinates, yet at the same time, it stirred the expectation that he truly would make it happen.
Erasing their doubts, his subordinates waited for Gerard to continue.
As if answering their expectations, Gerard went on.
"We are revising the operation from assassinating the enemy commander to annihilating the Azrion forces."
Even assassination was of the highest difficulty, and now he was talking about annihilation?
It felt to his subordinates as though Gerard were pouring oil onto the doubts they had tried so hard to erase, yet—
"However, we go for annihilation only if it rains. Otherwise, we proceed with the assassination operation as planned. Understood?"
At the words he spoke while pointing toward the sky, his subordinates could also faintly picture the future Gerard had imagined.
Choosing to trust Gerard with conviction instead of doubt—
""By your command.""
All of them pledged their loyalty in low, united voices, and Gerard briefly explained the operation to his men.
The operation would commence the moment the night watch at the target point fell asleep.
After confirming that, they would move in swiftly, eliminate the soldiers, and disguise themselves in their armor.
From there, they would pick off the outer units one by one.
If it did not rain, they would assassinate the commander at the center of the enemy camp and retreat.
If it rained, they would strike the center of the enemy camp and incite the soldiers into killing one another.
In that chaos, they would eliminate the enemy commander.
Afterward, they would cut down every enemy within reach to complete the annihilation operation.
"Are there any objections?"
To the question Gerard asked after finishing his explanation, his subordinates answered with silence.
Just then, one of the subordinates spotted a lone soldier riding a horse with a single torch in hand below the hillock where they were concealed.
"It appears there is a scout, sir."
Gerard and all the others fixed their eyes on the light below the hillock.
'They should not even have the energy left for that after pursuing us nonstop, yet they sent out a scout? Even a single speck of dust like that could ruin the operation.'
Gerard ordered the subordinate who had first spotted the torch.
"Dispose of him."
***
Clop—. Clop—.
Making full use of the horsemanship he had learned in his youth from his adoptive father, Allen Kade, Rian rode along the winding paths holding a single torch.
From soothing a horse steeped in fatigue to moving while minimizing the sound of its hooves as much as possible, those skills proved quite helpful.
Clop—. Clop—.
Riding back and forth around the perimeter of the campsite, he also considered possible attack routes.
In truth, because the forest surrounded them on all sides, predicting an attack route was impossible in itself.
All he could roughly guess was that since the northwest led toward the plains connecting to the Empire, the enemy would likely strike from somewhere in the south and flee northward.
Of course, his main purpose in riding around like this lay elsewhere.
'Hmm. Now that I've ridden around this much, I ought to have caught their eye by now.'
Making himself bait for the enemies who would be lying in ambush until they launched their operation.
He did not know how many enemies there were, but at the very least, he could pinpoint their location and establish their surprise attack as an undeniable fact.
That meant he could buy time for his allies to prepare for the ambush.
'Above all, reeling them in before it starts raining is going to be the key.'
Thinking as much, just as he was about to turn back along the curving path—
WHOOSH—!!
A hand-span-long throwing knife pierced through the darkness and flew straight at Rian.