Rian surveyed the enemies closing in from all directions.
There were roughly forty to fifty armed enemies.
Beyond them, a little over a hundred more people came into view, but their clothes were shabby—they were unarmed laborers.
"So they were cleaning up."
He had finished grasping the situation.
The enemies before his eyes were a cleanup unit operating at the very rear of the front lines, clearing the battlefield after the fighting had ended.
Laborers carrying large sacks collected spoils of war from the enemy corpses, while those pulling carts recovered their own fallen soldiers.
The armed men were soldiers tasked with supervising the recovery workers and hunting down anyone buried among the corpses who was still clinging to life.
"What a rotten-luck bastard. If he'd just stayed flat on his ass, he might've lived."
Therefore, there was no way the armed soldiers would leave Rian alone when they judged he had been playing dead among the corpses.
"If you're a noble, speak up now. We'll spare your life, at least. Just don't forget the ransom's got to be hefty."
"With that refined look of his, he might actually be an Azrion noble, huh?"
"Drop your weapon. Then we'll at least let you live. Kehehe."
The Imperial Army soldiers jeered as they tightened the encirclement. Rian did not bother making excuses or responding to them.
He simply voiced the one question that immediately came to mind.
"How long was I lying here?"
To the soldiers of the Empire, it was an absurd and pointless question, but to Rian, it was different.
He wanted to gauge the time.
To his senses, it had felt like a brief moment of losing consciousness and waking right back up. Yet the sky was the exact same blue as when the battle had begun, which was baffling beyond measure.
'A day? Or two?'
Looking around, the cleanup seemed nearly finished, as the carts they had brought were piled high with corpses and spoils. In contrast, the corpses of the Azrion soldiers, stripped of their armor, still lay strewn across the ground.
"Why ask something like that? You're about to lie right back down anyway."
The Imperial soldier kept up his sneering tone, as if he had no intention of telling him. Of course, not every Imperial soldier was like that.
"About a day, I'd say? Near the end of the battle, the rear guard called us in, and we've been cleaning up since yesterday evening and just about wrapped things up."
It was a kind explanation.
Unlike that kindness, however, the blade gripped in his hand was still aimed at Rian's neck.
'A day... If things go well, I might even be able to rejoin the battalion.'
The platoon troops he was supposed to command had been wiped out, but since he was alive, he still had to fulfill his duty as a soldier.
If only for the sake of the Azrion Kingdom that his father wished so dearly to protect.
And to rise to the status of a knight—the knighthood his father had longed for, yet had been forced to give up.
Moreover, he also had to find out why he had come back to life instead of dying. Therefore—
'I won't run away.'
Rian neatly sorted out the chaotic thoughts in his head and focused on the present.
This was neither a regression nor a dream. It was pitch-clear reality, with his past death remaining vividly in his memory.
His heart had burst, and agony like falling into a pit of fire had raged through him.
It was a reality in which the vividness of death—the crushing pressure of a thousand pounds threatening to make him burst every time blood gushed forth—was engraved across his entire soul.
Because of that, never wanting to feel those sensations again, Rian focused on being alive in the present—
"Ah."
As he focused on the present, Rian let out a small exclamation as though he had reached a realization.
It was because he felt a physical body so refreshed and clear that it surpassed the memory of pain.
'How should I put this feeling?'
Not only was the fatigue from the previous battle gone, but his physical enhancement felt extraordinary, as if he were being rewarded for all his past training at once.
In this condition, he felt as though he could easily cut down the Imperial soldiers tightening the encirclement around him.
"Enough chatter. If we want to hand the spoils over to the supply unit before the day's out, we don't have time. Finish him off quickly and get back to your work."
An Imperial soldier who appeared to be the commander issued the order as if bothered by the delay.
At that command, the soldiers forming the encirclement wore fishy grins or displayed madness brimming with murderous intent as they narrowed the circle around Rian.
There were around fifteen soldiers forming the encirclement. They appeared to be low-ranking privates. Another fifteen or so were loitering around the perimeter, while the remaining fifteen were some distance away, watching the laborers and glancing over in this direction.
'This is doable.'
Rian mapped out those he recognized as enemies in his mind and weighed his chances of victory.
Even so, he did not grow conceited. Even if he felt a physical enhancement, death still lingered right beside him, ready to strangle his neck.
"Die quietly!"
As if to make him feel that firsthand, the Imperial soldiers lunged at him.
Still, what a kind soldier he was. After all, he was kindly announcing that he was about to attack first.
SLASH—!!
In return for his gratitude, Rian gifted him a horizontal slash. Because the movements of the soldier charging with his spear point aimed were sloppy, Rian lightly sidestepped and swung his sword at the nape of the man's neck, sending his head flying. It was more than enough as a token of gratitude.
After all, he had severed the man's windpipe in a single stroke so that he would feel pain for as brief a moment as possible.
Rian found that quite satisfying, yet felt a strange sensation at the same time.
Though temporary, his opponent's movements had felt slow. And the sensation in his hands as he swung afterward was stronger, faster, and more accurate than ever before.
'It's definitely different from before.'
Was it because of the postponement of death?
Perhaps, in place of the rewards that had eluded him despite years of grueling training, the Goddess of Fortune had directly bestowed a special privilege upon him.
'Or is it Aura?'
No, that was going too far. The light that proved the manifestation of Aura had not wrapped around his body, after all.
Above all, while he had openly heard stories of knights awakening their Aura after crossing the line between life and death, he had never heard anywhere on the continent of a knight awakening Aura through an ability of immortality or undying.
Of course, he had not scoured the entire continent studying knights.
Even if such a knight did exist on the off chance, it was obvious they would be branded a demonic human or a heretic and tortured until they died.
Therefore, it was more reasonable to view this current phenomenon simply as a touch of euphoria brought on by his fatigue vanishing upon coming back to life.
Furthermore, the Imperial soldiers he was facing belonged to a cleanup unit in the far rear.
They lacked too much real combat experience for him to use them as a measure of his physical enhancement or skill.
Whatever the case, the fact remained that they were enemies he had to sweep away right now.
"Crazy bastard... Everyone, stay sharp! Don't let your guard down! Rush him all at once!!"
At the commander's order, the demeanor of the surrounding soldiers changed.
"I'll chop off all your limbs!!"
"If you want to croak quietly, drop your weapon!!"
"Close the distance! Skewer him! There's only one enemy!"
The agitated soldiers rushed in on edge. They even showed discipline, charging in step without breaking formation.
Even so, that changed nothing.
STAB! SLASH! THWACK!!
Rian simply pressed forward in a single direction, stabbing, slashing, and punching away the enemies before his eyes.
Breaking down the encirclement like that, he charged straight toward the commander.
Cut off the head, and soldiers who moved on orders were bound to cower.
He judged that doing so was the only way to deal with so many enemies.
If it came down to it, he had even factored into his calculations inciting the laborers—who looked as though they had been dragged here against their will for hard labor—to break through the current crisis.
However, plans did not always go the way one intended.
Everywhere one went, there was bound to be someone who bulldozed ahead recklessly without plans or calculations, and people like that had a way of shattering a plan in an instant.
"Uwaaah!! Let's die together!!"
With crazed eyes, an Imperial soldier charging blindly threw himself at Rian.
'Fuck!'
SQUELCH!
Rian quickly drove his sword into his opponent's abdomen to stop the madness, but because the man had hurled himself forward so frantically, Rian lost his balance and toppled over.
THUD!
"Now's our chance! Kill him!!"
The Imperial soldiers did not miss the opportunity.
"Uwaaah!!"
"Die, you monster!!"
STAB! SQUELCH, SQUELCH, SQUELCH!!
Indiscriminate thrusts rained down on Rian. It was an onslaught that paid no heed to the corpse of their own comrade lying on top of him.
Because they were stabbing wildly in a mix of madness, fear, and terror, Rian was being torn to shreds.
'Was I arrogant?'
If someone were to ask him that, Rian felt like answering that he was.
Thinking he could annihilate forty or fifty enemies all by himself had been recklessness and arrogance from the start.
Even so, should he have run away?
Or betrayed the Kingdom by surrendering?
'I couldn't do that.'
No matter what, it was a situation where he had to fight and break through.
Therefore, taking the enemy commander's head had been the best and final means of raising his odds of victory.
And having failed to do that, he was now sprawled on the ground, getting skewered like a honeycomb.
"Huff! Huff!"
"He's got to be dead now."
"If he's not dead after that, is he even human?"
"Hey. Check on him."
Having stopped their frenzied stabbing, the enemies panted heavily and ran their mouths, yet—
Not a single one of them stepped forward to move their comrade's corpse and check whether Rian had stopped breathing.
Blood had splattered, bones had broken, and even his handsome face had been beaten to a pulp, yet their expressions were still stricken with terror.
And it was only natural, because—
"What the fuck is that sound?"
Squelch—. Crunch, crunch—.
The sound of swarming maggots lingered in the ears of the soldiers, whose nerves were already stretched taut.
"C-Crazy... What the hell is that?"
Beneath their comrade's corpse, Rian's blood-soaked, caved-in face was twitching and wriggling.
Bone fragments found their way back into place.
The blood that had burst out flowed back in, and as if his ruptured eyes regenerating were not enough, his handsome face was restored to its original state.
"M-Monster...."
It was naturally a moment that would draw such words, and a moment that left them agonizing over whether to kill him again or run away.
"You shouldn't have stopped."
Speaking those words with his newly restored lips, Rian shoved aside the soldier covering his body while simultaneously pulling out a sword impaled in him and rising to his feet.
SQUELCH—!!
The moment he stood up, he punched a hole through the neck of an enemy soldier standing close by.
Starting with that, he stabbed and slashed every enemy in sight, dancing a blade dance for the Grim Reaper.
"Uwaaah!!"
"It's a monster!!"
"Run away!!"
The enemies fell into a panic.
Those who had witnessed Rian's body regenerating broke first.
Those who had watched their comrades stabbing Rian indiscriminately were next.
Despite brutality from which there had been zero hope of survival, he had risen alive and was going on a rampage with his blade?
Unless he was a human who could not die, such a thing was impossible.
Was that why?
"He's an immortal!!"
"It's a demon!! A demon possessed that body! Call a holy priest!!"
Having reached a conclusion within the bounds of their own common sense, the soldiers howled.
Regardless of what they shouted.
Rian swiftly slaughtered the panic-stricken enemies who were calling him whatever came to mind.
"If you don't want to die, run for it, everyone!"
"Uwaah! Help!!"
"Screw prison or whatever! Damn it all!"
In that opening, the shabbily dressed laborers threw down their work and tried to flee.
"You crazy bastards! If you run away, it's execution by beheading for all of you!"
"Don't you know your families will have to pay for your crimes instead if you bolt like this?! Stop right now!!"
There were a few Imperial soldiers who tried to stop them out of some sense of duty, but they were merely struck dead by the fleeing laborers' stones or knives. There was no stopping them.
Rian left the fleeing laborers alone.
In a way, since they had killed Imperial soldiers he would have had to deal with himself, it might have seemed like repayment for that, though that was not really the reason.
'Even if they run like that...'
They would have to cross the border where the Empire and the Kingdom met, and even if they took a detour, they were blocked by the mountain range stretching from the Twin Gorge.
If they foolishly tried to cross the mountain range or settle down there, they would obviously end up doing nothing more than filling the bellies of the monsters inhabiting that place.
Rian did not have the spare energy to chase after them just to tell them that.
***
"Huff... Heave......."
Whether he was immortal, a demon, or whatever else.
Facing dozens of soldiers alone was as grueling as hanging from the precipice of death and begging for his life.
Even those who had fallen into a panic fought back in a desperate bid to survive.
And those who came to their senses banded together in threes and fours to resist tenaciously.
It had been an endless succession of being torn, slashed, pierced, and having his bones broken.
It was also a continuous string of agony severe enough to make him wonder if dying would be more comfortable instead.
Even so, he did not give up on life.
No, now that even his physical body had reached the point of pushing death away, his body had become one that could not give up on life at will.
"Is it really... immortality?"
Standing all alone in the middle of the field of corpses, Rian fixed his gaze on his hands.
Someone had screamed about a demon or whatever, but that was not it.
Though it was said that demons occasionally bewitched humans, stole their bodies, and went on slaughters, his mind was sounder and clearer right now than it had ever been.
Not dying even when killed, and regenerating even when injured—the word immortality suited this phenomenon well.
Yet at the same time, defining it as immortality was ambiguous.
Even if he had survived without dying twice, or perhaps three or four times.
Would there be a next time?
What if there was a fixed limit to how many times he could come back to life without dying?
It was not a matter that could be concluded simply. Yet Rian also knew that if he overthought it, there would be no end to it.
"I'll die someday."
Rian concluded as much.
Just as it had always been.
He decided that death would always be hiding behind his back, watching him like a shadow.
Thus, he chose not to think about immortality any longer.
He decided simply to walk his chosen path in silence.
For the sake of Allen Kade, who had been forced to give up his own dream as the price for saving him, yet who still dreamed all the same.
No, for the sake of what Rian himself now desired—
Becoming a knight.
If only for that, he had to survive by any means necessary.
Only then could he protect his life, his allies, and the Kingdom.
"First, I need to rearm myself."
Rian stripped off his blood-soaked, torn, and tattered armor, then set out to find armor that fit his body. Since armor was strewn everywhere across the ground anyway, it was not a particularly difficult task.