'It is easy. Far too easy.'
STAB! SLICE! SLASH!!
Shortsword in hand, Gerard strode leisurely across Trevor Bridge.
With his red hair fluttering, he severed the windpipes of the Azrion soldiers, his indifferent eyes filled with calm murderous intent.
Whenever he spotted soldiers holding out in a desperate bid to survive and cutting down Imperial troops, he unfailingly approached them to sever their heads and punch holes through their hearts.
It had been a wall that refused to give way easily.
Because of the enemy's resolve to defend this place with their lives, it had been a bridge where they could not easily advance.
With the defenders building a wall of corpses and holding their ground, it had not been easy even for the Shadows, who excelled at slaughter.
In the midst of that, the spell the mage had been preparing took effect.
The river froze solid, and the soldiers of the Roden Empire formed ranks and marched grandly across it.
That alone had been enough to shatter the morale of the Azrion soldiers staunchly defending the bridge.
"N-No!"
"The soldiers of Roden are crossing the river!"
"W-We can't hold out like this......."
Fear ate away at the soldiers defending the bridge. Cutting down soldiers whose will had been broken was no difficult task.
All one had to do was slash, stab, and strike them down.
Gerard, the Shadows following him, and the soldiers of the Roden Empire did just that.
They pushed back the soldiers of Azrion defending the bridge.
'Did the Marquis say he would grant that mage obsessed with water sources the authority to do as he pleased with the rivers of this land?'
It was certainly a wiser judgment than handing over an entire month's pay for the troops.
After all, it was a promise that would only be honored once Azrion was annexed into Roden's territory.
That was not something that would happen in a day or two, and the primary objective of this battle was merely to capture Northheim and seize the fertile territory of the Philoso Domain.
While slowly eating away at the Kingdom's territory, corrupting a single mage would be nothing at all.
In other words, there was nothing that the arrogant mage—who acted as though he stood above mere humans—would actually gain from this war.
'I will at least keep you alive so you do not croak.'
Finishing by ruthlessly severing the head of an Azrion soldier who had held out to the very end at the edge of the bridge, Gerard intended to lead his unit across to aid the Imperial troops approaching over the ice.
However, before he could even let out a booming battle cry, a thunderous roar echoed from beneath the bridge.
RUMBLE—!!
At the same time, the shrieks of the Imperial Army pierced his eardrums.
"What in the—!!"
Gerard immediately leaped onto the bridge railing and fixed his gaze toward where the mage had been stationed.
"Aaaargh!!! Graul!!!"
Witnessing the mage's death, Gerard let out a furious roar. To his eyes, it even looked as though Graul and the other unit members had killed the mage themselves.
"Is it treason?!"
"Those crazy bastards!! I knew it was suspicious how skill-less deadweights like them got assigned to our unit!!"
"That remark insults His Excellency. Watch your tongue! Did we not all join through His Excellency's thorough background verification?!"
"Tch. Verification, my ass! Those hangers-on assigned to guard Norpin are from noble families, so they didn't go through any thorough verification process like we did!"
"Silence, all of you!"
Gerard silenced his unit members, who had been swept up in confusion.
Turning on his heel right after, he added—
"We are retreating."
There was no time to dawdle right now.
With the spell broken, the Kingdom Army was quickly rallying its forces and preparing to march toward the bridge.
'There is no chance of victory like this.'
For now, he had to save the hundreds of surviving Imperial soldiers.
Clop! Clop!
As Gerard took his first steps in retreat, someone riding a warhorse galloped toward him with fury in his eyes.
"Geraaard!!! What is the meaning of this?!!!"
It was Battalion Commander Williams, the commander of this Northheim detour infiltration operation.
NEIIIGH—!!
Wearing a red eagle-emblem insignia over the shoulders of his full plate armor, Williams drew his sword, pointed it at Gerard, and reined in his horse.
"Norpin is dead!! Our soldiers have been slaughtered!! What are you going to do about this?! I asked what you are going to do!! Your entire unit is to commit suicide on the spot right now!!!"
Maintaining his composure before the beside-himself Williams, Gerard spoke.
"Calm yourself. If we do not wish to be annihilated, we do not have time for this right now."
"You insolent scum!! Gerard!! Even if the Supreme Commander entrusted command of the Shadow Unit to you, operational authority here belongs to me! How dare a lowly scum like you!!"
Williams tried to crush Gerard with his rank. However, as the thunderous battle cries of the Kingdom Army rang in his ears from across the bridge, he was in no position to argue right and wrong.
"There is a traitor among Master Norpin's guards. I will take my own life after rooting out the traitor, so please take command of the retreat, Battalion Commander Williams."
Gerard spoke firmly once again. Overflowing murderous intent was pouring from his eyes.
"Grrrgh...! Fine! Once we break through this crisis first, I will deal with you by martial law, so know that!"
As his imagination momentarily pictured a hole being punched through his own neck, Williams swallowed his rage and took a step back.
Gerard gave Williams a military salute, then ran toward the scene of the mage's murder with the hundred or so surviving members of his unit.
Williams ordered the remaining troops on the bridge to pile up corpses and completely block the passage before setting out on the retreat.
***
He walked the path of death.
Alongside the sensation of his entire body burning, a field of vision like wandering through an abyss made him conscious of the path of death.
Being conscious of it.
Would that be possible if it were a complete death?
There was no way to know that much from this current phenomenon.
His heart had been torn apart.
Blood had gushed from his entire body.
And he had met the darkness with the feeling of being cast into a raging fire.
'Thankfully, I saved my neck.'
Perhaps the enemies could have sawed his head off afterward, though he had not been in any condition to feel such a sensation.
Even so, he was certain his head had not gone flying.
After being skewered by the flying spear shafts, the fury-laced voices of the enemies flowed into his ears.
"All because of one measly thing like this."
"Seeing him croak, I guess his parents weren't ghouls after all."
"How can you crack jokes right now?! We're all dead men walking!!"
"Should we at least take his head and frame Gerard as the spy?"
Rian found the current situation, where he could hear the voices of the Shadows, quite puzzling.
It was a phenomenon different from before.
When his heart was struck, all bodily functions were lost. It had felt as though only a single speck of consciousness were left behind in a world of darkness.
Yet what about now?
It felt as though his consciousness were remaining right in place.
'Was the blow that pierced my heart shallow?'
Even if it had been, it was more than enough to stop his heart. He had felt that happen, and he had experienced his consciousness snapping as well.
Yet his consciousness had returned just like blinking an eye once.
His faintly surviving sense of hearing took in the sounds around him.
He felt the process of the scorching heat within his body slowly subsiding and cooling down.
He was conscious of being alive.
'Still, what if my head gets cut off?'
They were discussing severing his head. He hoped Monclay would move his forces before that happened.
Unless he was an idiot, Monclay would not intend to let the remaining Imperial forces retreat just like this.
Feeling as though his head truly might go flying this time, Rian grew anxious despite himself. Along with that came the thought that if things were going to be like this, he might be better off unconscious instead.
It was right then.
"No need for that! Look over there! Gerard's coming!!"
"That guy... the atmosphere around him looks bad. What if he frames us as the spies instead?"
"Do we have time to stand around like this? Look over there. The Azrion soldiers are massing toward the bridge! Whatever we do, we can't stay here like this!"
The terror-stricken voices of the Shadows who had been guarding the mage rang clearly in Rian's ears.
First, he had escaped the crisis of having his head cut off.
From the way things were unfolding, the guards appeared to be at a disadvantage, and he guessed they lacked the ability to frame Gerard as a spy.
Even so, they attempted to turn the tables.
"We caught Gerard's spy!! Gerard planted a spy and sent him to us, driving the mage to his death!!"
Graul appealed at the top of his cracking voice.
Perhaps because no one was buying it in the slightest, he grabbed the hair of Rian Kade—who had met his death on his knees—and shouted once again.
"Look at this!! This bastard toyed with us and killed the mage!! Gerard right over there is in league with Azrion, I tell you!! This is the proof!!"
Without reacting, Gerard reached them along with his unit members.
Gerard's hundred or so subordinates surrounded Graul and his unit members, of whom only twelve remained.
They were at a disadvantage in numbers as well.
Nevertheless, Graul pointed to Gerard as the mastermind behind the mage's murder and thrust Rian Kade forward as proof.
However, dead men tell no tales.
There was no guarantee that those accompanying Gerard would necessarily take his side, yet Rian Kade, who could have proven Graul's appeal, still had a stopped heart.
"Arrest them."
Gerard's command fell.
"Fuck!! I said it wasn't us! This bastard knew Gerard! He disguised himself in Imperial Army uniform and approached us, I tell you!!"
Graul resisted.
The others' faces also twisted with grievance, yet at the same time they trembled in fear.
"......"
Gerard's gaze flicked toward Rian Kade.
'His face looks familiar?'
It was a face he seemed to have seen somewhere before.
Although it was hard to make out properly beneath all the blood, hair that pitch-black was not common, either.
Gerard could not shake the thought that this was definitely someone he had seen before.
Even if that were the case, however, he could not say here that he knew that black-haired corpse. It was someone he did not remember, and someone he must not remember.
"Having been born of the bloodline of mediocre noble houses, you should have at least put in bone-grinding effort. You cannot escape the price of failing to protect Norpin even with thirty men."
"Before whom does a lowly thing like you dare speak of status?!!"
The thread of Graul's reason snapped.
Driven by the single-minded determination to kill Gerard, he lunged forward. The surrounding unit members moved to restrain him, yet—
"There is no time. I will do it."
Gerard met Graul as he lunged at him. It was a collision of fiery bloodlust and cold murderous intent.
However, any fierce clash of sound was omitted.
Slice—
Graul's head was cleanly severed.
Flicking Graul's blood off the flat of his blade, Gerard spoke up.
"Pursuit will be upon us soon. We will hold their families accountable for the charge of treason, and as punishment for failing their mission, the suspected traitors are to be summarily executed."
Following his command, the unit members under Gerard executed those who had been assigned to guard the mage.
Then, conscious of the pursuit by the Azrion soldiers crossing the bridge, Gerard ordered his men to retreat.
As he followed behind them, an inexplicable sense of unease made him look back once more.
"......"
His gaze reached Rian Kade. He met eyes like black pearls that had grown cloudy with death.
They were unmistakably the eyes of a dead man, yet somehow they gave him the illusion that the corpse might come back to life and move again at any moment.
"Ah!"
Only then did Gerard recall Rian, who had resisted to the very last on the Dandelion Plains.
However, that was impossible.
Since he had definitely ended the man's life, there was no reason for him to be here.
'Twins?'
Gerard's thoughts settled on that conclusion. Otherwise, it would mean that uncommon face had come back to life without dying, slaughtered his unit members, and even killed the mage.
That was absurd.
Therefore, they had to be twins, and it made sense that this one was an Azrion spy disguised as an Imperial soldier.
He judged that the operation had been leaked by a spy, and that the mastermind behind it was likely among the families of the scum who had been assigned as guards.
'That works out well. It is a scenario more than sufficient for purging those trashy noble scum.'
Dash!
Sorting out his thoughts, Gerard ran swiftly toward his unit members.
Squelch—. Crunch—.
Creep, creep—.
Without ever noticing that Rian's body was undergoing active regeneration.