Rohan opened his eyes a slit. Snow-covered trees whipped past.
'What kind of mage moves this fast!'
Now he understood why the White Revenant hadn't shied away from close combat. Its movements weren't far behind those of a first-rate warrior.
'Where's it going?'
If even one more of these showed up, escaping would be hard. As it was, he'd only judged this White Revenant worth a try because he'd taken off one of its arms.
As Rohan wondered whether to start a fight right now, the White Revenant stopped walking. Then it dropped Rohan on the ground.
"Argh!"
"Hm? You were awake?"
"Who just dumps a person like that!"
Rohan got up, rubbing his lower back. He was awfully calm for someone who had been kidnapped.
Seeing that, the White Revenant let out a huh, a laugh. In reality, the blue light in its eyes had just dimmed slightly and its pitch-black mouth had opened a little wider than before, but that was how Rohan read it.
"Where is this?"
Rohan looked around. In front of him, white stones were stacked in tiers under a thin layer of snow, and behind and beside them, a high stone wall enclosed it in a semicircle.
"Looks like an altar."
The blue light in the White Revenant's eyes flickered faintly. Rohan was sure by now that this was how it showed emotion.
"The members will arrive soon, so wait quietly for a moment."
It was a calm tone. From its tone, Rohan was certain.
It believed that no matter what Rohan tried, he couldn't even escape its hands, let alone beat it.
"Then I'd better hurry."
Rohan drew up his magic power. At the same moment, the blue light in the White Revenant's eyes blazed.
"You! You weren't at the 2nd Stage!"
"Not taking my sword was your biggest mistake."
Red light surged over Rohan's sword. Soon the light became flame and blazed along the blade.
"Weren't you a Baltran?! How does someone who isn't even a mage have fire mana......."
The light in the thing's eyes dimmed for a moment, then flared sharply, over and over. Rohan burst out laughing.
"Is that how you show you're ticked off?"
Who'd have thought the day would come when he read a White Revenant's expressions?
Rohan thought for a moment that you really do see everything if you live long enough, then realized he looked like an eleven-year-old kid and straightened his face.
"Don't be surprised by this much."
An Ice Arrow formed in Rohan's left hand and flew at the top of the White Revenant's foot. The White Revenant, which had never expected magic, dodged in an awkward crouch and fell over backward.
Rohan lunged. A blue mana shield spread out.
BOOM!
The sword struck the mana shield. The shockwave spread outward, and the snow piled on the ground lifted into the air.
Rohan raised his left hand and spread it toward the air. The floating snowflakes froze.
Understanding what he was about to do, the light in the White Revenant's eyes shuddered. Rohan, meanwhile, laughed.
"So this is the face you make when you're nervous."
The open palm closed into a fist. At the same moment, the hail floating in midair came down.
"I can't cast Ice Storm yet, but I can adapt it like this."
The mana shield couldn't protect against all the hail swirling down. As chips of ice clawed at the White Revenant's body, the mana shield grew fainter and fainter.
Rohan raised his sword. Both corners of his mouth were lifted as high as they'd go.
Seeing Rohan's expression beyond the mana shield, the White Revenant felt a chill. The child bringing the sword down now didn't feel at all like an eleven-year-old kid.
BOOM! -CRACK!
The mana shield shattered. The White Revenant raised one finger. It was aiming for a surprise attack.
But Rohan's form was already on the opposite side.
The line of fire shot from its finger in a spiral flew into empty air.
"You think I haven't taken this kind of attack once or twice before?"
Looking down at it upside down, Rohan said. The White Revenant was puzzled.
How much experience could a child like that have?
Yet Rohan spoke as if he had faced mages of this caliber countless times.
"Anyway, your head's going to be very useful."
My head?
The light in the White Revenant's eyes flickered faster than ever before. Rohan's sword came down, and the White Revenant tried to raise a shield on reflex. In that instant, the shadows around it wrapped around it.
'......!'
The White Revenant couldn't move.
CRUNCH!
The sword came straight down on the White Revenant's neck, and the flickering of its eye-light stopped. Slowly the light dimmed, and the inside of its eyes turned black.
"Expressing everything with your eyes to the very end."
The shadow that had wrapped the White Revenant's corpse slithered back into the ground.
Rohan smiled with satisfaction.
'Useful, just as I thought.'
And easy to cast.
The Shadow Art proved as useful as he'd expected. Rohan had fought so many battles in his past life he was sick of them. He had more knowledge than anyone about when stopping an opponent would be most effective.
Rohan picked up the White Revenant's head from the ground and tucked it under his arm. Holding just the head like this, it looked no different from a skull with a few strands of hair left.
He thought for a moment about hiding the body somewhere too, but decided to just leave it.
There was no knowing when the group it had mentioned would come. He had to run away as fast as he could.
He had been able to kill this White Revenant partly because he had cut off one arm, but above all because the thing had misjudged Rohan's strength and let its guard down.
'If we'd fought all out, I'd have lost.'
He felt no shame about that. The lesson he'd learned as a mercenary was that whoever survives is the strong one.
He still had many questions. What was this place, and what was the order it had mentioned?
And why had it kidnapped him after learning he was a Baltran?
But now was the time to run, and Rohan knew better than anyone that hesitation in the face of survival was the worst enemy.
He turned toward the direction the White Revenant had come from and ran with all his might.
***
Oshan had come out of the ice cave through the passage on the other side and was checking on his comrades. Fortunately, the one patrolman who had been taken was unharmed. He had been dumped by the side of the passage as though of no interest, which left Oshan puzzled.
'After going to the trouble of luring us, it took only Rohan. Did that White Revenant know the Baltrans' youngest young master would cross the Wall?'
Yet Rohan hadn't seemed to have come over with any particular plan either. Oshan shook his head as if there was no need to ponder it now, and checked on his other comrades.
The two patrolmen hit by the fireball had stabilized and were asleep now. Hatz, on the other hand, had come to, discovered Rohan was gone, and was beside himself.
"Stay still, would you. Fretting won't solve anything."
"B-But I'm his Guardian Knight. His life is my life."
Guardian Knight?
Oshan wondered if the two children had been playing at knights. To him, Rohan was only a child.
But despite his cold attitude, Oshan had no intention of leaving a child kidnapped by a White Revenant to his fate.
'And it happened while he was helping me, too.'
As he wondered how he could save the kid, he saw a child trudging toward them not far away.
'......Rohan!'
He looked exhausted. Unlike before, his steps were slow, and he sank knee-deep into the snow. It made his gait look even more clearly slow.
In the end, Hatz couldn't stand it and ran to him.
"Lord Rohan!"
Oshan was flustered at the sight of Rohan too. But then, watching Hatz run to him and hug him with tears and snot pouring out, Oshan just stood there with his mouth open, speechless.
Even a long-married couple reuniting wouldn't be that tender.
Hatz helped Rohan over to where Oshan was. Rohan sat down with his back against a rock.
Then he set on his lap something he had been carrying between his arm and his side.
Soon that something and Oshan locked eyes.
"A-A White Revenant!"
"Even you sound flighty when you're startled."
Rohan was talking as if he were Oshan's superior. Oshan and Hatz, though, didn't notice.
The two were preoccupied with the White Revenant's head.
"Lord Rohan. How did you get this White Revenant's head......."
"D-Did you cut off its head?"
Rohan nodded. He barely had the strength to speak.
"I need to rest first. Ah, and Oshan."
Oshan gave a small nod, meaning go on.
"We helped you save your comrade, so I'd like you to help us too. The Shadow Forest. Take us as far as there."
Oshan had certainly been helped. If not for Rohan, the White Revenant would have killed every one of them, himself included.
Compared with that, Rohan's request was trivial.
"Is that all? If you want, we can go with you into the forest."
"Ah, that'd be a problem. If you guys get back to the Wall too late, Father will figure out we had help."
From that, Oshan realized Rohan had come here on Gion's orders.
At the same time, a thought flashed through his mind.
"Rohan."
"Hm? What is it?"
Rohan looked up with amusement at Oshan, who had called him by name.
"It'd be best not to say a word to your father about having met me."
"Even if I don't say anything, Father will find out I met a patrol squad."
"What I mean is, don't tell him you met me, Oshan, not the patrol squad."
Rohan snorted as if it were a trivial thing to say.
"You're full of yourself. You think my father remembers every mere patrol squad leader?"
At Rohan's jab, Oshan laughed brightly.
"Haha, yes, you might be right. Then good."
He turned right away and went back to his comrades. So he didn't see Rohan's eyes still fixed on his back.
'Your father, he says. That's the first I've seen anyone call my father so insolently.'
Something tickled at the back of his mind, but as fatigue washed over him, Rohan closed his eyes.
***
"The patrol really is something else."
Rohan camped with Oshan's group and headed for the Shadow Forest the next day.
With no signposts, it was the perfect road to get lost on. But without the slightest detour, they found the way to the Shadow Forest.
Thanks to them, Rohan and Hatz reached their destination before the sun was even at its height.
"Is it really all right to bring you only this far? Inside, it's full of monsters drawn to the darkness."
"Yeah, yeah. Don't worry."
Rohan had already turned and was heading into the forest. Hatz hurried after him, turning only his head to bow to the patrol.
"Interesting kids."
Oshan waved a hand they wouldn't see.
"Squad leader, is it really all right to leave them like this? He's still a young master of the House of Baltran."
It was Miro, who had been kidnapped by the White Revenant. Oshan slung an arm over his shoulder and asked.
"You confident you could beat a White Revenant mage?"
"Depends which one....... It's not like we saw that kid kill it himself. There must be some secret. It makes no sense for that child to have fought a White Revenant and won."
"Who knows. Whether it was luck or skill doesn't matter. In the end, whoever survives is the strong one. In that sense, that kid is strong."
Is he?
Miro looked at his comrades with an uneasy face. They just shrugged as if to say, so what.
Oshan watched until the children disappeared from sight, then turned his back.
"Let's head back. To the Wall."