A thick, sucking mire of blood that dragged at his ankles.
The groans of the dying.
The barking of gnolls and the rank stench of beasts.
And the sensation of cutting through tough hide, then slicing through flesh and muscle.
Hot blood.
Those moments when, consumed by the instinct to survive, he had focused on nothing but killing gnolls.
Looking down upon that hellish scene as though from above, Karl could hardly believe that he had been capable of fighting so relentlessly.
If that landscape belonged to hell, then Karl, who had slaughtered with such skill despite having learned swordsmanship for only two days, could rightfully be called the fine seed of a demon.
He floundered in a swamp of blood.
No matter how desperately he tried to escape, the endlessly pouring blood kept dragging him beneath the surface.
The tower of corpses Karl would pile up in the future rose until it encircled the world like a wall, while vessels overflowing with blood spilled out and formed an ocean.
Even as Karl struggled to escape, there was still only one thought in his mind.
He had to live.
He needed to pile up more corpses, fill this sea of blood, and make himself something to stand upon.
To put it plainly and without embellishment, compared to his desire to live, he did not particularly care about anything else.
Karl thought that was only natural.
And that was precisely why he found it horrifying.
In the end, as long as we draw breath, none of us can live without killing something.
***
“Lord Karl, are you feeling unwell anywhere?”
Even after opening his eyes, Karl remained dazed for a while, unable to think properly.
Milton watched him quietly before raising a hand and waving it in front of Karl’s eyes. His gaze followed it without difficulty.
“…I am fine.”
Karl answered in a slightly hoarse voice and struggled to sit up.
“How much time has passed?”
“Not even a full day. It will be noon soon.”
At Milton’s answer, Karl felt over his body and cleared his throat.
His entire body felt somewhat limp and heavy, but otherwise he was perfectly fine. He had no injuries, nor did he have any trouble moving.
The only discomfort was a slight scratchiness in his throat.
“Milton, did you treat me?”
Karl asked.
It had only been half a day since he had collapsed unconscious from complete exhaustion. Yet now he was almost entirely recovered.
But something did not quite add up if Milton had treated him.
Milton lowered his subdued gaze and spoke quietly.
“No. I did not treat you, Lord Karl.”
“What?”
As Karl tilted his head in confusion, Milton explained calmly.
“As you ordered, I treated Sir Catherine, Bilford, and the Imperial soldiers first. Then I examined your condition and determined that you did not require treatment. Whenever my Mana recovered, I treated the others.”
“…So you are saying I recovered on my own in barely half a day?”
“If you insist on calling it recovery, then yes, the wound on your collarbone did heal.”
At Milton’s words, Karl reached up and touched his collarbone.
He remembered the terrible pain when a gnoll’s teeth had slipped through the gap between his Plate Breastplate and Helmet and torn across his flesh. Yet now, when he touched it, there was only a faint throbbing.
Reading his reaction, Milton took out a small mirror and showed him the wound.
“…What…?”
A scab still remained, but most of it had already fallen away, revealing pale new skin beneath.
Karl picked at the scab with trembling fingers, and it came away effortlessly.
When he scratched off the largest remaining piece, a single drop of blood welled up.
That was all.
A wound…
No, it would be more accurate to call it a scar.
It had been only last night when the filthy, jagged teeth of a gnoll had torn through his skin and sent blood pouring down his body!
“Did you use medicine?”
“No. I did nothing. There was no need to stop the bleeding or even wrap it in a bandage.”
“Not even after the battle?”
“Not even when I examined you immediately after the battle.”
Goosebumps rose across Karl’s skin, and he clenched his fist.
In other words, the wound had healed almost instantly without becoming infected by the gnoll’s filthy teeth.
Karl possessed the knowledge of Han Changin, a man who had lived in the modern world, so he could not help fearing all manner of diseases and infections.
And yet pale new flesh had already grown over a wound smeared with gnoll saliva and rotting blood that were practically poison.
Unless something extraordinary happened, he would no longer have to worry about infections in the future.
It also meant that Karl, who never knew when someone might slip poison into his food, could eat without constantly fearing assassination!
“Keep this secret.”
“Yes. With Sir Catherine’s help, I concealed your injury and brought you inside.”
“Well done.”
“Sir Catherine was deeply concerned. Even after I explained that treatment was unnecessary, she continued insisting that I heal you. I eventually had to remind her of your orders before I could send her away.”
Karl quietly looked at Milton.
There was no reason for Milton to have told him that.
Not within the purely professional relationship between the puppet Fourth Prince and the Imperial Physician assigned to him, at least.
“I understand. I am fine, so please tend to the others.”
“Yes, Lord Karl.”
Milton bowed respectfully at Karl’s words, retreated one step backward, then left the room without a sound.
“……”
Karl was about to straighten his clothes before going outside.
Yet aside from a few wrinkles left from lying down, everything was already immaculate.
His body, which had been covered in blood, sweat, and mud, had been thoroughly cleaned, and someone had changed him into fresh clothes.
Karl slowly opened and closed his fist as he examined himself, feeling strangely unsettled.
His long hair had been left loose so he could rest comfortably. Karl gathered it and tied it firmly behind him, then took the Red Cloak that had been neatly arranged atop a clean cloth on the side table and draped it over his shoulders.
Then he slowly walked outside.
His shoulders, which had been sagging moments before, now stood straight and proud.
It was probably not because his strength had returned in that brief span of time.
“Lord Karl.”
Clack!
The moment Karl stepped outside, the soldier guarding the door moved aside and cleared a path for him.
There was no trace of the man who had once muttered curses while barely concealing his contempt for Karl, the sickly Fourth Prince.
“Where is Sir Catherine?”
“She went outside to oversee command and reconnaissance. She said she would return before noon, so she should be back shortly.”
“Is the man currently in charge here?”
“Yes.”
“Take me to him.”
“Yes, Lord Karl.”
The soldier guided Karl with great courtesy.
Seeing the change in their attitudes made Karl want to speak with them about it.
But there were more urgent matters to deal with, so he decided to postpone that conversation.
The place he was brought to was a fairly large log cabin. Judging by the Hilpin soldiers constantly coming and going, it appeared that a Hilpin knight or officer was stationed there rather than the village chief.
“Sir Corbin, Lord Karl has arrived.”
The soldier guarding the building spotted Karl’s Red Cloak and announced his arrival.
A moment later, a tall man with an untidy beard emerged from the building with his Helmet tucked beneath one arm.
The man was extraordinarily tall and slender, with especially long limbs. To Karl, he almost resembled a human figure twisted together from lengths of wire.
His black hair, black beard, and dark brown eyes suggested that he, too, had Balturan blood in him.
But what concerned Karl more was the fact that this man, who had been addressed as Sir Corbin and was therefore undoubtedly a knight, was not wearing Full Plate Armor.
Aside from his breastplate, Helmet, gauntlets, and greaves protecting his shins, the rest of his body was covered only by a Gambeson and leather armor.
Since no one knew when another battle might break out, they had to remain armed at all times.
Seeing Corbin equipped for battle made Karl realize that.
At the same time, he realized something else.
Corbin might be a knight, but he was apparently so poor that he could not even afford a suit of Full Plate Armor.
Even a fallen noble family would have found some way to provide a member who had become a knight with a cheap suit of Full Plate Armor.
Furthermore, Corbin’s breastplate bore nothing but the crest of Hilpin—a single standing bear.
Karl did not stop there. He allowed his reasoning to go further.
The nobles of Hilpin had tried to conceal this entire matter, even if it meant deceiving Karl, an Imperial Prince.
They had done so even though the territory itself could be destroyed by the overwhelming gnoll offensive.
And in a situation like that, at Axe Sound Village, the final bulwark against the gnolls, a knight who could not even afford proper armor was fighting to the death without retreating.
They had sent him here because they did not care whether he died.
That meant there was no one in Hilpin who would protect Corbin.
In other words, Corbin was a knight of common birth.
Karl considered whether he might be able to make use of this miserably abandoned common-born knight.
But he could not make that judgment easily.
Karl could determine his skill in time.
But there was no way to know what kind of man Corbin truly was inside.
“Lord Karl. I am Corbin, a knight of Hilpin.”
Even when Corbin bent his enormous frame as low as he could, he still towered over Karl, so in the end he dropped to one knee and bowed respectfully.
Under ordinary circumstances, a knight did not kneel even before his own lord.
A knight knelt when receiving his knighthood or when he had committed an exceptionally grave offense.
Yet Corbin had dropped to one knee the moment they first met.
‘He has never been properly treated as a knight. Nor has he received the proper education.’
Although Corbin had been formally knighted, Karl realized that in practice he was little more than a common captain of soldiers.
Could he be useful?
“Please rise, Sir Corbin.”
“…Yes, Lord Karl.”
Corbin seemed taken aback by Karl’s courteous manner, but he soon proved his ignorance of etiquette by standing directly in front of Karl while slapping the dirt from his knee and sending dust into the air.
“I would like to hear the details.”
“Yes. A month ago, a large number of gnolls suddenly began appearing.”
At Karl’s words, Corbin immediately launched into his explanation.
Karl had meant that they should first go inside and speak there.
But Corbin, completely unfamiliar with the indirect manner of speech used by nobles, had taken his words literally as an order to explain everything immediately.
Not wanting to embarrass him by pointing it out, Karl simply remained silent and listened.
“I came here with soldiers under the Baron’s orders to exterminate the gnolls. There were many of them even at first, but nowhere near this many. Strangely, the gnolls kept trying to attack people. They even began raiding villages. So I thought that if we strengthened the defenses of the villages near the forest and killed the ones that attacked, we could gradually reduce their numbers.”
The gnolls were actively seeking out humans to attack.
It was an unmistakably abnormal situation.
Naturally, gnolls were not complete fools. They understood perfectly well that provoking humans brought them no benefit.
Yet they had repeatedly attacked villages protected by wooden palisades, continuing even as they died in droves.
“But no matter how many we killed, their numbers kept increasing. Now the situation has grown completely beyond our control.”
“And Baron Hilpin still sent no reinforcements?”
Karl narrowed his eyes as he asked, and Corbin hesitated briefly.
Then resignation appeared on his face.
“There were reinforcements at first. But many soldiers were killed, and some deserted. I requested additional support, but none came after that. The only soldiers who still travel back and forth are those carrying silver.”
Desertion?
Karl raised an eyebrow at that, but then froze at what followed.
He could scarcely believe his ears.
“…Did you just say silver?”
“Yes. Silver. The gnolls’ axes contain silver.”
Karl slowly inhaled.
Then he let out a long breath and pressed his fingers against the corners of his eyes.
“…Ha. Hahaha. Of course.”
Karl covered his eyes and remained silent for a moment before bursting into laughter.
Only now did he finally understand what was happening.
“They tried to hide it to avoid conflict and keep from paying taxes?”
“…Most likely.”
“When was the silver first discovered?”
“The gnolls began making axes and arming themselves with them ten days ago. They must have seen woodcutters’ axes and copied them.”
There was no point interrogating Corbin.
Karl had already grasped the entire absurd chain of events.
A horde of gnolls had suddenly appeared, creating an emergency, so Hilpin had reported it to the Empire and requested aid.
Then something unexpected happened.
The gnolls’ crude metallurgy should not have been capable of working iron, yet suddenly the creatures began showing up with metal axes.
When they investigated, they discovered that the gnolls were making their axes from ore containing silver.
How could greed not seize them?
If the extermination force fought the gnolls, they would discover the truth, so the nobles of Hilpin had to conceal it somehow.
They did not care how many people of the territory or commoner soldiers died.
First, they would gather as much silver as they possibly could.
And after that?
‘They intend to run.’
Even if they kept gathering silver, everything would end once the gnolls completely overran the territory.
So the nobles were probably planning to flee elsewhere with all the silver they had gathered and use that immense wealth to establish themselves on a far grander scale.
Then Karl saw an even larger picture.
‘Madius must have known.’
Karl had always found it strange that the mission Emperor Madius had given Ias in the original story—and Karl now—was nothing more than exterminating gnolls in some remote rural territory, supposedly to strengthen their position.
It made no sense unless Madius had already known.
‘The gnolls only started making silver axes ten days ago. I received the order eighteen days ago, and the gnolls first appeared a month ago.’
In other words, by the time the initial report of the gnoll outbreak reached the capital, Madius had already used his hidden blade to complete an investigation before Hilpin itself and discovered the silver.
It also meant that there was nowhere in the Empire beyond the Emperor’s sight.
‘Even at this very moment, there must be eyes following me somehow.’
Karl picked out the important conclusions from the many branches of thought unfolding in his mind.
‘First, all of this lies within Madius’s plans.’
That was the most important point.
Madius had made Karl an indirect yet impossible-to-refuse proposal: discover the silver and turn this remote territory, which no one else cared about, into his own foundation.
‘Second, none of this appeared in the original story.’
That was the next important point.
The original novel had never mentioned the existence of silver at all.
‘Ias knew, but pretended he did not.’
In the original story, Ias had been given the mission to exterminate the gnolls.
He had immediately mounted his horse and raced to Hilpin, completed the entire mission within a week, then returned to the Imperial Palace.
Afterward, he had simply said, ‘It was nothing,’ and neatly put the matter to rest.
That meant Ias had wiped out the gnolls before they ever began making axes.
But it was difficult to believe that Ias, who must have gone deep into the forest to exterminate the gnolls, had truly known nothing about the silver.
He had buried the existence of the silver in order to reject the Emperor’s offer!
‘Everything changed because of me.’
A tremendous change had occurred when Karl received the mission instead of Ias.
Ias had departed for Hilpin the moment he received the extermination order. He arrived three days later, slaughtered every gnoll, then rode for another three days and returned to the Imperial Palace.
Karl, by contrast, had needed an entire week to prepare after receiving the mission. Then he had traveled slowly with the soldiers in carriages, taking ten days to arrive.
Between the original story and the present, an enormous difference of fifteen days had opened up before the extermination force reached Hilpin.
Karl’s very existence had completely changed the fate of this small territory.
“…Tell me about the current military situation. …Inside, this time.”
“Yes, Lord Karl.”
Karl quickly organized his thoughts and addressed Corbin.
As he followed the knight inside, another concern arose.
‘Can Harmon actually bring back proper reinforcements in this situation?’
Hilpin had little military strength remaining, and its nobles were already plotting their escape.
Could Harmon possibly have fulfilled his role under these circumstances?
Silver or no silver, there would be no future unless they survived first and exterminated the gnolls.
And without additional support from Hilpin, wiping out the gnolls appeared impossible.
Karl suddenly found himself in the position of entrusting his entire future to Harmon.
He could not help but sigh.
The world truly was impossible to understand.