It took several more minutes for the gigantic lizardman to finally stop moving.
I exhaled roughly and pulled my sword from its skull.
“To think monsters like these still remained in the Empire.”
I could see the few survivors fleeing back into the marsh, but I had no intention of chasing them right now.
I sheM returned my sword to its sheath and vaulted over the wall back into the camp.
Trichitas was waiting for me alongside the earth mages.
I noticed the strange look he was giving me, but I was far too exhausted to bother probing its meaning.
I had just felled a monster over three meters tall.
I didn’t want to fight even one more time tonight—especially not against a lightning mage.
Instead, I looked at the earth mages.
“Now I understand why the construction wasn’t progressing—”
“What in the world did you just do?”
Depamatos, the overall supervisor, asked in a trembling voice.
His pupils were contracted as if he couldn’t believe what he had seen, his mouth hanging open.
The other earth mages behind him wore similar expressions.
I answered, slightly puzzled.
“I fought the lizardmen and drove them off. Should I have captured one alive instead?”
“No, that’s not it. How did you kill so many monsters? And that last giant one—!”
Depamatos was too excited to finish his sentence.
A calmer earth mage continued for him.
“That big one withstood even our magic attacks.”
“Is that so?”
“Is that so?! You saved all of us! That many coming up at once was a first. Honestly, we thought we were done for.”
The earth mages cheered one after another.
“Those scales are as hard as steel—our spikes didn’t even pierce them.”
“Even the lightning from the lightning mage traveling with you didn’t work. How did you bring them down?”
“Long live Lord Anplus!”
The moment I heard that, I instinctively glanced at Trichitas.
It was a statement more than enough to wound his pride.
Yet Trichitas only gave me a slightly offended look, then heuh! let out a small sigh and turned his head away.
“Thanks to you, we survived. We sincerely thank you.”
Depamatos and the earth mages bowed in unison.
I shook my head and opened my mouth.
Their gratitude was satisfying enough, but I hadn’t come here to save them.
“Now I fully understand why the reclamation was delayed. I understand.”
Color returned to Depamatos’s face.
“It seems we can’t just wait for those things to leave on their own.”
“That is correct.”
“Since the ancient ones have returned, we’ll have to deal with them the old-fashioned way.”
I said this while idly fingering my sword hilt.
Just like our ancestors who exterminated every monster that threatened humanity.
They did it with magic; I will do it with the sword.
“At sunrise tomorrow, Trichitas and I will enter the marsh together. We will find their nest and wipe them out completely.”
“…What did you say?”
Trichitas muttered quietly.
Even in the darkness, I could see the corner of his mouth twitch.
Regardless, I spoke to the earth mages.
“Calm the laborers and have them re-survey the land. Tell them to prepare to resume reclamation.”
“We shall do so.”
Depamatos bowed first.
The earth mages followed in unison.
I accepted their bows quite naturally.
***
The next day, I woke long before sunrise.
I wanted to sleep at least two more hours, but the noise around me made it impossible.
“My lord, I cannot do it. We don’t know when those demons will crawl out again.”
“What insolence is this!”
Depamatos shouted, trembling with rage.
“My lord, kill me if you must. If I am cursed by those demons, they will follow me all the way home. If I must choose between my life and my family’s, I will die alone.”
Yet the red-blooded laborers all bowed their heads and knelt.
“I feel the same. They are demons of the marsh. We must not touch them carelessly.”
“We were unsure when only ones similar to us appeared, but after seeing that huge one yesterday, we are certain. They are demons returned from time.”
One laborer muttered in a gloomy voice.
“We are already cursed. The lords with blue blood might be safe, but we will all die without exception. The marsh will return and swallow us whole.”
I rose from my chair by the campfire and walked toward them.
“What is all this commotion so early in the morning?”
At the sight of me, Depamatos and the laborers all fell silent.
“That’s the lord from yesterday, right?”
“The one who slew the demons.”
“No way. Even a lord couldn’t defeat demons. They’ll come again tonight.”
The red-blooded laborers whispered among themselves.
Among them were not mere workers but educated surveyors and architects.
Depamatos hesitated before speaking.
“Young master, I am sorry. I ordered them to clean up the monster corpses and prepare to resume reclamation…”
“And?”
“They say they would rather die than obey. They fear the curse and want to quit.”
“A curse?”
“It’s the native religion of this region. They worship the ancient things that live in the marsh. To them, it is part of life and common sense; no matter how much we explain, they won’t listen.”
I frowned.
The overwhelming power of blue blood had sanctified the nobles without needing the authority of existing religions, and they had never paid attention to the faiths of their subjects.
One of the consequences of that arrogance was now revealing itself.
I looked at the red-blooded laborers.
“My lord, they are demons.”
“They have ruled this marsh for thousands of years.”
“They were here long before the lords came to protect us.”
Seeing the fanatical light in their eyes, I sighed.
Our common sense is literally different.
They had lived their entire lives in a different world under different laws and common sense.
Explanations about species or extinction would never get through to them.
“If I capture and kill the leader of those demons, will you obey without protest then?”
So I used the simplest logic possible.
“Pardon?”
“But—!”
“Even a lord cannot defeat demons.”
“That’s right. If the lord fails, we will all die.”
The red-blooded laborers voiced their worries one by one.
I smiled bitterly inside.
I wondered whether I should draw my sword and show them the authoritative demeanor of a noble.
The one who stopped me was an unexpected person.
Pajijik! A streak of yellow lightning flashed above the laborers’ heads.
“Who do you dare doubt right now?”
At the magic and stern rebuke, the laborers prostrated themselves again.
“Aigoo, it’s not doubt!”
“Silence! The ancient things of the marsh disappeared thousands of years ago. Even if they returned from time, all we need to do is crush them once more. The young master is personally stepping forward to soothe your fears, yet instead of weeping in gratitude, you dare block his path!”
“But my lord couldn’t defeat those demons yesterday either!”
One laborer protested.
Trichitas coldly glared at him.
“Have you lost your mind!”
“What are you thinking!”
His colleagues hurriedly scolded him.
The protester realized the situation and began trembling.
Trichitas gathered blue mana.
Lightning flashed, and the laborer rolled on the ground without even screaming.
“I didn’t kill him. Weep and be grateful for this body’s mercy.”
The laborers nearby hurriedly massaged the fallen man and patted his back.
Trichitas didn’t spare them another glance and spoke.
“Young master, shall we go? I’ve prepared boots and a boat.”
I followed him between the tents.
The moment we were out of the laborers’ sight, Trichitas dropped the formal speech again.
“Since you can’t use magic, you seem to have no awareness that you are a noble. You just let those lowly red-bloods crawl all over you.”
“I wasn’t letting them. If you hadn’t stepped in, I was about to cut them down myself. More importantly, you just acknowledged I’m a noble, didn’t you?”
I grinned triumphantly, and he made a face like he’d been punched.
“A slip of the tongue. I must have briefly lost my mind.”
He had indeed prepared a flat-bottomed boat; one really was waiting at the edge of the marsh.
“Last night you nearly fainted when I said we’d go into the marsh together, yet you prepared everything so nicely?”
“I couldn’t sleep thinking you might decide to walk in.”
“Weren’t you worried demons would appear?”
For a very brief moment, Trichitas’s face stiffened.
I remembered how the giant lizardman last night had shrugged off his lightning.
Before he could retort, I spoke first.
“Don’t worry. These things aren’t demons, nor ancient ones. They aren’t even ‘real’ lizardmen.”
“It’s true that long ago the Empire had reptilian beastmen.”
“But these aren’t those beastmen.”
Between the wall and the marsh, the uncollected corpses still lay scattered.
I pointed alternately at two of them.
“Look at the hands. The ones that used claws as weapons have claws like long, hard bone blades. But the ones wielding weapons have hands that just look like human hands covered in leather and scales.”
“You’re right.”
“They’re too different to be the same species.”
“That’s a fair point.”
Trichitas nodded.
“Also, look here. Four arms. If they have four arms, how many pairs of legs did they originally have? Do you know any reptile with three pairs of legs?”
“Only insects have three pairs. True, if such a thing existed, His Highness Argantius would never have failed to collect it.”
“The angle the arms are attached at is strange too.”
I kicked one corpse over.
Last night I had been unsure, but now I was certain.
“There are no wing bones where the second pair of arms should connect. It’s not an extra shoulder joint; it feels like arms just sprouted from the sides. Creatures like this don’t appear naturally—ancient or not.”
I used some of the evolutionary theory I had learned in my previous life.
He looked at me with a strange expression.
“I didn’t know you were knowledgeable in biology. When did you learn that?”
“When I was young. It was surprising that I learned it in rhetoric class instead of history. Even back then, the family head loved collecting skeletons.”
Trichitas gave a wry smile and nodded.
“So they’re not ancient, not demons, and not even natural monsters?”
“They are monsters, yes. But someone made them. Didn’t you see their eyes last night? The way they glowed under the moonlight was too bright to call normal.”
“!”
His eyes widened.
“Sometimes… when you force or gather too much mana, blue light flickers even in the blood vessels of the eyes.”
“Exactly. People who can build walls with magic and hurl lightning could certainly create monsters.”
“This is a type of magic I’ve never seen before. Have you ever heard of it, young master?”
Trichitas asked with a faint smile.
Regretfully, I shook my head.
“It’s not in any grimoire I’ve ever read.”
“This might turn out to be a more important adventure than expected.”
He looked at the small boat and handed me the boots.
The vitality unique to blue blood sparkled in his eyes as he gazed at the Serenus Marsh.
“Yes. It definitely will be.”
I too looked out at the misty green marsh.
***
Trichitas and I commandeered two laborers to row the boat.
The laborers wept and begged that they could never enter the marsh.
I shaved their heads with a swing of my sword and offered once more.
“We’ll go. Of course we’ll go.”
“I wanted to go from the very beginning.”
The blazing morning sun made us forget the water hyacinths covering the surface and the dawn mist.
Clusters of large and small islands formed by aquatic plants, giant carnivorous reptiles swimming leisurely underwater, snakes as thick as a man’s waist—everywhere the eye could see was untouched wilderness.
I felt a pleasant shiver as I looked at a relatively large island far ahead.
“You see the footprints on the mudflat at the edge of that island?”
“Y-Yes.”
“They’re neither human nor ordinary animal footprints in depth or size.”
“That’s correct.”
“Bring us close.”
The area around the island was all mudflat, so the boat could go no farther.
I stepped off the boat and advanced across the mud.
Had I not worn long leather boots, I would have been soaked to the thighs.
Trichitas drew a map on oiled paper while scanning the surroundings.
“This isn’t good.”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re heading straight toward the imperial domain’s Midus Marsh. If luck is bad, an Intezeruto knight could be accused of armed intrusion into imperial territory.”
“And if luck is worse?”
“We’ll discover the truth behind these monster attacks. In the worst case, we might witness the imperial family raising monsters to sabotage Intezeruto’s reclamation project.”
“That would be good luck. A chance to earn great merit.”
The two laborers looked ready to faint.
“Argantius, watch over us…”
Seeing them pray while invoking the family head’s name, I chuckled.
Something moved deep inside the island.
“Did you see that?”
“Looked like a snake. Or maybe a turtle.”
“Yes. Three heads103 heads, and a shell about four meters across, I’d say.”