Chapter 39: The Night the Marsh Turned Red

Dozens of lizardmen poured into the camp.

“AAAAAARGH!”

“The devils have been released!”

“Save us!”

The laborers hired by the imperial family screamed and scattered in every direction.

Come to think of it, they’d said those things were fed only once a week, and today was the fifth day.

They must be quite hungry.

“No—no!”

A three-meter lizardman seized a laborer’s limbs with its four arms and lifted him high.

Unable to even struggle with all four limbs pinned, the laborer’s face was licked by a snake-like tongue.

The triple-rowed jaws opened wide, and half the laborer’s torso vanished inside.

“Bring the crossbows!”

“Where’s my sword?”

“Form a shield wall!”

“Too late—prepare to charge!”

“You lot, escort the blue-blood lords.”

The imperial elite soldiers and knights who had been gathered in small groups around campfires rose in frantic haste.

Soldiers loaded crossbows; knights called their squires to tighten breastplate straps and fetch swords and gauntlets.

“HISSSSS!”

“AAAAAARGH!”

A frenzied lizardman bit down on an elite soldier’s head as though biting into fruit and lifted him.

After shaking him left and right once or twice, the neck snapped off like a cherry stem.

A huge lizardman came charging, trampling the laborers’ tents.

An imperial knight rushed to meet it.

He lowered his jaw almost to his knee and pressed the sword tight against his side.

The starting stance was excellent, but his wrist looked too stiff.

The tip of the blade stood too rigidly.

To transfer the full impact to those smooth, rounded scales, he had to relax the wrist slightly at the moment of collision.

All of it.

Only then would the angle allow the shock to strike true.

The power had to be added afterward.

That knight could not do it.

“Urgh!”

CRUNCH. With a sickening sound his sword failed to pierce the scales and slid long across them.

Immediately after, four vicious hands kneaded the knight like clay.

He collapsed without even a scream.

“A knight has fallen!”

“Load! Aim!”

More than a dozen imperial elite soldiers instantly formed a tight formation.

It was so perfectly synchronized I almost wanted to applaud.

Twelve crossbows of terrifying power—capable of piercing a knight’s breastplate—were leveled forward.

“Fire!”

The moment the order fell, twelve bolts shot forth.

Thud, then crackle. The sound of scales shattering rang out.

The lizardman that had been gnawing the knight like a walnut let out a pained shriek and collapsed.

“Next!”

“Close up!”

“Let’s show these monster bastards what’s what!”

The imperial elites held their crossbows and formed a dense line.

The imperial knights showed the swift, slender lizardmen circling around the bitter taste of a charge.

The earth mages who had rushed out in panic gathered blue light.

“Can we raise walls? Won’t the Intezeruto spies claim we’re fortifying?”

“Up to 2.4 meters it’s a fence, not a wall! Block them!”

“O Earth!”

The imperial earth mages drew complex patterns in the air or slammed their staves into the ground.

The earth between the laborer tents and the soldier tents writhed, then a tall wall sprouted upward.

On the inner side were footboards so soldiers could fire crossbows over it.

“Let’s kill every last one of these troublesome things while we’re at it! Move!”

It was the voice of the blue-blood who had been arguing with the local earth mages.

The deep-blue blood from the center—my target.

I instinctively marked him.

Even in the darkness, the golden hair and golden eyes stood out, along with the arrogant noble features and the soldier-like square jaw, the expensive dark-bronze uniform adorned with gold trim and embroidery.

One glance was enough to know he was no middling branch family.

Judging by hair and eye color, not pureblood, but a collateral extremely close collateral.

“Once they finish their meal, their movements slow. We will charge then. Knights, prepare to break the center. I will provide covering fire.”

“Understood!”

“Obey Lord Ventios’s command!”

From the attitude of the knights, it seemed this Ventios had brought the soldiers and knights himself.

“We can’t! If all the laborers die we cannot continue construction!”

At that moment the local earth-mage supervisor ran over and wailed.

“Please go out right now and save the laborers!”

“We beg you!”

The knights turned their sword tips toward the earth mages.

“Cease your insolence!”

“Are we to spill blue blood to save red-blood trash?”

The earth mage who appeared to be the site director shouted,

“Then you’ll pay for the delayed construction? Do you know how much the penalty is? If only you, Ventios, hadn’t brought those monster bastards—”

I smiled faintly and watched someone else’s house burn.

He won’t be able to endure that.

As expected, the noble called Ventios moved.

He was a giant even larger than the knights.

Standing before him, the site director looked like a child before an adult.

“This mission was commanded by exalted personages; opposition will not be tolerated. If fruit is given, accept it; if thorns are given, grasp them. Submit to the will of the exalted ones.”

“!”

Their gazes clashed in mid-air.

The director clenched his teeth and lowered his head.

Not the best situation for me.

Slipping in during the chaos would have been ideal.

For the mission I needed to be a little bolder.

I grabbed a nearby spear and ran to join the other imperial soldiers clinging to the barrier.

“Die! Die!”

“Keep distance and stab!”

“Aim for the head!”

I climbed the footboard, stood shoulder-to-shoulder with them, and looked toward the laborers’ tent area.

It was already a field of carnage.

The big ones devoured laborers like sausages hung on poles; the smaller ones driven by their backs were pushed toward the barrier and lunged at the elite soldiers.

“Do these things have no fear?”

“They say they have none. They were made to be filled with constant rage and the moment they were created.”

“Where’d you hear that?”

“Lord Ventios told us. Were you sleeping then?”

Listening to the imperial elites’ banter, I searched for the largest lizardman.

If it had been made that way, it had to be here.

“Found it.”

I muttered under my breath and looked at the lizardman just turning its head this way.

Eyes gleaming with fighting spirit, white crab-like carapace.

Unlike the others, a three-meter monster with only two thick arms.

It was so massive it looked like two creatures moving at once.

I’ve never practiced spear-throwing.

I pulled my right arm far back.

It felt like rope twisting with a creak.

“Hah!”

With a sharp shout I hurled the spear.

The spear drew a parabola and lodged exactly where it had to—between the neck and shoulder carapace.

“KIIEEK!”

The creature looked this way.

Its dark-blue pupils flashed.

In that instant our eyes met again.

“HISSS!”

The white-carapaced monster charged straight at the barrier.

“Who threw that spear?”

“Just shoot!”

I laughed like a madman and stepped back from the barrier.

“Lord Mage!”

“Lord Ventios! It’s coming!”

“What’s com—urgh!”

The white monster charged.

The imperial elites pulled their triggers in unison.

But the crossbow bolts could not pierce the hard, smooth shell and only slid off.

Ting, ting—the sounds were loud but futile.

“Too late!”

“Fall back the line!”

They descended from the footboard.

The next instant the barrier exploded and collapsed.

Soldiers who failed to retreat in time were flung into the air like bullfighters struck by an ox.

“HISSSSS!”

The white monster, covered in dust, bared its fangs.

Behind it, the smaller lizardmen clinging to the barrier poured in, and the large lizardmen who had finished devouring laborers turned their heads this way.

“These monster bastards don’t even recognize their masters? Did you think we fed you so you could bite us? You were meant to ruin the Intezeruto reclamation, yet now you ruin ours.”

Ventios clenched his teeth at the sight of the fallen soldiers.

“Lord Ventios, please retreat for now!”

“Indeed—the battle turns against us!”

“Let go. I will at least kill that one with my own hands.”

Ventios shook off the soldiers’ arms and gathered mana.

Brilliant blue light shone in the darkened camp.

Ventios thrust his palm forward.

A low huuuum resounded.

Immediately after, a wave of wind blades shot forth in a narrow fan, grinding everything in its path.

“Good heavens.”

I exclaimed aloud.

He was spinning and firing hundreds of dagger-sized wind blades.

“HISSS!”

The white lizardman charged head-on as if daring him to come.

Crunch, crunch. Carapace and wind blades collided furiously.

A single blade left only a hairline crack, but ten became a hundred, and even carapace harder than steel began to be shaved away.

All of it.

“Hiss?!”

The thick arm thrust forward lost its shell, flesh was sliced away, and in the blink of an eye only white bone remained.

Thud. The white lizardman, now a lump of meat, fell to its knees.

“Yes. Let us go.”

Ventios spoke in a voice dripping with lingering regret.

He wiped the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief.

“Lord Ventios, just a moment.”

A knight glanced at me.

“That soldier is the one who threw the spear at that creature.”

“It was probably a mistake. He’s now risking his life holding his position, isn’t he?”

“As far as I know, none of the soldiers Lord Ventios brought tie their hair.”

“!”

More than a dozen pairs of eyes turned to me.

I did not avoid them.

***

“AAAAAARGH! My arm!”

“Save me!”

“These monster bastards…”

“Fire! The food warehouse is burning!”

Screams rang out everywhere; overturned braziers set tents ablaze, flames dancing wildly.

The dark night was painted red with fire and screams.

Anplus thought all of it looked like the background for himself and that man.

He paid no attention to the dozen soldiers and knights surrounding Ventios.

His heartbeat began to quicken.

The wind mage who had killed the white monster.

That man was his target.

Anplus stepped toward Ventios.

He walked straight through the narrow path between burning tents.

The borrowed cloak caught fire.

The growing flames burned away the cloak that had hidden him and climbed to his chest.

Yet Anplus neither extinguished the fire nor threw the cloak off.

Half of any fight is momentum.

Thanks to the serpent-turtle hide lining the inside of his new breastplate and gauntlets, it was not even that hot.

At the almost magical sight, the imperial soldiers swallowed hard.

“That one… is wearing a knight’s breastplate.”

A knight who saw the breastplate revealed within the flames spoke.

“That is not the imperial crest. That is… the Intezeruto crest.”

Ventios’s golden eyes widened and trembled.

Anplus unfastened the nearly-burned cloak and threw it to the ground.

“Monsters appeared on the reclaimed land and caused us trouble. We advanced deep into the marsh to root them out. A sudden gust caught our skiff and unintentionally brought me to imperial soil—my belated apologies.”

“You bastard.”

“I was cold and wet, so I picked up a fallen cloak. When the monsters started rampaging I threw a spear and paid the borrowing fee. Not enough?”

“All of this—you did this—!”

“No. You did this, Ventios.”

He had not expected his name to be called; Ventios’s face showed panic.

A burning tent collapsed behind Anplus.

With the wave of embers as his halo, Anplus spoke.

“You brought monsters to this marsh and used Lobigos to send them to Intezeruto. Intezeruto, without officer-mages, suffered miserably. Yet… it seems you are in the same situation—no officer-mages.”

“Lobigos? Then you are that knight.”

“You know me?”

“I heard from His Highness Sormanzer that there was a clear-blooded genius knight in Intezeruto. I never thought I would meet him in person.”

“An honor that even the clear-blood remembers me. Thank you. I am Anplus.”

Ventios raised one hand and ordered soldiers and knights back.

“Lord Ventios.”

The soldiers pleaded.

“Even if only half of what I heard is true, none of you are his match.”

“Please, it is dangerous.”

“Who do you think killed the monsters sent to Intezeruto and Lobigos himself?”

The soldiers finally swallowed and retreated.

Ventios gathered blue light and spoke.

“So in the end I too face a knight.”

Blue light flickered above his shoulders.

Dusky-blue wind blades spun horizontally and flew toward him.

Anplus slowly and evenly slashed upward with his sword.

With the sound of shattering glass the wind blades scattered.

Even the fragments were sharp enough to tear flesh at a touch, yet they could not pierce gauntlets or breastplate and bounced away.

“I will be the first and the last.”

He kicked the ground and charged.