7. The Noble Heavy Knight
Its majestic appearance defied the encroaching darkness. The lanterns throughout the fort were lit without reserve, and shouts, the clash of swords, and the sounds of destruction tore through the silence. The scene of hurriedly welcoming the intruders resembled a grand feast. However, what was being served wasn’t wine, but blood. Scattered and seeping into the floor.
The fierce battle had already moved inside the fort.
The Allied assault force had split into four groups and was rampaging through the fort.
The Imperial soldiers, roused from their sleep, were helpless against the force, which included Bogart and other hero-class personnel. Their desperate resistance was in vain, and the attack intensified.
However, the Imperial side wasn’t just standing idly by. The fort’s defenders, even if demoralized, were those who had been promised promotions. They were all capable individuals.
For example, they had a strategy that utilized the fort’s internal structure. From the time of its construction, this fort had several features designed to intercept intruders. One of them was the complexity of the internal passages. All the passages branched off at irregular points. The branch-like structure was solely for the purpose of increasing blind spots.
Attacking from these intentional blind spots, catching those passing by off guard.
This was being put into practice in the eastern section of the fort.
(Honestly, the Imperial army is quite resourceful.)
A man was striding through the blood-soaked corridor.
He was Tehrich Galdi, a captain. At the age of forty-six, he was one of the leaders of the assault force.
What made him stand out was his equipment. He was dressed as a heavy knight from a bygone era. His entire body was covered in dull, heavy armor, and a scabbard containing a single sword hung at his waist. Every time he walked, the armor pieces clinked together, making a high-pitched screech. Fresh blood dripped from the surface, leaving a straight trail of blood.
This heavy equipment wasn’t suitable for an assault force. The advantage of an assault was speed. Therefore, his appearance, which sacrificed agility, could be considered irrational. Moreover, his large physique wasn’t suited for indoor combat.
Naturally, Tehrich was aware of this.
(Nevertheless, there is a way to use it.)
As Tehrich walked, a loud, heavy sound echoed.
Five presences were drawn to it. They emanated from the darkness on either side of the corridor. They were probably exchanging glances and planning to attack him simultaneously when the opportunity arose. Although he couldn’t see them, it was easy to predict their positions if he knew the internal structure of the fort.
One step, two steps—the moment he took his third step, five figures attacked him at once.
They aimed to pierce through the gaps in his heavy armor.
“This is Laptenon’s garden.”
Tehrich had already stepped forward. The blade he unleashed along with the sound of his scabbard gleamed—fast.
“A newly occupied fort must be difficult to use.”
Before the five attacks from the ambushers could reach him, his straight sword struck them. The silver flashes drew precise trajectories. Truly, there was not a single deviation. Five necks were slashed, and red droplets danced in the air. After a gust of wind swept through, the corpses collapsed with a thud. The sound reached his eardrums only once.
Contained within this single sound were multiple metallic clangs.
That alone reminded him of the constraints of his heavy equipment.
He landed and shook the blood off his sword. With a practiced movement, he sheathed it and resumed his advance.
(Failure is not an option. This is a golden opportunity to make the Empire lose face. No, it’s our last chance. We who have failed once, have no more chances.)
Tehrich grimly accepted his fate.
He was a veteran soldier who had been on the battlefield for over twenty years. His bravery was legendary in the Laptenon Kingdom. However, for the past three years, he had felt his physical strength declining and had been considering retiring from the front lines.
The recent battlefield was supposed to be his last job before retirement. He was originally supposed to be the commander at Dera Branch Castle, but his skills were recognized, and he was assigned to a special task force. The plan they had been working on in secret was a grand mission, too brilliant to be his last job before retirement.
But in the end, the plan failed, and they moved on to the second plan.
That was this current assault operation.
(From the beginning, it was a plan kept secret to prevent information from leaking to the Empire. Even our collaborator, the Viennese Kingdom, wasn’t aware of it, so it’s a suitable unit for a surprise attack.)
He steadily made his way towards his destination. He reviewed the internal structure and the plan’s procedures. He was supposed to attack the magic room in the eastern part of the fort.
The magic room was the defensive hub of a fort or city. It was a special room that controlled the maintenance of the barrier magic—in other words, the magic that mitigated impacts—deployed to cover a certain area.
Every time he entered one, he thought, “What a strange space.”
A sealed space with magic circles drawn on the ceiling, walls, and floor. Either specialized magicians were stationed there in shifts, or a substitute called a Mana crystal was placed there.
It was necessary to provide the magic power required for maintenance.
(This technology was largely ignored until heroes became widespread. Nowadays, buildings without magical protection are useless. Even stone forts are like castles in the sand… They could be reduced to dust by brute force, making it possible to capture a fort single-handedly.)
The magic room was there to prevent such absurdity.
It reinforced fragile forts with magic. Naturally, there was a limit to its strength, so it could be broken by overwhelming force. For example, the gate of Fort Balaboa was ultimately breached by Bogart’s single blow and a barrage of attack magic.
But the presence or absence of a magic room had a significant impact. If it fell into enemy hands, there was no other option but to surrender. If there hadn’t been barrier magic, the gate would have been shattered by the initial kick that signaled the start of the assault.
In other words, the magic room was the heart of a fort. It could also be called the heart of the defending side.
(That’s why the location of the magic room is top secret.)
Its location in Fort Balaboa was typical. There were four magic rooms in total, one in each direction: east, west, north, and south. This arrangement was “to distribute the magic supply evenly throughout the fort” and also “to disperse the enemy forces.” Originally, combined with the labyrinthine structure inside, it should have been troublesome.
—Unless the attacking side knew the interior of the fort well.
“No resistance. This is a walkover.”
Silver flashes drew arcs around Tehrich.
They scattered crimson, tore through flesh, and reaped the lives of the waiting Imperial soldiers. The attack, a true example of overwhelming force, steadily advanced towards its destination at a walking pace.
He wasn’t leading a large force. The platoon-sized unit of Kingdom soldiers he had been lent was waiting behind him. They were blocking the passage to prevent any unnecessary intruders. Having a large number of people in the narrow corridor could become a hindrance.
—It was safer to proceed alone from here.
He had absolute confidence. The twenty-plus years he had survived on the battlefield weren’t accumulated for nothing. They had accumulated in his heart as confidence.
But contrary to his perfectly successful plan, he sighed.
(Once I reach that magic room, my role will be as good as over. It won’t be a glorious ending—but I will have fulfilled my important duty. It’s almost time to put an end to these twenty years.)
He stepped over a young soldier lying dead in the blood-splattered corridor.
Gradually, the end of the corridor came into view. A particularly sturdy door awaited him there. He nodded, seeing the magical patterns carved on its surface—composed of regular lines and a series of special characters.
That was the door to the eastern magic room. He had arrived at his destination. He felt a tinge of loneliness and a sense of relief. And for a brief moment, his tension eased, creating an opening.
“…!?”
At that moment, a gust of wind blew through the corridor from behind.
No, that wasn’t it. It was a flurry of white blades.
His feet stopped at the sudden storm of slashes.
He had been completely caught off guard. But Tehrich wasn’t so naive as to lose his life to such a simple surprise attack. He threw his body forward and simultaneously drew his sword from its scabbard. He instantly planted his right foot on the floor, shifted his center of gravity to his lower abdomen, and twisted his waist. With a roar, he unleashed a slash as he turned around.
It was a desperate counterattack, but it was a blow filled with all his might.
“Haaaaah!”
“Nuu—!”
With a high-pitched screech characteristic of clashing blades, they collided.
Tehrich instantly gained the upper hand in the clash and deflected the attacker with a flowing silver flash. It seemed his opponent hadn’t been able to maintain their footing—they were blown back about three meters. However, they controlled their posture in mid-air and managed to land on both feet. They used the friction between their feet and the floor to reduce their momentum and stopped in a forward-leaning position.
And the attacker, a small shadow, raised their face. The evenly spaced lights in the corridor revealed their identity.
(…A child?)
He couldn’t believe it, but there was no mistake. No matter how hard he looked, it was a little girl.
Her appearance reminded him of the snow that fell in the northern countries. He was probably influenced by her white hair tied up in a single braid and her porcelain-like skin. Her features were innocent, and her body was small, befitting her age, which seemed to be less than ten.
But there was nothing cute about her, like a snow fairy. She was covered in a disturbing distortion.
The strong will in her golden eyes. The sharpened killing intent that hardened her expression. The Imperial army equipment that didn’t match her small stature. Everything about her was extremely unnatural, distorted to the point of disbelief.
And what made her even more eerie was—the blood.
The crimson that stained her body in patches.
(The child has no visible injuries. Yet, a large amount of blood is clinging to her hair and equipment. It’s undoubtedly someone else’s blood. Judging from the direction the child came from… should I assume the blockade in the corridor has been broken through?)
What was surprising was that there had been no sign of it. There had been none of the sounds that usually accompanied a fierce battle. There were no sounds of a prolonged, intense battle between evenly matched opponents. Furthermore, it was puzzling that no one had been able to escape to Tehrich. He should have taught them to send a message with all their might if they were overwhelmed—but that hadn’t happened either.
His thoughts momentarily stopped, and he swallowed hard.
Could she have overwhelmed them with lightning speed?
(If so, she’s exceptionally talented for her age.)
He held his drawn sword and stared at his opponent. In any case, he couldn’t be deceived by appearances. He couldn’t let his guard down, no matter who his opponent was.
“I wonder. Why are you here?”
The little girl muttered. Her tone of voice didn’t match her childish voice.
“Captain Tehrich Galdi. I remember you weren’t the type to be assigned to behind-the-scenes work. As I thought, you’re more of an assault force than a surprise attack force.”
“…Do you know me?”
“I would never forget someone I’ve learned from, even once.”
That was a cryptic statement to him. He stared at the little girl standing before him, her sword at the ready.
He had worked as an instructor based on his battlefield experience.
But he still didn’t recognize her. He hadn’t had such a young student at the Kingdom’s officer’s academy. Moreover, she was an Imperial soldier. He couldn’t imagine how they could have met.
She was probably bluffing to unsettle him. He cut off any further useless thoughts. And, planting the tip of his sword on the floor, he declared,
“Even if I know you, allow me to introduce myself again. I am Tehrich Galdi, Captain of the Laptenon Kingdom Army, entrusted with the title of ‘The Last Knight.’ Do you have a name?”
“…I’ve been a mere rootless weed until now.”
The little girl responded to his sonorous introduction. Imitating him, she pointed the tip of her sword downward and gave her name.
“But now, I’m a mere foot soldier of the Imperial army—Sol.”
She tapped the floor with the tip of her sword, concluding the ceremonial act. —Tapping the floor with the tip of the sword one entrusted their life to.
This was the custom of a duel, which had long been in decline. It was a culture that had been swept away by the tide of time and sunk to the bottom.
There were countless reasons for its decline. The development of group tactics, the increasing scale of mobilized forces, the advancement of long-range attack magic, and the rise of heroes. As a result of these factors, it had faded away along with the rank of knight.
Therefore, Tehrich couldn’t hide his surprise. He hadn’t expected the little girl to return the proper etiquette. Few people knew the customs of a duel these days. And even fewer would respond in kind. It was difficult to show courtesy to an enemy in the midst of a life-or-death struggle. The younger generation, especially, were eager for military achievements and would trample on etiquette as they attacked.
But the enigmatic being before him was different.
(You’re challenging me without losing your manners, child?)
The reason for adhering to this custom was personal pride. The Galdi family had been a distinguished knight family for generations.
But times change. As the common sense of the battlefield changed, the custom became increasingly hollow, and finally, the rank of knight disappeared from the Kingdom. And after being integrated into the nobility, most families distanced themselves from the battlefield.
Currently, only the Empire still had the knight class. That was because one of the active Six Wings had trained the knights into a powerful force capable of competing with heroes. Of course, there weren’t many who could defy the flow of time.
Knights like his ancestors had disappeared from the Kingdom.
Tehrich’s attire as a heavy knight, his desire for a duel, all of it was a relic of the past. A meaningless lump left behind by time. Yet, he had always held his head high and continued to imitate the knights.
The reason, needless to say, was admiration.
The blood of knights, inherited from his parents, and their parents before them. Since childhood, he had been fascinated by the stories of his ancestors’ heroic deeds and admired their noble conduct.
That’s why he felt a sense of goodwill towards the little girl who observed the proper etiquette.
(Sol, Sol. I’ll remember that name.)
“—I appreciate your spirit, Sol.”
“There’s nothing to appreciate. I simply responded to your question. To tell you the truth, I’m pressed for time. Would you mind if we skip the opening formalities?”
“Understood. I’m in the same situation, I won’t ask for much.”
Under the crimson flickering torches, two shadows faced each other.
One was Tehrich Galdi, the last knight of the Kingdom. His heavy armor clinked, and fighting spirit emanated from his entire body.
The other was Sol, a mere foot soldier, a little girl. She held her bloodstained sword, her sharp eyes burning with fighting spirit.
The simplified method of starting the battle that Sol proposed was clear. They would simply exchange their first blows head-on. The metallic clang of their swords meeting would be the gong signaling the start of the battle. Therefore, the moment of stillness, where they sized each other up, would be brief. It would be abruptly cut short.
And the one who took the initiative was—.
“Allow me—!”
Tehrich Galdi stepped forward with all his might.
Just one step. That alone closed the distance between him and Sol. He moved his heavily armored, gigantic body with surprising ease and swung his drawn sword in a horizontal slash. The waiting little girl also swung her sword in a straight line. The worn-out sword, unbefitting her appearance, cleaved through the air, and with a high-pitched metallic clang, steel met steel.
—Thus began the duel between the knight and the little girl.
The battle for the eastern magic room had begun.
