Chapter 826 - Standing in the Way
In the city, preparations were underway for a festival to mark the end of the Salamander season and the beginning of the harvest season.
This meant that a great number of people would be gathering.
What would happen if news of a Salamander and monsters was suddenly delivered to the city now?
A riot would break out as people tried to flee, and some would be trampled to death not by monsters, but by the crowd.
'An orderly evacuation is impossible.'
Krais's judgment was accurate.
The Border Guard and the nearby cities had expanded as never before.
The swollen cities were filled with just as many people.
The safe passage, the trade route called the Stone Road, and trade with the commercial cities—everything had drawn people here.
What would happen to this country if such a large population was forced into a mass evacuation?
'It would be ruined, of course.'
There was no need to even look.
'It might be a blessing that this happened now.'
People flock during the festival period.
The only fortunate thing was that this year's festival was decided to be held in the city of Rockfreed.
The city of Rockfreed was built on a plain, not in the mountains.
From the start, it was planned as a city specialized for trade, not a military city.
Thus, its walls were relatively low, and its roads were wide.
Wells were dug throughout the city to connect waterways, and the warehouse and commercial districts were clearly divided.
In a word, it was a merchant-friendly city.
It was not designed with the possibility of being invaded in a war in mind.
The wide roads and clearly divided districts were an advantage in normal times, but a disadvantage in wartime.
The wells dug here and there would also be of great help to the enemy's supply lines.
'The roads will become a perfect thoroughfare for enemy soldiers.'
The warehouses would be transformed into their supply depots.
Well, they had made various preparations with such things in mind, but one war would be the end of the city's function.
In any case, the important thing now was that it was Rockfreed, a city built on flat terrain.
'If things go south, it will be easy to escape.'
They had deliberately made the city gates wide.
Then what about the Border Guard?
'The Border Guard is too close to the Pen-Hanil Mountains and the border.'
That's how Krais saw it.
It was also a city built on terrain that was good for fortification and militarization.
Therefore…
'The last bastion.'
If the Salamander were to descend from the mountains and they couldn't stop it, they would have to fight here until every last one of them was annihilated.
'This is dizzying.'
His heart pounded, and his back began to feel damp.
Krais thought of himself as a moderately shallow, worldly person.
To be honest, it was difficult to expect any heroic bearing from him.
It wasn't about others' expectations; he himself had no such expectations.
It wasn't something he wanted.
But situations don't always flow favorably.
Therefore, he had to be prepared.
'If things go south, do I have to tell everyone to die here together?'
Krais reined in his straying thoughts.
Anxiety began to surge.
"Wasn't this what we prepared for?"
At that exact moment, Abnaier spoke up from beside him.
Krais thought of this man as half a teacher.
He was a person who possessed the confidence and talent that he himself lacked, and the depth of his thoughts was different.
"Well, yes," Krais replied.
Inwardly, he was a teacher; outwardly, they had become like friends, regardless of age.
"Then cast aside your anxiety. The arrow has been shot."
"When it comes to knights, they sometimes catch the shot arrow and throw it back."
Anxiety was a factor that always gnawed at him.
Abnaier gave a clever answer to those words.
"That knight is on our side, Krais."
Krais had seen Enkrid's growth right beside him.
He had watched him do all sorts of unbelievable things.
So, Abnaier's words were right.
"I know."
Therefore, he just had to do his job.
As Krais felt this slight anxiety, the standing army moved.
Starting with those in the outposts along the safe passage, the unit members turned their backs to the city and raised their spears and swords towards the mountain range.
And they fought.
At first, it was a single creature.
A four-legged monster made of fire stamped on the ground, leaving black footprints.
A burnt smell began to waft, and smoke rose from the path it had passed.
Burning tree branches and a grassy field turning to gray ash from the flames let them know that the blazing fire on its entire body was no joke.
It had no eyes.
No nose, no mouth.
It was just a burning mass of fire.
"We're supposed to fight that?" one of the soldiers muttered.
"If not, should we just let it be and go home?" another soldier replied.
"No, well, that's not what I meant." The first soldier shrugged his shoulders and readied his spear.
They were long-spearmen belonging to the standing army.
Click, click.
The first soldier twisted and connected the joint of the shaft, then set the spearhead at an angle.
The weapons of the twenty soldiers in the front all had magically enchanted spearheads.
Where did Krais pour the gold he had earned all this time?
He had put most of it into military expenses.
A part of that was now shining.
POW!
Without even a howl, a wolf-like fireball flew at them.
Three spearmen, with their weight centered between their two feet, thrust their spears.
A stable thrust born from a clean posture.
There was no wavering, as they had trained by repeating it over a thousand times.
P-p-pok.
The charging fire-wolf was impaled on the spearheads and scattered with a hiss.
The flames diminished and fell to the ground.
The way it dripped down was so viscous it was reminiscent of an animal's entrails.
Where the flames died out, only a handful of black ash remained.
It's difficult to fight when weapons don't work, but if they do, it's not a problem.
Then, from the top of the mountain range, dozens of monsters with bodies of fire began to descend, breathing flames.
"All units forward, maintain a five-rank formation. Adjust speed according to the retreat signal. No variations," the commander ordered.
He judged that the charging fireballs were not highly intelligent.
In the first place, they were closer to magical creatures without reason.
If they lacked even the cunning of a ghoul, they were even easier to fight.
The five-rank formation was a form where they stood in five layers, staggered so that the back line could cover the gaps in the front line.
If they stood at a regular interval, there was space for the back lines to thrust their spears.
"Magic unit," the commander called out again.
Not all soldiers possessed enchanted weapons.
There were also those without them, starting from the third rank here.
In front of them, the magic unit raised by Esther waved their hands.
It was impossible to catch these fireballs one by one with spells, but enchanting was relatively much easier.
"Imbued with the power of the blue star."
A spell developed by Esther made a blue light linger on the soldiers' swords and spearheads.
It was a spell called Blessing of the Stars.
"All spears, forward."
At the final command, the spearheads aimed forward.
They were a phalanx of spearmen refined enough to block even a determined charge of cavalry.
Blocking a charge of this level was not a difficult task for them.
"Stab!"
"Die!"
With shouts befitting their individual personalities, they thrust into the bodies of the fire monsters.
The fight was one-sided.
The interesting thing was that within the standing army, these men were closer to regular soldiers.
The real elite were separate.
For example, the Holy Martial Infantry, with Audin as its captain and Theresa as its vice-captain.
Their official name aside, others simply called them the Fanatic Squad.
"Those things don't seem to have souls."
"Then even if we kill them, we can't send them to heaven, can we?"
They were men who had awakened to divine power through their piety.
If the holy city of the Legion knew of their existence, they would probably be horrified.
Audin knew how to nurture people in his own way.
Along with modifying bodies within a knight order, in terms of nurturing, he was the best.
The Legion also had a similar combat force, but these guys were a bit different.
They all had large, well-defined muscles.
Each and every one of them with an extraordinary physique wore modified gauntlets.
A weapon that clicked and locked above the wrist was their main weapon.
They also wore white cloth armor with the sleeves and ankles tied with straps.
"All units, free combat."
These were the men that Audin and Teresa had raised with utmost effort.
A faint light flowed from the gauntlets they wore.
They had awakened to divine power but could not yet use it freely.
So they relied on their weapons, which had been blessed by Audin and Teresa.
And so, during battle, they could fight with divine power clad on their two fists.
And that's what they did.
They smashed and broke the heads of the charging fireballs.
The number of fire beasts and monsters was over several hundred.
Some of them fought Rem's charge unit, and Ragna's small swordsman unit also stepped forward.
The unit known as Enkrid's honor guard also moved.
"No one's going to get hurt by something of this level, right? Right?"
The squire who was once called the Fallen Clemen is the commander of Enkrid's honor guard.
She is also known as the Pervert Clement within the Border Guard.
A bizarre nickname that stuck after a rumor spread that she had a nasty hobby of tormenting her subordinates.
"We'll see if you get hurt."
Her words held no trace of a smile.
The honor guard standing behind her gritted their teeth.
If they got even a scratch here, that mad woman would probably work them to death.
If the total scale of the standing army was ten, Krais had used only about six.
The rest had to be prepared for any contingency.
And with just those six, the monster horde descending from the mountain range was completely blocked.
***
'This is unusual.'
Enkrid thought as he advanced, holding Dawnforged.
He was heading into the Pen-Hanil Mountains, specifically to the place that Garet and Finn had observed.
In the middle of his path, a fire giant blocked him.
Its build was larger than Audin's, and the blazing flames were hot even from over twenty paces away.
The creature, instead of burning all the surrounding trees, was standing still.
Then, as if it had sensed Enkrid, its head turned this way.
'It stood on two feet.'
A form that resembled a human's.
And that wasn't all.
Flames rose from its hands and took shape.
'A greatsword?'
A long stick-like shape held in both hands, with a round mass at the end.
'A mace.'
Enkrid did not run.
He held the scabbard with his left hand and placed his right hand on the grip of Dawnforged, and walked.
A pace that was neither fast nor slow.
The fire giant created a large fire mace in both hands, so large it wouldn't have looked out of place in Audin's hands.
Fwoosh.
Everything was made of fire.
He was reminded of the walking fire, and of Beelrog.
As several thoughts flashed through his mind, Enkrid transformed the Will swirling within him.
'Fitting for a burst of a line.'
Like the wind, or like a storm.
BOOM—
Simultaneously with hearing an explosion from within, he put strength into the foot on the ground and kicked off.
Enkrid split the gap of time and advanced.
Anyone who saw it would have been speechless.
An acceleration from a walking posture.
His center of gravity didn't shift much, and there was no preliminary sign.
He didn't even make a show of gathering strength in his thigh muscles.
What was the reason for this abnormal maneuver?
It was, of course, Will.
Enkrid's skill in handling Will had grown by leaps and bounds.
In fact, if it hadn't, he wouldn't even be standing here now.
The experience of killing Beelrog hadn't gone anywhere.
He became a blue line and passed the fire giant.
WHOOSH!
The wind rose.
BA-BOOM!
The sound of compressed air exploding echoed where Enkrid had passed.
Fwoosh.
And the fire mace swung futilely through the air.
As he passed the fire giant, Enkrid saw flames rise from the extended blade of Dawnforged, then scatter and disappear.
It was a single sword slash.
The bisected fire giant scattered into ash.
The hot wind that blew through ruffled his hair.
His black hair revealed his forehead, and his two jewel-like blue eyes were visible.
'My body feels light.'
No injuries.
It was a strange feeling.
Not omnipotence, but…
'It feels like I can do anything.'
His body moves as he wishes.
Enkrid walked on.
Simply moving his two feet back and forth, he looked relaxed, but with each step, he pressed down and pushed off the ground.
His speed was faster than an ordinary person's run.
It wasn't a full sprint, but it seemed there was no one who could stop him.
And yet, Enkrid stopped walking.
An upward slope appeared, and it was not a path people used, so tree branches and thorny bushes blocked his way, but he had been jumping over and pushing through most of them.
"Who?" Enkrid asked.
To his right, next to a crookedly grown tree, stands a man.
Thin cloth clothes, a white, long, guardless stick-like sword in his hand, narrow eyes, and pupils that were vertically slit.
No one would mistake him for a human.
He stared at Enkrid for a moment, then opened his mouth.
"Die. Go. Here. I. Can die."
The pronunciation was not so awkward, but the content within was truly awkward.
However, who was Enkrid?
Wasn't he a master of listening who had managed to extract the teachings of his knight order?
He instantly grasped the meaning behind the opponent's words.
"Are you saying you will kill me? Or that I will die if I go past you?"
The man thought for a moment, then answered.
"You. Die. By me."
Still awkward, but the meaning was a little clearer.
The peculiar thing was…
'No fighting spirit, no killing intent.'
But this man would keep the words he had spoken.
It was purely a feeling, but that's how he seemed.
"That sounds like a threat."
Enkrid replied and drew Dawnforged.
Shing.
The blue blade aimed at the opponent.
Until then, the opponent just stared at Enkrid.
Then he opened his mouth again.
Enkrid was about to step forward, whatever he said, but…
"Stop. Halt."
At those words, his body stopped.
Everything was unexpected.
In a completely different form from the intimidation Beelrog exuded, the opponent's words forcibly stopped his body.
The Will swirling within Enkrid's body rebelled against the coercive force trying to suppress it, and a Will of Rejection was reflexively activated, shaking off the opponent's words.
***
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