Monsters really did keep bursting out without end.
"This what—an ambush?"
That was Rem, who sensed the enemy from the vibrations through his soles.
It was a pack of Scalers lying in wait with the ground dug out. They were the ones who charged astride the giant worms people called Worms.
Because of the rainwater, their ambush was meaningless. Of course, even if it hadn't been raining, they would've been noticed.
They shot up from the earth trying to encircle the party, but it was useless.
Rem stepped up, hewed, sliced, killed, and passed on through.
Hordes of ghouls and drowned came surging as a matter of course. Every so often, variants appeared—several ghouls clumped into one. As big as a dire wolf. A giant made of flesh, you might say.
"Hey, churchman. Your friend."
Rem's mouth ran as tirelessly as ever.
"Heh-heh, the Lord wonders after my brother's well-being. O Father, do we send up one poor child of the West?"
Teresa picked up that line.
"Right now?"
One had to wonder what on earth she and Audin talked about normally. What was supposed to happen "now," exactly?
"You two planning my assassination behind my back or what? Look at these bastards."
Leaving the bickering pair, Pel and Lawford moved out.
"Shall we bet on who kills more?"
Pel said as he stepped forward.
"Count Sir Audin's cousin over there as ten?"
"Accepted."
Naturally, their conversation reached Audin as well. Rem snickered, and Audin, watching the two depart in silence, said,
"Please do be sure to return alive, you two."
Chilling words. To Pel and Lawford, Audin's words were far scarier than the seditious air of this land.
"Return, to the Lord's arms, return, to the Lord's arms."
Teresa repeated part of a refrain from a hymn she knew. Dunbakel snickered. Somehow that beastwoman's laugh was starting to resemble Rem's.
"The rain isn't stopping."
Ragna said it. There was no tension. Just dissatisfaction. With the rain falling without letup, there was no chance to boil anything and eat it. They were down to chewing damp jerky. Ragna wanted a quality meal.
"It will fall for quite a while yet."
A fine pathfinder reads the sky and weighs the weather. Enkrid had once worked as a pathfinder. He judged the rain wouldn't let up for at least three days.
Naturally, Ragna knew nothing of that. He thought a true pathfinder simply walked on whether it rained or not.
There was no such thing as losing the way. He'd wander until the destination showed itself.
Pel and Lawford's bet ended in a tie. Pel killed Audin's "cousin," and Lawford, sweeping the entire field, killed more ghouls and drowned than Pel.
Even afterward, monsters kept popping out from somewhere. Of those, the one most impressive to this company was a single gnoll.
Even though it didn't come with a pack and attacked alone, it was so. A monster with uncommon craft.
'A quasi-knight? No, a little short of that?'
Enkrid saw it that way.
It could not naturally wield Will, but the monster's unique physicality—motion far beyond a human and inborn muscle—stood in for the Will it lacked. It shadowed the party's rear with great stealth.
Before that, a few owlbears had used darkness as a bulwark and rushed them, but no one had been surprised then; this gnoll was different.
It concealed its presence to a degree that called Jaxon to mind, even accounting for the wind and coming with the wind at its back.
It didn't rush in; it approached calmly, and seeing that it secured a hand's-reach distance—
'It has patience, too.'
That was Enkrid's read.
Not a common monster. It even had the means to fully exploit the abilities it possessed.
'A monster that uses its head.'
A monster that had learned something from humans or some intelligent race.
The words of the Empire's knight Valphir Valmung came to mind again.
In any case, the gnoll that resembled Jaxon went for Ragna in the very rear. An ambush stinking of hunter's stink.
The instant Ragna felt killing intent from behind, he reacted at once. Turning his body back, he loosed a cut that split up time.
Accelerated cognition, concentration that entered the world of soundlessness in an instant, and on top of that the ever-present readiness to cut that bastard Rem the moment he mouthed off.
Everything combined in a single strike.
As Ragna's waist turned back, the mount's legs collapsed. It was because he'd made a violent movement in the saddle.
Crack—, Hiiing!
With the sound of a leg breaking came the horse's cry. Even as his posture crumpled, Ragna's Sunrise moved as it was and split the ambusher who'd come in from behind into two.
His center of gravity had slipped, but he put strength into waist and forearms to make up for the lack.
It was a movement and swordwork so complete it was hard to believe it was a slash thrown in a single instant. He wasn't called a genius for nothing.
"There's all sorts out here."
Ragna said it in the very posture of his extended sword. A greeting as if to say the South was a rough land.
"Truly curious, that one. Not a tomcat in disguise?"
Rem joked. That was how stealthy the approach had been. Even the most sensitive fairy and Enkrid had missed it coming.
The rain making everything dank around them had played its part.
They'd experienced it before, hadn't they. Merely going near the Demon Realm affected the senses of intelligent beings.
The South abutted the Demon Realm. And though they didn't know it, lately monsters had been appearing several times more than before, the Demon Realm's air was spreading this way, and in the South the Demon Realm's air was as thick as inside the Thorn Castle walls.
"Seems the South has a lot of fun things."
Pel added a word.
Enkrid examined the dead gnoll. It moved along a similar track to the ghoul Jericks.
'A monster that handles Will.'
By now one had to call it familiar.
They were on their way to fight the South, yet somehow it felt like monsters were the ones blocking the road. In any case, the destination was now just ahead.
"Won't the Southern Front be bursting with monsters once we arrive?"
Rem had a knack for turning ill omens into words.
"Everyone thinks that's rotten luck."
The Dragonkin interpreted everyone's hearts and spoke for them. Luagarne thought this kind of foul rain was truly rare.
'Rain of the Demon Realm, is it.'
This rain carried the Demon Realm's force. Be that as it may, the company walked diligently and reached the southern border.
"This front has endured for decades."
Lawford spoke, feeling his heart thump. What was this emotion? He didn't know all of it, but one thing he knew for certain. Pride.
He had once belonged to the Red Cloak Order. Cypress was the name of a hero, and the Red Cloak Order that held the South was itself a wall and a bulwark.
A knightly order that had been wall and bulwark through long years—one could fairly call it legend.
The party saw dozens of tents. Their eyes were drawn to a tall banner between them bearing a sun and three swords. It was the crest of the royal house of Naurillia.
Shhhhh—
Sheets of rain.
"Who goes there?"
A soldier with one arm severed barred the party. He was guarding the entrance in the wooden palisade set around the tents.
Enkrid saw that gloom no less bleak than the dingy rain ran through the whole unit.
For an army that had held out this long, morale was abysmal. It wasn't hard to know why.
Here and there lay monster corpses, and the traces of black blood were stark. The spirit the army gave off was ash-gray. Ash-gray thick with soot and blackening.
"Enkrid of the Border Guard."
A plain introduction. The soldier blinked. Who's that? He stared with those eyes and kept his mouth shut.
"Reinforcements."
Another soldier beside him said it. At those words, no joy was felt. Still the ash-gray was all that filled the place.
If reinforcements had come, it should have been cause for joy, but there was no sign of it.
While Enkrid spoke with the sentries, Audin checked several Holy Relics that had been set on poles between the palings.
'Faint.'
A Holy Relic by nature meant an object imbued with sanctity. If the relics had done their work, they would seldom have had to fight monsters inside the lines.
But they had not. There were many traces of battle. What did the present situation mean?
'The force the Demon Realm is scattering shook the relics.'
The seditious air had rapidly consumed the sanctity layered on the relics. He inferred the process by the result. It was possible because his understanding of sanctity was deep.
'Maintenance will be needed.'
A thought to himself. Leave wet iron and it rusts; in the same way, if maintained, the relics would regain their original strength.
'Provided there is a priest who first raised that force.'
If not? Then one could raise new relics.
The two sentries looked at one another and sent word inside.
One of the officers watching from behind the soldiers moved with a limp. It wasn't a quick step. One sentry had no arm, the officer conveying the word limped on a leg.
Of the two soldiers, one kept his brows knit the whole time. If he opened his mouth like that, a torrent of curses would likely pour out. A face full of resentment or discomfort.
The atmosphere inside the unit was the worst. As they waited to see who would come out, someone wholly unexpected appeared.
"We meet again."
Ingis.
The Red Cloak Order had come out in person. His rain-soaked, faded blond hair spoke for his current state.
One might call it the look of a drowned rat.
Even so, the light in his eyes hadn't died. Enkrid watched him closely.
"Have you improved?"
He said it judging by various elements—stance, eyes, and so on.
"I was fortunate. As for you, Sir Enkrid, I hear you've improved to the point of being unrecognizable."
Ingis took the line. The two sentries only rolled their eyes and watched from the side.
'What? Why is the knightly order coming out? And Sir Ingis himself?'
Soldiers penned up in the South were dull to news of the continent. They were people too busy fighting.
Even so, they had heard the name Mad Order of Knights, but only when they saw Ingis come out in person did they grow surprised.
On the Southern Front, the Red Cloak Order's renown stood on par with the god of war.
"The situation is quite bad."
Ingis extended a hand to guide the way and spoke.
"So it seems."
Following after, Enkrid answered.
Ingis's gaze swept not only Enkrid but the entire order. His epithet was the Iron Mask. It was because he seldom showed emotion on his face and his feelings rarely surged.
Even for such an Ingis, his pupils trembled minutely.
'Frog and a fairy.'
Those two were unusual, but known already.
He also knew Rem, Ragna, and the bear beastman. They were the very ones he'd looked forward to the moment he heard the Mad Order of Knights was coming as reinforcements.
'And what is that one?'
Even to a knight's eyes, one person among them was no ordinary sight. His pupils were split vertically; no matter who saw him, he didn't look human; and he walked unbothered though the falling rain soaked him head to toe. His lemon-blond hair shone faintly even wet with the Demon Realm's rain.
'As expected, uncanny.'
The Mad Order of Knights' renown was high. The order with such renown bore the name Mad.
It wasn't within the bounds of normal.
Ingis shook off idle thoughts and at once returned to his original self. Wavering was no good. One must always set a pillar in the heart. That was Ingis's talent.
'It's not my place to question.'
Right now the Southern Front needed even a child's hands. Among those, the order's reinforcement would be a considerable strength.
Mad or otherwise.
'These alone won't change things greatly, though.'
If this were a battlefield that could be changed by a knight's force, the Master would have done it. What was the greatest problem on the Southern Front now?
The enemy flew in the sky, and all this side had in answer were javelins.
'And that isn't the only problem.'
If all of this was the South's stratagem, it had struck with splendid precision.
The rain still had not stopped. The pattering drops wetted their shoulders.
Instead of Gryphon Riders, the rain fell and drowned appeared; the power of the relics raised in the lines grew faint; the wounded increased; and something like a plague was spreading. Nothing was easy. On the Southern Front, enduring was all there was.
'And even that clearly has its limits.'
Rihinstetten had not waged open war. They sent agents into Naurillia to sow division, and to the front they sent nothing but "monster inflation" and Gryphon Riders.
Based on what he'd heard from the king and what he'd experienced on the front, Ingis pierced the South's aim.
'Wear them to death.'
Or wait until all the royal house's and Naurillia's strength gathered here.
Here, on the Southern Front, what was to be done? And what had Cypress, the Master, carved upon his heart?
Just as Ingis's thoughts deepened.