"Sister, we should step away for a while."
Audin said it as he scanned the surroundings. There were many places that stank foul. Meeting the king and facing those who were holding this position—that was for their captain to handle as he saw fit. He had found something more urgent. Audin was a cleric who did not forget his duty.
'Do not turn away from the sick and the suffering.'
He was also one who followed the words of his Master and Father.
"Yes."
Teresa nodded. She too followed the teachings of Scripture. Many commonly called the Apostles of War battle-crazed fanatics, but at their root they too believed in God and followed His word.
"Brother, a moment here."
Audin called Enkrid. Ingis's gaze also followed the man who resembled a bear.
Enkrid nodded. In his eyes as well, the mood around them was no trifling matter. The disquiet he had felt along the way had all gathered and pooled here. The falling rain ran off along the drainage, but the ill omen that the rain had brought filled the lines and made a lake of it.
A lake filled with ill omen, disquiet, ash-gray.
"Do as you will."
Enkrid knew the sanctity the two of them bore. He smelled it too.
Dunbakel had long since been pinching her nose.
"Ish'll numb mah shmell at thish rate."
Because she spoke while pinching her nose, the meaning didn't quite carry.
"She said, 'At this rate my sense of smell is going to go numb.'"
The Dragonkin interpreted it.
"We all understood at least that much."
Luagarne said.
"I see."
The Dragonkin answered. He asked if this counted as paying a friendship fee too, and Luagarne answered that it did not.
Ingis glanced back for a moment and once more steadied his wavering heart.
'If the body's center wavers, how can one hope the arm will not?'
It was the basics of swordsmanship. So he had learned. If the heart is straight, the sword is straight. Without wavering, one can swing the sword true. The mind that had briefly wavered at trifling chatter settled once more into upright place. Ingis observed the Mad Order of Knights.
'Different.'
It almost gave the illusion that only around them the bleak air did not linger.
To put it even more simply:
'The atmosphere is different.'
Light. Even if one did not know what had just happened, a knight at least should be able to tell from the atmosphere how grave the situation was.
But Enkrid was unbothered. Not only he—everyone was the same.
"Why can't you smell your own stink?"
Enkrid scolded the beastwoman. His tone wasn't serious.
"Beasts by nature don't notice their own smell. It's why we smear an animal's secretions on our bodies when we hunt 'em."
It was Rem, a seasoned hunter in his past.
"You saying you'll smear me with my own droppings?"
Dunbakel released her pinched nose as she spoke. She was a knight too. She knew how to adjust her senses. It was just that a beastwoman's sense of smell was so keen she needed time.
"No, I'm saying I'll split your skull and smear your blood."
Rem snapped savagely at Dunbakel's nonsense.
"Ah, for real. Every little thing and you pull that crap. Seriously."
Dunbakel shot back.
"Shut it. Noisy lot."
When Ragna cut in—
"Fine, let's all drop dead then."
Rem twisted his mouth in a grin as he answered, and as usual it turned into a shitshow.
"A tie on ghoul count, huh? Let's settle it here. Loser stays with the Red Cloak Order."
Next to them, Pel started flapping his lips.
"Staying with this order is honor enough, you country bumpkin."
Lawford took the line.
"Then you stay. You dimwit."
"Good, let's make it so only one of you two goes back alive today."
Ingis's pupils trembled finely again.
'Is staying with the Red Cloak Order a punishment?'
A curse he'd used not even three times in his life almost leapt out.
He didn't know it, but to Enkrid this didn't even qualify as a crisis. And the knightly order influenced by such a captain didn't waver in the least.
Enkrid's crisis did not take this form.
Disquieting air? An army filled with ash-gray?
It was bleak. Dingy, stifling, and it felt like fighting a battle whose end was already in sight. It felt like a giant maw would open and bite down on his head at once.
Even so, in their hands were weapons, and they had the strength to resist.
Was he to stand by and watch a child die for lack of strength?
No.
Was he to stand there and watch those standing at his back die because he could not even properly kill a single monster for lack of ability?
That neither.
Days of failing to protect had piled up and led to now.
Even if communion was lacking, at his waist hung an engraved weapon called Dawn Tempering, and the madmen were with him.
If there was something he could do and the strength to do it—
If there remained room to go on without giving up—
This much would not break his heart.
"You must not fight here."
Ingis stopped the order.
'Cheng.'
The clear sound of drawn steel rang through the air. Whether the rain lowered the ambient temperature or not, the Mad Order of Knights were always hot.
No one listened to Ingis.
A commotion broke out inside the Southern lines. Because there was talk that, as he was the vice-commander, they should pool their strength and kill them all, a few nearby soldiers mistook them for people who'd been taken by an evil spirit, and the commotion grew a little larger.
When taken by an evil spirit, one often spouted things that didn't add up.
For example, a soldier who suddenly declared himself the savior who would defend this land, told everyone to follow him, then drew a sword and tried to commit suicide—that sort of thing.
Very occasionally, people like this who were taken by an evil spirit did appear.
"Still noisy, I see."
It wasn't the largest tent, but it was the cleanest. In front of the tent entrance, tilted obliquely to block the rain, a blond friend looked at Enkrid and spoke.
A long pole propped the bottom of the tent entrance, and the rain that ran down the tilted canvas trickled below.
"Wouldn't it be strange if it were quiet?"
Enkrid half-heartedly held his order back and answered.
Crang laughed and said,
"Welcome, Enki."
***
Audin looked at the scale set atop a pole. The symbol of the goddess who cradled the balance.
"Is there no priest on this front?"
Audin asked a passing soldier. It was a soldier with a dented helmet stuck under his arm.
He turned back with a fierce look, then answered meekly. However angry one might be, at the sight of Audin's bulk and fists one became meek. Unless one was taken by an evil spirit, there was nothing to be done about it.
"Who are you?"
The soldier did his duty. They were within the lines, so allies, surely—but faces he hadn't seen before.
Audin did not declare himself by the tiered emblem sewn on his cloak. Even if he said Mad Order of Knights, this wasn't a face who'd understand.
"A servant who serves the God of War."
"Ah, a martial priest."
Anyone could see he had the size for it. Same for Teresa standing behind him.
The soldier took the two to be reinforcement sent by the kingdom. Only, with that came a question. At this point, was a martial priest what they needed? Wouldn't a holy priest who handled sanctity be needed more?
Thinking that, the soldier answered.
"If you're looking for priests who handle sanctity, they're all laid up sick."
Audin and the soldier were talking in front of a Holy Relic set on a pole.
"And."
The soldier smacked his lips a few times. He was choosing his words. Audin quietly waited for him to open his mouth.
It reminded him of the time he heard confessions. Those who had actually sinned; those who believed they had; those whose hearts were burdened; those with stones set on their chests; those whose hands trembled after throwing a stone at someone.
He had seen so many people. One of those he'd seen then came to mind. To be exact, a servant of the Lord hiding his earnestness.
"At most, they've a month to live."
His words sounded cynical, but his face was twisted.
"Is there something you wish to say?"
"No. There isn't, but."
Teresa quietly watched what Audin did.
"Send them back. They're not people who should die here."
The soldier turned away. The soldier with the dented helmet in his hand plodded off.
His name was Lapild. The soldier Lapild now thought of the priests lying sick.
"If our hands are needed here, then we should stay here."
It was a nameless priest-band. Of those who had awakened sanctity there were five, and the other five were just ordinary people.
They had been the ones who cared for the wounded and the sick.
"Is your younger sibling ill? Fortunately I know an herbalist over that way. Give my name and take some medicine."
Lapild had left behind a sick younger sibling in his hometown. Those one could call family had long since died; the sole remaining blood relation. He volunteered for the Southern Front and sent half his pay to his younger sibling.
He wished only one thing. That his younger sibling live on.
Even if the body did not recover, even if groans of pain slipped out, that in the end they live.
"Don't you have anything to eat?"
His younger sibling had often asked.
The place where Lapild had lived was a poor city. The slums were broad, and the lord wasn't much of a good person.
A small city just before the forest to the south of the Jaltenbuck Domain, a forest where monsters popped out all the time.
A dead monster made for good material. Most of those gathered in the city were hunters. To be exact, they were those called monster hunters.
It was Lapild's hometown. There he had cared for his younger sibling. It was an environment where hoping for the help of others was hard.
Therefore he had grown hard; deep furrows had set between his brows; he could not easily trust others; and he was clumsy at prayers for someone else.
'Lord.'
He raised the hand holding the helmet and folded it before his chest. Lapild stood in a dim spot beside a tent and prayed.
'Take me instead.'
O goddess of the balance. Please, set my life on the other side of the scale.
Instead of the priest who saved my younger sibling—please, take me.
He was one of the men who had come here from the priest-band without any sanctity. He had paid his younger sibling's medicine bill. Was that priest wealthy? The hole-riddled habit and the ragged boots spoke for what he had.
Lapild smelled something like his own childhood. The scent of poverty.
What day was it, when he remembered the priest's smile after stepping on a sharp stone and getting a hole in his sole because the soles of his boots had worn thin.
He knew no herbalist. He had only emptied what he had gathered by wandering the battlefields, serving, and living.
"Why did you do it?"
Lapild asked. The priest smiled and answered,
"It is God's providence. The Lord's care. It is thanks to the blessing the goddess of the balance set upon the other side of the scale."
Everything was coincidence. That the priest met Lapild; that Lapild happened to bring up his younger sibling.
Also by coincidence, the priest knew the herbs that would cure the younger sibling's illness, and happened to have the wherewithal to help.
So he did so. That was all.
"Must there be a reason for a person to help a person?"
Lapild felt something hot surge from his chest. He knelt and wept. He sobbed and shed hot tears.
"The Lord will watch over you."
The younger sibling lived. The illness healed. As time passed, from when the priest fell sick until now, Lapild deliberately volunteered for the scouts and hunted everywhere for herbs.
"You mad bastard, stop it. There are more monsters around. If you go too far you'll run into monsters. Doing that alone is madness."
It was a comrade's words. But he could not just stand by and watch. Just now he had also scoured the grasses around the Demon Realm.
The reinforcements from the capital were not enough. In truth, even if one found herbs, they might not help. This was only thrashing. He only did it because he could not do nothing and leave his hands hanging.
'When I wake up—'
Go out again.
He would not let his benefactor die. If need be, he would even throw his life away to do so.
The Demon Realm's rain awakened human malice. Everyone grew irritable, and the whole world turned into bleak ash-gray.
The Demon Realm's rain beat in, and drowned were born inside the lines. It was the ash-gray's influence.
But even in such a moment, not all the flames humans possessed went out. The flame the nameless priest-band had kindled still remained.
***
'How many days has it been?'
Rain fell without end.
'Count the days.'
The soldier, feeling a headache like his skull was splitting, counted. A week. It had been only a week of constant pelting rain.
'Feels like we've held out for years like this.'
It was like someone set a chisel to his head and hammered. If he could, he wanted to split his skull and cut out the aching part.
There were many who complained of headaches. Another soldier had nightmares every day. It wasn't a succubus's trick. If it were, the knightly order would have noticed.
Headaches and nightmares—there were many who felt all of it was meaningless.
They had fallen into lethargy, nodding off even on sentry duty, or standing there with their pupils unfocused. Even so, the unit endured.
"Sir Cypress."
Some of the soldiers repeated the name of the one who held this place.
A wall and bulwark that, though rusted and worn, did not collapse.
"Protect the priest-band."
Another soldier recalled the favor he had received. Because those who had received grace did not forget it, they still held out—so far.
***
If one desires battle, one should fight. If you are a soldier and a warrior, of course you should.
But before that—what of the people who live in that country?
Enkrid had never met the king of Rihinstetten. Even so, if he met him now, he wanted to plant one straight on that bastard's face. In all sincerity.
In the far future, when time had passed and they had shaken off the scars left by war, when they looked back on now, they would not make a decision they would regret then.
Enkrid listened to Crang's speech.
What a tremendous human being.
His vessel was so large it had split and grown wider. Measuring it was meaningless. That was why he served this man as his dear friend and king.
Those who stepped onto the battlefield fought with their lives on the line. They died and killed. It was natural. Crang did not accept that naturalness as natural. He did not simply paint a future after the war.
He spoke the reason they had to end the fight as quickly as possible, with the least harm.
"Right. Let's do that."
Enkrid was a knight, the king's sword.
He could well become Crang's sword.
"That's all I have to say."
Crang knew he was no strategist. What he had to do was set direction and set his will. The king did so.
Out there, as drowned were born one after another, the Royal Guard Crang had brought stepped out. They thrust spears, swung swords, raised shields.
Sir Cypress had said he'd rather go out and cut down even one more drowned than rest idly?
Some of the order said rest was urgent, so they were resting. Because of the Gryphon Riders, they had stayed up all night for a straight week.
"Rem."
"Say it."
"Take Dunbakel. Clean up around the lines."
There had been no few monsters on the way in. Once they came up to the lines, they understood why.
There were more monsters here. It was time for Dunbakel's sense of smell and Rem's experience as a hunter.
"Got it."
Rem rose lightly.
If Sir Cypress and the order needed rest, then first solve that. Right now, even if they wanted to rest, they couldn't, because of the threat of monsters nearby.
And then, as Enkrid sent Rem out and went to look around the surroundings, he ran into someone he hadn't expected.
"Enkrid?"
The other recognized him first. A face like Enkrid's, once you saw it, was not easily forgotten. Naturally so. A handsome man with black hair and blue eyes was rare.
The man who opened his mouth knit his brows and went on.
"I thought it couldn't be."
A tie from the past.