The two from the Ruby Order of Knights, Matia and Achilleunon, took their positions, exchanged a glance, and adjusted their stances.
They did it without spending even the time it took to blink once. Their response was that fast. They didn't panic at the sight of the winged horse.
No spoken words passed between the two of them in particular, but they knew what they needed to know.
Achilleunon fell into thought with an expressionless face.
'He didn't dodge my javelin—he used it to increase his falling speed?'
He wasn't some run-of-the-mill trickster.
'Is it an extraordinary ability?'
It didn't look that way.
Achilleunon lowered the tip of his long spear on a slant. He did it very slowly. So slowly that it was more than enough time for the enemy to see and charge in, slow enough that even Aisia and Marcus standing far behind could tell how slow it was.
It was bait. Of course, the enemy didn't react.
'He'll stick to a defensive stance.'
He would have done the same.
The man who had fallen from the sky didn't even spread his aura and just changed his position. He was like a tranquil lake. A lake that was deeply annoying in that a brief smile crossed its surface.
The man stood with Achilleunon and Matia to his left and right.
Matia recalled the moment she had swung her greatsword just now.
'Did I hold back?'
No.
She had kept a light touch in her hand when dealing with the cute half-knight with the orange hair, but not just now. Which meant that even if he was a knight, he should have been rolling across the ground.
Even if his spine didn't break, he should have broken his fall with proper technique and been thrown off balance. If that had happened, she would have simply continued her attack from there.
But that was not what had happened. Her prediction had been wrong. The immediate future she had seen with a knight's insight had changed.
Was it because that cute little orange head standing back there had braced his back?
'Does a mantis lending its strength pull a wagon wheel out of the mud?'
If that mantis were a monster mantis, maybe. Otherwise, no chance.
'And if it's a monster, it doesn't have hands to shove the wagon in the first place.'
The conclusion was this. Even though she had swung with all her strength for him to go flying, that man had digested the impact passed on through her greatsword.
The orange hair had only provided a trigger. So even if she hadn't been there, that guy would have rolled along the ground at most, but he wouldn't have been in serious trouble.
"He's a seriously entertaining bastard. Hey, but can he not hear me? Did you ride in on a Pegasus?"
Matia asked. The enemy knight answered in a calm tone.
"The ride's incredible. I even slept on the way."
If you could gain the upper hand before a fight by getting under your opponent's skin, there was no reason not to. That too was part of a knight's training.
That was how Matia and the other southern knights had been taught and had learned. And yet, she felt as if the words weren't getting through at all.
'He keeps his composure even in this situation?'
While giving two knights the distance they wanted? And on top of that, what? He'd slept on the way?
The ridiculous part was that it even felt like he'd put Will into those words as he said them. Was he telling a lie with sincerity and earnestness packed in? For what possible reason? Or had he really slept on the horse's back?
Falling asleep on a running mount was a feat worthy of the name, and he was saying he'd done it on a Pegasus with no saddle?
"Look at this guy."
Matia grasped just how smooth the enemy's tongue was. Achilleunon was less quick on the uptake than she was.
"Are you alone?"
It was a question asking if he intended to face two of them on his own.
"Yeah, I'm not really thinking of getting married yet."
"...What the hell is this crazy bastard talking about?"
Achilleunon showed his confusion. Was even that an act? In Matia's eyes it was fifty-fifty. That was Achilleunon's aim. Half of it was genuine feeling. The fact he was thrown off was real.
He was a fellow who, having admitted he had no talent for beating his opponent with words the way he handled a spear better than his own hand, instead enjoyed using that, putting on a show of getting angry to deceive his opponent.
So when he was truly angry, he used it, and when he was truly startled, he used that too. You could call it the art of using his emotions.
A knight would see through clumsy tricks. Achilleunon's technique was modeled after the emotional control of fairies who twisted the truth, and that was why it deceived his opponents so easily.
Only, with Enkrid, it was far too obvious a trick.
At his side walked a being who, more than a dozen times a day, distorted the truth as "jokes" and launched verbal attacks.
"Good morning, fiancé, today is a fine day for a wedding. And it is also a day when my death draws near."
This sort of morning greeting was his normal. If you only took the surface meaning, both were true, but when you looked closely, the part about the day of death drawing near applied to everyone.
There were few who knew when they would die and died knowing it, but for intelligent beings, death came someday. There was no being that possessed immortality.
Even that Dragonkin would die someday. They were Temares's own words.
He had even gone so far as to tell Enkrid that a Dragonkin's end was almost always suicide. And that it wasn't something sad or painful.
For them, death was simply stopping, ending their thinking, and resting. Fishing a fish called sorrow out of the river called death was a privilege belonging to those whose lives were short.
That was why fairies and Frogs often excluded sorrow from death. Dragonkin went further than that and couldn't understand any reason to be sad about death.
Enkrid ignored the spear-wielder's little ploy and asked back,
"You're alone too, aren't you?"
By any standard, Achilleunon did not fall into the "handsome" category. His eyes were narrow and his nose was low. His thick lips resembled one of those fish you often pulled out of a river.
Since he was a knight, at least his frame was balanced and he had a good build, but his face ruined everything. A face did not correlate with skill. Looks were not part of a knight's training. He knew that. He knew, and yet it didn't feel good.
If you treated appearance as a talent, then this was the taunt of someone counted among the very top on the entire continent. That made it all the more unpleasant.
"I'll cut out that tongue."
Achilleunon ignored Enkrid's words as well.
"Do as you like."
Matia answered. With the two of them to his left and right, Enkrid quietly steadied his breathing. The smile from a moment ago had vanished without a trace.
Amusement aside, there was no room for a smile between sword, spear, and seriousness. If things went wrong, you died. Regardless of skill, if a man bled too much, he died; if his neck was cut, he died; if a hole was punched in his guts, he died.
Aisia stepped back, unable to stand between them. In this situation, there was nothing more foolish than fainting from blood loss.
She tore the outer surface of the inner gambeson and used it as a bandage, wrapping it around her arm to stop the bleeding. The wound was too large for her to clamp down on it by moving her muscles by sheer will.
Marcus watched from far away, Aisia from nearby, and beyond them some of the allies and enemies watched as well.
The tunnel the two knights had opened was on the verge of collapsing, so no one was coming out through there.
Instead, the Rihinstetten field commander had used his head. They had used shields and such to carry dirt the two knights had dug out and used it to tamp down some of the flames.
The entire unit couldn't form up and march out, but some of them could come out and check the outside.
The field commander, under the guard of the Horseshoe Infantry, was observing the situation. Had his two allied knights torn up the enemy?
That hope had not been easily fulfilled. A knight had dropped down from the sky, hadn't he.
When he wrote his autobiography someday, would it be better to write that an enemy knight had fallen from the sky? Or to leave that part out?
Two knights on their side, one on the enemy's.
The difference in numbers was clear. What was more, the two Ruby Knights were people with special talents.
Matia and Achilleunon were knights whose names were known even within their own great nation.
A chill air settled. The sound of rocks shattering and exploding just a moment ago felt as if it had happened a month ago. That was how broken their sense of time was. Too much had happened in too short a span.
Fwoosh.
Only the sound of the flames burning the air as if they had met an archenemy spread out.
The one to make the first move was Matia. Her epithet was Superhuman Strength; when it came to strength, she was confident. Her greatsword, driven into the ground with a boom, swept horizontally through the space.
Timed with that, Achilleunon's long spear came flying in toward the back of Enkrid's right head.
Their distance control was outstanding. They strode in to exactly the distance they wanted, then stopped and revealed their specialties. One with a greatsword, one with a long spear.
Enkrid stood in place and took Dawn in both hands. This was not an opponent to receive with two swords. It would have been nice if he could have faced two knights just because his one sword had become two, but that was difficult. His best was when he held a single sword.
When facing two knights, of course the one alone was at a disadvantage and had lower odds of victory. That was what everyone thought.
In this place, only one man showed confidence.
Clang!
Enkrid sprang to the side as if bouncing and met the greatsword with Dawn. Matia felt her strength momentarily pushed back.
There was no room to let her thoughts continue. She had to press down with their joined blades. Matia did as her instincts told her and crushed down her opponent.
Achilleunon also pursued the instant his target moved. He lengthened his stride, bent his elbow, then extended it.
'Victory is decided in an instant.'
Matia and Achilleunon's judgment coincided.
"When it's an opponent you've never seen before, fall back."
"If you don't know your opponent, don't try to decide the match in a single blow."
"Don't forget that time and terrain can both become your allies, and make use of them."
It was a moment when the instructors' teachings were useless. There was no time to apply any of that.
The enemy, with the two of them to either side, hadn't taken even a single step back, nor had he shown a defensive stance.
He had boldly turned his back to one side and met the other side's attack. It might even have been that his foot moved before Matia's sword swept out. That was how fast his reaction was. And that was how crazy it was.
That was why the tactics that came before the fight had fallen apart.
While these two had been learning tactics and training them in hundreds of mock battles in the knight order, Enkrid, with paltry skill, had rolled around just to survive, and later, in terms of personal tactics alone, a Frog who would not be lacking even if you called her the greatest genius of the current age had taught him.
Enkrid had simply made a bold decision with rational thought and moved accordingly.
On whose side was time? It had not been decided. If dragging things out favored the enemy, then all he had to do was keep the enemy from using that advantage.
"It's a simple principle. Simple actions are best. A man who swings his sword while thinking about tactics is a moron."
That was Luagarne's line.
When it came to the ability to make instantaneous judgments and shape the structure of a battle, there were few in the Mad Order of Knights who could catch up to Enkrid.
The two knights facing him sought out the best course of action in their stretched-out perception.
'If I don't know that bastard, then you don't know me either.'
Matia understood that principle. Achilleunon thought the same. The two of them poured in everything they had.
'Giant's Strength.'
Matia used the extraordinary ability with which she could beat a giant at arm wrestling. Achilleunon, in that instant, triggered his invisible hand.
In the south, there were many who were born with extraordinary abilities. Among them, two knights who had been born with Superhuman Strength and telekinesis stood here together.
'Your luck's bad.'
Achilleunon's head went hot and a nosebleed burst forth. As he thrust his long spear, he grabbed Enkrid's ankle with his invisible hand.
His eyeballs burned and his heart ached. Those were the bodily reactions that came when you overused your extraordinary ability. It was the same for Matia. The veins in her forearms swelled as if they would burst.
The enemy lifted his foot to avoid the invisible hand, smashed the knight's greatsword that drew on Giant's Strength, then rode it down, aiming to split her wrist.
Matia, in that moment, clutched the sword with only her left hand and struck him with the flat of the greatsword, shaking him off.
Enkrid was bold here as well. He didn't do any sort of evasive maneuver.
Bang!
He raised his left arm, blocked the greatsword, and let the force flow. It was a Balaph-style body deflection from his martial art. At the same time, the sword in his right hand curved like a snake and pierced Matia's neck.
If you were used to using two swords at once, something like this was possible. It was a matter of using techniques with the timing of your two hands offset.
More precisely, he had offset the timing of his body and his right hand.
Enkrid thrust his sword before blocking, and Matia had not anticipated that. All of it came down to a single, simple, clear word.
A difference in ability.
One side was faster, had deeper combat experience, and was not outmatched in raw strength.
Gurgle.
As Matia spat blood foam, Achilleunon's long spear stabbed into Enkrid's side. Even that was not a mortal blow.
"That hurts."
For someone who had just put a hole in a knight's neck in a single strike, his words were excessively plain, despite all the various reasons attached.
"You."
Achilleunon could not hide his dismay. His eyes widened and his nostrils flared. When people were startled, they either held their breath or sucked in more air.
Those trained as knights were usually the latter. It was to maximize oxygen supply for explosive muscle movement.
They filled their alveoli with fresh air and increased the oxygen concentration in their blood to prepare for the violent exertion to come.
Gurgle.
The wound that had been bubbling blood foam clamped down as Matia tightened her muscles and stopped it, then she raised her greatsword again. It was true that getting a hole in your neck meant you died soon, but a trained knight could sometimes endure. Her will held her.
"That… khrrk, strength?"
Of course, speech did not come easily. Even if she held on, she would not hold on long.
"It's what I got from training with a bear beastman morning, noon, and night."
The instant their blades had met, he had known her special ability was strength. That was why the answer had been easy even though the question had no lead-in.
"Once more."
Matia spoke as she wrapped a healing scroll for emergencies around her neck. Blood leaked down beneath the scroll.
Would she live? Achilleunon thought the odds were low. It wasn't a hole made by a needle or an awl. A sword tip had gone in and come back out.
The size of the hole was smaller than three finger joints put together, but larger than two.
"There's no time."
The situation had changed. Now, if they drew things out, Enkrid was the one at an advantage.
But he did not stand on that high ground and watch his opponents die.
"You bastard!"
When Achilleunon and Matia rushed in again, he faced them head-on. He didn't pull back. He didn't go on the defensive and just guard.
He did so despite having a secret art that specialized in snuffing out embers.
His opponents were people who were staking the skill they had piled up over a lifetime of training and drilling, born with outstanding talent.
'It'd be a waste not to meet them head-on.'
That was the madman's thinking.
In their first clash, Matia had thought the goddess of fate and fortune had played a prank.
She once again set up a pattern where the match would be decided in a single strike and charged, and this time two of Achilleunon's fingers were cut off.
He had just tried to move his opponent's cloak to cover his eyes and failed. That was the price. The blood flowing down between the healing scroll wrapped around Matia's neck increased. If the blood that had flowed a moment earlier had been a placid stream, now it was a raging river. No matter how much of a knight you were, you couldn't fight any further with a wound that was one step from death.
Enkrid made it clear to the two of them. Even if they attacked with all their strength, they couldn't do it. The difference in ability was unmistakable.
"Do you dodge by seeing it?"
Achilleunon asked before he died. His left arm, cut from the elbow, dangled, and he had lost one eye. His armor was cut and torn, and inside, his pink entrails were bowing their heads in greeting.
Enkrid chose his words in answer to the enemy's question. It was an awkward question. If he explained, the answer would be too long.
He had pestered the man called Jaxon and honed his sensory skills, and his so-called fiancé, an older fairy who had staked her life on jokes, had stabbed him with invisible blades of refined energy every time they sparred.
As a result, he had gotten used to blocking invisible attacks. Hiding the traces of refined energy blades had become everyday life, and Jaxon's non-lethal thrusts had hidden even their killing intent.
His opponent's telekinesis was similar.
Seeing from the way he used it—trying to grab ankles or snatch cloaks—it was even clear that he had chosen that method specifically to suppress his killing intent. But would the man still be alive by the time Enkrid finished explaining all that? No.
So the answer had to be given in the Mad Order of Knights' fashion.
"I just dodge."
That was how they usually answered inside the knight order, Enkrid included.
"You… son of… a bitch…"
Achilleunon spat a curse and collapsed. Thud, his head hit the ground first. Enkrid flicked the blood off Dawn in the air. For all the talk of rapport and such, in the end, it was still his engraved weapon.
Just a moment ago it had molded itself to his grip and extended wherever he wanted. That had been very satisfying.
Two knights had died. He had killed two knights alone. It wasn't a common thing.
"War's flower is."
"Mad Order?"
One field commander who recognized Enkrid blurted it out without meaning to. The words spread quickly.
The war had only just begun, and from the very start Rihinstetten had lost six knights. It was a truly encouraging situation. From Naurillia's perspective, anyway.
The winged horse came down beside Enkrid as he wiped the blood splashed on his face with the back of his hand.
Seeing that, Marcus shouted hirat-hirat and came galloping up on horseback.
The enemy could only stare blankly. How could this make sense? They had two knights, so why had they lost?
When human beings saw their common sense crumble, their bodies and minds froze. Just as when they saw the existence of knights for the first time, those who had witnessed the kind of force that changed the balance of a battlefield stood with their mouths hanging open, as if they had had a staring contest with Medusa.