Gaze
***
As night passed and dawn approached, Elbridge, in his sleep, caught a faint gamey scent.
'Wolves?'
Elbridge sat up. He could see the mercenaries moving about, waking people up.
"Wake up."
The awakened people gathered in a cluster, using the carts and carriages as a shield.
Just like last time, these wolves did not retreat easily either and circled around the party.
However, unlike last time, no one was greatly agitated. It was because of the presence of Sir Walter the knight.
Walter puffed out his chest triumphantly.
"For them to come on their own before I went looking. This is actually for the better."
The horse Walter had ridden did not have barding on it. This was because, just like paladins, knights did not ride horses when they fought.
Unless it was a special horse, it could not withstand the power of a knight who utilized mana.
Walter stared at the wolves and dug up the earth by jabbing the ground with his blunt-toed sabatons.
Elbridge watched this and thought.
'The way knights use their footing hasn't changed from the old days.'
After kicking the dirt a few times like that, a hole half a handspan deep was created. Walter put his right foot into the small hole and then bent his knees.
"Everyone, step aside."
The very next moment, a pile of dirt scattered from behind Walter's right foot as if it had exploded.
The knight's dash.
Walter, clad in thick armor, ran faster than a warhorse at full gallop. The physical ability of a knight who utilized mana was so powerful that it was hard to compare to that of an ordinary human.
Up to this point, it was a familiar sight to Elbridge.
However, there was just one part that was different from his expectations. The fact that Walter did not draw his sword even after reaching a close distance to the wolf.
Instead, Walter lowered his posture a little more and pushed his shoulder's pauldron forward.
"O God of the Golden Tray!"
Kwang!
Walter's pauldron collided with the lead wolf.
The wolf, larger than a decent-sized calf, was sent flying without even being able to scream. The wolf tumbling on the ground was almost a bloody pulp.
"Ooh...!"
It was common for knights to push opponents away using their pauldrons. However, the power of that push was not enough to crush a large animal like a wolf.
'...He fights in a peculiar way.'
There were various concepts and objects that symbolized the God of the Golden Tray. But among them, the most intuitive was, by far, gold.
Therefore, the powers possessed by the God of the Golden Tray also had many aspects in common with the properties of gold. For instance, the weight of gold, which was much heavier than other metals.
Increasing the weight of an object was one of the secondary powers bestowed by the God of the Golden Tray.
He remembered it clearly because there were occasional cases of priests who served the God of the Golden Tray being hanged for rigging scales using this power.
Sir Walter the knight, instead of rigging scales like the priests, increased his own body weight.
Since Walter, whose body weight had increased severalfold, slammed into the wolf at a speed greater than a warhorse, there was no way that even a large wolf could withstand it.
'So even if it's not a god specialized in combat, there's room to utilize their powers in battle.'
Although it was a slightly crude method, the result was better than if he had cut the wolf down with a sword. Because the wolves, intimidated by Walter's overwhelming power, stealthily retreated.
Walter confirmed that the wolves were running away, then asked the merchant, a little triumphantly.
"How many wolves did you say there were yesterday?"
"There were seven. One died, so there were six."
"But the wolves that have appeared now are nine in number."
"Yes. The number of the pack has increased by three."
"No. That is not a pack of nine. The alpha magical beast that commands hundreds of wolves has merely sent nine here. Just as you predicted, a magical beast is definitely involved."
The merchant said, a little tense.
"In that case, didn't we need more knights after all? Sir Oswald or Sir Eberhardt..."
Walter waved his hand with a laugh.
"Do not worry. Right now, Oswald and Eberhardt have gone to hunt that very wolf magical beast."
"Pardon?"
"Viscount Dickens requested help from Lord Riverford. He said they have confirmed the location of the wolf magical beast and are tracking it, and asked for knights to be dispatched. That is the reason Oswald and Eberhardt did not come here. In any case, the wolf magical beast is near the Viscountcy of Dickens, so there is no need to worry."
"Ah, so that's what it was."
Unlike the merchant, Elbridge was not reassured. It was because of the God of Sunshowers whom Marcus served.
'No. The God of Sunshowers is not an evil god, so he won't deliberately bring misfortune. Sir Walter and I must have been insurance in case a wolf pack appeared. In fact, both Sir Walter and I have played our roles more or less.'
But Elbridge could not completely let his guard down.
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Walter decided to accompany the party for three days.
That was because that period was more than enough to get out of the territory of an ordinary wolf pack, and to leave the Barony of Riverford.
Walter showed interest in Elbridge throughout the time he accompanied the party.
"Elbridge. I can gauge your skill just by looking at your hands. They are the hands of a person who has handled a sword a lot."
"My hands are a bit rough, aren't they?"
"These are not hands that were born rough. They have been deformed because there are too many scars. My hands are similar to yours, so I know well."
Walter showed his hands to Elbridge.
"When I was young, I was often told that my hands were pretty."
Most of the fingernails were crushed or missing, and the joints were all lumpy. Beneath the wrinkles etched by time, there were numerous scars, big and small.
"Thirty years ago, they were even more unsightly than now. Rough calluses covered my hands..."
However, Walter seemed to long for the hands of those days.
"Aren't rough hands the pride of a knight?"
"That's right. In the days when I served the God of Vines and Knots, hands like these looked so cool. I really trained day and night to get hands like these."
The God of Vines and Knots symbolized effort that is not betrayed and deserved achievement.
However, the God of Vines and Knots that Elbridge remembered was a god preferred more by scholars than by knights or paladins.
"So you followed a different god in your youth."
"My parents served the God of Vines and Knots."
"How did you come to follow the God of the Golden Tray?"
"Because after becoming a knight, I came to know the life of a knight accurately."
Walter said, stroking his horse's mane.
"When I was young, I thought a knight was a person who was always fighting enemies. But the time a knight spends fighting enemies is not that long, even if you look at their entire life. A knight also has to spend most of their life fighting against life itself. And when fighting against life, there is no god as reliable as the God of the Golden Tray."
"I see."
"Of course, a knight's salary is not small. But it takes an unusual amount of money to educate children properly. For me, with six children, it was even more so... On the side, I also had the thought that I wanted my wife to live a little more affluently. So I decided to follow the God of the Golden Tray."
As Walter was talking, he lowered his voice to a whisper.
"In my case, my luck with money was considerable for five years. I earned more than half of the money I've ever earned in my life during that time."
It seemed that the preferential benefits for changing orders or whatever he had talked about last time had existed in those days as well.
Of course, not all of that luck with money would have been arranged by the God of the Golden Tray.
"Thanks to that, I now live a more or less comfortable life. I couldn't become the best knight, but I can at least claim to be a decent father and husband."
On Walter's white-haired face, there was a sense of ease unique to a man who had lived fiercely.
Elbridge slightly revised his internal evaluation of Walter upwards. Walter's expression was that cool.
"So, on this occasion, how about you also serve the God of the Golden Tray?"
Elbridge's evaluation of Walter lowered a little again. Putting aside the recommendation to change his faith, it was because he had repeated the story of telling the priest his own name as the referrer three times.
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As they walked while chatting, the sun began to set.
The sky behind them, and the clouds in the sky, burned red. The long shadows stretching to the opposite side of the sunset guided the party's way forward.
How long had they walked like that?
A single wolf was sitting where the party's shadow reached.
A wolf blacker than the evening shadow.
'Of course.'
As Elbridge stopped walking, Walter also pulled on his horse's reins and stopped. Naturally, the entire party that had been walking with Walter and Elbridge at the front stopped.
"What is it?"
"There's something strange up ahead."
Walter stood still and stared into the far distance with a frown, then soon muttered powerlessly.
"O Gods..."
As the party's steps halted, the wolf now got up from its spot and began to approach.
That wolf was more than twice as large as an ordinary wolf, and it had fur that was pitch-black and had a metallic sheen.
Elbridge gained several clues from the wolf's appearance alone.
'A sheen... An enhancement type? It's a relief that it's not a distortion or special type. The sheen on its back looks darker than the sheen on other parts. It seems like a creature that hasn't been a magical beast for very long. I'll have to get a more accurate idea when it gets closer, though...'
While Elbridge was slowly assessing the magical beast, Walter took out a metal rod divided into several parts and assembled it.
In an instant, a metal spear was completed.
After finishing the assembly, Walter tapped the ground with the spear shaft, kung, kung, to fix the shaft more firmly.
At the dull sound of the spear hitting the ground, people's attention was focused on Walter.
Walter pointed in the direction they had come from, that is, to the west, and said.
"A magical beast has appeared. Everyone, turn back."
The person in charge of the caravan stammered.
"Didn't you say the magical beast was in the Viscountcy of Dickens?"
"That is what I knew."
"...Is there no possibility of exterminating the magical beast? Sir Walter, you have experience defeating magical beasts, don't you?"
"I may be a knight, but it's impossible to hunt a magical beast alone. And when I exterminated a magical beast ten years ago, five knights charged at it, and even then, one of them died."
"..."
"Everyone, abandon your luggage. Don't look after others and run with all your might. Even if they are your own flesh and blood, there are no exceptions. You must move with all your strength until the day breaks. Even if a village appears in the middle, you must not stop. A small fence will not be able to stop a magical beast."
"Sir Walter, you will..."
"I am a knight."
From where do the rights of a knight originate?
The halo of one's family? The high competition rate? The years of hardship one must endure to become a knight?
No. The rights of a knight always originate not from qualification, but from duty.
Only those who are confident that they will not back down in the face of duty can enjoy their rights without shame.
And Walter was a man who had never once been ashamed of his rights.
"Go!"
The people began to run.
The person in charge of the caravan took only his money pouch and then fled faster than anyone on a pack horse.
The people who had walked with Elbridge from the last city, and the mercenaries who had been escorting the caravan, also fled.
It might be a different story if the opponent were bandits or an ordinary wolf pack, but even mercenaries had no obligation to fight against a magical beast.
However, there were also some people who acted a little differently.
The mercenary Marcus ran for a bit and then stopped at an awkward distance.
Rick was taking out hardtack from his cart and handing out a handful to each of the fleeing people.
No, the expression that he was randomly shoving a handful into their hands was more appropriate than saying he was handing it out. And even after that, a good amount of luggage remained on the cart.
Rick looked at the cart and pondered for a moment, then finally started to walk, huffing and puffing as he pulled the cart.
And Elbridge was still standing by Walter's side.
Walter glanced at Elbridge.
'My judgment wasn't wrong, I suppose.'
He knew it was the recklessness of youth. But he was quite pleased that Elbridge had remained by his side.
Walter muttered.
"O God of the Golden Tray. Look down upon me."
However, in Walter's opinion, the God of the Golden Tray was not a very reliable god in a situation like this.
Therefore, Walter added a small word.
"...O God of Vines and Knots. May your gaze also reach me."
The magical beast had gotten quite close before he knew it.
Walter estimated how long he could hold out.
He tried to imagine it as hopefully as possible, but only a bad outcome was drawn. For Walter, and for the people who had fled, leaving their backs to him.
Walter asked Elbridge.
"Why did you not run?"
"Do you know what the Rusted Shield Goddess symbolizes?"
The symbols of gods related to combat usually included victory or glory.
The God of the Laurel Wreath symbolized glory and joy, and the God of the Bloody Spear meant hard-won victory and the reward for sacrifice.
However, the Rusted Shield Goddess symbolized neither victory nor glory.
"An unyielding will."
Elbridge added to Walter's answer.
"Devotion and sacrifice. Hidden honor. And non-retreat."
Hidden honor.
It was a symbol so fitting for the name and actions of the young man before him that Walter managed a faint smile even in a situation where his life was on the line.
This time, Elbridge asked.
"Do you have experience fighting magical beasts?"
"Three times. One of them was a wolf-type. But unlike that one, it was a creature whose fur billowed like flames."
"That's good."
Elbridge held out his hand to Walter.
"Sir Walter. If you are going to use the spear, please give me the sword. If you are going to use the sword, give me the spear."
Walter hesitated for a moment. Was it right to give his weapon to someone else before a battle?
However, Walter handed the sword to Elbridge. It was because he was not confident that he could exchange two blows with that magical beast.
Elbridge lightly loosened his wrist, then swung the sword in the air.
Walter thought the trajectory of that sword was remarkably clean. But from Elbridge's perspective, it was not a very satisfactory movement.
"Sir Walter. If the God of the Golden Tray bestows his power, can we win?"
"...I am not confident."
"In that case, will the God of Vines and Knots watch over Sir Walter?"
"I would hope so, but... a god does not look after a follower who has turned their back on them."
"I suppose that's true."
Elbridge's gaze was fixed on the magical beast.
'Can I win?'
Although Elbridge was an exceptionally skilled paladin, he could not hunt a magical beast alone without holy power or divine authority.
But now, there was a big variable called Walter. A variable with a decent amount of experience and courage.
Elbridge said.
"Sir Walter. Stick close to my side."
"Do you have a good plan?"
"That's not it."
"Then why?"
"Because the Rusted Shield Goddess will surely be watching over me."
Elbridge grinned.
"You have to stick close to my side, so that the Rusted Shield Goddess can take Sir Walter into her sight as well, don't you think?"
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