A moment earlier, when the roar of a wave of earth striking the camp had rung out.
The tent had heaved violently once,
and dust on the ground had risen like a wave.
“An attack!”
Just as Cedric gripped his sword hilt and was about to rush outside,
a voice from behind stopped him.
“Cedric.”
It was Adel’s voice.
“Yes, Sir Adel.”
Cedric reflexively changed direction and entered the command tent.
Adel was seated.
And Marcel stood before him.
To keep his empty left sleeve from swaying, he held his arm close to his body.
Adel said in a low voice,
“Cedric. Marcel. You two are to leave the camp at once.”
“Pardon…? But the camp is—”
“I will defend this place.”
His words cut like a blade.
“You are to conceal your presence and find the enemy’s rear.”
Cedric opened his mouth, then hesitated.
“That is… not honorable. In a frontal battle—”
Adel’s gaze pinned him in place.
“Whether from the front or the rear, an encirclement is an encirclement.”
He narrowed his brow and added,
“Those are not city guards. They are undoubtedly the Silver Moon Corps.”
“There will be no mercy. This is no longer a time when we can endure on ‘honor’ alone.”
Adel slowly drew in a breath.
“I will take responsibility.”
Marcel’s jaw hardened.
He bit his lip once.
“…Understood.”
Cedric, too, eventually bowed his head.
“I… will obey.”
The two hurried out of the tent.
Outside, the air was already surging with shouts and the clash of steel.
Cedric ground his teeth and said,
“Sir Marcel… this is truly—”
Marcel’s eyes were already fixed far away.
The side where his empty left arm hung twitched once, as though clenching a fist.
“The Silver Moon Corps.”
He spat the words out.
“The white… weasel.”
Cedric let out a short breath.
“Hoo… yes. Right now, we have to win, no matter what.”
—
Back to the present.
Before Cedric and Marcel, who had pushed their way out of the forest,
several layers of cloth were spread over the packed earth.
The smell of blood struck their noses first, and groans and short coughs leaked out from here and there.
Those moving busily knelt down,
administering first aid to the ones lying there, writhing in pain.
Relief work.
Anyone could see that.
Cedric clenched his teeth.
‘…They are treating the wounded…’
Just then, Marcel said in a low voice,
“Sir Cedric. Over there… do you see?”
It entered Cedric’s field of vision as well.
A small girl with black hair.
Her breathing rose and fell roughly, and her hands trembled as they clutched blood-soaked cloth.
And on her back.
An uncanny ivory-colored longsword, as though carved from bone.
It was the girl and the sword
that had flashed past during the pursuit with Adel.
Cedric was about to take a step forward, but stopped.
A brief hesitation.
Then resolve.
He walked onto the cloth.
Those tending to the wounded noticed his presence.
“…A k-knight?”
The girl also turned her head.
Swallowing her ragged breath, her eyes wavered for a moment.
Cedric’s hand went to his sword hilt.
And just as he seemed about to draw—
he stopped.
“I…”
The words would not follow.
What he had to say and do now was too far removed from the honor he had clung to.
Cedric opened his mouth again.
His voice had grown strangely flat.
“You there, girl. The sword on your back… bring it here.”
He cut himself off and swept his gaze over the wounded on the cloth.
Even without saying more, his intention spread.
“…If you refuse, something you do not want will happen.”
Those words stabbed at Cedric’s own conscience.
The ones tending the wounded slowly rose.
With bloodstained hands, they fumbled for their weapons and drew them.
The girl—
not the sword on her back,
but a steel longsword lying beside her.
Cedric, after taking a breath, finally drew his sword.
Then he glanced at Marcel.
“I will handle this place. Sir Marcel… the girl.”
Marcel nodded.
His empty left sleeve swayed once, and he drew his sword.
“Bido! Back!”
Before Kallen’s shout had even ended, the sword point was already before his neckline.
Kagak—!
Yeonhwa forced herself between them and blocked in front of Kallen.
What she blocked was Cedric’s sword.
Tonight was the full moon.
A night when reaching for Mireukin brought a price from the very first moment.
In the end, all that remained were Ideurin and technique.
And a knight who was a master of them now stood before their eyes.
“Hup…!”
Kallen thrust his sword over Yeonhwa’s shoulder.
Cedric let the trajectory slide along the line of his shoulder armor.
Pak—!
At the same time, he pushed with his sword and knocked Yeonhwa away.
Yeonhwa’s feet carved through the dirt.
Through that opening, Taejin slipped in low.
A low kick aimed at the ankle.
Tang!
His solid shin struck the armor, but—
Cedric did not so much as waver.
As if his feet were driven into the ground beneath him.
At that moment, the wind split from the side.
Marcel charged at Bido.
Kaaang!
“Hoo…!”
Bido barely managed to receive the sword.
The hand that had been clutching bloodstained cloth until moments ago had not even fully loosened.
And yet that blow carried a weight hard to believe had been swung with one arm.
Marcel said in a low voice,
“Even with one arm gone, you are no match for me.”
Kallen, Yeonhwa, and Taejin turned to help Bido.
But Cedric knew that.
With the tip of his sword, he drew lines across every place their “help” might reach,
keeping them from breaking away.
Marcel had no intention of killing Bido, a young girl.
His objective was one thing—
disarmament, suppression.
To endure that weight,
Bido raised as much Ideurin as she could muster.
Her breath split in the back of her throat.
And then.
It began at that moment.
The sword on her back—
very faintly, began to react.
“Mm…?”
Marcel sensed something strange.
The girl was raising her Ideurin.
That was certainly the flow of it.
And yet, within it—
something else began to mix in.
It was not human energy.
Rather than her power growing stronger, the first thing he felt was an alien sensation, as if the girl’s body were falling out of alignment.
But beneath the full moon,
Mireukin could not be used.
There was no change in the eyes, nor any flow that could be called “magic.”
He was certain.
Those here could not use that power.
Marcel stepped closer.
This was already not an honorable act.
Even so, cutting into the flesh of the weak sat ill with him.
He would not cut.
He would break.
Kaaang—! Giiiik!
Marcel’s sword struck Bido’s longsword squarely and twisted its angle away.
“Ugh…!”
Bido loaded Ideurin into her longsword and endured.
She had to attack.
But in strength and speed—
Marcel, with only one hand, was a step above her.
Heung—!
Marcel drew back his sword point slightly and caught it on her guard.
Pak!
Bido’s longsword was twisted along with her wrist and flung away.
“Ah…”
Bido’s wrist trembled, numb.
Marcel lowered the tip of his sword.
“Now. Put down the sword on your back.”
Bido looked at the one-armed knight before her.
He stood with his sword lowered, waiting.
When she turned her gaze to the side, she saw the other knight.
He was still keeping Kallen, Yeonhwa, and Taejin bound within his trajectories.
The three of them had no room to spare for Bido.
Bido looked behind her.
The cloth spread over the packed ground.
Bloodstained bandages.
The members lying there, swallowing their groans.
‘…If I hand over this sword now, everyone can live.’
Her hand slowly moved behind her back.
The leather strap dug into her shoulder,
and the ivory hilt touched her palm.
Marcel nodded and waited.
“That’s it. Put it down.”
Bido gripped the hilt.
At that moment—
the something that had been faintly flowing in from behind her back
seeped inside through the hand that held it.
‘Ugh….’
Bido swallowed her breath.
She recalled the night of the rampage.
If she entrusted her body to the sword’s power, she had certainly gained the strength to stand against a knight.
In exchange, Bido had disappeared.
All that remained was the sensation of cutting.
Blood spattering, something collapsing—
would there be a hand to stop it this time, too?
Bido drew the sword.
She had to offer out the hilt in order to hand it over.
But from that moment on, her fingertips stopped obeying her.
Her vision blurred from the edges inward.
The skin beneath her eyes burned hot.
The hand gripping the sword felt as though it were being scorched away.
Marcel saw the change.
“So you’re… not giving up?”
He raised his sword again.
“Haa… haa…”
Beneath Bido’s skin,
very faintly—
red scales began to sprout.
Marcel felt the back of his neck grow cold.
Cold sweat ran down inside his armor.
‘What… in the world is that…’
An instinctive revulsion.
Cedric, too, turned his head as if drawn by that presence.
Bido’s eyes—
began to turn yellow.
“What… what is this?”
Marcel was shaken for an instant, but he corrected his stance.
It was then.
Bido charged fiercely at Marcel.
There was no technique, no calculation.
Only the will to “break.”
Her foot did not “step” on the ground.
It stamped into it.
Kwa-gang—!
Tiamar’s sword came crashing down.
Marcel received it,
but it was a weight that could not be blocked with one arm.
“Ugh…!”
The instant his wrist nearly bent, Marcel did not “block” the sword, but let it slide away.
Had he blocked it, it would have broken.
But the girl did not stop.
As she dragged the sword she had slammed down back upward,
she scraped it horizontally, like a beast raking with its claws.
Marcel’s feet slid backward.
His armored boots dug into the dirt, and his thighs held firm.
In that gap, he saw it.
The yellow-stained eyes.
The red scales sprouting beneath them.
And the scales that had climbed up to the back of her hand—
seemed to be connected to the sword’s hilt.
“…What is this?”
Marcel’s voice cracked.
Bido rammed into him again.
It was not a motion of swinging a sword, but of throwing her body together with the sword.
Marcel began to be pushed back.
He could find neither the angle to disarm her nor the timing to knock away her wrist.
There was no line.
He could not predict her.
“Ugh… S-Sir Cedric…!”
Marcel called through clenched teeth.
Cedric immediately left the three and pulled back.
Only then did Kallen, Yeonhwa, and Taejin see Bido’s condition.
“Bi… Bido?” Yeonhwa’s face turned white.
“That sword… she wasn’t supposed to use it today, was she…?”
Kallen swallowed his breath.
“But… those movements and that strength…”
Marcel’s foot was pushed back half a step.
The earth was gouged out.
‘I have to block—’
Kwa-gagak!
Bido’s sword had not come down.
It had crashed straight in.
Marcel’s sword could not endure and slid off to the side.
Yellow eyes split Marcel’s vision.
Bido’s breath—
came out like a growl.
Bido did not break off.
At the same time she dragged the sword upward, she raked it sideways.
Kaaaang—!
Marcel’s arm went numb and nearly collapsed.
For an instant, his fingers almost loosened.
The sword hilt slipped ever so slightly.
That opening.
Bido’s sword point sank lower—
closer—
casting a shadow over Marcel’s neckline.
Kkh—!
What cut in like lightning was Cedric’s sword.
His blade took Bido’s strike head-on.
It was heavy.
A weight that rang not through his forearm, but all the way to his shoulder blade.
Cedric clenched his teeth and deflected the sword.
Then he stepped back at the same time as Marcel.
Cedric rapidly assessed the situation.
Then he shouted.
“The arm…!”
“Cut off the arm holding the sword!”
At those words, the faces of Kallen, Yeonhwa, and Taejin went deathly pale.
The three charged in reflexively.
“No!”
But the two knights had already set their stances.
Cedric blocked her from the front,
and Marcel folded in his trajectory from the side.
Bido charged again.
A beastlike rush that abandoned defense.
Two swords swung at the same time.
And then—
hot blood splattered across Bido’s face.