Unlike orcs, dragons generally did not engage in any particular activity once the sun went down.
Marquis Hauzen was more concerned about a magical attack from the dragons than a night raid by the orcs.
“Even if they do attack, once darkness falls, their accuracy will drop drastically.
In that case, the damage to our most important forces—the mages and the knight order—will not be great.”
Of course, ordinary soldiers could be gathered in any number through large-scale conscription. But
the same could never be said for skilled knights and mages. For that reason, Marquis Hauzen had adopted a strategy that could be called somewhat
ruthless. In any case, the 8th Corps and the allied forces from every region of the Truvenia Continent were
hurrying toward the Carnatic Plain.
Doyle and Damon, too, were trudging along amid the marching ranks of the 8th Corps soldiers.
Having walked for an exceedingly long time, Doyle’s face was plainly marked with exhaustion.
“This is hard.”
Wiping the sweat from his forehead, Doyle turned back with a deeply furrowed expression. There,
two oxen were straining to pull a cart piled high with mountains of baggage. Seeing that, Doyle let out a sigh
and hurried his steps again.
Ordinarily, when on the march, mages were supposed to ride in carts. It was meant to take into account the poor stamina of
mages and maximize their combat effectiveness. But that
principle was not being observed this time. There were simply too many military supplies to carry, so Doyle as well
had no choice but to move on foot. As if to prove it, most of the soldiers walking along
were shouldering heavy loads.
“You seem to be having a hard time.”
When Doyle showed signs of struggling, Damon quickly came up beside him. A bundle that looked
fairly heavy was slung over his back as well. Yet he showed no sign of hardship
whatsoever. Unlike the other soldiers, who were constantly panting, his breathing was utterly calm.
Doyle smiled faintly.
“As expected of someone who once trained his body to its limits as a Sword Master.”
At Doyle’s low whisper, Damon gave a bitter smile. That was now a fact buried
in the past, and bringing it up only pained him.
“Please hurry. At this rate, we’ll fall behind.”
As Damon strode ahead, Doyle quickly followed after him.
“Poor boy.”
Before he knew it, a tender emotion had surfaced in his eyes. It was probably a deep pity for his disciple’s
cruel fate. Doyle now knew everything
about Damon’s past. Even the fact that he was a person from another dimension, and had once been a top-class Sword Master...
The previous night, Damon had laid bare his entire life story to Doyle.
“Wh-what? Is that true?”
“It is, Master.”
Doyle stared at Damon with his eyes wide. Damon’s face was filled with a complexity of emotion that could not
be put into words. Of course, it was not something one could easily reveal, even to one’s master.
“I was originally what they call a Sword Master here.”
To Doyle, who had until now thought of Damon as a mercenary from another continent, this fact
came as a shock. The fact that Damon was a person who had crossed over from another dimension, and furthermore
had once been a Sword Master of formidable ability, was more than enough to leave Doyle astonished.
“G-good heavens...”
Of course, there was no way Doyle did not know what kind of beings Sword Masters were. Were they not the ultimate martial artists,
the opponents mages were most reluctant to face? In truth, if the opponent was a Sword
Master, even a fairly high-ranking mage would find them difficult to handle.
Because of the nature of magic as a discipline, an extremely long time was inevitably required from casting to the realization of a spell,
and a Sword Master with dazzling movements could avoid offensive magic without much difficulty.
Especially if the opponent was wearing anti-magic defensive armor, it had to be considered a fight in which the mage had no chance
whatsoever.
Moreover, a Sword Master capable of manipulating mana could use anti-magic defensive armor well enough.
No, even setting all that aside, there was no comparison between a mage and a Sword Master in terms of movement itself.
Most mages were likely to lose their heads before their incantation was complete. Having learned of his disciple’s past,
Doyle forced himself to calm down with a dry cough.
“Hm! Truly astonishing.”
The being who had captured Doyle during the Dark War in the past had also been a Sword Master. Recalling
the situation then, Doyle shuddered despite himself. It was a moment when he had felt to his bones
just how powerful a Sword Master could be.
At that time, he had poured all manner of black magic at his opponent. But the opponent had evaded
his attack spells with absurd ease. Even the offensive magic unleashed over a wide area was blocked without any particular effort,
and the opponent had calmly approached and subdued Doyle.
For Doyle, who had been renowned as a high-ranking black mage in the Demon King’s army at the time, it had been
an utterly ridiculous defeat, and because of it, he had been forced to live for thirty years in an underground prison
where not even sunlight reached. A nameless Sword Master whose entire identity was shrouded in mystery, of whom Doyle knew only that he was a knight under
Great Emperor Krosen. Back then, Doyle had truly learned, painfully and thoroughly,
that mages were weak against Sword Masters. And now his own disciple, Damon, had been a Sword Master?
“This is truly surprising. But why did you decide to become a mage?”
At Doyle’s wide-eyed question, Damon smiled bitterly.
“The mages who brought me to this continent at the time did not know one fact.
That even a Sword Master, if he loses a part of his body, immediately returns to being an ordinary person.”
“A part of your body...?”
“On the Jungwon Continent where I lived, unlike Truvenia, there is no discipline called magic. That is because
on our continent, methods of manipulating mana have been extremely developed since ancient times. Of course,
there are similar lines of sorcery and arts, but they have not reached the advanced heights of the magic here.
For that reason, there are far more Sword Masters than in Truvenia, and the vital points and weaknesses of the human body have also been
thoroughly understood over many long years. In Jungwon, in order to become a Sword Master, one cultivates internal energy arts
using an organ of the human body called the dantian. But now, there is no dantian left in my body.”
Only then did Doyle understand why Damon possessed such extensive knowledge of the structure of the human body.
“Then you mean that this organ called the dantian was destroyed, and you lost your abilities as a Sword Master?”
“That is correct. That is why I am trying to regain my strength, even if it means learning magic.”
Nodding, Damon began to tell Doyle every detail of his past.
From the life that had been thoroughly calculated by Sa Junhwan, to the fact that he had been betrayed at the final moment
and lost all his subordinates—he spoke of everything without leaving a single thing out. In a way, it might have been a past he wished
to hide, but Damon did not care in the slightest. He already trusted his master Doyle deeply.
After hearing all of Damon’s life story, which could only be called cruelly ill-fated, Doyle let out a long
sigh.
“You too have lived a truly difficult life. One no less difficult than mine...”
It seemed Doyle, too, had some complicated story, but Damon did not ask. Matters of this sort
were never to be pried into until the person himself chose to reveal them. Doyle’s lips moved as if he were about to
say something, but soon he lowered his head. Judging from his appearance, it was clearly a past he could not easily speak of.
After a while, Doyle raised his head and looked at Damon.
“In any case, thank you. For telling me all those things from your past that could not have been easy to reveal...”
“Master is the only person in Truvenia whom I trust and rely on. That is why I told you
all of my past.”
The face Damon had worn then, with its lonely expression, briefly flashed across Doyle’s eyes. Though it was no longer visible now,
Damon’s tormented expression at the time did not leave Doyle’s mind for a long while. He turned his head
without realizing it. Damon was still intent on walking with his heavy load on his back. A deep conflict
flickered across Doyle’s face.
‘Should I tell Damon about my own past?’
Of course, Damon’s fate had been beyond cruel, but Doyle’s own past was in no way inferior
to it. Doyle, too, had a complicated past, enough that he had entered the path of magic at an age
past forty.
‘I should tell him if the opportunity comes.’
Having sorted out his thoughts, Doyle’s face suddenly took on a troubled expression.
“But what am I to do with this?”
As he stepped weakly forward, Doyle fidgeted with an object inside the hem of his robe. Inside
was the magical item Damon had requested. Of course, it was still unfinished, and was an artifact whose usability
was doubtful, but because it showed even a slight possibility, Doyle was pouring his heart and soul into making it
in his own way. Glancing at Damon, Doyle thought that no matter what happened,
he had to fulfill his request.
The complexions of the soldiers marching in silence were all dark beyond measure. The rumor that dragons,
who had not participated in battle for a long time, had appeared on the battlefield again was enough to break the soldiers’ morale.
In particular, some soldiers’ fear was even greater. They were the ones who had experience
participating in battles against dragons. Although they had not seen them directly, the combat power of dragons they had felt for themselves
was at a level that surpassed imagination.
“Is dragon magic really that powerful?”
“You can think of it as power beyond words. It couldn’t even be compared
to what mages cast.”
“Come on, surely not...”
“I’m telling you, it’s true. With one spell, three of our mages and five hundred soldiers
turned to ash in an instant. I saw it with my own eyes...”
The faces of the soldiers marching while whispering just barely within earshot were no different from those of men going to their deaths.
A combination of dragons and orcs. They knew well that human strength was insufficient
to endure it. But the soldiers knew one fact very well:
that they could no longer retreat from here. If they failed to stop the enemy, the human race
would no longer be able to live on the Truvenia Continent. That was why, even knowing that death awaited them,
they were throwing themselves into a place of death.
Damon, who had been walking silently while listening to the soldiers’ conversation, suddenly turned his head. Fortunately, Doyle had
found a place on the corner of a baggage cart and was marching in relative comfort.
“There is one thing I am curious about, Master.”
“Speak.”
“In truth, I have never once seen a dragon. But from what I hear, dragons are said to be
the strongest living beings in Truvenia?”
Though his exhaustion was obvious, Doyle answered in a relatively gentle voice.
“That is true. In terms of both magical and physical combat power, there is no creature
that surpasses a dragon. Of course, one cannot call them invincible. There have been precedents in which dozens of knights and mages
were mobilized to hunt a dragon. But those were merely young dragons. If it is a wyrm-class dragon
or higher, then it can be considered almost impossible for humans to hunt it.”
“But there is something else I cannot understand. If they are that strong, I simply do not know why
the dragons chose a difficult path when an easy one was available.”
“What do you mean?”
“If I possessed abilities on the level of a dragon, this is what I would do. I would secretly infiltrate
the royal palaces of each kingdom and wipe out their leadership entirely. From what I have heard,
dragons seem more than capable of doing that. Then would there not be no need to wage such a tedious war of attrition?”
Hearing Damon’s words, Doyle gave a laugh of disbelief.
“That hardly sounds like something that should come from the mouth of a human. Of course, there is a proper reason for it.”
Doyle began explaining in a low voice so the surrounding soldiers would not hear.