Episode 18
“Per-!”
Watching the scene from afar, Aum tore at his hair. He knew a commander shouldn’t leave his post. But seeing his younger brother sacrificed before his eyes made his guts churn as if he were going mad.
“Calm down… calm down…!”
He said the words, but the surging rage within his body gradually clouded his judgment.
Aum furrowed his brow at Roki, sitting arrogantly upon his palanquin, and the transparent wall surrounding him.
“A barrier…? Then I must devise a way to break it…! But first, the approaching undead legion…! But how?”
Aum kicked the command platform in frustration.
“Damn it!”
*In the end, I have to strike the enemy’s main camp to get meaningful results. But I can’t just charge in blindly!*
If he simply charged unconditionally, he would meet death at the hands of the undead legion pressing in.
“Keep our distance and shoot… no, is it already too late?”
A ballista’s range was longer than a javelin’s, so if they had fired from afar from the beginning, they would have stood a chance. But the big problem was that he had lost the chariot unit needed to move the ballistae.
Aum’s hands trembled. He felt rage boiling up in his head.
Meanwhile, Roki stroked his chin as he watched the battlefield, looking intrigued.
“…It certainly seems the skeletons have a capacity for learning… Javelins and crossbows were put to good use. If this is the case, I could make them all versatile soldiers without needing to divide them into separate branches.”
But the skills used for their specialties were fixed, so converting them blindly to different branches would waste their specialties. Conversely, their specialties could also be preserved.
The skeleton longbowmen were an example. They had been issued crossbows despite their specialty being ranged attacks. Their accuracy in ranged combat was high, and they could utilize related skills, so their firepower had increased.
Roki was currently ‘testing’ how far the skeletons’ learning ability went by clashing them against the army Aum led.
Until now, Roki had watched his skeletons and known they were not simple ‘undead.’ He had heard from shamans that undead were puppets that followed the commands of the summoning sorcerer, devoid of ‘will’ or ‘ego.’ But the skeletons Roki had observed were exceptions.
There was no sorcerer who had summoned them; they were beings who had been revived from Balhal and bound to Roki.
When they received Roki’s orders, they often read the mood and acted independently. In other words, they possessed will and ego. And they even ‘learned’ on their own.
*This means each individual’s combat ability will rise dramatically. And since they don’t feel fatigue, they can learn continuously without rest, mastering diverse fields.*
However, if there was a drawback, it was that aside from skeleton sorcerers, all other skeletons had inferior learning abilities related to intelligence, while conversely excelling in combat-related learning. Skeleton sorcerers rather showed a tendency to lag in that area.
“Still, if these fellows learn sign language, communication will be possible too.”
Roki smiled and crossed his arms.
He was certain of ‘victory’ before even fighting. There was no need to commit his full strength, so he had deliberately split the formation.
“But this is boring. You don’t intend to end it with just this, do you?”
Roki looked at Aum standing upon the distant command platform.
***
Aum gritted his teeth and racked his brain.
The chariot unit was nearly annihilated. Even if they kept their distance and fought now, there was no telling how much more damage they would take. Since ballista attacks weren’t working, using ordinary arrows was out of the question.
“…I regret lacking experience commanding large-scale battles at a time like this.”
In Aum’s case, even when traveling the southern continent, he had commanded merely a few hundred troops at most. Back then, it was partly because he was a mercenary, but also because Nodians were targets of discrimination by the people of the southern continent, so he’d had no command authority despite his outstanding abilities.
“If it were the old days, I would have used this as experience and risen again, but this battle is the last.”
If he lost this battle, survival would be difficult. The demon before his eyes would clearly obtain the answer he wanted from Kudan and dispose of him. Not many would want to keep alive someone who resisted so troublesome.
*I still have sufficient troops. Should I divide my forces and strike the king?*
In truth, Roki’s main camp was empty. If they struck there, they would have a chance, but….
*The sacrifice would be enormous. But if things keep going like this, we’ll just be unilaterally slaughtered. The way to minimize the sacrifice is…!*
Aum let out a small sigh.
“I wanted all of the enemy troops to be tied down… Was that too greedy? It can’t be helped. The last resort….”
Aum shouted to the Nodians he led.
“Everyone… drive stakes into the ice!”
The Nodians quickly began driving stakes into the frozen lake. Massive stakes drove in with thick thunks—! Thunk—! But the thick ice sheet was unshaken even by the stakes, and the water rising through the gaps between them froze solid in mere minutes.
“This… they go in, but….”
“It’s too hard!”
The Nodians hastily drove in stakes, but began hurriedly fleeing as they saw the undead legion approaching.
“…What are you thinking?”
Kudan, who had been silently observing the situation, asked Aum. Rather than attack or defense orders, telling them to drive stakes into the ground?
“What am I thinking?”
Aum smiled at the perplexed Kudan.
“I’m merely trying to re-bury the dead who should have remained in the ground. So….”
Aum stepped down from the command platform and placed his hand on Kudan’s shoulder.
“I need your help. Bury those dead. Kudan Ragna!”
After midnight passed, morning gradually arrived. The earth shrouded in darkness retreated before the sun’s light, heralding morning over the frozen lake. Little known to many, the morning at the frozen lake was the most beautiful place on the continent. With neither people nor monsters present, only pure energy and frozen ice paths existed, so there was no filth whatsoever.
But now the frozen path was stained red and dirtied by humans. Hundreds, perhaps thousands of Nodians shed blood, soaking the ice, which froze from the cold to create a blackish-red hue upon the lake.
Over that bloodstained frozen path, the undead legion advanced.
“Everyone! Hurry!”
“D-damn it, they’re already close!”
“Fall back! Retreat!”
The Nodians who had been driving stakes into the ice were busy fleeing before the approaching undead legion. The undead ignored the stakes driven into the ice and advanced straight through. They were crossing the central path where countless stakes had been driven.
Soon they would arrive at the main formation of Aum, who had started this war. For some reason, they had their backs to the barricade that had been built with such effort. The massive semicircular barricade structure had instead eliminated even the escape routes for them to flee.
The skeletons laughed at the Nodians who couldn’t flee, leaning against the barricades in despair. Their bony jaws moved up and down, and their red eye light narrowed with ominous laughter.
The end was near. The sparks of life before them would be extinguished by their own hands.
“Th-they’re here!”
“D-damn it! Do or die! Everyone prepare for battle! Hold fast!”
To the skeleton undead, the screams of the Nodians were an exceedingly pleasant sound. How anticipated was this moment? Having received the command from their master, soon the results that would satisfy him would appear.
They were undead. But they were on a different level from puppet dolls tainted by hatred and rage toward the living, following only a summoner’s commands. They were a form of ‘life’ with ‘ego,’ listening only to their master’s command, obeying, and taking genuine ‘joy’ in it. Understanding his will from a single word, nay, merely from his mood, and acting upon it—making it the standard of their ‘life’—that was the meaning of their existence.
Thus, they would deliver ‘victory’ to their master as swiftly as possible!
—Kraaack!!
When the skeleton at the vanguard halted its steps, all advancing stopped as one. The spears pointed toward the Nodians were raised high to the sky. Then they were brought down toward the ground.
Thud-!
The sound echoed across the earth, and the skeletons stopped dead in their tracks. At that sight, the Nodians flinched in surprise. The distance between them was barely 150 meters. At such close range, the skeletons stood still, having ceased their attack.
“Why… are they doing that?”
“Maybe… they’ve stopped attacking?”
The Nodians’ murmurs spread, and some were relieved. But Aum, watching that sight, broke into a cold sweat and shook his head.
“No, that’s… they’re preparing to attack!”
Maintaining a silence like the calm before a storm, the skeletons opened their mouths and let out a roar.
—Kwaaaaaaack-!
The tightly held shield wall split open. Through the gap, the skeleton warriors gripped their greatswords and began charging. Following them, the skeleton shield soldiers with spear and shield also began running as one.
Formations were no longer needed. Only ‘slaughter’ would begin before overwhelming force!
The iron-wall-like formation vanished, and now a storm-like assault began. Without exhaustion, they let out massive footfalls and emitted strange red streams from their eyes, noses, and mouths. They charged at their prey with all their might.
Fear-stricken Nodians lost their will to fight and tried to flee, but were blocked by the barricade.
“Uaaaaack! You want us to fight those things?!”
“Damn it! How do we beat those monsters!”
“We couldn’t win from the start!”
“It’s the end!”
At the Nodians’ despair-filled words, Aum formed a deep smile.
“Yes, this tedious war ends now too. Kudan!”
At Aum’s shout, Kudan began to move. Hefting a heavy warhammer, he ran toward the charging undead.
The skeletons laughed at such a reckless charge, raised their spears, and threw them at him in unison. Countless javelins flew toward him, but they were deflected by the warhammer he wielded. Seeing this, the skeletons widened their red eye light and hastily formed a shield wall, raising their spears.
A dense formation of five in the first row, five in the second.
But the shield wall formation that had looked impenetrable….
“Out of the way!”
The shields split apart like crumbling cookies at the warhammer Kudan gripped. The undead were blown away.
A single blow.
The skeletons’ shield wall, which had even stopped siege weapons, collapsed far too easily.
—Kkeuk?
The skeletons all looked at him. And seeing the center where he was running—the center where countless stakes were driven—the undead’s red eye light grew large. Only then did the undead realize what he was trying to do.
The skeletons stopped running toward the Nodians and rushed to stop Kudan. Hundreds of the undead legion fiercely leaped to stop a single man.
Kudan ran, swimming upstream through them. Countless spear blades flew and greatswords lashed out. Kudan narrowly evaded them. In the process, his cheek was cut by a blade, and his arms and legs grazed spear points, causing blood to pour forth.
Having evaded hundreds of blades, Kudan reached the center of the undead, the center where stakes were driven. At the same time, surrounded by undead, spear and sword blades flew toward Kudan all at once, but—
Kudan ignored the weapons rushing at him and brought his warhammer down toward the ground with all his might.
“Now fall into hell, you dead—!”
Kwang-!
A massive roar echoed across the earth. The wind pressure created by Kudan’s single downward strike repelled the undead rushing at him with weapons, and simultaneously, the frozen ice shattered and collapsed.