Episode 53
“Alright! Everyone, shoot your bows! Pour the water!”
At the knights’ command, the soldiers moved.
Sneering at the Wights continuously battering the fortress walls, they fired their arrows and poured boiling water, confident of victory.
“Haha! Fools!”
“They’re bringing about their own destruction!”
At the soldiers’ shouts, Ashe felt relieved.
He knew well the power of the Wights from experience.
If there had been Wights inside the walls, the fortress would have fallen within minutes.
But enemies who couldn’t even fight back were nothing to fear.
At this rate, victory was certain!
“As expected! Being here was the right answer! Nordin! I wasn’t wrong!”
Ashe spoke to Loki, seeking acknowledgment that he had been right, but Loki merely shook his head as he watched the siege defense.
Then he turned and headed toward the stairs leading down below the wall.
“Where are you going?”
“I’m going to the rear of the territory. There shouldn’t be any Wights there yet.”
“I-It’s a battle we’ve already won. Wouldn’t it be better to stay here? Admit it now. That I was right!”
Ashe followed Loki, slyly trying to refute him all the while.
It was an attempt to repay even a fraction of the humiliation he had suffered.
Loki looked at Ashe and spoke.
“You lack perception. I don’t know what title you bear, but it seems you have your reasons for ruin.”
“Wh-what?!”
Just as Ashe tried to argue back—
“What the—! Why won’t they die?!”
Ashe startled and shifted his gaze.
There, the Wights were still ramming the walls. They appeared to be nothing more than a futile struggle.
Above them, the soldiers were firing arrows and pouring boiling water.
But whether arrows struck them or not, whether boiling water cascaded over them or not, the Wights ignored it all and focused solely on battering the wall.
Even with dozens of arrows embedded in their bodies and their skin swelling from the boiling water, the Wights did not die and continued to smash against the wall.
Some even raised their heads, glaring at the soldiers atop the wall.
At the sight of them gnashing their teeth as if swearing to devour them, the commanding knight shouted in a trembling voice, seized by terror.
“Th-that’s right! Oil! Pour oil and set it alight! We have to burn them!”
The soldiers hurriedly brought what little oil remained in Hareuma Territory and poured it below the wall.
The blazing oil was ineffective. Seeing that, the knight urgently threw a torch.
Flames erupted and the Wights were engulfed.
“We did it!”
The knight’s expression brightened, but the soldier beside him instead hardened his expression and spat out.
“…Did…we? That?”
At the soldier’s words, the knight looked back into the flames. There, some Wights had fallen burning, but those with only parts of their bodies alight continued to move.
The knight shook his head and stepped back, unwilling to accept reality.
“It can’t…be.”
Only a handful of Wights had fallen despite the numerous attacks.
They were truly a ‘Demonic Legion.’
Their already insufficient supplies made sustained resistance difficult.
Above all, if those creatures surrounded them, they would be unable to escape, isolated from the outside and left to meet their deaths.
The chances of victory were gradually growing slim.
At the sight of the Wights moving even as their entire bodies burned, the soldiers forgot to attack and stared blankly at the spectacle.
Though they hadn’t come under direct assault, they had already lost the will to fight.
“How are we supposed to beat these things…?!”
“You were right… We can’t win without the Holy Order’s Paladin Order!”
“Win? The Paladin Order? Talk sense! Do you think even the Holy Order could handle thousands of Wights?!”
Chaos spread.
Though no one had died, the ranks collapsed and deserters throwing down their weapons and fleeing their posts appeared in rapid succession.
The commanding knight, unable to properly assess the situation, was also left stunned.
Ashe sensed the situation turning strange.
The Wights hadn’t even scaled the walls, yet they were already losing their fighting spirit?
Loki, who had been heading down the stairs, frowned at the smell of smoke reaching his nostrils.
“That was unnecessary.”
“…What do you mean?”
Ashe was suddenly frightened by Loki’s meaningful words.
Could there possibly be a worse situation?
“It’ll be breached.”
Breached? Surely not the walls…?
Ashe looked over the rugged wall with an urgent heart.
It was a considerably bold action, but his face was stained with fear rather than courage.
Each time the Wights’ bodies collided with it, the wall was gradually crumbling. That alone would have been manageable.
At this rate, they could hold for several days. However, the problem was that ‘fire’ had caught on the main gate.
The gate was already in a precarious state from the mindless Wights’ charge.
In that situation, with burning Wights charging, the gate quickly caught fire.
“Run…! We have to run! Nordin! Quickly, to the postern gate…!”
Loki frowned from inside the crow mask.
“…Too late.”
As if his words had been a signal, the gate was breached by the Wights’ charge.
***
“…No matter how I look at it, they don’t look like a mercenary band?”
Kudan called out to Aum, who was passing by the driver’s seat.
Then he smiled awkwardly and looked behind.
Aum’s direct troops, the Berserk Warriors, sat atop the wagon that Kudan drove from the coachman’s seat and on the dozen or so wagons trailing behind it, all pulled by horses.
To Kudan, they looked far too suspicious to be the ‘appropriately sized mercenary force’ that Aum Rinia had spoken of.
Wolf skulls, bear skulls, lion and tiger skulls, and so on.
They wore beast-like skull helmets, but instead of bone, they were made of metal with a dark brown sheen.
Furthermore, the armor they wore was also far from ordinary.
Over their shoulders, they wore cloaks of monster fur and leather taken from hunted monsters, not mere animals.
The only thing that made them look like mercenaries at all was their non-uniform weapons.
Some bore longswords and round shields, while others carried morning stars, war hammers, bastard swords, and the like—a diverse variety.
Though all of them appeared much larger than the average weapons found on the continent.
Despite wearing such massive, heavy equipment that one would doubt whether any trained man could wield it properly, they were chatting away casually.
If anyone saw them, they would think of evil knights from legends or fairy tales told by bards.
“Didn’t I say so? That there’s no need to hide.”
Aum smiled deeply and looked at the Berserk Warriors.
The material was a unique metal produced only in Loki’s Valhalla Palace, and each piece of armor and weapon had been personally crafted by the Dwarf, Reuran.
Equipment crafted by master artisans was difficult to obtain anywhere on the continent, and even if one could obtain it, it would cost an astronomical amount.
Yet here were a hundred men fully armed with such gear. Moreover, they were all Divine Artifact users.
If these individuals became known on the continent, every nation would be wary of them and none would seek to make an enemy of them.
Aum was aiming for exactly that.
‘The Holy Order’s influence is enough to dominate the continent. Even the Empire’s Emperor bows his head. But if there exists a force that even a small nation would actively seek to protect, they wouldn’t dare invade recklessly. Though they would try to seize the initiative.’
And what they wanted would, without a doubt, be ‘money.’
Gold and treasures.
A very simple, yet fundamental force that moved the continent, satisfying human greed in this era.
Asgard’s financial power surpassed that of any other nation. Therefore, they could protect the woman named ‘Helga’ that Loki sought, and moreover, it would help in negotiations with the Order.
“Wights are beings that humans cannot face. But we have the power to kill such creatures.”
The most terrifying aspect of the Wights was ‘infection.’
Aum had prepared for this by having the Berserk Warriors don full-body armor padded with monster leather on the inside, and distributing extra Purification Potions and Recovery Potions to each of them.
Even if infected by the Worm Pest or driven to the brink of death by the Wights, they could return to their original state—to peak condition—and fight until the end.
For the Wights were a plague terrifying enough to shake the continent; if they could eliminate them….
“If we defeat the Wight army, word will naturally spread across the continent. If we use that well, not even the Holy Order can ignore us. Even if they pressure us, calling us heretics or cultists, other nations won’t support them. Rather, they will seek to build friendly relations with us to escape the Holy Order’s oppression.”
Aum smiled with his arms crossed.
“That is how much the plague called Worm Pest is an opportunity for us.”
At Aum’s words, Kudan smiled bitterly.
“…But are the Berserk Warriors alone enough to hunt such great monsters?”
“Enough, you ask?”
Aum looked at Kudan as if the question were absurd.
“…You alone would be more than enough to handle half of them, wouldn’t you?”
“You overestimate me.”
“Aren’t you the one who broke through the Legion of Death and swung your hammer at Lord Loki?”
Aum was referring to the battle against the highest undead composed of Death Knights and Liches.
If Kudan could break through them, Wights wouldn’t even be a match for him.
However, since he was human, being exposed to ‘disease’ would be dangerous.
“I’ve never faced Wights before. Moreover, it’s a plague, isn’t it? If infected, even I wouldn’t be able to endure.”
“Of course. But don’t we have Purification Potions? And that….”
Aum pointed to the heavy weapon covered with cloth behind Kudan’s back.
“Wasn’t it bestowed upon you by Lord Loki? I heard it makes your terrifying power all the greater.”
“I’ve yet to have a chance to use it in actual combat….”
At Kudan’s words, Aum smiled.
“You worry too much. Besides, our trump card isn’t only you.”
At Aum’s words, Kudan looked back.
“Hmm~ Hmm~”
At the very rear of the procession rode a woman on horseback.
A woman with blue hair and eyes, clad in modest yet beautifully designed armor.
Kankun was humming, seemingly excited at the thought of meeting Loki.
“We have a Saintess who will repel the hordes of evil for us.”
The Saintess who assists Loki of Asgard and the warrior second only to Kudan. That was Kankun.
“With your strength and hers, we can more than repel them.”
“Reporting!”
While Aum and Kudan were talking, a Berserk Warrior who had gone out as a scout came running, leading his horse.
Displaying considerable skill in horsemanship, he dismounted, approached Aum, knelt, and spoke in a calm voice.
“Hareuma Territory is currently engaged in battle with the plague horde.”
“Hmm? They arrived earlier than expected. But they’re not fools, so if they just close the gates and wait, they can hold for several days.”
Aum spoke as if it were nothing.
Because they too would soon reach Hareuma Territory. If they firmly shut the gates and didn’t let them ‘multiply,’ there would be no cause for concern.
Just as Aum was thinking that, a voice struck him like a blow to the back of the head.
“And the gate has been breached.”
Aum’s eyes widened in surprise.
“…What? Breached? N-no, why? Of course, no matter how insufficient Hareuma’s supplies might be, if they defend desperately, they should be able to hold?”
“It seems… they set a fire.”
“……?”
“To the gate.”
“The Wights?”
“The soldiers atop the wall appear to be the ones who did so.”
Aum pressed his forehead.
“Such fools… Ha! Surely they didn’t pour oil and set fire to the gate rather than the walls? Right, there’s no way? That’s something not even a seven-year-old would do if placed in command. So how did the fire start?”
At the scout’s silence, Aum was dumbfounded.
It was by the commander’s order that they set fire to the gate?! To think they would do something so foolish!
‘Have they lived in peace too long? To not even possess such basic common sense. Or were they simply that panicked?’
Aum Rinia was once a great chieftain who ruled the Rinia tribe and expanded his power. The reason he had become such a ruler was to sustain the tribe against southern invasions, but through this report, he realized how groundless his worries until now had been.
“Have I been afraid of such people all this time? No, most of those I met while traveling had their heads on straight. The one in command this time must simply be a fool like Nordin.”
“…….”
Kudan, listening from the side, smacked his lips.
He couldn’t bring himself to deny it.
“…Then we increase our speed. If the plague spreads unnecessarily and their numbers grow, it will be a headache.”
Aum spoke to the Berserk Warriors behind him.
“Now, it is time for you to make your appearance on the continent. Eliminate all the Wights… and grab Lord Loki by the pant legs!”
Aum Rinia smiled slyly.
“And Lord Loki will have to diligently attend to Asgard’s remaining affairs!”