Volume 16

by Reki Kawahara

  The first victims of what would be later known as the «War of the Underworld» were the plains goblin soldiers who charged in from the left side of the valley.

  The new chief of the plains goblins, Shibori, had neither wisdom nor schemes on the level of the mountain goblins’ new chief, Kosogi, and was a youth who could boast only about his constitution and strength. As such, he went up against an integrity knight, possessing overwhelming might even when alone, absolutely unprepared and simply ordered his five thousand soldiers into a tactless charge.

  Deusolbert’s four flame arrows pierced into the tightly packed plains goblin army from the front, achieving their maximum potential. A whole forty-two infantry goblins were instantly incinerated in that first strike and sent the surrounding soldiers into a fine disarray. However, as their charge was undisciplined from the very start, most of the machete-wielding soldiers thirsting for blood tread over their torched kindred and continued their disordered rush, pushing their faltering comrades aside.

  Deusolbert nocked another four arrows onto his Conflagrant Flame Bow in response.

  Instead of spreading out his range, he shot them while still bundled up.

  The grand, conflagrant spear impacted upon the direct middle of their ranks and brought forth a tremendous explosion. Many soldiers were blown away amidst the scattered shrill screams. The casualties exceeded fifty, but still, the plains goblins charged on.

  Naturally, they would. Two thousand orcs and a thousand giants followed after the two goblin races who kept pace with each other and stopping would be equivalent to getting stomped upon by them, several times their size, moments after.

  While the plains goblins lacked a tangible plan like the new chief of the mountain goblins, Kosogi, they held anger and resentment against the scorn and oppression they faced as the weakest race. And that emotion was redirected towards their hatred towards the people of the Human Empire, who would eventually become slaves under them, named «white iums» in their tongue.

  Raising the brusque battle axe he held with his two arms, far more muscular than the average goblin, Chief Shibori let out a savage scream.

  “All of you! Kill that archer first! Surround him, cut him, smash him!!”

  “Orarara—!! Kill!! Kill!! Kill!!”

  That battle cry resounded throughout the five thousand soldiers.

  Deusolbert took on the imposing anger and bloodthirst without a word as he let loose his third volley of fire arrows. The number of goblins charred to cinders exceeded fifty yet again, but the enemy forces charged on.

  He stored away the Conflagrant Flame Bow’s flames as the distance between them reached fifty mel and switched over to normal shooting. Taking steel arrows out from the quiver at a ferocious pace, he fired blindly without any particular target. Each arrow pierced through three goblins, or two at the very minimum.

  Guards ran forward from Deusolbert’s sides with their swords drawn.

  “Protect Master Knight! Don’t let their blades reach him!!”

  The one who yelled that was a young guard commander still at the age of twenty or so. He put the large, two-handed sword, with which he had went through intensive training, before himself. However, its edge trembled, just a little.

  Deusolbert thought to ask them to retreat and to not over-extend. He held no confidence that the young guards could endure a real battle awash with blood yet, in sprit, in technique, and in body, despite experiencing the knights’ strict guidance.

  However, he sucked his breath in before giving a deep shout instead.

  “My apologies. I’ll leave the left and right to you.”

  “Leave it to us!!”

  The guard commander showed a distinct grin.

  Seconds passed.

  And the shrill noise made when the plains goblin soldiers’ machetes collided with the longswords of the intercepting guards rang out for the first time.

  * * *

  Several seconds before that.

  In the middle of the gorge, Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio Synthesis Two was awaiting the enemy army in a posture that could be considered only odd by the common knowledge in this world.

  She was standing with her feet far apart and the left of her body forward. Her right hand, aligned to her shoulder’s height, was gripping tightly onto the hilt of her divine instrument, the Heaven Piercing Sword. However, her sword was held horizontally in a reverse grip with its bottom end supported by her spaulder.

  Meanwhile, her left hand was stretched out forward, her palm supporting the Heaven Piercing Sword’s blade. If Gabriel or Vassago were to witness this scene, they would likely come to the same thought. Simply said—she was like a sniper with a rifle at the ready.

  That could be said to be true in a sense. Fanatio drew the rushing enemy army in for as long as possible while scouting out the most effective point.

  Though Deusolbert’s Conflagrant Flame Bow could adjust the broadness of its arrow firing, the Heaven Piercing Sword could only shoot a single narrow beam of light. As such, naïvely firing it into the massive enemy army would hardly do much.

  She should aim for the commander somewhere within the enemy army—any of the Dark Empire’s Ten Lords.

  The Dark Territory led its forces through power and fear. The average soldiers pledged absolute obedience towards their commanders and they would fight on until their end as ordered regardless of any development. But turning that around, it meant they would lose all leadership with the defeat of their commander.

  —We, too, were once so.

  Fanatio embraced that intense, fleeting thought.

  The news that the highest minister, Administrator, had passed away broke down the Order of the Integrity Knights in a single night. It was Bercouli’s words that allowed the knights at the peak of chaos to regain themselves.

  —Was our mission, our purpose to live, to obey the highest minister and chief elder’s orders?

  —No. We live to protect those living in the Human Empire.

  —As long as we have the intent to protect, we will remain knights until we perish.

  In reality, not all of the integrity knights had understood and abided by the knight commander. The knights assembled on this battlefield numbered less than twenty.

  However, they all held the will to fight until the bitter end even if they alone remained. The same likely went for the five thousand guards who hastened here, this place of death. That was the decisive difference between the Dark Territory forces and them.

  Fanatio brought her bare face, stripped from its silver mask, towards her cherished sword’s guard and caught firmly onto the enemy army with her widened eyes.

  The goblin unit charging in as the ground rumbled was already narrowing the distance between them to a hundred mel. Deusolbert had started his assault from her right with his armament full control art and explosives flames lit up the twilight in red twice or thrice.

  It was in that brief radiance—

  That Fanatio finally found her target.

  Huge shadows in the middle chased after the goblin forces in the advance party as though urging them on. They were the giants, boasting bodies several times the size of humans’.

  The one leading them had a tremendous frame a head taller than the rest; he was unmistakably Sigrosig, one of the Ten Lords, a chief she had caught sight of once before.

  The giants were a proud, or perhaps terribly haughty, race. They measured superiority based only by the size of their bodies, and it seemed that inside, they looked down even on the true rulers of the land of darkness, the dark skinned humans.

  That meant taking down the tribe’s leader with a single strike before the war truly began would cause a great disturbance indeed.

  Fanatio took in a deep breath, held it, and whispered.

  “Enhance armament.”

  White light, bright as Solus, engulfed the Heaven Piercing Sword’s blade as a low noise vibrated.

  She accurately seized, with the path its keen edge traced, Sigrosig w
ho ran in from that distant point and shouted out sharply.

  “Pierce through—light!!”

  Zubaaaa!! The air shook as a dazzling heat ray converged from the might of Solus penetrated through the battlefield.

  * * *

  “…It began…”

  Integrity Knight Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven listened to the continuing sounds of explosions from far away while murmuring so with a sigh.

  Renri was one of the seven high ranking knights charged with the duty of defending the Human Empire. In other words, he could be said to personally hold more than just a little of the defense army’s entire war ability.

  However, he now crouched, hugging his knees, not at the front of the Defense Army Second Unit’s left flank where he originally was but far behind, in a corner of the dim tent used for stores and provisions.

  He had fled.

  After running away in the fluster several tens of minutes ago immediately before the battle began, he snuck into an empty tent and had been silencing his breath and pricking up his ears ever since.

  The reason he behaved so was based in that same motive he participated in the defense army for.

  A failure.

  Judged so by the highest minister, Administrator, Renri had done no work of significance as an integrity knight and spent a whole five years in cryostasis. Despite throwing himself onto this battlefield in order to overturn that dishonor, he had lost against his fear in the very end.

  Though the memories had been erased from him, Renri was once a youth termed as a genius swordsman, unmatched by all, in the Southacroith South Empire.

  Advancing to Central Capital Centoria at the young age of thirteen, he brilliantly achieved victory in the Four Empires Unity Tournament the following year and was promoted to an integrity knight.

  Even after losing all of his memories until then due to the «Synthesis Ritual» and awakening as a knight, he displayed awe-inspiring talent with the sword. Climbing up the ranks to become a high ranking knight at an exceptional speed, he was personally granted a divine instrument by the highest minister.

  The treasured divine instruments in the Central Cathedral were not bestowed by the highest minister’s or the knights’ whims. It was, in fact, the opposite, with the divine instrument choosing its user. Via a certain sort of resonance between the knight’s soul and the divine instrument’s memories.

  The resonance between Renri and his divine instrument, a pair of throwing knives, the «Twin Edged Wings», was strong indeed.

  However, unbelievably, he had never invoked it. He had never invoked the proof of the high ranking knights, the armament full control art, even once.

  That was sufficient for the highest minister to lose her interest in Renri. With Alice Synthesis Thirty becoming an integrity knight after him, his meaning of existence was pushed further into obscuration in light of her overwhelming talent.

  It would have been unfair to lay that blame on Renri. After all, Alice’s talent propelled her straight up to the third position in the knight order and was worthy of the strongest and oldest divine instrument, the «Fragrant Olive Sword». Still, Renri was branded as a failure in reality and forced into a long slumber.

  The moment he was turned into an ice sculpture by the chief elder’s «deep freeze» art, what came into his mind was a crushing sense of lacking.

  He lacked something important to himself… that was why he could not control the Twin Edged Wings despite their resonance.

  Renri woke once again after a long time had passed.

  It was exactly amidst that rebellion incident that made the Central Cathedral tremor. With the resident knights defeated, including even Knight Commander Bercouli, and the fate of Alice, their trump card, unclear, Chief Elder Chudelkin found it fit to have him thawed.

  However, Renri did not fulfil his duty this time as well. Chudelkin and Highest Minister Administrator fell before he fully awakened and all his eyes caught, upon him regaining his movement, was the Order of the Integrity Knights in a state of utmost disorder.

  The request to participate in the futile mission to face off against the large-scale invasion from the land of darkness came from Bercouli, who assumed command, in the highest minister’s stead.

  Renri felt the high ranking knights who responded, such as Fanatio, Deusolbert, or Alice, shone all the brighter despite having experienced defeat.

  He thought he might understand if he went with them. He thought he might understand what he lacked. Why his divine instrument would not answer to him.

  Cowering in the corner of that hall, Renri timidly stood up and raised his hand. Bercouli placed his large hand on Renri’s shoulder with a firm nod and said only a single line to him. That he would be counting on him.

  Despite that.

  The pressure he felt in his first battlefield, or his first actual battle, rather, surpassed what he expected by far. The bloodthirst and lust of the scrambling forces of darkness separated by a whole thousand mel surged towards him as a scorched stench of steel and Renri fled before he knew it.

  —Stand. I have to return to my post. If I don’t fight now, I will remain a failure forever.

  He must have rebuked himself so, time and time again, in the tent he had snuck into.

  However, heavy tremors and ferocious war cries reported the start of the battle while his two hands still remained wrapped about his knees.

  “……It started……”

  Renri murmured once more.

  The pair of throwing knives equipped on both sides of his waist seemed to waver as though condemning their master.

  But he could not return now. What expression could he make to stand before the knight commander and those guards who had placed their trust in him once again?

  —Nothing will change even if I’m there. A high ranking knight incapable of the armament full control art would just be a bother instead.

  Thoughts that sounded like excuses went through his mind and he buried his face deeper in between his knees.

  It was then that a soft voice reached Renri from the tent’s entrance, sending a jolt through his entire body.

  “Tiezé, how about here?”

  Renri cowered with fright, utterly unlike a knight, wondering if they were searching for him, but heard another voice immediately after. Both voices seem to belong to young girls.

  “Yes, this tent looks like it’ll do, Ronye. Let’s hide senpai in here and guard the entrance.”

  * * *

  The giants’ chief, Sigrosig, was a legendary warrior with a bronze beard and unkempt hair, a brawny appearance, and a stature the size of a hill covered all over with countless gashes.

  They, the giants, were the very ones with the purest interpretation of the Dark Territory’s only law, «the strong shall rule». With each of them sieved through every possible means of comparing their might, skill, and guts for as far as they could remember, their hierarchy was decided in a manner stricter than the Order of the Dark Knights’. Though the giants’ domains were the high plains in the west region of the Dark Territory, the various kinds of large animals and magical beasts that ought to be spawning there in abundance were constantly depleted. The giants had thoroughly hunted them down as targets for their rites of passage.

  Why did they go that far in their pursuit for strength?

  If they had not, their souls, their «fluct lights», would break.

  The four demi-human races in the Dark Territory were terribly warped existences, with the «soul prototype» confined within flesh not that of humans. A mental safety was necessary in order to guard against the breakdown of one’s psyche.

  For example, the goblins anchor themselves by converting the inferiority complex towards humans, born from their small stature, into the strength of their resentment and hatred.

  The giants, on the other hand, hold back the distortion of them being human yet not through developing a superiority complex over humans.

  Each and every giant would never lose against a human in
one-versus-one combat at least. That served as the foundations of their mentality, an absolute rule. That was especially why they imposed such excessive rites of passage on their youth, pulling up each individual’s priority even if it meant reducing their race’s numbers.

  As such—

  The thousand giant warriors called to this battlefield, contrary to their taciturn nature, seethed with an intense will to fight. To them, born into the times after the ancient «age of blood and iron», this would be the first large-scale battle they experience.

  The race’s chief, Sigrosig, thought in all seriousness.

  That they would massacre the entire enemy army with the initial charge and end the war.

  They would grant no chance to step forward to those determined by Emperor Vector as the army’s main force: the Order of the Dark Knights, the Dark Arts Users’ Guild, and the Pugilists’ Guild. By attaining victory without them, the giants would be validated as the truly superior race.

  When the slave skull given to him rattled its jaw, resounding the emperor’s order to charge, Sigrosig felt the old scars carved all over his body rise in heat. He thought it proof that might of those innumerable large magical beasts he had torn apart with his bare hands had transferred into him.

  “—Trample them!!”

  His thundering command consisted of a single line.

  That was enough. Swinging up the gigantic warhammer in his right hand and making the ground tremble alongside the reliable, brave warriors around him, Sigrosig began his assault.

  The soldiers of the Human Empire were packed tightly into the valley in front.

  To the three-and-a-half mel tall giants, they were weaklings not much different from the goblins. The swords they wear were smaller than even the teeth of a newborn rockscale dragon.

  They would crush, punt, and tear apart every last one of them.

  The circuit carrying Sigrosig’s superiority complex grew red hot and scattered sparks of pleasure. His rectangular chin warped and exposed a brutal smile.

  In that moment.

  A foreign sensation that was, however, not all unfamiliar ran up his spine.