Volume 16

by Reki Kawahara

  As though he were waiting for Alice to open her eyes again, the Knight Commander said:

  “About the current strategy… Basically, until all four Integrity Knights in this decoy division are fallen, we’ll keep drawing the enemy away and shaving them off. Are you okay with that?”

  Alice vehemently nodded to the Knight Commander, who stood beside the tallest boulder on the topmost part of the hill.

  “This is how I see the situation: we’ve eliminated half of the invading army of fifty-thousand and have almost wiped out the most troublesome Dark Sorceresses. We’re left with wearing out their main forces to some extent, which are the Dark Knights and the Fist Fighters… and also defeating Dark God Vector. Once we achieve these, the remainder of the enemy would be very likely to agree with a peace treaty. What do you think about that?”

  “Hmm… the last problem is, who’s gonna be the one to head over there. If that Shasta kid’s still around…”

  “So, the Dark General is really… Are you certain about that, Oji-sama?”

  “He wasn’t there when I took a glance a while ago. Not only Shasta, but his apprentice, the female knight who fought you once wasn’t there either, lil’ miss.”

  He sighed roughly. Alice knew that Bercouli secretly had great expectations of the Dark General and his apprentice.

  Shaking his head slightly, the oldest Knight muttered in a low voice.

  “Now we can only hope that the Dark Knight who took over Shasta’s place would be happy to pass on his will. Not very likely, though…”

  “Not very likely?”

  “Nope. Those who live in this Dark Territory don’t have any written laws like the Taboo Index. There’s only an unwritten rule ordering them to obey the strong. And… unfortunately, the Incarnation of Dark God Vector is overwhelming… A novice youngster obviously won’t be powerful enough to resist…”

  Indeed, when she declared her own identity in front of the enemy a while ago, a terrifyingly cold, bottomless dark energy had reached out from the core of their formation, and she clearly felt it sticking to her. It was the first time she had this sort of feeling since awakening as an Integrity Knight.

  If one were to say the Incarnation of Highest Minister Administrator resembled crackling bolts of lightning, what she had felt would be pitch-black emptiness.

  She was getting goosebumps just thinking about it. Calming herself, Alice nodded.

  “I see… I don’t expect many people to disobey a god, anyway.”

  Right after she said so, the Knight Commander chuckled and slapped Alice’s back.

  “Even though you say that, lil’ miss, you, Kirito and Eugeo, you three appeared over there in the Human Empire. Let’s hope there are fellows with guts over here as well.”

  Just then, hearing vigorously flapping wings, the two looked up.

  Renri’s dragon, Kazenui, was descending to the ground. The young knight dexterously leapt off before the dragon’s claws even touched the earth. He jogged over to Bercouli and urgent words began to tumble from his mouth.

  “Commander Your Highness, report! There is an area of shrubbery about one kilol south that would be suitable for an ambush on the enemy.”

  “Great. Good work on the scouting. Let me prepare to move the entire division… Your dragon should be pretty tired, so go give him as much food and water as he wants.”

  “Roger!”

  Bercouli watched as Renri quickly saluted in a Knightly fashion, and his short silhouette began pulling away. Alice suddenly noticed that there was a smile on the Knight Commander’s face.

  “…Oji-sama?”

  At her inquiry, Bercouli scratched his chin for a moment, as though he were a little shy, and shrugged.

  “Well, uh… The Synthesis Ritual creates Integrity Knights by snatching their memories away and suspending their Life, and that’s absolutely unforgivable. But at the same time, I just think it’s a lil’ bit sad that there won’t be any more fresh Knights like that young man.”

  Alice thought for a moment, then a similar smile spread across her face:

  “No one can become an Integrity Knight without altering their memories and freezing their Life? I don’t believe that’s true, Oji-sama.”

  Her right hand gently stroked the Frostscale Whip once more.

  “Even if everyone of us were defeated, I’m certain that our souls… our will shall be passed on to someone else.”

  ***

  “All right, it’s finally our turn!!”

  Bashing his right fist into his left palm with a pashii, the young chief of the Fist Fighter Guild, Iskahn, yelled with vigor.

  I’ve been sitting and waiting here for too long since I felt the battle heating up nearby.

  The terrifying pillar of light had burnt away the Demihuman troops, the Sorceresses had created a creepy swarm of worms, and Emperor Vector had demanded for the Radiant Medium so persistently that he even gave out a mysterious command. Yet these did not have the slightest effect on Iskahn’s fighting spirit.

  His world was divided into two: his own body and everything else. Iskahn was completely uninterested in anything other than training to improve his body. In his mind, even if he became the target of large-scale arts like those he had just seen, he had absolute confidence in repelling every single one of them using only his fists and spirit.

  The Fist Fighter tied belts onto his naked, muscular torso burnt to a reddish-copper color, wearing only shorts and sandals. He turned to the five-thousand powerfully built men and women as their leader, and to the Dark Knights following them. They had hardly begun moving for five minutes, but already, there was a nearly thousand-mel gap between the Fist Fighters and the Dark Knights.

  “The Knights are riding on horses but they’re just too slow, as usual!”

  A hulking man stayed by Iskahn’s side, taller than him by more than a head. Right after hearing his insult, the man’s rock-hard face smiled wryly.

  “That’s inevitable, Champion.”

  Addressing the currently strongest Fist Fighter in Dark Tongue, the hulking man continued.

  “They and their horses are wearing armor as heavy as themselves.”

  “Completely useless, though!”

  Concluding thusly, Iskahn faced front again. Shaping his right hand into a tube, he quickly put it against his right eye.

  At the center of the flame iris, his pupil enlarged.

  “Oh, the Human Empire guys have started to move as well. Seems like they’re… not coming this way. They’re still trying to run away?”

  He clicked his tongue.

  Though they looked as dim as the stars above them, Iskahn could perfectly capture the enemy’s activity five thousand mel away. He thought for a moment, then said:

  “Hey, Dampe. The Emperor’s command was to chase after her and capture her, right?”

  “Seems like it.”

  “Right…”

  He rubbed his nose with his right index finger, then grinned with confidence.

  “Let’s speed up for a little while. — Team Rabbit, to the front!!”

  Fierce cries of ‘OH!’ both high in pitch and tension immediately answered the summon.

  The team coming out from the army in neat formation were a hundred slender Fighters — that said, their muscles were as firm as a whip and perfectly balanced in volume. All of their heads were wrapped with white straps of decorative rope.

  “Let’s go say hello to those so-called Integrity Knights! Get ready!!”

  OH!

  “Martial Dance, step seventeen, GO!!”

  Iskahn’s right hand fiercely punched the air and his feet violently stomped the ground as he shouted.

  His trusted aide Dampe and the hundred men of Team Rabbit were performing the exact same action in perfect synchronization.

  Zun, zat, zun zat.

  Ooh, rah, ooh rah.

  As the rhythmic steps and united cry continued, beads of sweat began to glow on Iskahn’s curled copper hair, and his healthy dark s
kin took on a red tinge. The same happened to his subordinates.

  After the steps ended in one very long minute, one hundred and two Fighters stopped their movements, steam billowing from their bodies.

  No, not only that. Their skin seemed to be glowing slightly red in the darkness.

  Fist Fighters.

  A tribe that, for hundreds of years, had explored the true nature of one’s physical body.

  Both the swordsmen and the sorceresses considered the summit of all arts to be ≪interrupting a target with Incarnation≫. In other words, overwriting external events with imagination.

  However, Fist Fighters thought the opposite — strengthening their own bodies with Incarnation. Surpassing their original limits, they would strengthen their naked bodies with defensive force stronger than steel, and wield their fists with attacking power enough to crush boulders.

  And, of course, they would train their legs to run faster than horses, while barefoot.

  “OOOOOH, RAAAAAH!!”

  With a powerful roar, Iskahn kicked the ground and began sprinting forth. Dampe followed along with the other hundred Fighters in hot pursuit.

  The air behind them was split apart; the ground shook furiously.

  ***

  “——!?”

  In order to keep close with the Guards who had started moving to the shrubbery suitable for an ambush, Alice walked a few steps, then looked back as she soon felt something strange.

  Something is coming.

  And they’re fast.

  When she looked closely, she could see a cluster of a hundred men bulging out of the slowly approaching enemy army, and closing the gap at a terrifying speed. They were even faster than the horseback riders running with all their might. For a second, Alice thought they were Dragon Knights, but soon realized that there were too many of them, and that they were actually moving on the ground.

  “… Seems to be the Fist Fighters.”

  Bercouli muttered beside her.

  “They are…?”

  She had heard that name before, but this was her first time witnessing them with her own eyes. This was because the ones who usually appeared at the Mountain Range at the Edge were mainly Goblins, Orcs, and rarely, Dark Knights. The Fist Fighters had never even attempted to invade the Human Empire.

  Even so, having the advantage of a very long life, it seemed that the oldest Integrity Knight had experience battling the Fist Fighters. He continued somewhat nervously.

  “They’re a pain to deal with. Usually a sword’s gonna hurt bare fists, but they’ll keep rejecting that.”

  “Huh…? Reject…?”

  There’s no way anyone can reject being cut, Alice thought. But Bercouli shrugged and said:

  “You’ll know what I mean when you fight them. Better for us to handle them together, lil’ miss.”

  “……”

  Alice swallowed hard. Bercouli just claimed that he could not handle them by himself; they must be extremely powerful opponents.

  However, what the Knight Commander said next destroyed her painstaking concentration and spirit.

  “And, by the way, lil’ miss… You’re not okay with stripping down, are you?”

  “Haah!?”

  Instinctively, she crossed her arms in front of her chest and squeezed out a sharp voice.

  “Wh-what are you talking about?! Of course I don’t like stripping down!!”

  “No, I don’t mean that… Well, I do mean that… I just wanna tell you that armor and clothes are useless against their fists, and they may hold you back, so…”

  After saying those pointless words as he scratched his chin, the Knight Commander shook his head as if to say, “Suit yourself”.

  “Anyway, if you’re gonna fight in that, get your Armament Full Control Art ready.”

  “O… Okay.”

  Anxiety trickled down her spine again. As it seemed, the enemy team was composed of around a hundred men. If she needed to utilize the full power of the Fragrant Olive Sword against such a small team, they were definitely not easy opponents.

  However, there was one problem.

  When she had released the ≪reflection-concealed beam≫ art, and during her battle against the Dark Sorceresses, she had twice used the Armament Full Control Art, consuming a large portion of the Fragrant Olive Sword’s Life in the process. She could still use it for normal slashing without fail, but she worried over how much longer it could remain in its split-form attack.

  The same applied to the Knight Commander’s Time Piercing Sword. From a rather close distance, Alice had watched him perform the stunning wide ranged attack that had instantly eliminated hundreds of Minions. It could be said that both of their beloved swords needed rest in their sheaths overnight.

  But within their tens of seconds of conversation, the enemy team of Fist Fighters had already closed in to a distance from where Alice could begin to make out their masculine physiques. She could not let them get any closer to the Guards, who were still preparing the ambush.

  Alice bit her lip, nodded to the Knight Commander, and was about to slide down the rocky slope to the north.

  Right before that, however, a timid female voice called to them.

  “I’ll go.”

  Alice spun around in shock; beside her, Bercouli’s eyes widened as well.

  The one who had been standing there without their knowledge, was one of the four Integrity Knights joining the decoy division — the one other than Bercouli, Alice and Renri.

  She was tall and slender, clad in drab gray armor. Her hair, also gray, was parted so crisply that it looked artificially plastered to her head, ending in a tight ponytail. Her face was refreshingly clean, but showed not a shred of emotion. She was probably around twenty, like Alice.

  Her name was Sheyta Synthesis Twelve.

  The Divine Instrument strapped to her waist was the ≪Black Lily Sword≫.

  However, she was seldom referred to as such. Whenever they happened to mention her in conversation, the Knights addressed her by another nickname.

  ≪The Silent≫.

  Alice was not shocked because she had volunteered to battle the Fist Fighters.

  She was shocked because this was literally the first time she heard the voice of The Silent Sheyta.

  ***

  Leaping over ditches and small rivers with ease, blasting boulders out of their way with single kicks, Iskahn, Dampe and the other hundred Fist Fighters continued their ferocious sprint.

  In a few moments, I’ll finally be able to fight these so-called demons, Integrity Knights. Bursting with anticipation, the young Fighters revealed disturbing grins.

  In fact, Iskahn had been completely dispassionate towards the Integrity Knights of the Human Empire until he received the call to arms. He had looked upon them with contempt, under the impression that they were merely ruffians who hid behind armor and swords. Among all Humans in the Dark Territory, there was only one Dark Knight whom he had respected as a true fighter: the deceased Dark General Shasta.

  But while he was meditating as he stood by for the order to attack, he had sensed the Integrity Knights’ fighting spirit and aggressive energy, and that was something. At least they aren’t just relying on their high-class weapons, he thought.

  There must be impressively trained bodies beneath the armor and swords.

  With heightened expectations, Iskahn couldn’t be more excited about fighting them fist-to-fist.

  So.

  When he finally sighted a Knight in front of the hill where the enemy army had stopped minutes ago, the Fist Fighter chief’s mouth dropped open, dumbstruck by her standing figure.

  How thin.

  She seemed to be a woman, so maybe her lack of a muscular build was inevitable; even so, she was way too thin. Although she was clad in metallic armor, she still looked more fragile than any of Iskahn’s female Fighters. Her armorless body would only be about as muscular as a Sorceress’s. Even the long sword hanging from her waist looked like a roasting spit. />
  Signaling with his right hand for his subordinates to stop, Iskahn skidded to a halt, kicking up a dust cloud. Raising his eyebrows that were curled up at the end like a flame, he opened his mouth.

  “Who’re you? What the hell are you doin’ here?”

  Slightly shaking her long, straight gray hair, the female Knight tilted her head. She looked as though she were thinking of what to say — or rather, pondering whether she wanted to answer the questions.

  Her brows, eyes, nose, and mouth looked as though they had been sculpted with a sharp knife. Without a shred of emotion on her clean face, the female Knight spoke quietly:

  “I’m here to stop you.”

  Iskahn exhaled a large amount of air from his nose and mouth; no one knew whether he was laughing or upset, but in the end he just shrugged.

  “You can’t even stop a little kid. Oh, I know… You’re a Knight good at arts, eh?”

  There was another awkwardly long silence before she answered.

  “Arts are not my strength.”

  Irritated by his enemy’s belittling attitude, Iskahn said: “Well, whatever,” and called out one of his subordinates. “Yotte, fight her.”

  “Here I come!!”

  A rather diminutive female Fighter leapt out of the formation with a vigorous reply. Despite that, she was still several times sturdier than the female Knight. Flexing her stiff muscles and darting to and fro, she revealed a savage leer that was completely different from her opponent.

  “HAAH!”

  From five mel away, the female Fighter punched the air, generating wind that rustled the female Knight’s hair.

  Even then, there was not an ounce of fighting spirit on the Knight’s slender face. Instead, she looked confused and whispered softly.

  “… Just one…?”

  “That’s my line, you skeleton!”

  Curling her thick lips, Yotte shouted.

  “After I teach you a lesson, I’m gonna stuff lots and lots of dried meat into your tiny little mouth before I finish you off! Just pull out your sword already!!”

  With a face as though saying ‘So you have nothing more to say’, the female Knight gripped the handle on her left waist.

  Shiyuran. Catching sight of the effortlessly drawn blade —