Chapter 92: Chapter 92
With the army stationed behind him, Shan turned off the amplifying magic device, unlike a moment ago, and quietly engaged in conversation.
To outsiders, it looked like a scene from an epic poem where a heroic enemy knight dashed out for a one-on-one parley, but in truth, it was closer to a casual chat between friends meeting after a long time.
“I felt this before as well, but you’ve grown tremendously since I last saw you.”
“Hearing that from Sir Lug feels somewhat like teasing. Coming from a person who might be the tallest in Pendia.”
“Haha…”
If the Shan of the past barely reached Lug’s chest when standing face to face, now he would reach right around his neck or collarbone.
Either way, it meant he was still significantly smaller all the same.
After talking about his much-increased height as he always did with people he hadn’t met in a long time, Shan spoke with a serious expression.
“I heard the news. Word has it that you gave Marquis Abel a taste of defeat not long ago.”
“Yes. Though it was merely pressing him down with numbers. It’s just frustrating that my skill was lacking and I couldn’t finish him off.”
During the battle on the southern plains of Hasra, Conrad suffered heavy losses when the armies of Cheryn and Duke of Morayen deserted.
At that time, it was Marquis Abel who held back the enemy at the rear of the unit and bought time.
Rumor had it that he was recuperating after sustaining a fairly severe wound from Lug’s attack.
At Lug’s growl-like murmur, Shan spoke softly.
“You still hate him.”
“My squire was killed by that man.”
Hearing those words, Shan newly realized the fact that Lug’s squire, whom he had seen before, was nowhere in sight.
According to what he had heard while chatting in the past, had they been friends born and raised together in the same village?
To Lug, that squire must have been a person like Roden was to Shan.
If one lost such a presence, regardless of right and wrong, wouldn’t one fiercely hate the perpetrator and wish for nothing but his death?
“I am aware that I am acting immaturely and childishly. Anyone who steps onto a battlefield must be prepared to die just as they kill others, and someone who has already taken others’ lives multiple times has no right to be angry over a friend’s death. But… I simply cannot help this emotion boiling up inside my heart.”
Lug’s tearful face looked like that of a boy younger than his actual age.
After a moment of silence, he wiped the corners of his eyes with his metal gauntlet and spoke.
“I am sorry. When you’ve taken the trouble to talk with me, making such childish complaints…”
“I understand.”
At Shan’s calm attitude of not despising him as a weakling, a look of admiration appeared on Lug’s face.
“As expected of you, Sir Shan. Your caliber is entirely different from an immature fellow like me. It would have been wonderful if we could have crossed lances together on the same side, but to think we would meet like this…”
“How much time remains on your vassal contract with Prince Elvin?”
“Until this winter.”
As summer was slowly beginning to wane, that meant only a few months were left.
Generally, knights’ vassal contracts were not maintained on such a tight margin.
To prepare for situations where one party was severely injured or detained somewhere and unable to communicate, it was customary to extend the contract at least one or two years in advance.
“Did Prince Elvin not propose a contract extension, or did you reject it?”
“I rejected it.”
A somber look settled on Lug’s face as he answered.
“What I wanted wasn’t something like this. I… didn’t want to become this kind of knight.”
Lug unburdened the psychological pain he had suffered while working as Elvin’s knight on the spot.
The sense of shame stemming from having to turn a blind eye while mercenary groups, including Ruman pirates, committed tyrannies against the people of Pendia.
The antipathy toward the Prince’s extravagant behavior of indulging in pleasures with his noble friends even while commoners suffered from having nothing to eat or drink.
The fellow knights who constantly envied him, and even the solitude resulting from the death of the only squire who understood him.
The catalyst that triggered the explosion of such grievances was none other than the grand looting following the capture of Hasra.
Unable to endure the sight of people being pointlessly slaughtered and women being violated, Lug attempted to stop them, falling out of favor with the prince as a result.
“Thanks to that, I ended up coming here having handed back all my magic devices. He probably hopes I will die fighting here.”
Just as he said, unlike when Shan had seen him before, Lug was dressed in an ordinary spear and armor, and his horse also looked noticeably smaller and weaker.
Although it did have enchantment magic applied to it, it was presumed to be of a not particularly high level.
From the preceding conversation, the context of the situation could be roughly surmised.
A young knight who possessed skill but constantly raised objections and undermined his authority.
Furthermore, the remaining period of his vassal contract was short, and he had no intention of extending it.
In that case, rather than letting him go like this, confiscating all the valuables worth taking and making him fight until he died would at least break even.
Having confessed everything, Lug spoke softly and jabbed his own solar plexus.
“I came out claiming that I would persuade you since we have a personal acquaintance, but in truth, I came to say this. When the battle begins, please pierce right through here cleanly to send me off in a single blow. That is how I wish to repay the favor of saving my life, if only in that way.”
He still had to serve as Prince Elvin’s knight, while at the same time repaying his debt of life to Shan.
This was the decision he had reached under such circumstances.
To engage in battle, yet to throw away his life without offering resistance to Shan.
Listening quietly, Shan shook his head.
“A debt of life is not repaid in such a manner.”
“Then…”
“Since you are still Elvin’s knight, fight with all your might like a knight should. If I win, I will take you captive. Until your vassal contract ends. After that, you will work over here until you repay your debt of life.”
At the words telling him to fight with all his might, Lug’s eyes widened.
For he knew that this was a proposal that offered no benefit whatsoever to Shan himself, but was strictly made to put his mind at ease.
“Sir Shan…”
“I can promise you that it will be better than when you were working under Elvin, at least.”
Letting out a choked sound, he nodded with difficulty.
“Understood. Then in a little while, with all my might.”
*
Not long after Lug returned, Prince Elvin’s camp began to move slowly.
It must have been because he knew that this side had not the slightest intention of compromising.
Matching that, the Eastern Allied Forces also began to advance toward the enemy.
The surrounding terrain was a plain sloping gently from east to west.
Although there was a forest to the west, it was fairly distant and not enough to act as a variable, making it generally easy for both sides to maneuver cavalry.
“Ugh…”
Looking around at the surrounding terrain, Shan turned his head slightly at the groaning sound.
Looking closely now, the faces of the soldiers standing behind him were all stiff with tension.
It was likely because, at a glance, the enemy’s numbers were somewhat larger than this side, and above all, there were as many as three elephants at the forefront.
Even now, the footsteps made by those beasts were thumping against the earth.
‘Will we be able to do it?’
He had prepared a secret plan of his own to deal with the elephant unit.
Though it was hard to guarantee whether it would work properly since there had been no target to practice on.
Still, they had to incapacitate those creatures somehow.
For those beasts were no different from natural enemies to the Altoan infantry unit heavily armed with magic devices.
No matter how sturdy the armor one wore, there was no way to survive after being crushed by such a giant creature.
[“Horse archers!”]
Roden shouted with a thunderous voice from behind.
Thanks to Shan lending him the commander’s horn he possessed, that voice resounded loudly far into the distance.
[“Advance and keep the elephant unit in check! Aim for the face for concentrated fire, then scatter!”]
Ranta, the leader of the Horais semi-horse archers, raised a clenched fist to signal understanding and urged his horse forward.
The sound of the two hundred-odd horse archers, including him, galloping forward was muffled by the footsteps of the elephants and hard to hear.
Before long, entering effective shooting range, the horse archers poured forth arrows.
Thwack! As arrows embedded themselves into the thick gray skin, the elephants bellowed in agony.
Regrettably, no elephant was blinded in this attack.
No matter how skilled the semi-horse archers were, hitting eyes that were small compared to those massive bodies seemed difficult; only one specimen had its eye damaged, and even that was merely a single arrow stuck in one eye.
However, the elephants subjected to this barrage, instead of walking leisurely as before, began to run with thumping sounds.
As if recognizing that the source of this current pain was the enemies before their eyes, they appeared determined to trample them to death by any means.
Because their size was so immense, even though they seemed to be running casually, their speed was faster than an ordinary horse’s canter.
“Uh, ah…”
“S-Stop! Slow down! Slow down!”
The handlers shouted in surprise and brandished their whips, but the elephants did not easily comply with control.
Tamed with things like special drugs, those beasts did not cower in fear even when struck in the eye with arrows, but instead tended to flare up when subjected to pain.
Thanks to that nature, they could ignore pain and trample heavy infantry units to death, but now that proved to be a poison.
“Disengage!”
At Ranta’s shout, the horse archer unit split wide to the left and right, creating a path.
Simultaneously, the volley of arrows flying from Prince Elvin’s army showered down upon the spot where they had been standing just moments ago.
As they were horse archers wearing leather armor for mobility, with horses also unarmored, they would have suffered a disaster had they not retreated quickly.
Verifying that the distance between the elephants and Elvin’s army had widened sufficiently, Shan immediately issued an order.
“Now! Order of Knights, charge!”
“For Pendia!”
“Glory to House Kurt!”
“In the name of Deorun!”
Unlike the Palles knights who had coordinated teamwork to some degree through joint training, the knights of the Eastern Allied Forces were literally nothing more than a ragtag bunch gathered from estates scattered everywhere.
One could tell that fact just by looking at their chaotic shouted and sloppy formation.
Yet as befitted knights, they all possessed enough nerve not to shrink back even upon seeing those colossal creatures.
After all, no matter how big an elephant was, could it possibly be as large as an ogre or a hydra?
Knights were human weapons trained to charge even at such beasts.
“Scatter individually and neutralize the elephants!”
Along with the command, Shan also picked up the spear he had placed in its rest.
The treasure of the Entor family that Kamad had possessed, the Spear of Intense Flames.
As he drove that spear, its magic script shining in response to Fighting Spirit, straight into the elephant’s thick leg, an explosion erupted.
With a mournful scream, the elephant that lost one of its legs collapsed right on the spot.
“Arwin!”
As if answering Shan’s shout, Arwin nimbly leaped sideways to dodge the collapsing bulk of the elephant.
The handler riding atop the beast’s back was seen tumbling to the ground with a scream.
The other knights likewise drove the cavalry lances they held into the thick legs of the elephants and disengaged.
As each weapon was either a powerful magic device or a spear loaded with strong Fighting Spirit, none of them were attacks to be easily brushed off.
However, unlike Arwin, it was impossible for their warhorses to move nimbly diagonally.
Among them, one was wrapped by an elephant’s trunk and thrown from his horse, while two failed to dodge in time and were crushed under the collapsing torso of a beast.
“We’ve suppressed all the elephants!”
“All right!”
“The enemy order of knights is coming!”
Rejoicing over defeating the most troublesome enemy lasted only a moment before a knight pointed toward the enemy line and shouted.
Not missing the gap created while this side was busy attacking the elephants, the enemy had also dispatched their order of knights.
At their lead was the lanky knight, Lug, far taller than the rest.
Fighting right now when most of the knights had exhausted their stamina attacking the elephants was a suicidal act.
“Retreat! Fall back to the rear!”
Had they been attacking elephants advancing in synchronized step, they would have been crushed before having a chance to retreat, but fortunately, there was enough leeway in time to withdraw now.
On top of that, as the Order of Knights of the Eastern Allied Forces pulled back, the semi-horse archers who had scattered left and right moments ago kept the enemy knights in check by shooting arrows.
Of course, it failed to deal effective damage to knights clad in plate armor with barded horses, but it had the effect of flustering the horses and slowing their speed.
Returning to camp without colliding with enemy knights thanks to the help of the horse archer unit, Shan immediately issued commands.
“The wounded to the rear! Everyone else, reorganize as fast as possible!”
“Understood!”
While the knights severely injured from being crushed by elephants were immediately carried off to the priests, the remaining knights brought fresh horses right away and took rest while steadying their minds as best they could.
They had to quickly recover the stamina consumed alongside Fighting Spirit earlier by any means to return to the field of battle.
*
While the Order of Knights that had brought down the elephants prepared for their next sortie alongside their rest, the infantry units of both sides finally clashed with one another.
The ones who entered combat first were the Altoan mercenary band at the center front and the Ruman pirate mercenaries.
“What is this? It’s the betrayer race!”
“Kill them all!”
“For Princess Cheryn!”
“Do not back down!”
Ruman was a representative New Faith nation, but they despised Altoans, calling them the ‘betrayer race.’
For in the distant past, they had a history of seizing an island to try and gain independence from the nation.
As such, the eyes of the pirates looking at the army composed of Altoans were filled with contempt and hostility.
For an inferior race that had been expelled in the past, where did they dare charge in so arrogantly?
However, a short while later, alongside the clash, such arrogance transformed into bewilderment and terror.
“No, why is this…?”
“Blades won’t pierce them!”
“Keugh…”
As proven previously when fighting against fellow Pendian armies, the infantry heavily armed with magic devices including hydra leather armor was more than enough to overwhelm an equivalent infantry unit.
They were even wearing face guards hastily crafted by the blacksmiths of Shedil City over the past few weeks.
Though neither durability nor precision was particularly grand, blocking an attack aimed at the face even just once fulfilled its role.
Of course, an army so well-trained and armed with magic devices was only a fraction even within the Eastern Allied Forces.
The ordinary soldiers positioned to their left and right could not keep their wits about them in this war they were experiencing for the first time.
Their opponents were not Ruman pirates, but a pagan mercenary unit that had come from the Selim Republic on the southern continent.
“पागान् मारयतु-!”
“आत्मा, मां रक्ष!”
From spears adorned with feathers to breastplates covered in glistening golden scales, curved swords hooked like talons, and shields carved with strange beasts and sun emblems.
Armaments of an exotic style hard to find anywhere in the Arman Alliance, let alone Pendia, coupled with foreign appearances and the presence of enemies shouting in an incomprehensible tongue aroused terror.
For humans were naturally bound to fear what they did not know.
“U-Uaaah!”
“Damn it! What are you bastards babbling about!”
Yet the sturdy eastern men grit their teeth and stood their ground even while trembling with fear.
The eastern region, the roughest even in Pendia, the nation of monsters, where out of five born, two or three died to monsters before becoming adults.
The grit of those born and raised in such a place was not soft enough to crumble before bizarre attire or language.
Mercenaries who came from explorer backgrounds exploring the Demonic Realm even regarded them altogether as some grotesque monsters seen for the first time.
[“Infantry Battalion 7! Support to the left! Advise Infantry Battalion 3 to retreat and reorganize! Archer Battalion 2, fire to the right!”]
And at the very rear of such infantry units.
Roden coordinated this entire battle, shouting at the top of his lungs with the help of a magic device.
Since it was an allied force gathered from various estates without even proper organization, calling each lord’s army by designating them as ‘Infantry Battalion 3’ or ‘Archer Battalion 4.’
It was a makeshift measure used due to lack of time to teach the complex flag signals mainly used in the Palles army.
‘This isn’t easy…’
Mounted atop Lipo while surveying the surroundings, Roden felt cold sweat trickling down his spine.
It was not merely because blades were glinting in all directions.
‘The magic device unit is overwhelming the enemy as expected, but… the Ruman pirate bastards and the southern continent pagan bastards are stronger than thought. If this becomes a drawn-out battle, we will be pushed back.’
Fortunately, the semi-horse archers kept clinging to the enemy order of knights and bought time.
If those bastards had shattered the outer infantry units, the formation might have collapsed right then and there.
Thankfully, the time bought like that was not wasted in vain.
For the friendly cavalry unit that had finally finished reorganizing sortied forth.
‘I’m counting on you.’
Roden shouted inwardly as he looked at his close friend standing at the lead, the strongest knight.
*
Shan and the knights who came out after completing reorganization saw the enemy order of knights helplessly dragged around by the horse archers in the distance.
Being toyed with so helplessly was no different from the destiny of heavy cavalry units lacking a superhuman entity like Shan.
However, the semi-horse archers also could not finish off their opponents.
Unless they accurately hit the slender legs of the horses, it was hard for them to deal effective damage to the opponent as well.
On top of that, due to the issue of arrow scarcity unique to horse archers, several individuals whose hands were becoming empty began to show.
“Charge!”
“Oh no…”
At the sight of the Eastern Allied Forces’ cavalry charging in, a dismayed look came over the face of the one leading Prince Elvin’s knights.
Unlike them, who had been dragged along by the horse archers for a long time, those foes had taken ample rest at the main camp before coming out mounted on fresh horses.
Retracting to receive protection from the infantry units was the right move, but the distance was far due to chasing after the horse archers.
Since their horses were exhausted as it was, running away would only lead to having their rear caught.
“Attack!”
Therefore, the choice made was to fire back.
Even though tired, the number of knights was a few more, so the calculation was that if they gained the upper hand in the first engagement, they could win.
Above all, did they not have that lanky Lug right with them?
The monster who had thrust a spear into Marquis Abel’s back.
Although most of his magic devices had been confiscated, they believed that stalling for time against Shan Barendil at least should be possible.
‘Phew…’
Standing at the lead, Shan looked at Lug galloping toward him from the opposite side.
Inside the face guard, neither hesitation nor sorrow could be glimpsed in his two eyes.
Only the competitive spirit and fighting intent to settle the match as a single knight.
At the moment of clash, just as before, Lug fully extended his folded arm, thrusting a long jousting lance toward Shan.
That movement, which had been clean even before, had now reached a realm of moving entirely without violating reason.
Had Shan been that tall with arms that long, wouldn’t he have moved in precisely that manner?
The speed of the lance, rapidly accelerating as the folded arm extended, was truly like an arrow being shot.
Furthermore, the trajectory curving from his unique high point of impact was identical to that of a bird of prey swooping down from the sky targeting prey.
Even though he raised his shield accurately with his unique overwhelming reflexes, he blocked it quite narrowly.
Had it been any knight other than Shan, whoever it was, they would not have endured even a single clash against that attack.
Even blocking was not the end; he felt the mighty Fighting Spirit loaded into the lance shaking his body.
Had he not trusted that the shield was a sacred relic and imbued Fighting Spirit into it, he would have tumbled away under that force.
However, the difference from the past jousting tournament was that the spear Shan held did not wobble in the process of taking Lug’s lance strike.
Compared to the past, he had grown larger and heavier, and was able to control his horse and body more skillfully.
To the extent that he could deliver a counterattack simultaneously while taking the attack.
And while Lug’s reflexes were also far superior to ordinary knights, regrettably they were not to the level of reacting to Shan’s attack.
With a loud roar, ‘Heartbreaker’ bypassed Lug’s shield and struck his breastplate, knocking him off his horse.