Chapter 255: Descending From the Sky (2)
The knights boarded the transport aircraft.
Order. Restraint. Precision.
They made no unnecessary movements. They did not chatter or relax. Even the motion of fastening their belts followed the exact angles prescribed by the manual.
Some sat with their eyes closed, counting their breaths. Some stared at their own reflections in the helmets resting on their knees. Some rested a hand on their scabbards and maintained a prayer-like silence.
Perhaps this was the discipline and culture of Sentinel that I had created.
This place was no longer what it had once been.
I remembered the Sentinel from before my Regression.
An organization pushed around by Imperial Palace officials, stripped of jurisdiction by the Imperial Guard, and forced to agonize over a budget that was whittled away year after year.
Whenever orders came down, sighs came before acknowledgments. Complaints overflowed in meeting rooms, cynicism at drinking tables…… people who had lost their passion and cared only about collecting their paychecks, steeped in defeatism.
Not anymore.
Now the knights took pride in the very fact that they were the Empire’s sword, and honed themselves to live up to the Sentinel’s honor.
Discipline had taken the place of complaints, and pride had taken the place of cynicism.
The capital I had invested and the plans I had poured my time into were now embodied in this quiet cabin.
My efforts were ‘unmistakably’ working.
Rrrrrumble───
As we advanced through the darkness toward Zerpha, I ran my eyes over the knights’ uniforms. The knight-exclusive Descent Suit.
At first, it had been nothing more than a wingsuit for gliding. Plain black suits focused solely on practical combat functionality.
But Lorenzo Academy had researched and refined them again and again, while I continued pouring endless amounts of capital into the project.
In collaboration with the Magic Tower, mana structures for glide control, deceleration, and landing-impact mitigation had been inscribed throughout the suits, while the base layer had been rebuilt as flexible armor capable of stopping gunfire.
Mana Stone crystals at the joints calculated the rate of descent, while the engravings on the chestplate instantly drew in the wearer’s mana.
A seasoned knight could imbue the entire armor with their own mana and unfurl their very own ‘Mana Wing’.
A jet-black streamlined silhouette. An outer shell engraved with the Empire’s crest.
The figure plunging through the night sky─ a sword with folded wings.
It was equipment that preserved a knight’s ‘style’ without sacrificing performance.
Style mattered. It carried an intimidating presence of its own and overwhelmed the enemy.
The combat strength of each individual knight mattered, of course, but on a battlefield, the will was always the first thing to break.
When the sight of them descending from the sky inspired both fear and awe, the enemy’s resolve would already be half severed before a blade ever touched them.
“……We’ll enter Zerpha airspace in thirty minutes.”
The pilot’s announcement echoed in a low voice.
The knights broke their silence all at once, moving in perfect unison.
──Clack. Clack. Clack.
The sound of helmets settling onto heads, one after another, like rounds being chambered.
Each of them had already memorized their own drop point.
What they had to do was clear.
What they had to bring back was certain, too.
Victory.
* * *
Whoooooo…….
A blood-scented wind swept through the Republican camp.
“The situation favors us.”
A staff officer reported. Certainty had crept into the faces of the command staff as well.
The basis for it was solid. They had already seized nearly half of Pannel Ridge, and thanks to the riverside villages and warehouses secured during their night crossing, they could even provision themselves locally.
On top of that, there was the ‘Volunteer Corps’, whose existence the Royalist bastards had failed to detect.
Superhumans who had flowed in silently from beyond the border and blended into the Republican spearhead.
“And the Imperial army?”
“Still in the south. They continue their southward push alongside the Royalist legions.”
The southern defenses were formidable. Even if the south fell, a victory here at Gandela would instead leave them stranded in the middle of enemy territory.
Besides, the Imperial army would never take the vanguard anyway.
It was a cost-benefit calculation peculiar to siege warfare.
They had no reason to grind down their own troops in someone else’s civil war. They would put the kingdom’s army out front and try to minimize their own losses.
The only concern had been that the southern corps might immediately reverse course when hostilities began, but their mixed command structure had prevented them from making a decision in time, and that weak Crown Prince had likewise failed to make the bold decision to abandon the south.
It had all gone exactly as Frank had predicted.
“Do not slow the offensive. Keep pushing in rotations even through the night. Don’t give them time to sleep.”
“Yes, sir!”
After the staff officers withdrew, a shadowy presence approached Frank from behind as he remained alone in the tent.
Frank murmured with a sigh.
“……If we succeed, I will repay this debt without fail.”
As if in answer, a man revealed himself.
The leader of the Ezenheim Volunteer Corps, ‘Elton’.
“And if you don’t succeed?”
Frank turned to face him. Lamplight touched the man’s face.
A clean-cut face. Flawless, snow-white skin without so much as a blemish, and long platinum hair falling past his shoulders.
He looked nothing like the image people associated with a persecuted race. Instead, he exuded a kind of time-honored dignity.
Frank let out a short laugh.
“Our failure would be your failure too, wouldn’t it?”
Elton laughed aloud as well and took a seat. Frank pulled a bottle from beneath the field table.
A nearly depleted bottle from his homeland that he had been saving since before the war began.
He split it between two tin cups, and Elton quietly raised his.
“To the exiled.”
The people who had crossed the border fleeing persecution, only to be cast out once more from the very land they had fled to. Elton was a patriot who had rallied the Ezenheim community living in Zerpha.
He had spent his own fortune building schools and relief shelters, taking in destitute compatriots and helping them back onto their feet. A saint to his people.
“……My homeland failed to protect your people.”
Frank raised his cup to meet Elton’s, answering in a low voice.
“But when this war is over, I promise this will be the first law of the new republic. We will not divide those born on this land and those who defended it over something as meaningless as blood. We will not commit the same madness as the Empire.”
“……I’m grateful to hear that.”
Elton nodded with a gentle expression. Frank felt himself slowly being won over by the man.
Someone who had spent his entire life hunted and dispossessed would have had every reason to resent the world.
Yet in this man there was responsibility instead of resentment, mercy instead of hatred.
Was this what a man looked like when persecution failed to bend him?
“That is enough for me.”
At Elton’s words, Frank moved his cup.
“Cheers.”
─Clink.
The tin cups met.
A modest drink shared shoulder to shoulder beneath the shadow of that great evil called the Empire.
The tent’s lamplight flickered warmly above the two men’s cups.
…….
Gandela, the Royalist command tent.
“According to incoming reports, it is certain that Superhumans are mixed into the enemy line.”
The general glared at the pins stuck in the map. Superhumans. Those who wielded mana.
Of course, even they were not invincible. Step on a mine and their flesh would be torn apart; riddle them with grenades and shells and they would die.
In fact, the snipers on the ridge had already killed several of them.
The problem was that their weapon was infinite.
Their ammunition would run dry, but the enemy’s mana would not. As long as they stuffed themselves with food, it eventually came back.
“And high command?”
“……They only keep repeating that we should wait.”
“—General!”
Just then, a messenger came sprinting into the tent.
Reinforcements? The general sprang to his feet at the thought.
“General! High command has ordered us to launch an offensive!”
“……What?”
Not hold.
Not wait.
An order to advance head-on.
“Now?”
“Yes! That’s right!”
The situation allowed no such thing. The wounded were overflowing, and ammunition was running low.
Most importantly, not even half a day had passed since the last battle ended.
“Reinforcements?”
“…….”
The messenger had no answer.
“……This is madness.”
“But General! They said it has to be now, right now! The Empire’s aid will definitely come!”
The general cast his gaze outside the tent.
If the Imperial Army were coming, there would have been signs. A great army on the move inevitably kicked up clouds of dust.
Yet the earth and sky were still.
What on earth was coming, and from where?
“…….”
The general remained silent for a long time, but no answer came to him.
This itself was an order.
“We advance. All units, prepare to deploy.”
“……Yes, sir.”
The staff officers nodded as if they had no other choice.
“But how shall we rally the men? They are all at their limit.”
The general closed his eyes for a moment, then opened them with a deep sigh.
“Tell them reinforcements are coming.”
Would they believe words that he himself could not believe even as he spoke them?
“Um, General. If I may.”
Out of nowhere, the messenger held out a small slip of paper and asked.
“Can you read the Imperial Language?”
“The Imperial Language?”
“Yes. There was a note enclosed with the order.”
It was written in elegant handwriting in the Imperial Language.
There was no signature to say who had written it, but a single line was set down upon it.
──The Empire’s sword shall soon come unto you.
…….
Boom, boom, boom, boom──!
Drums thundered through the night. Beyond the ridge, in trenches that had been theirs only three days ago, the enemy had settled in.
But could they truly be called the enemy?
Citizens of the same country. People who spoke the same language. Faces they might have passed at the edge of a marketplace.
The same borders, the same sea, and yet simply because the flag they followed was different…….
“Advance! Today, we retake it without fail!”
“──Reinforcements are coming!”
The counterattack began. The Royalist soldiers clutched the word ‘reinforcements’ like a talisman and surged out of the trenches.
Boom─ KABOOOOM──!
Cannon smoke swallowed the ridge. Flares tore upward through the night sky, and beneath their pallid light, a tide of bayonets crawled up the slope.
Ratatatata──! Bang──!
When the enemy machine guns cut down the first rank, the second advanced over their backs.
The knees of the comrade running on the left buckled without a sound, and the comrade on the right fell while calling out his name.
Dirt, blood, and shards of rock burst together across the slope.
Yet no one looked back. They knew their legs would stop the instant they did.
Reinforcements are coming. Reinforcements are coming.
The word ‘reinforcements’, repeated over and over in their hearts, was holding the crumbling ranks together like a thread stitched through cloth.
“Advance──!”
“A-Advance!”
One particular soldier also ran on, clinging to that thread.
His name was Carlos. A young man in his early twenties.
An ordinary conscript with no special talent, he simply ran.
“Advance! Advance—!”
He had no time even to wonder whether he was moving forward or simply being swept along. Just as his foot came down……
──KABOOM!
A shell burst right beside him.
Whummmmm…….
His body lifted into the air.
For a moment, time seemed to stop. The sight of the world turning upside down played out strangely slowly.
—Thud.
His back struck the ground.
“……Cough.”
Blood welled up in his mouth.
Strength drained from his entire body.
Something seemed to have broken. He could not move so much as a finger.
Hah…… hah…….
He stared blankly upward, breathing in and out.
Beyond the smoke, the night sky was strangely serene.
Thud.
Someone approached and blocked half his vision.
It was an enemy soldier carrying a rifle.
He aimed the muzzle at Carlos’s chest and pulled the trigger.
──Click.
Nothing.
The rifle was empty.
“……Slaves of the crown.”
The enemy soldier swapped his magazine without hurrying, spitting out curses to fill the time that remained.
“You live your whole lives bound in shackles.”
Click. The bolt locked into place.
“And even in the moment you die, you’re being used.”
The muzzle aimed at him again.
“Worse than dogs—”
The instant his finger curled onto the trigger.
Carlos suddenly found himself looking above the enemy’s head.
Down through the dark sky, sailing as if it were sliding along the brilliant moonlight……
……Whooooosh!
The wind died down.
At least, that was how it felt.
The gunfire sweeping across the ridge seemed to hold its breath for an instant, and silence fell as though the sounds of the world had receded into the distance.
A certain ‘darkness’ dropped from the sky.
KWAAAAAH──!
It landed atop the enemy position, in the very heart of the clustered machine-gun emplacements.
Its landing was itself a bombardment.
KRRRRRAKK───!
It was the deafening roar of flesh and steel being ground together. The trenches where that pitch-black shape had landed were ripped apart, machine guns were hurled into the air, barrels and all, and sandbags scattered like snowflakes.
“!”
The enemy soldier flinched and turned toward it.
That became his final movement.
WHOOOOSH──!
A gale slammed into them.
It was the wind left behind by something that had ‘passed.’
As though it had simply folded away the hundreds of paces between the center of the impact and this spot.
Whooooooo…….
The wind cleared, and the enemy soldier’s head flew into the air.
Whirl—— thud.
Severed from his body, the head rolled through the mud.
“…….”
Carlos stared blankly at the sight. Then at the ‘being’ standing before him.
A helm reflecting back the night, the hem of a jet-black suit streaming like a cloak— a black silhouette in the shape of a man.
Was it a vision, or a myth?
─…….
The figure looked down at him for a moment.
Carlos almost imagined that their eyes met through the helmet.
Even through his blurred vision, the figure remained vividly clear.
Only then did Carlos think he understood.
“Ah…….”
He was merely a common foot soldier who knew nothing about the state of the war, weapons, or tactics.
But even he could recognize the shape of salvation.
They were reinforcements from the sky.
The Empire’s Knights.
Ratatatat──!
Automatic fire poured in from the flank. The Knight released his mana. A blue membrane unfurled into a sphere. The hail of bullets struck it and scattered like sparks.
The knight turned his head toward the source.
──BOOM!
He kicked off the ground, leaving a crater-like scar behind.
Carlos’s eyes could not follow his movement.
Whish. Whish. Whish.
Three sounds of wind.
Six screams.
Every time the darkness slid along the trench line, another muzzle flash went dark. The gunfire grew increasingly frantic, then suddenly ceased altogether.
In an instant, an entire unit had been erased.
* * *
“Knight Royce, drop.”
Whenever one of the memorized drop points approached─ the knights threw themselves into the darkness.
“Knight Hannah, drop.”
They were composed. There was neither hesitation nor fear.
The moment their names were called, they stood, and without breaking stride stepped beyond the threshold of the horizon.
“Knight Ruin, drop.”
One by one.
“Knight Tiana, drop.”
The transport’s seats emptied in turn.
“Knight Leon, drop.”
And now, before I knew it, only the two of us remained in the cabin.
He said nothing. Neither did I.
We had spent years together. There were no words better than silence.
As our designated drop point approached, we rose at the same time.
“Knight Julian.”
I looked at him.
I could not tell whether the eyes hidden behind his helmet were looking back at me.
“Drop.”
He stepped forward as though walking on air, was swallowed by the dark wind, and disappeared below.
Whoooooooo──!
I was left alone in the cabin.
I drew a deep breath against the pressure rushing inside.
The point I had chosen was the holding facility where the Republican Faction had locked away their Royalist prisoners.
I would descend quietly upon the place where they had gathered prisoners for future negotiations.
“…….”
I swept my gaze around the empty interior, and found myself suddenly smiling.
I remembered something Cliff once said.
That hard-nosed knight had acknowledged me once.
Maybe not on the ground, but in the sky, I was number one.
Today, let’s find out.
“Drop.”
I threw myself out.
Whoooooo…….
The world flipped upside down, and the roar vanished.
In that moment, with the wind seizing and shaking my entire body, I felt freer than at any other time.
The weight of the earth, the rank on my shoulders, Sebestian’s face, even my two lives— in the moment of falling, all of it emptied clean away.
I closed my eyes for a moment and savored that complete freedom.
A few seconds of pure falling, when falling and flight had yet to become separate things.
──Tick.
I opened my eyes again.
And suddenly, there was a full moon in my line of sight.
The moon was at my side.
The full moon hung in a cloudless sky, seeming to gaze at me from close enough to touch.
─Tick.
Moonlight poured down. Beneath it, I released my mana.
───.
There was no sound.
Silent mana unfolded in silver-white along my shoulders, my back, the contours of my whole body.
The streaming mana caught the wind of my fall and reshaped its flow, and I took control of my descent upon that current.
When a fall turns into a descent from the heavens, a knight becomes the sword of the Empire.
……Perhaps even the Empire itself.
~~~
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