Chapter 335: Duty

“How can this be!”

“Magic? Is it magic?”

“No matter how powerful magic is, for a human to achieve this…”

Cornered Vikings fell into complete chaos.

They weren’t ignorant of magic. They had seen shamans bestow blessings of frenzy, and witnessed spells that prevented ships from sinking in storms.

But the result of Valda’s long-prepared catalyst, fully unleashed, far exceeded common sense.

The Britannian expeditionary force, while greatly amazed, didn’t fall into confusion. Everyone had been briefed on the magic that would be employed in battle.

Moreover, they had imagined this scenario countless times in childhood. Britannia had legends of a giant bean tree that grew up to the clouds.

‘Those vines are on our side. They won’t harm us.’

“Grandmother’s stories were true.”

Even seeing the stems rise like mountains, they felt more familiarity than horror.

“Lady Valda.”

“Please, bear with it.”

Valda shook her head at her husband, whose expression said he wanted to embrace her immediately.

“Now, a word of thanks is enough. There are soldiers fighting hard down there—this isn’t the time for personal satisfaction.”

“Well said.”

Eugene stood beside Valda like a bodyguard.

“Now that I think of it, the bean tree legend exists only in Britannia and nowhere else. Is it because of the Half-Elven family and the Shade Garden?”

“Probably. It’s where the Elven royal house’s traces remain strongest in the world. Since it was so long ago, it may have changed through folklore.”

Cheers rose from below. The calmed ones had begun attacking, and combat had resumed.

The expeditionary force cheered at the superior power guiding them, while the Vikings begged their god for salvation in terror.

“Cease fire! Cease fire! All units, fall back ten paces!”

The excited knights and heavy infantry halted.

“Sir Hind?”

“What are you doing suddenly?”

It was Hind who had demanded a temporary halt in combat. There were nobles of higher rank present, but everyone stopped.

He was the Knight Commander and Chief of Staff representing the Mayr family’s knights. Sometimes Eugene lent him the King’s Agility to grant authority.

Even now, he was leading Eugene’s army in his stead while wielding the King’s Agility. That was why even distinguished nobles didn’t dare ignore Hind.

“They have nowhere to run, so there’s no need to push for unnecessary bloodshed. Shield bearers, forward!”

Hind remembered the time he had accompanied Eugene’s initial raid on the Lasta Monastery to clear out pirates.

The experience had been so impressive that he still told stories of that battle when drunk.

“Ah!”

“You’re right.”

Nobles who caught on to Hind’s intention wore cruel smiles.

“What are you waiting for? Join in!”

Everyone selected soldiers carrying the largest shields and pushed them forward.

“We’re here!”

Lantzheim pikemen, who had a nose for this kind of opportunity, also rushed over.

Boom!

Large shields formed a wall one after another, with pikes protruding between them.

“Th-these guys?”

Vikings understood what they were aiming for. The problem was that knowing didn’t help them respond.

“Don’t push!”

“Damn it! There are spears everywhere in front!”

Vikings at the front shouted.

“Don’t come!”

“There’s no space behind either!”

Vikings at the rear shouted.

It was an uncommon situation, but being pinned against a wall was worse for an army than being encircled.

Stone held firmer than any human army. The enemy only needed to block half, allowing them to push with a thicker encirclement.

“There’s no need to rush.”

“Watch them suffocate to death.”

Expeditionary commanders gleefully watched the enemies being squeezed.

To be honest, these were the thugs who had been terrifying face-to-face since the expedition began. But now they were completely cornered, crushing each other.

That satisfying sight was washing away three hundred years of fear encoded at the genetic level.

“Infantry! Advance three steps!”

“Three steps!”

As soldiers repeated and advanced, the Vikings were packed even tighter.

“Just going to sit there? We’ll all die if this continues!”

“Everyone push! We have to break through somewhere!”

Brave and quick-thinking Huskarls attempted breakthroughs. Blocking lunging pikes with shields, they body-slammed the expeditionary shield wall.

“Uwaaaah!”

“Get out of my way!”

They pushed, kicked, and pried at the shield wall, but it was impossible. The moment the encirclement shields parted slightly—

Thrust!

Thrust!

Pikemen waiting behind the shield bearers attacked in unison.

“Gack…”

They had opened only about a hand’s width of gap, but four spears thrust through. The Huskarl looked down at his pierced chest in despair and collapsed.

The spears were withdrawn, pulling corpses with them, but they struck the shield wall and fell to the ground.

“Advance four steps!”

“Four!”

At Hind’s command, the shield walls advanced again. The satisfaction of recreating his lord’s command in a historic battle—he felt he had lived as a knight for this moment.

“Argh!”

“Kugh!”

Vikings sensing danger charged in succession, but all became corpses.

Forcing apart a tightly locked shield wall meant the guard was wide open. Multiple spear points thrust out like counterattacks, making death unavoidable.

Moreover, crossbowmen who had finished reloading had also joined in large numbers.

“…!”

Several Vikings made eye contact with crossbowmen aiming through the gaps in the shield wall.

Thwack!

Bolts piercing eyes and boring into brains sent corpses toppling backward.

“Allied units hold! Allied units hold! Remaining units advance three steps!”

“Three steps forward! Three steps forward!”

Hind diligently coordinated the overall formation, moving the shield walls.

“I’ll surrender! Please, stop the attack!”

Those with stronger survival instincts than desire for glory in the afterlife rushed out. But their clothing and speech marked them as mere rank-and-file.

Without consulting superiors, the soldiers killed them without mercy. It was a generations-long blood feud—no need for mercy.

“I surrender! Please, halt the attack!”

A Jarl ran out with both hands raised. Soldiers looked at Hind. Without a command, he shot the Jarl dead himself.

“The commander said: no prisoners.”

“No prisoners!”

Soldiers repeated and advanced further. The Vikings now had nowhere left to retreat.

“Break through! Break through somehow!”

“If your hands stop for even a moment, I’ll cut off your head!”

The Jarls screamed. They weren’t trying to break through the encirclement—they were attacking the rapidly grown stems. Hundreds of Vikings with axes were frantically hacking at the stems.

The problem was that what needed clearing wasn’t trees but walls. Axes were useful for cutting, but what they needed were hundreds of pickaxes. Even with those, escape would have been impossible.

“Ugh!”

A warrior desperately trying to hack through a stem had someone’s forehead strike the back of his axe. There wasn’t even enough room to swing an axe anymore.

“Haaah.”

“Guaaargh.”

“Haaagh…”

From adjacent lines, suffocating sounds began to emerge. Those trapped between the crowd and the wall were being crushed one by one.

“Push!”

At the knights’ commands, soldiers tightened the encirclement further. The enemies’ fully packed faces came into view. Just the visible ones numbered in the thousands; including the unseen, it was several times that.

Every single face was twisted with terror and pain. In the end, the Vikings climbed over their own allies.

Hacking at stems with axes, they attempted to escape the crushing by climbing like rock climbers. It was actually a reasonable choice.

“H-help me!”

If only no one below was grabbing their ankles.

“Let go!”

“I can’t breathe…”

With the terror of mass death clouding their judgment, those who could grab anything within reach did so. With the single belief that if they climbed the stems, they would go up too, they staked everything.

“Uwaaaah!”

This resulted in those who fell crushing those below them. And it wasn’t just those who willingly let themselves be pulled down.

“Get off, you son of a bitch!”

One climber chopped at a gripping wrist with a hand axe. Screams and blood flew, but the living had to survive.

“Shoot those pieces of shit!”

“But the Jarl—”

“If I stop swinging for even a moment, he said he’d kill me! You’ll die because of that guy too!”

“Ugh!”

The one climbing the stem with a bloodied axe was struck in the back by a bolt and fell. Some tough guys continued climbing despite being hit three times by arrows. But eventually, their strength gave out and they fell.

In the meantime, the encirclement had tightened to its limit, achieving nearly one hundred percent density.

“Forward!”

“Uuuugh!”

Now, with each step the encirclement took, dozens of Vikings died.

“Forward!”

“Guaaargh.”

Dozens more died.

“Stop! Stooop!”

A well-dressed man screamed from the outer edge of the Vikings. His attendants held up his thighs so his head appeared above the others. Wearing a crown, he was immediately visible.

“King Skal?”

“Sir Knights! It’s the enemy commander!”

Soldiers shouted, and this time even Hind didn’t dare issue a kill order rashly. Knights and nobles all turned around. Toward the only person who could decide King Skal’s fate.

Eugene, riding Might, faced King Skal. The victor and vanquished of this great war finally learned what each other looked like.

“First time seeing you in person.”

“So you are the Southern King?”

“I am.”

Eugene didn’t bother correcting to “Count” even in this situation.

“I surrender. Kill me however you wish, but please spare the warriors’ lives.”

“A noble decision, but I cannot accept it. You received my declaration of war, didn’t you?”

Skal had read it so many times he could recite it without a single word wrong.

“You intend to kill us all like this?”

“When all of you die and your villages burn, my people can sleep peacefully. The children born in the future will know of Viking Raids only as stories. The coastal villagers won’t need to constantly watch the horizon and can focus on peaceful daily lives. That is my duty.”

“You butcher! Cursed be you!”

“Sadly, I can’t be a benevolent ruler to everyone. You do your job, and I’ll do mine.”

At Eugene’s gesture, the attack resumed.

Now, even a single step forward required immense effort from the shield walls. But each step forward meant hundreds more lives lost.

“Forward! Forward!”

Now only the knights’ shouts echoed across the battlefield. No sound came from the Viking coalition.

The sounds of ribs breaking, lungs collapsing, and quiet last breaths were all that could be heard. Like beans being stir-fried in a pot.

“Did you record everything?”

“Yes, Your Excellency.”

The scribe who had studied art recorded not only the dialogue between the two leaders but also Skal’s expression as death came in a drawing.

“…”

Eugene watched the massacre with a face that was both relieved and heavy. Today, he had taken more lives than all the killings in his entire life combined.

To others, this was just a brutal battlefield, but to Eugene’s eyes it was different. So many lives had been extinguished at once in this confined space that he could see them.

The souls ascending one after another, forming a river, vanishing to the other side of the world.

When he turned his horse, he made eye contact with everyone on the battlefield. As he passed through, they knelt one by one. Knights, mercenaries, lords, priests—all of them.

It was not a gesture toward a count.

“Hail the king.”

A central knight knelt.

“God save the king.”

An eastern noble knelt.

“Hail my king.”

A southern noble who had sworn fealty knelt.

“Hail the king.”

Mercenary captains knelt.

“Hail the king.”

Among them was Hermann, the Lantzheim warrior captain.

“My liege, my king.”

Hind knelt.

Tap tap.

Eugene leaned over just enough to pat his shoulder in passing.

“Hail the chosen.”

Holy Knights knelt. Politically neutral, yet containing arguably greater respect—both secular and non-secular.

“My king.”

And there were Valda and Homi. Both were utterly spent from powerful magic and fierce combat.

“The adventure that started with the three of us has come this far.”

Even a ruler wrapped in countless authorities and interests returned at day’s end to being just one person. That was why, when the sun rose the next day, he could once again lead everyone as a powerful leader.

Clack clack clack.

He wanted to dismount before the two of them, but now was only the time to pass by.

“Hail the king.”

“Hail my king.”

Because there were still many who waited to bless him.

*

From Jarls commanding several hundred to Jarls commanding barely ten.

Countless Midgardian lords had perished, led by Skal. Including elderly heirs and trusted subordinates who could fill power vacuums.

Even in a great defeat, such complete annihilation was unprecedented, but that was how devastating Valda’s magic had been.

What remained were the defenseless villages and small towns scattered everywhere. They would be praying for Skal, unaware that the war’s outcome had been decided.

“Head to every location. Claim the rewards you rightfully deserve.”

“Yaaaaaah!!!!!!!!”

At Eugene’s order, the entire expeditionary force erupted in ecstatic cheers.

“Remember: whether your descendants a hundred, two hundred, three hundred years from now can enjoy peaceful lives depends entirely on your diligence.”

Joyous laughter erupted from everywhere.

“Of course! Leave it to us!”

“We’re all filled with burning patriotism!”

Eugene packaged the order to plunder freely in beautiful words. Applause and stamping of feet broke out at his rhetorical skill.

“Those whose horses have died or been injured—borrow mine. I can’t have victorious heroes walking. We brought plenty of wagons, so use them freely.”

Countless knights and squires were moved by Eugene’s attention to detail.

“Go quickly! Before the year ends, return to your families’ arms! As the head of household, with shoulders squared!”

Riding Might, Eugene extended his arm across the vast plain. The expeditionary force, split into various directions, saluted and departed on their respective paths.

“All departure preparations are complete.”

“Give the order!”

Eugene’s direct army spoke with equal enthusiasm. As the beginning and end of the expedition, he naturally deserved the greatest reward.

The territory assigned to Eugene was the land ruled by King Skal. The most prosperous southern stronghold in all of Midgard.

“You should wear this.”

“Will you put it on for me?”

“Gladly.”

Homi, her face flushed, placed Ragnar’s Crown on Eugene’s head.

A crown. A lord on horseback.

A presence that inspired awe in every way, incomparable to Skal.

It was the second time since the Second Age that Midgard had been conquered.