Rebound Startles The Transcendents, And Kim Han Leaves Them Appalled (1)

Benialis spent the day drinking without even knowing which monsters had appeared in the 56th-day Monster Wave.

No amount of alcohol could blot out the image of over ten thousand representatives staring at him with reproachful eyes; the drunker he got, the clearer it became.

At that moment the door to the eastern guard commander’s room opened and a man stepped in cautiously.

“Benialis.”

“…What.”

At the call, Benialis squinted and answered in a slurred, annoyed tone.

“This is the Monster Wave report for today.”

“Enough!”

“I— you still need to see it…”

“You bastard! Are you disrespecting me too!! I said it’s done!!”

Crash!

The glass of red wine flew from Benialis’s hand, struck the man’s head, shattered, and scattered everywhere. The wine leaking from the broken glass covered the man’s face like blood.

“Get out!”

“…Understood. I’ll leave this and go—please check it.”

The man backed out of the room.

Benialis grabbed the bottle and gulped down the wine.

After a moment, the sounds of breaking and scattering drifted through the crack of the open door from the guard commander’s room.

The representatives who had seen the man leave the commander’s room wore shocked expressions. A representative who looked like a mage hurried over, cast a cleansing spell, and asked if he was all right.

“I am fine.”

“No, no matter how distraught he is, how could Benialis—why did he do to Giorgio to… go this far.”

“Aha! Don’t talk like that. Thank you for the cleansing spell.”

Giorgio shushed the representative, straightened his clothes, and walked toward the battlements.

As he left the commander’s building and headed for the wall, every representative he met greeted him politely and warmly.

The sight was somewhat like the reaction the Rebound Legion members showed when they met Kim Han.

Giorgio wore a gentle smile the whole time, never seeming bothered; he asked after and responded to each representative he met and called each of their names without forgetting any.

Even after climbing the battlements he encouraged the representatives on guard, cracked jokes at times, finished his patrol, and stood at the wall’s edge staring endlessly at the Monster Belt.

From his back he looked like someone fretting about tomorrow’s Monster Wave. But where no one could see his face, Giorgio’s expression twisted like a demon’s.

“…Fuck, that idiot bastard.”

A crude curse slipped out in a very small voice from Giorgio, who had been meeting others’ greetings with a gentle smile—so quiet that even someone standing beside him wouldn’t have heard it.

A moment later his expression hardened further, his eyes glinting with murderous intent and greed.

In this “Battlefield of the Gods” two disasters had already become continent-wide calamities—despite the training period not yet being over.

First, not long after the Battlefield began, three goddesses descended in the remarkable incident called the Triple Divine Manifestation.

Second, an unprecedented plague spread across the continent. Many were shocked to learn the mastermind behind it was a representative of Amor, the goddess of love—the so-called plague of depravity.

And now Benialis—the main actor of that plague, indeed its very core—had made the worst decision.

Morning of the 58th day of the Monster Wave.

Fabrice Legrand, Commander-in-Chief of the guard, sighed as he looked at the hordes of monsters lined outside the wall and answered a repeatedly ringing magical communication.

“Hm? Who is it? The monsters will be charging soon!”

—It’s me, Benialis.

He clicked his tongue at the disrespectful, young, foolish voice he loathed, but since he couldn’t kill a representative of Amor, he asked curtly what was going on.

—We’re withdrawing. Violentia already did, so we can withdraw too, right? Well, good work.

The connection cut off unilaterally.

Fabrice stood stunned; his thoughts froze. What the hell had that idiot just said?

After a long moment he came to his senses, grabbed the broken connection, infused divine power into it, but the comm stone gave no response.

“You, you bastard!! That son of a bitch!!”

Crackle—!!

So enraged he unleashed divine power at full force for the first time in a long while, Fabrice hurried to the guard commander’s room.

Benialis’s claim that he would abandon the eastern wall’s garrison wasn’t the only issue. They were already debating whether to send reinforcements there or discreetly deploy transcendents. The real problem was timing.

Where Fabrice had just been standing, outside the southern wall, monsters had already encamped—meaning they must have already reached the eastern wall where Benialis had been. If he intended to withdraw, he should have said so the day before like Violentia. What kind of etiquette was this for a retreat? Did he intend to kill all Exorsus citizens? If they were gone, where would the representatives get their conveniences?

The angrier and more helpless Fabrice felt, the less immediate solution he could see.

“Outside!”

“Yes!”

As soon as Fabrice’s serious voice called from the guard commander’s room, the adjutant opened the door, snapped to attention, and waited.

“Send people to the eastern wall at once. Determine how many defenders are there and report it via magical communication. Tell the mercenary captains to hurry here.”

The adjutant left with the order, and within five minutes the people Fabrice had summoned entered his room one by one.

Six captains of large mercenary companies—at the same time, transcendents.

“What’s the matter that you called us in so urgently?”

“Amor’s representative caused an incident. A major one.”

“What…?”

“He just contacted us saying they would withdraw. That bastard!!”

Fabrice’s tone remained harsh, as if his blood still boiled.

The six transcendents were equally flustered. If they pulled out now, the eastern wall would be utterly undefended.

“Then what do you intend to do?”

“What do you mean—stop them, of course!”

Stuck beside a madman and splattered with shit, seven transcendents found themselves clutching their heads because of one idiot.

If any of them revealed the hidden power they kept, it would solve the problem—but then they could no longer serve as mercenary captains. The reason they could roam freely as mercenaries unlike other transcendents was the ban they imposed on their bodies by covenant with the gods.

The moment they lifted that ban, they’d never taste the freedom of mercenary life again; they’d be locked in a small dwelling, unable to die, forced to live in Exorsus for thousands—tens of thousands—of years.

No one wanted that. The six transcendents watched one another and kept silent.

Watching their behavior, Fabrice suppressed his rising irritation and barked out orders.

“Draft half the personnel from each mercenary company. We’ll draft half as well. And the three of you will defend the eastern wall for today. This is not a request. This is an order from the commander-in-chief to the mercenary companies.”

“Damn it!”

“Understood.”

“Tch.”

Those gathered knew it would not be easy. The problem was the type of monsters outside the walls.

They had finally appeared.

The Black Oak horde that always capped the Monster Wave had already arrived—and in far greater numbers than before.

In one sense, Benialis’s decision to withdraw was somewhat understandable. One might laugh off Black Oaks, but once their numbers exceed thirty thousand, they drain the will more than they inspire fear. If even seasoned defenders felt that way, how much more would that fool?

If anything, it was fortunate that Violentia had relinquished the western wall’s command a few days ago and, as a representative, participated in the west’s defense with her guards—so they could pull some men from there.

Still, the situation was dire.

Hoping for help, Fabrice ordered his adjutant to notify the Rebound Legion manning the northern wall, then left the room.

Fabrice’s steps toward the southern wall felt unusually heavy.

The three mercenary captains who arrived at the eastern wall clicked their tongues when they saw the Black Oak horde blackening the area beyond the wall.

Even at a rough estimate it was thirty thousand. With the orcs’ skin being black, the entrance to the Monster Belt was pitch-black. Just looking at it sapped the spirit.

Moreover, the hastily assembled defenders at the eastern wall didn’t even number five thousand.

“Damn.”

“This is bad. If things go wrong we’ll have no choice but to reveal our strength.”

“Exactly. That one back there, doesn’t it look like it?”

“Yeah. Lord. It’s a Lord.”

“Crazy! How can there be two Lords?! Wait, are there four with north and west too? Heh. This Monster Wave is strange no matter how you look at it. We’ll have to formally question it later.”

The other two nodded at the robe-clad mercenary captain’s words—whether he was a mage or not.

“Right. If it comes down to it we’ll reveal strength and lodge a formal complaint afterward. This is absurd.”

As transcendents and mercenary captains who had faced every Monster Wave, this was the first time such demonic beasts and such absurd numbers had appeared.

In truth, even while six guarded the south they had drawn power up to the ban’s edge multiple times; yet defending the wave remained difficult.

“You said north, right? That cooperative?”

“Yeah.”

“They’re quiet over there.”

“Rumor has it they’re defending very easily. The magic tower guys have improved beyond recognition, but the Rebound Legion are said to be no joke. From what you hear, they’re similar to us who’ve sealed ourselves by ban. Their commander is supposed to be even more incredible.”

“No way? Just a fourth-year representative?”

“That’s what the rumors say—rumors, anyway.”

The three captains fell silent—the Black Oaks outside the wall had begun to move.

A proper siege, in the literal sense.

If the previous monsters had been close to beasts, these were orcs—more human-like but stronger than humans. They were Black Oaks, strong even among orcs, and the wall had to be defended against numbers six times their own.

“Tch. No choice. Begin.”

“Yeah, do your worst. We’ll just fake being wounded anyway.”

“Sigh. Start with a simple earthquake.”

With the robe-clad captain’s sigh, the staff he held glowed white, the ground trembled, and the earth moaned.

The front ranks of Black Oaks, foaming and bloodshot-eyed as they rushed forward, began to scatter.

Black Oaks tumbled wildly into the quaking, entangling with those behind to create secondary and tertiary pile-ups.

But if humans had mages, the orcs had shamans.

A flow of divine power coalesced behind the Black Oaks; the quake subsided, and the injured orcs sprang up, spat, and charged toward the wall with renewed vigor.

“Tch, I knew it. That guy is cheating.”

“Damn it, magic or sorcery! Ugh!! We’ll have to fill the gap with bodies.”

The captain who had cast the earlier magic snorted and replied to the mercenary captain who rose with a greatsword.

“Someone might think you’re a real cheat, you swindler. Shut up and cast your magic too.”

“I’m a warrior! I’m Ensir of the greatsword!”

“Enough crap. Here they come.”

Grumbling at the taunt, Ensir irritably manifested his magic. But the spell felt strangely familiar.

A Wind Dragon Breath combined with a push spell sent the Black Oaks that had charged the wall flying—back as far as they’d come.

The mercenaries cheered and shouted not Ensir’s name but “Per,” calling out the name associated with that spell.

The robe-clad captain raised his hand in response to the cry.

“Damn! That’s why I didn’t want to use it.”

“You madman. Then why the hell did you pick up a greatsword in the first place, huh?”

While the two bickered, Black Oaks propped ladders against the wall. The nerve-wracking defense had begun.

From shoving ladders to dropping stones, firing arrows, and casting spells, veteran mercenaries and guards did their best, but the numerical difference was too great.

Moreover, the three transcendents could not exert power beyond their limit, and the wall was gradually being engulfed by mass assault tactics.

When more than half the wall had been ceded to the Black Oaks, the three transcendent captains’ eyes met. All three sighed and prepared to draw up power when a voice halted them.

“Reinforcements.”

Boom— KRAK KRAK KRAK—

An enormous surge of divine power rippled, and most of the Black Oaks on the wall tumbled down below.

Until then, everyone who had survived was unable to regain their senses.

A shadow leapt down into the black mass of Black Oaks below the wall.

“Wai…t?”

Boom—

At the sight that followed, Ensir had no choice but to lower the hand he’d raised to stop it, powerless.