Chapter 11

His heart pounded as if it would burst.
It felt different from when Urs had aimed for his neck in the gorge.
This was not fear.
A pain that spread from his head and heart through his whole body. A pain that felt as if his whole body was being gnawed away.
Self-loathing. One of the representative emotions that led humans to ruin.

“I…… I……. I did my best to……”

“Can you not even remember what you learned from the family? What matters is not effort or process. It is results.”
“…….”
“Pathetic bastard.”

Rail could not raise his head.
What action was he supposed to take after raising his head?
In this situation, no matter what he said or what he did, it was obvious he would be hated.
There was only one thing he could do.
Lower his head and endure the resentment that felt as if it would burst with tightly clenched fists.

Kerel returned to his seat.
The amount of documents piled up like a mountain.
As this was a port city, there were far more than one or two matters to handle.

“I already have a headache because of the monsters on the outskirts, and now even my son is like this……”

But there was a voice that answered his words.

“I will solve that problem.”
“What?”

Rail’s hands were trembling.
He clasped his hands behind his back to try to hide it, but his face could not hide his tension.

“The monsters appearing on the outskirts of the territory. I will deal with them. If you give me just one chance, I will prove it with results.”
“You are someone who already drove all the soldiers following you to their deaths. What reason do I have to support you with soldiers or place any expectations on you?”

Rail also knew that he was incompetent.
That was why he was trying to escape that incompetence.

“I do not need the family’s help. I’ll gather people on my own and subjugate the monsters.”

After hearing Rail’s words, Kerel fell into thought for a moment.
The number of monsters would likely be greater than Rail thought.
If he supported him with the family’s soldiers, casualties would, in a way, be natural.
But if Rail recruited people on his own…….

‘At the very least, no great damage will come back to the family.’

Even if Rail’s life was endangered, he could send troops then.
It would not take long to reach the outskirts of the territory.
He did not expect his second son to succeed in the subjugation, but someone had to take charge of subjugating the monsters.
His thoughts did not last long.

“If you insist, I will give you one more chance.”
“Thank you!”
“There will be no support from the family. Keep that in mind.”

Rail bowed even lower in greeting.
He hurried out of the office and hastened his steps outside the building.

“Young Master! Your meal is rea—”
“It’s fine!”

Click.

He opened the door and ran into the blowing wind.
What had he ended up saying in the office?
It wasn’t that he had forgotten what happened in the gorge.
He remembered clearly how strong monsters were.
He didn’t know exactly how many monsters were on the outskirts of the territory, or how strong they were.
But if his father, Kerel, was worried, it was clear that the level was quite serious.
Solving it with his own strength was close to impossible.
But Rail didn’t yield.

‘If I cannot solve it alone, I can receive help from others. That is not shameful, nor is it wrong!’

He ran blindly.
Until he found the ones who would make the impossible possible.

A little while later, he saw two people slowly walking from afar.
One of them kept talking, and the other did not care whether he did or not.

Rail swallowed his rough breathing.
Then he loudly called the two by name.

“Sir Serpens! Sir Lucas!”

Rail had a belief close to certainty.
A belief that those two could turn the impossible into possible.

On the other hand, Serpens frowned as he looked at Rail running toward them.
Why was someone who should be at the count family by now running toward him?
Had something gone wrong? No, that couldn’t happen. Even if it had, he had to make it so that it hadn’t.

‘Even if things get twisted, can they not get twisted after I receive the reward……?’

The only fortunate thing was that Rail’s expression was bright.

“Haa……. Haa……”
“What on earth happened for you to run all the way here? I’m getting worried even just from looking at you.”

Of course, by worried, he meant worried about the reward.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I received stamina training since I was young.”

Serpens’s eyes narrowed.
He was not curious about Rail’s childhood.

“First, I offer my sincere apologies. It seems I must make one more request before treating you properly.”
““Huh?!”
“Please subjugate the monsters on the outskirts of the territory with me!”

Thud.

Rail suddenly fell to his knees.
At that action, Serpens frowned.

“We did not come here to accept a request. We only need to receive the payment this one is owed.”

Lucas said in a cold voice.
Serpens also nodded vigorously beside him.

Rail tightly shut his eyes and continued speaking.

“I know this is shameless of me! And I can give you what I already promised as compensation right away. So would you please help me just this once more? I beg you.”
“If it is because of the monsters appearing on the outskirts, the soldiers of the territory should be enough to suppress them.”
“That is correct. But I absolutely need your strength.”

As if something came to mind at those words, Lucas answered with reluctant.

“I have no intention of getting involved in a successor struggle.”

At that, darkness fell over Rail’s face.
And at that moment.

“Wait.”

Serpens’s words cut off the conversation.
The two people’s gazes turned toward the boy.

“If we subjugate the monsters, will it be officially known?”

A small vitality returned to Rail’s eyes.

“Half yes, and half no. The fact that the monsters were subjugated will become known, but the only name known will likely be mine. Unless I mention others.”
“Then it isn’t a public matter, but something that helps you become the successor?”
“……It is not to become a successor, but to be recognized as a son.”
“Aha! If we won’t be publicly known, and it won’t have a major effect on the successor struggle…… then we can just treat it as doing a good deed and kill some monsters. Right, Lucas?”

Lucas was dumbfounded.
He was asking him a question here? This was not asking for his opinion.
The reason he had rejected Rail’s request was because he didn’t want to get involved in the affairs of the Navigatou territory.
But the twelve-year-old had prepared an answer for the matter.
With the basis that they wouldn’t get involved, and the reason that they would be killing monsters.

Of course, it was probably not a plan he prepared because he pitied Rail, who had even fallen to his knees.
It was probably a plan for the crumbs that would fall to him.

‘Cunning brat’

Lucas’s thoughts were correct.
Serpens’s head was already filled with the image of himself sitting amid lavish treatment.
It was truly a fantasy a child, or someone starved for money, would have.

“……Are you saying that I have to help Rail?”
“What do you mean, ‘I’? It’s ‘we,’ of course.”

It was an utterly shameless answer.

“Then…… will you help me?”

Rail asked with desperate eyes.
Lucas let out a sigh, then opened his mouth.

“……First, let us go look at Serpens’s sword.”
“Understood! I will introduce you to the best blacksmith in the territory!”

Only then did Rail rise and answer.

“…….”

Lucas felt a small headache.
The fact that one noisy person had become two was extremely irritating.

“Hahaha! This is the smithy of Roxen, Navigatou’s best blacksmith!”
“Roxen’s smithy! My heart is already pounding!”

Creak.

The three entered the smithy that gave off heat.

He took a deep breath.
The heat of the smithy. The rising dust. The faint smell of stale sweat.
It was truly a feeling he hadn’t felt in a long time.

Through the ringing sound of forging, Rail spoke with the clerk.
After a short conversation.
Rail returned with an awkward smile.

“They say custom orders are not possible, only purchases. Roxen still hasn’t finished his work.”

Serpens smacked his lips as if disappointed.

“B-but still! I will gift you any sword here! Please choose without worrying about the price, Sir Serpens!”

At least the boy’s face brightened, but he looked up at Lucas instead of the swords.

“Lucas, pick one for me. I’ve never even stolen a sword before, so I don’t know what is good.”
“……All right.”

And a few minutes later.

“Euheumheumheum.”

A pleased hum rang through the field.
The owner of the humming was Serpens.
He was swinging the newly obtained sword this way and that again and again.

‘Good, good.’

It was light. Of course, not as light as a dagger, but it was much lighter than the sword that had broken.
With this sword, wouldn’t he be able to handle the sword more efficiently?
The price of the sword was one silver coin.
It was the same amount of money he had once wasted at a restaurant in Litoret.

“Do you like it that much?”

Rail asked.
The sword he had gifted was not on the expensive side.
One silver coin for someone who had saved his life.
Did that not mean the price of his life had become one silver coin?

“Since you were choosing anyway, why did you not choose something more expensive? I would have bought you one in the gold coin range.”

He was sincere.
There were plenty of swords in the smithy more expensive than that sword.
Even if he had chosen such a sword, Rail would have paid the price without hesitation……

“There’s no need. Lucas said those swords do not suit me. Right?”
“Yes.”

They were people he couldn’t understand no matter how much he tried.
Lucas had outstanding skill, but he didn’t seem greedy.
Serpens was greedy, but he didn’t make foolish judgments because of his greed.

They were strange people, but not bad people.
It might be an early judgment, but Rail decided to believe that.

“Grip your sword, Serpens.”

Lucas said as he gripped his sword.
The atmosphere suddenly grew heavy.
Lucas, who had been watching the front, lowered his stance and prepared to leap.

“Follow me.”
“All ri—”

Pung!

With a single leap, Lucas disappeared from the two people’s sight.
Serpens coughed at the dust that rose.
What had happened?
Was that really a level a human could reach?

Serpens began to run while coughing lightly.
Hoping that someday, he too could make a leap like that.

Tat.

Meanwhile, Lucas landed lightly.
It was an unbelievably stable landing for a leap of several hundred meters.

‘……This is the first time I’ve seen a case like this.’

His gray eyes looked at the thousands of monsters running toward him.

Of course, he had often seen plenty of monsters gathered together.
After all, until only a few years ago, he had stood at the front line of the war against them.
But the land he stood on was not a battlefield.
This was merely the outskirts of a count family’s territory.
Moreover, it was the outskirts of the territory of Navigatou, a port town known to be safe.

‘Does this mean there are no longer any completely safe zones?’

The fact that monsters were increasing, and that their territories were expanding, were both things he already knew.
He had run over, unable to believe the energy of the monsters he sensed.

Were there really thousands of monsters?
If so, what was the owner of the territory doing instead of solving the problem?
Lucas had thought many things before landing.
And the conclusion he reached now.
It was a problem difficult to solve with an individual’s strength.

Dududududu-

The monsters running toward him.
Goblins, orcs, lizardmen.
Monsters that should not have been gathered merely on the outskirts of a count family’s territory.
Furthermore, monsters that clearly distinguished their own territories were gathered in one area.
It must have been a tremendous problem for Count Navigatou.

“Thanks to that damned disciple brat, I ended up encountering the problem sooner.”

Lucas gripped his sword.
He lowered his center of gravity and put strength into his lower body.
His eyes contained everything he intended to cut, and the arm holding his sword did not waver.
The moment his pivot foot rotated together with his waist.

Whoosh!

His sword moved.

Kwagagagagagaga-!

With a massive roar, the field was devastated.
All that remained was dust swirling in the air and a few monsters that had survived by luck.

A little while later.
Around the time the dust began to clear, Serpens and Rail stopped in front of him on one horse.

“Lucas!”

Serpens and Rail got down from the horse in order.
Their gazes naturally turned toward the massive cloud of dust.

“What……. is that……”

Rail only blinked at the sight he was seeing for the first time.
The bloody smell slowly rising. The faintly visible corpses of monsters.
At minimum, several hundred. Perhaps a number reaching the thousands.
The fact alone that monsters of this scale had existed within the territory gave him chills.
But the fact that the man before him had solved that problem alone, and had solved it in just a few minutes, was an even greater shock.

“There were many monsters.”

Lucas’s answer was, as always, utterly calm.

“……Sir Lucas. Have you perhaps surpassed the realm of Sword Expert?”
“…….”
“It is all right. I can tell even if you don’t answer.”

Sword Expert.
A realistic goal for knights.
The stage below the supreme realm called Sword Master, known as experts who have transcended the human realm.
For example, handling a technique called Aura,
or mercilessly slaughtering monsters like this.

“……Lucas? What’s wrong?”

While Rail was lost in thought, Serpens asked.
If things had gone as expected, Lucas would have pushed his back and told him to deal with the remaining monsters.
But Lucas’s eyes were not directed at him.
Had something gone wrong?
Lucas, while holding his sword, didn’t take his eyes off the carnage he had created.

“Rail.”
“Yes, Sir Lucas.”
“Has a dark mage or a magician hiding their identity perhaps ever visited the territory?”
“I don’t know the territory’s recent affairs well either, but since it is a port city, that possibility exists.”
“Go meet the family head immediately.”
“Do you mean right now?”
“Go and ask Count Kerel. Ask if a dark mage has ever come here.”

Kugugugugu-

Something began to move with a grotesque sound.

Lucas gripped his greatsword and stared at the monster that revealed itself.
Rail, who had been puzzled, soon realized the reason.

The corpses split in half by the single strike gathered into one.
The corpses wriggled and began to form a massive shape.
At the sight, like a mountain made of filth, his stomach churned.

Kugugugu.

With a vibration that shook the ground.

Kueeeeeek-!

A monster that shouldn’t appear without reason revealed itself.

“Hyah!”

Rail drove the horse he had ridden and hurriedly headed toward the mansion.