Chapter 70

The people of the small village welcomed the two of them warmly.
They shared their own food and offered them the best building.

Lucas accepted only the bare minimum of their welcome.
One loaf of bread per person, and enough water to fill their canteens.
And instead of a building, they were given a vacant lot right beside the village.

In truth, it was hard to even say they had been given the vacant lot.
Because once they crossed the shabby fence surrounding the village, there was nothing but a wide field stretching out from there.

After the old man finished thanking them, Lucas began nagging Serpens.

“You said you would definitely protect them?”
“…….”
“Are you the one who will protect them?”
“…….”
“The one who dealt with the Basilisk was Lars, not you.”
“…….”
“I do not remember training you to be conceited, so I wonder how you became able to say something as arrogant as ‘definitely.’”

Serpens did not swallow the bread in his mouth.
If he swallowed now, he would definitely get indigestion.
He was sure of that.

“No…… it’s just a saying. Just a saying.”

Was this really something he had to be scolded this much for?
Serpens couldn’t understand.

Wasn’t it a good thing in the end?
The reason they had come here was to protect these people.
Since they were going to protect them anyway, he thought it would be better to say something reassuring too.
‘This is an incredible crisis! You are all going to die!’
Wasn’t it many times better than saying that?

“What you said made the people of this village hold hope. From that moment, your words carried a weight that meant they could no longer be ‘just something you said.’”

No particular emotion could be felt from Lucas’s eyes.
Because of that, he looked even angrier,
and felt even more serious.

“‘Definitely’ is not a word you should use carelessly. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how favorable the situation is, it is not a word you should say carelessly.”

By now, he felt wronged.

“Why?”
“There are things called variables. If those variables prevent you from keeping your word, have you thought about what the people who held hope after hearing your words would feel?”
“Ugh…….”
“Say ‘I will do my best’ instead. That is better for you, and for those listening.”
“……I get it.”

Only then did Serpens swallow the bread.
At the same time, he drank nearly half the water in his canteen at once.

Serpens fell into thought for a moment.
After chewing over Lucas’s words, the boy soon opened his mouth.

“Lucas. If I become as strong as you, would it be okay to say ‘definitely’ then?”

The answer came back like a knife.

“No. It is a word you must be more careful with the stronger you become.”
“Then have you never said ‘definitely’ before?”
“……I have.”
“What the! Then if I become as strong as you-”
“That is why I resolved all the more not to say it. Because I failed to keep that promise.”
“…….”

Serpens realized he had misspoken.
It felt as if he had touched on a sensitive memory.

“……Then will you never use the word ‘definitely’ again?”
“Not unless it is a vow I make to myself.”
“Tsk…….”

Serpens chewed his bread again.
He chewed it more thoroughly than usual.
Then, feeling both disappointed and wronged, he muttered to himself.

“I’d rather hear someone say they’ll definitely protect me…….”

I will do my best.
Of course, those were fine words.
But they felt different from ‘I will definitely protect you.’
‘I will do my best’ felt like, ‘I will make the effort expected of me, but there is a possibility it may not work. So prepare yourself,’ as if the responsibility were being shared between both sides.
But ‘I will definitely protect you,’ even if it still carried the possibility of failure, felt like, ‘I will protect you! So don’t worry, and you endure too!’ It felt like, ‘I will take responsibility for you.’

“Haaah…….”

But what could he do?
If Lucas said so, there must be a reason.
He had decided to trust and follow the man before him.
Trusting and following meant following first, even when he couldn’t understand.

‘I’ll trust him this time too.’

Serpens organized his thoughts that way.

After that, the two stayed in the village for about two more days.
Their daily routine was the same as before.
Simply training.
If anything had changed, it was only that their rest time had increased.
And because there were not many golden seeds left, he no longer suffered major injuries during training.

On the fourth day of their stay in the village.
A soldier appeared, hurriedly leading a horse.

“Lord Lucas! Monsters have appeared in the north!”

His panting voice showed that he had run here without resting.

“Serpens.”
“I’m ready.”

Serpens was not surprised by the soldier’s visit.
Lucas had already given him advance notice.
He had also told him that once a knight arrived, they would grasp the situation and depart immediately.

Lucas asked the soldier.

“The specimens and scale?”
“A Vampire Lord and a Death Knight! Along with them, vampire and undead-type monsters are approaching at high speed!”

Lucas let out a small sigh.

Two troublesome beings.
Both the Vampire Lord and the Death Knight were beings with reason.
The fact that beings that only moved on contaminated land had come all the way to Oratio…….
As expected, it must be because of the purple jewel.

He remembered the battle with the Basilisk he had heard about from Lars.
Had he said the battlefield had been covered in ash-gray sand and turned into a desert?
If the surroundings changed according to the monster that appeared under the jewel’s influence,
there was a high possibility that the path of the enemies’ advance was being contaminated.

That alone was a major problem.
On contaminated land, undead-type monsters were summoned endlessly.
He would leave the Death Knight and the undead to the Fourth Battalion, the Celestial Knight Order,
and it seemed he would have to deal with the Vampire Lord side first.

Lucas looked at the soldier.

“I will head straight to the battlefield. You guide the people of this village into the capital, then join the battlefield.”
“Yes! Understood!”

The soldier suddenly realized something, then began hesitating with a stunned expression.

“What is it? Is there something else I need to know?”
“Well…… I apologize! I was in such a hurry that I forgot to bring a horse for you to ride, Lord Lucas!”
“There is no need to worry about that.”

Serpens, who had been standing quietly beside him, let out a sigh.

Ssssss-

Then he drew out Aura faintly and covered his whole body with it.
A faintly glowing black light.
Another method of using Aura he had realized through training.
It was a way to reduce external impact, even if only slightly.

“I’m going to get dizzy anyway, so let’s go as fast as possible. It’s better if it ends even a little sooner.”

Serpens approached Lucas.
The boy stretched both arms forward and waited for Lucas to lift him.

The soldier looked as if he had no idea what was going on.
He still didn’t understand until Lucas wrapped one arm around the boy and lifted him.

Then.

Baaang!

With a sudden sound of the ground bursting, Lucas leaped.
His figure disappeared in an instant, and dust rose from where he had been standing.

“……Ah?”

The soldier, and the villagers who had been watching them,
all stared blankly up at the sky.

A brief silence fell over the small village.
A young boy’s scream echoed faintly through the sky,
but even that did not reach the people because of the livestock crying at just the right time.

Serpens couldn’t breathe properly because of the headwind blowing against him.
The headwind itself was not that strong.
It was just that he was slamming into it at high speed.

“Ugraaaah!”

Serpens screamed.
It was not something he could hold back even if he tried.

Lucas’s leaps were violent.
Every time he kicked off the ground, a massive cloud of dust rose,
and each time, they moved from dozens to hundreds of meters.
As a result, they were able to reach the northern entrance, where the monsters were approaching, in no time.

“Haa……. Uwah…….”

Serpens let out rough breaths.
His hair was a mess, and his mind seemed to have fallen somewhere beyond the horizon.
While he gasped for breath, the gazes of the soldiers there focused on the two of them.

“You have arrived, Commander.”

Lionel greeted Lucas.
He, too, had been flustered for a very brief moment.
Because reinforcements had dropped from the sky at an unexpected moment.
Well, it didn’t matter.
The earlier they arrived, the better.

‘Looks like he went through some trouble.’

Lionel glanced at Serpens.
He seemed unused to the process of traveling like that.
Of course, adapting to Lucas’s way of moving was no easy task.
Once one saw his leaps, one would wonder whether he was even the same kind of human.

“What is the enemy’s current advance?”

Lucas said as he looked around.
In the process, he noticed several pieces of information.

That the villagers had finished evacuating, and that the other Knight Commanders were rapidly gathering.
And the general direction from which the monsters were approaching.

“Considering the monsters’ movement speed, they will arrive here in about an hour.”
“Do you have a plan in mind?”
“I do, but we need to buy time until the Fourth Battalion arrives.”
“How long?”
“We should allow a full hour. The Fourth Battalion happened to be stationed in the south…….”
“Have you found out the enemy’s scale?”
“As of ten minutes ago, around six thousand.”
“……Understood.”

There was one thing both Lucas and Lionel were worried about.
Undead continued to increase in number on contaminated land.
The enemy numbered six thousand. That was only as of ten minutes ago.
Because the land was being contaminated in real time as they advanced toward this place,
it wouldn’t be strange no matter how much their number had increased in those ten minutes.

“How long will it take for the Second Battalion or Third Battalion to arrive?”
“If we go by the arrival of the Knight Commanders, both should take around twenty or thirty minutes.”
“Once they arrive, I think we should advance as well. What do you think?”
“I will leave the judgment to you, Commander.”
“You may come to doubt my judgment. Are you still fine with that?”

Lionel tapped his chest with his right hand.
His silver armor clanked.

“I spent thirteen years serving under you, Commander. It has been a long time since I decided to follow your judgment even if I doubt it. On the battlefield, is that not the correct answer?”
“……Understood.”

Serpens staggered as he came back to his senses.
In the meantime, Lucas gave Lionel an order.

Lionel flinched for a moment, but as he had said, he followed Lucas’s order.

“Everyone except the two most skilled magicians and four squad-leader-level Experts will return to the fortress! Return and establish a defensive line!”

The other knights were also flustered when they heard the order.
But they followed Lionel’s command.
In wartime, the commander’s orders were absolute.
That was something every member of the knight order knew.

Lionel granted command authority at the fortress to one of the squad-leader-level Experts.
There were five Experts here.
It was the one who remained after excluding the four who would go to the battlefield with them.

The knights moved toward the fortress.
Watching them, Lucas explained the plan to those who remained.

“Our goal is to buy time. The Death Knight cannot be killed unless it is by the Fourth Battalion. So once the Second and Third Battalions join us, we will strike the Vampire Lord first.”

One magician raised a hand and asked.

“Will we be all right with this number……?”

It was a reasonable doubt.
The confirmed number of enemies alone was around six thousand.
Moreover, that number was gradually increasing.
By the time they encountered the enemy, that number could be ten thousand.

In contrast, this side had seven.
And among them was some young boy.
Even if the Second and Third Battalions joined them…….
Could they stop more than six thousand monsters?

Lionel placed a hand on the magician’s shoulder.
The magician looked at Lionel’s silver hair swaying in the wind,
and his eyes shining with certainty.

He looked at him.

“Don’t worry. Simply trust, and follow with all your strength. Then the matter will be resolved.”