Chapter 73

The monster’s eyes were hidden behind its black helmet.
However, the boy was clearly meeting that gaze.

He had to run.
That single thought urged on the boy’s frozen body.

But how?
Running was only possible if he could move faster than this monster’s sword.
But no matter how he considered it, that was impossible.

What if he charged in instead?
No, that was a stupid thought.
What would he do even if he charged in?
Get trampled to death by the horse?

“Accept death with humility.”

The low voice dug into the boy’s ears.
Immediately, the greatsword wrapped in flames came down on the boy.
At the moment Serpens could not even react.

Clang!

A thunderous sound rang out above his head.
What entered the boy’s sight was a blue cloak, torn and fluttering.
Lionel stood there, blocking the Death Knight’s sword.

“What are you standing there staring for!”

Lionel’s shout woke the boy,
and at the same time, someone’s hand snatched Serpens by the back of the neck.

Kwagagak.

A purple sphere fell where Serpens had been.
The explosion that followed raised a massive cloud of dust and blocked his vision.

“You should be dealing with the undead, so why are you butting in and making a mess!”

A sharp voice pierced his ears.
It was the knight who had snatched him by the back of the neck and saved him from the explosion of the purple sphere.

“Making a mess? I was only trying to create an opening for you-”
“Cut the chatter and deal with the undead around us!”

The Expert set Serpens down not far away.
He clicked his tongue briefly, then immediately joined Lionel.

A dozen or so Experts swung their weapons at the enemy.
All of them were drawing up their Aura to the fullest and pouring out all their strength.

Sword clashed against sword, and flashes of light erupted.
The force of the impact split the ground.

The knights left scratches on the Death Knight’s armor,
but that was all.

Far from dealing fatal damage,
they had not managed to land an attack that could be called an effective hit.

‘Will they be all right…….’

It grew harder and harder to breathe.
The amount of sweat running down him also increased.
It was not because of his imagination, nor because he was nervous.
The heat emitted by the Death Knight and the horse it rode was gradually growing stronger.
And the stronger that heat became, the more the tide of battle tilted toward the monster.

Kirek!

At the sound from behind, Serpens reflexively raised his sword.
He cut the legs of the monster that rushed in, breaking its balance,
then drove his sword into the back of its head.

‘I’ll do my best at what I can do, but…….’

Greater strength filled the Death Knight’s sword,
and the purple spheres gradually grew larger.

Serpens admitted that he could not be of help to the Experts.

It was bitter.
He had gotten a little full of himself while dealing with the undead.
He had just been feeling that the effort he had made until now was beginning to shine little by little.
Until the Death Knight blocked the boy’s attack with a single finger.

“…….”

At the chilling sensation, Serpens brought a hand to his neck.
His thoughts stopped because of another being’s power,
an oppressive feeling that did not even allow him to run.

‘Get it together.’

Serpens took a deep breath and looked around.
Knights fought while surrounding the Death Knight.
Countless undead surrounded those knights.
What he had to do was clear.

Deal with the undead.

“Hup!”

Pkak!

A sharp sound spread, and the monster’s head fell off.

Just as there were knights facing the Death Knight,
there were also knights dealing with the undead without rest.

Kwakagagak!

One of them was the white-haired knight carving through enemies in the distance like no one could match him.
With that skill, he was clearly on par with Lionel.
He was certainly stronger than the other Experts.

Yet he was not facing the Death Knight.
No one was dissatisfied with that,
and no one questioned it like the boy did.

‘Buying time until the Fourth Battalion arrives. That is the primary objective!’

Wasn’t dealing with the undead just as important as dealing with the Death Knight?
If most of the people focused on the Death Knight, the countless undead would be left alone.

If that happened, their advance toward the fortress would continue.
Then the plan would fail.

Wasn’t the white-haired knight also dealing with the undead because he knew that?

“…….”

Perhaps it was a rationalization of his own helplessness.
But so what if it was a rationalization?
What he had to do did not change.

If what he had to do was already decided anyway,
then he could simply work harder, even if he had to rationalize it.

At the very least, it was far better than being discouraged by helplessness.

“Phew…….”

Serpens quickly caught his breath.

In the brief moment he had been unable to pay attention.
The undead he had taken down began twitching.

Pabat-

The boy rushed at them again.
He dealt with the twitching monsters and the newly charging monsters.
After swinging his sword several more times, both his arms began to go numb.
As the strength slowly left his legs, his breathing soon grew labored as well.
But a smile was on Serpens’s lips.

In this process of facing the enemy with all his strength, he felt exhilaration.
Because it felt as if he had truly become a knight,
because it felt as if he had become a necessary member of this society,
strength even rose within him instead.

The boy swung his sword several more times.
He cut down enemies until it was difficult to maintain Aura any longer.

The Aura on his sword had long since grown faint.
The sparks that had crackled along the blade now only sputtered weakly.

“Come at me, you zombie bastards-!”

Even so, Serpens moved forward.
His stamina had reached a crisis, but he did not think he wanted to stop.

Would anyone recognize this effort?
Perhaps no one would ever know this labor.
But it didn’t matter.
Because the sweat he was shedding now was not for them.

“Hraap!”

Pkak!

The one he was forcing his exhausted body to move for was the boy himself.

He thought that cutting down one undead meant saving one person.

He would save one person, then one more.
That would become ten, then a hundred, and he would save even more people.

The boy smiled despite the hardship.
The moment they thanked him,
he felt relief that he was alive.

What does one live for?
Everyone would have a different answer to that.

Serpens would answer that he didn’t know.
He lived simply because he had been born.
More than the many pains he had suffered while living,
he feared the death he had never experienced, so he simply clung fiercely to life.

When he happened to eat delicious food, he became happy,
and if he slept somewhere warmer, he became happy.
He had simply lived that kind of life.

“Haha……!”

That boy was beginning to find meaning in life.
Not as a beggar bastard who only wasted food,
but as a fine knight who protected others.

How impressive he was.
This was not him desperately pretending he was fine.
Now, to some degree,
at least in this moment,

‘I might be kind of cool?’

Serpens continued swinging his sword.
He had no major injuries, but because he lacked stamina, he considered eating a Golden Mandragora seed.
But he didn’t.
Because he had a feeling he would definitely need to use it.

Cutting, stabbing, blocking, and dodging.
He did that dozens more times.
Serpens felt intense thirst.
The heat emitted by the Death Knight grew even hotter,
and in the midst of that, he could not stop moving.

“Damn it……. How is this going?”

He glanced aside and checked the situation of the other knights.
The fight between the Experts and the Death Knight still continued.
But unlike the heat that had grown stronger, the knights’ Aura was gradually weakening,
and only the monster’s purple flames burned fiercely, as if trying to devour the knights.

At the moment that tension was maintained.
Before long, the balance they had somehow managed to maintain collapsed.
It began when one knight who misstepped took an attack directly and was sent flying.

The balance of power that had been level tilted to one side,
and once it tilted, it tilted even faster.

The knights fell one by one.
Filling those gaps fell entirely to Lionel.
The silver-haired Knight Commander, wrapped in red Aura over his entire body,
firmly endured the weight of his title.

“What an amazing human.”

Lionel was the only one who could meet the Death Knight’s attacks head-on.
What would have happened without that man?
Everyone would probably have been swallowed by the Death Knight’s flames long ago.

“Ugh!”

Takang!

The undead’s attacks began to carry strength.
No, this was their original strength.

The allied magicians’ main objective was no longer debuffing the monsters.
Healing the wounded, and preserving lives.
Once that became the priority, the debuffs aimed at the monsters naturally had to lessen.

“Ah, fuck. When are they coming!”

Irritation slowly surged in.
Where were those Fourth Battalion bastards, and what were they doing?
Thirty minutes?
That had long since passed.
Even if they had all slipped together on the way, they should have arrived by now.

Serpens frowned.
The monsters’ necks no longer came off in one strike.
He gritted his teeth and swung his black sword.
As the monster was cut, red blood splattered into his mouth,
and an indescribable disgust rose from within him.

He slowly began to be surrounded by the undead.
The speed at which he took them down could not keep up with the speed at which they approached,
and the encirclement gradually tightened.

At the moment even the space to swing his sword was disappearing,

Flash.

“Ugh!”

A brilliant light blocked his vision.

Kieeeeek!

The screams of monsters rang in his ears.
At the sudden unexpected situation, Serpens narrowed his eyes and looked around.

The undead slowly turned to ash and disappeared.
The way they writhed in pain looked as if they were burning.

Kiiiiing-

As the light cleared, a strange sound immediately came from high in the sky.
Serpens raised his head toward the sound.

“What…… is that……!”

A massive magic array covered the sky.
The magic array slowly rotated around a single being.

“You dare try to use the power of god as a mere mortal!”

The Death Knight swung its sword widely and shook off the knights.
However, unlike its furious roar, it hastily turned its horse’s head.

“Do not let it leave its position!”

Lionel blocked the Death Knight.

Kwagakang!

“You damned human bastard!”

Kwagagak!

The swords of the two beings clashed.
The red Aura surrounding Lionel surged up in violent waves.
The collision of power could be felt even from quite a distance.

Serpens was shocked by the fact that Lionel had not been using his full strength until now.

However, it was impossible for him to completely seal the enemy’s movements alone.
The knights who could still move rushed in to help Lionel,
but they were only sent flying by the enraged Death Knight’s sword strikes.

‘What about that man?’

Serpens turned his head and looked for the white-haired Knight Commander.
He could clearly feel his presence.
But for some reason, he couldn’t see him.

“…….”

One thought crossed Serpens’s mind.

“Huuup.”

He put strength into his lower body and prepared to leap.
He wanted to deal a proper blow to that monster,
but he knew he did not have the skill for that.

His past efforts had not yet caught up to the boy’s wish.
But that was only ‘not yet,’ was it not?

Pat.

Serpens squeezed out his remaining stamina and charged toward the fierce contest of strength.

“……!”

Seeing that, Lionel tried to stop the boy,
but the enemy before him did not even allow him the chance to speak.

Serpens reached the front of the Death Knight.
The boy endured the heat and slipped under the horse the monster rode.

“Meaningless!”

The Death Knight pulled the reins and moved the horse.
Its movements gradually grew rougher.
One fierce kick.
That one kick might take his life.

But.

“Uaaaaah!”

Serpens swung his sword at the horse’s hind leg, prepared to be injured.

His past efforts might not have produced as much growth as he wanted.
But he would not be discouraged by that.
Because if he didn’t give up and continued his efforts,
he believed that one day, he could achieve something beyond the growth he wanted.

And just because he had not grown as much as he wanted,
that didn’t mean it was meaningless.

Clang-!

Because effort was, by nature, the sweat of the process creating the light of the result.

The boy’s sword struck the horse’s joint precisely.
However, even with an attack that gathered all his remaining strength, it only created a momentary tremor.

Crack-

“Ugh!”

A purple sphere that flew in from the side sent the boy flying far away.
He blocked it by laying his sword flat, but even so, it was an enormous impact.

Thrusting his sword out any further was impossible.
Even so, Serpens could smile.

That momentary tremor he had created.

“Uaaaaaaah!”

Because Lionel had charged in and succeeded in pinning the Death Knight in place.

Ruuuuuumble-

Serpens caught his rough breath and blinked.
At the center of the magic array pouring out light,
a massive sword of immeasurable size slowly began to fall.
Just the blade alone was as large as the Basilisk.
That massive sword cut through the air and descended toward a single monster.

“Ha…… haha……!”

A laugh came out on its own.
By his guess, that was the power of the Knight Commander of the Fourth Battalion.

Just how many strong people existed in the world?
And what level was he at?

Before long, the radiant sword fell over the monster’s head.
The Death Knight spat out its rage and tried to block the approaching sword,
but the sword ignored its efforts and struck the ground.

Ruuuuumble-

A fierce wind scattered the boy’s hair.
Serpens continued catching his breath and looked up at the sky.

High in the sky.
Above the slowly disappearing magic array,
only the silhouette of one person remained clear.