Chapter 76

It was roughly five kilometers—a generous detour to reach a place that should have been only two kilometers away as the crow flies—from Isberg Village to our destination. Even so, the fact that the signal fire went up sooner than expected was a stroke of luck.

“As expected of Captain Akina! Even setting up traps is a piece of cake for her!”

“R-really, is it already finished…? That area is difficult for me to work in, and the knights had never been there before, right?”

“Dealing with unfamiliar work happens all the time. Or maybe even that was a struggle for them? Especially the Captain; she’s probably more incredible than you imagine, Busse-kun!”

Although Captain Akina belongs to the younger side of the knight order’s average age, I’ve heard that the speed at which she climbed to the rank of squad leader—even in the niche, specialized field of the Tool Creation Squad—was the fastest in the history of the Royal Foreign Hazardous Species Countermeasures Knights.

Furthermore, there was even an unprecedented incident where the higher-ups fought bitterly over whether she should become the squad leader of the Engineering Squad or the Tool Creation Squad. As frustrating as it is, the “Old Man with a Beard’s” ability to discover new talent is legitimate.

“And yet, she has that kind of personality…”

“Maybe she has that personality because of it. Our knight order is full of people with extremely specialized talents.”

Busse pinched the bridge of his nose at the combination of overly specific talents and the unbalanced personalities that didn’t match them, but unfortunately, we have even more “peaky” people in our order.

For example, Senior Roberto, a member of the Engineering Squad and one of the elders, has digging skills on the level of a human mole, but he is a die-hard eccentric who usually digs a hole near the motive carriages and sits snugly inside it. Yesterday, he built a makeshift roof over his hole and whispered, “The ground is warm in the winter…” I don’t mind him burying himself, but I wish he would shake off all the dirt properly before getting into a motive carriage after he comes out.

“Why is a righteous knight order meant to protect the citizens in such a state!?”

“There are deep and painful circumstances behind this that can’t be expressed in a single word, Busse-kun. When you grow up, you’ll surely understand… the corruption and darkness of this kingdom!”

“No, I don’t want to know, I don’t want to know! Let me believe that knights are cleaner, cooler people!!”

See? As I thought, being a knight isn’t really a job you should recommend to a child. Or so I thought, but if a day truly comes when no one joins us, our order would be forced to rely entirely on scouts and become even weirder.

I wonder if some incredible officer candidate will come along and change the order.

Rosalind, who is still just an officer, seems like a promising candidate. Even if she does come with a “bomb” attached.

While thinking about such trivial matters, we passed through the coniferous forest and emerged onto a white, snowy hill. On top of the hill sat a house whose entrance design was garishly flashy and in poor taste, appearing as if it were floating.

Yes, this… was not the place to lure the monster, but the area just past it.

“Varna-san! There’s a slope ahead! Use the sled near the house!”

“We can slide down this on a sled!? Damn it, if I had known before the Orc came, I could have comfortably fulfilled one of my childhood dreams… I will never forgive you, Orc!!”

“You can slide as much as you want after we exterminate it, so hurry up!!”

We slid down the slope, overlooking the beautiful, snow-covered landscape. Growing up in a place that didn’t get snow, there was no way I couldn’t yearn for this. Apparently, the Snow-Play Unit DD had cultivated this slope by working hard to clear the side of a mountain far away from here, and I couldn’t help but think they should have just used this place instead of being so stubborn.

As we entered the hill, I waited until the Orc descended below the trees and its movement speed dropped before applying the brake. The momentum was so strong that Busse’s forehead hit the back of my head, causing him to scream from behind, “Ouch!?” but figuring that pain was manageable, I grabbed the sled and jumped on as I ran.

Honestly, running non-stop up to this point had been physically exhausting. In my case, I was using the most draining combat style: extreme Quick acceleration and Stop deceleration. I managed to keep my breath steady, but I decided to take it easy here to ensure I was in perfect condition for the final push.

The sled, large enough to carry two adults, lost its friction against the snow and gained speed with mysterious intensity. A freezing wind whistled past my ears, and as the black trees flowed by my side and we accelerated toward the lower ground, I inwardly resolved, “I’ll do this again later,” despite the impropriety of the thought. I had done it on meadows before, but the raw sense of speed in the real thing was on another level.

However, since it wasn’t a very long slope, the incline began to level off soon enough. Lingering with regret, I stood up from the sled as it decelerated and prepared to leap once more while shedding the remaining speed.

“That should have closed the distance even furth…?”

“Huh? What’s this? The surroundings suddenly went dark…”

At that moment, a shadow suddenly fell over us. Even though the snow was piling up deep and the sunlight was already sparse, what could it mean for it to become even darker? I couldn’t understand it, but my intuition as a knight told me this:

Get away from there, right now.

“Bughyuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

Immediately after, at the exact moment I leapt, a white Orc “jumped down from above” with a roar, its giant body crashing into the spot where we had been just a moment ago. A roar like thunder rattled my eardrums, accompanied by a massive plume of swirling powder snow.

Busse let out a scream at the mass of “death” that had suddenly fallen from the heavens.

“It jumped down from the top of the slope!? What kind of jumping power is that…!”

“Come to think of it, those guys were pretty good at jump attacks… I’m glad my instincts remembered the time I almost died from that back in the day…!!”

The hateful first incident that occurred when I had just become a knight. I never thought my experience in that fierce battle against an Orc that had ambushed me from a tree would come in handy here. It’s always good to have experience. The accumulation of those experiences is what saves your life like this.

Recognizing that its attack had missed, the white Orc immediately rose to its feet. Busse’s hand, which was clutching me, tightened as he saw the shattered remains of the sled on the Orc’s belly. Whether it was from fear or because it was a keepsake, I didn’t know, but I had no intention of letting the sacrifice of the sled go to waste.

Feeling the ground suddenly turn firm, I carefully moved forward while hooking my boot spikes into the surface. There wasn’t a single obstacle in our path, and a surprisingly flat, snow-covered field spread out before us.

“Busse-kun, where is it?”

“Ten o’clock from here… Oh, look! The snow is disturbed only in that area!”

“That’s the spot. I’m a bit nervous since it’s a one-shot deal, but…!”

“Bu-gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!”

While taking the air, which was vibrating from the Orc’s violent roar, into my whole body, Busse and I stopped on the silver-white plain and stared straight at the Orc. Busse’s grip on me became firm, and my hand reached naturally for my beloved sword.

This empty, flat space would become the graveyard for the white beast that had caused so much destruction.

The beast’s intelligence had been coated over by deep remorse for failing to protect its partner, hatred for the slaughter of its kin, and an unnaturally heightened fighting instinct caused by its bloated body.

In reality, the beast had never seen the bear that slaughtered its kin; it knew it only by scent. However, every time it recalled that scent, the beast remembered its maddening intent to kill again and again. Thus, when the humans stepped into the nest and the scent of its mate’s blood drifted through the air, the Orc’s reason collapsed easily.

—Kill the owner of that scent.

Dragged along by that single killing intent, the beast pursued the scent.Within the cluster of humans, there was a faint scent, but the beast noticed an intense odor coming from even further away and immediately prioritized that. The destination it reached was a human village. It was a beast that normally never carelessly approached places where large numbers of other creatures lived, but at that moment, something clicked inside the beast’s mind.

There were countless traps it didn’t like set up in the mountains—these traps reduced its already scarce food supply, so the beast had been going around destroying them. But no matter how many it broke, more kept popping up; there was no end to it. And the ones who set them were humans.

In short, it was all the humans’ fault.

The beast, which was not very bright, believed that all the tragedies that had befallen its kin were the humans’ fault. In fact, among the humans attacking them, one human was exceptionally strong and darted about nimbly. It was convinced that this must be the one who had killed everyone.

And finally, it discovered the scent of the culprit. It was a beast’s pelt—the beast assumed it was probably a type of human “clothing.” The one holding it was an incredibly young and tiny human, but the abominable scent radiating from the fur blew away the last shred of the beast’s reason.

—I won’t let you escape again.

The beast chased after the sword-wielding human who was carrying the small human.

It had escaped at a speed unthinkable for a human, but the beast was confident it could win a test of stamina. Due to its frenzied state, it didn’t feel much pain from its injuries; all that functioned in its mind was the desire to crush the human and the fur until neither remained in their original form, turning them into a red rag.

When it descended the slope and landed in a flat space it had never seen before, the beast discovered the human standing there as if drooping, and instinctively thought:

—It has no strength left to run. Now is the time.

The beast’s own fatigue was also extraordinary. Though not consciously, its instincts preached the principles of the hunt—to finish the kill quickly—and the beast wanted to end this pointless chase as well.

The beast cautiously, inch by inch, closed the distance. To the killing range—to the position where it could surely finish off that nimble human. Even during this, the human showed no sign of running, standing still with only its face turned toward the beast.

“Bu-guwoooooooOOOOOOO!!!”

Was that a roar of victory, or a requiem for its fallen kin?

The beast, letting out a roar that seemed to split its throat, intertwined the fingers of both hands to form one large, hammer-like fist, and brought it crashing down with its full heart and soul.

Peak speed and destructive power. The unmoving human—with this, with this—

“It’s over for you.”

The human whispered that as they avoided the attack by “sliding sideways” at a speed incomparable to any acceleration shown before. The beast could not understand the meaning of those words.

Yes, until the fist collided with the ground—and the ground shattered, spraying a massive amount of water from within.

“Bu-gyah!?”

In an instant, a chorus-like sound of countless things snapping—crack, crack, crack—invaded the beast’s acute ears. Confused by the freezing cold water and ice covering its hands, the beast swung its arms to crush the human once more and braced its feet.

Immediately after, a thunderous roar rang out—CRACK-CRACK-CRACK!!—and the surface it braced its feet against, which should have been ground, shattered, and its body began to sink.

“Gyaaaah!? Bugyih, bugyiiih!?”

Its entire body was sucked into the hole, and the places it had assumed were solid ground crumbled one after another, causing its whole body to fall into the freezing water. A chill, on a completely different dimension from the cold wind, filled its entire body. It reflexively tried to grab onto ground that hadn’t broken, but the moment it placed its hand there, the surface shattered with a sharp snap, causing it to sink even further.

At this point, the beast finally realized a fact and was aghast.

This was not solid ground.

This was thin ice stretched over a massive pool of water.

When it looked up, the abominable human was staring down at it. Those eyes held neither hatred nor pity; they were as ruthless as the freezing, ice-choked water spreading out before it.

“Didn’t you notice? This is a lake. Because of the snow piled on top, you couldn’t tell it apart from the ground. Besides, this area isn’t your territory, so you shouldn’t have known the terrain.”

“Bu-gyaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!! Bi-gyiiiiiiiiiiiii!!!”

The beast struggled and thrashed, but because it had been caught off guard in the water, its swimming—which should have been a specialty—did not go well, and intense pain flared from several wounds inflicted by the weapon-wielding humans. It was a stinging, excruciating pain, far beyond the initial stabbing of the sword, that caused the beast’s consciousness to drift further away.

Is this how I die?

As the beast thought this, something was placed gently on top of its head.

It was the foot of the strong human it had chased so relentlessly, the one it thought it had cornered.

“It’s painful to die suffering, and it’s also painful to be unable to die quickly because of the pelt’s heat-insulating effect, isn’t it? I hate your kind, too, but I don’t like watching things struggle and suffer. So, sleep now…”

In an instant, a violent impact—as if a massive boulder had fallen onto the beast’s skull—exploded, and the beast lost consciousness, not even allowed to recognize what had happened. Its powerless body slowly, ever so slowly, sank into the cold water—and eventually, it descended into the darkness where the sun’s light could no longer reach.

—Varna taking the reckless action of jumping onto the Orc’s head in the water to deliver the finishing blow was not just due to the Orc’s fur, but also due to Busse’s small request. He had said that a hunter who receives a life from the mountain may take that life, but he must never toy with it.

Killing while inflicting unnecessary suffering is a desecration of a life.

As a knight order, it was a painful topic to hear, but Varna followed Busse’s words.

Because this hunt was a trap-hunt conducted not at the knight order’s initiative, but at Busse’s.

“Hidden Style, Eighth Form: Dancing Phoenix… I applied the destructive power generated by the misstep in my footwork to slam an impact into its head, but I wonder if that let it die easily…?”

Varna, who had moved Busse aside to deliver the final blow, muttered this in a somewhat concerned tone while staring at the water surface where small bubbles were still rising.