Chapter 20
Among the fiends, one prophecy has taken root like a legend.
- When the earth has drunk its fill of the blood of the fiends abandoned by heaven, the Demon King shall return from the pool formed by their tears.
The words left behind by the prophet were the driving force that allowed the fiends to endure in this world that persecuted them.
They had no doubt that the Demon King who would return for them would lead them.
But···
‘Why.’
Why was that Demon King pointing his sword at him?
The lizardman thought as he pointed his spear at the approaching Demon King.
‘Why is the Demon King attacking us?!’
Of course, the being the lizardman was looking at had not declared himself the Demon King.
The knight who had smashed through the city gate was merely taking the fiends’ lives with disciplined swordsmanship; he had not proclaimed himself the Demon King.
But his appearance as he approached while slaughtering the fiends was unmistakably that of a Demon King.
Thud.
The ogre warrior who had bravely led the charge was sucked toward the knight’s outstretched left hand.
The knight pierced the heart of the ogre pulled toward him, then swung his sword wide as though shaking the ogre off.
The chill sword aura emanating from the blade passed through the fiends’ necks.
Those with keen instincts ducked and preserved their lives, but the heads of those who failed to do so parted ways with their bodies.
Nearly a hundred heads that could not close their eyes rolled across the ground.
As the lizardman held back his nausea at the sight of his comrades reduced to silent lumps, the knight made a motion with his left hand as though lifting something.
At that, the mages chanting spells in the rear rose into the air and were impaled on the trees and pillars that had been cleanly severed by the slash moments earlier.
Agh···
The mages who had not died instantly convulsed while impaled on the trees before going limp.
The knight continued walking between the bloodstained pillars.
“Eek—!”
A panicked soldier fired an arrow, but the greatsword was already waiting there, as though it had known.
Ting.
Blocking the projectiles with disciplined movements, the knight closed the distance, pulled the remaining soldiers toward him, and swung his greatsword.
The greatsword, tracing a semicircle, produced yet more silent corpses.
‘How is that not the Demon King?!’
The lizardman made a tearful face and pointed his trembling spear at the Demon King.
He wanted nothing more than to flee, but that cruel Demon King broke the necks of those who ran with an unknown power.
But it was not as though he showed mercy to those who did not run.
Only a slow death awaited them.
In the end, the difference was whether they died pointlessly or died slowly.
‘Does that guy really think dying in battle is honorable?!’
Otherwise, he would not be slowly wearing them down like this while claiming to grant them an honorable death.
At that moment, someone blocked the knight’s path.
“Haha! What an honorable battlefield!”
It was the cyclops chieftain known as the Ten-Man Cutter.
The cyclops, a close aide of the Great Chieftain, was a famous warrior renowned for the strength to cut down ten knights with a single swing of his axe.
His appearance sent a faint current of hope through the fiends.
Perhaps he could···
“This is the battle I’ve been waiting for! At long last, I’ve found a worthy opponent!“
The cyclops approached until he stood right in front of the knight, each step making the earth tremble.
The knight was quite tall himself, but he was no match for the half-giant cyclops.
The cyclops raised his axe toward the knight, who came up to his solar plexus, and
“Try blocking this!”
gripped the axe handle with both hands and brought it down with all his might.
But the blow that held all the fiends’ hopes was stopped futilely before the knight’s greatsword.
The grand clang of metal did nothing to disturb the knight’s composure as he blocked the axe.
The cyclops was even pressing down on the axe with both hands, the veins in his eyes bulging, yet the knight stopped it effortlessly with one hand.
The knight soon clenched his left hand, the one not holding the greatsword, and drove it into the cyclops’s abdomen.
Only after hearing the dull sound of flesh being struck and seeing the cyclops’s body crumple as its insides spilled from its belly did the fiends realize.
“Haha··· damn···”
They let out hollow laughs and lowered their weapons.
*
Meanwhile, Rex had been watching Duke from afar.
During this battle, Rex did not share Duke’s screen through the Interface.
That was because Duke had warned him before the battle began.
- “I recommend that you not watch my battle directly this time.”
Following his advice, Rex saw Duke’s battlefield as a single green dot driving away numerous red dots.
If Rex had directly witnessed Duke crucifying the fiends, he would not have been able to hold back from vomiting his insides.
Rex admired Duke’s outstanding work as part of the assault team.
‘Wasn’t the plan to draw their aggro? Why is Duke chasing the fiends?’
The textbook approach to a diversion was clearly to strike and withdraw, yet Duke was pushing forward instead.
‘No matter how I look at it, this isn’t a diversion but an encirclement and annihilation operation··· Is it just my imagination···’
The sight of the red dots being pushed away from the green dot even created the illusion that someone was cleaning with a mop.
However, Rex did not particularly stop Duke from acting that way.
From the perspective of drawing aggro, all the city’s forces were heading toward Duke to stop him, so he was fulfilling his role perfectly.
The rescue team was smoothly rescuing the citizens, and the assassination team was smoothly carrying out its raid on the Great Chieftain.
Everything was going smoothly.
Everything should have been going smoothly.
But Rex could not stop thinking about what Duke had said before the operation began.
- “Lord Rex. Commanders often do not understand the hearts of their soldiers. Please take care not to make that mistake.”
Duke’s words from before the operation continued to bother him.
That was why he was carefully monitoring Ari and Duke’s conditions, but no matter how much he thought about it, he could not understand the intent behind Duke’s words.
When they had nearly brought down the Great Chieftain, Rex dismissed it as needless worry and declared the operation a success.
It did not take long for Rex to regret that decision.
***
After declaring the operation a success, Rex tended to the injuries of the rescued citizens.
Since the battle was over, Duke, who had finished exterminating the fiends, also joined the camp.
Thus, everyone waited for the return of the assassination team, which could be called the final stars of the operation.
The assassination team appeared last, some time later.
However, the condition of the assassination team was serious.
Every member of the party that had accompanied Ari bore serious injuries.
Some looked fine on the outside but had ruptured organs, while one warrior’s muscles had melted from overusing an ability.
Rex’s complexion turned deathly pale after hearing their condition from the healer.
But Ari’s condition was even more serious than theirs.
One arm hung limp with broken bones, while the other dangled as the price of taking the Great Chieftain’s final blow.
The wound had been deep enough that, if it had gone just a little deeper, her arm would have disappeared like some red-haired pirate’s.
Only then did Rex understand the meaning of Duke’s warning.
‘I··· shouldn’t have viewed people as mere numbers.’
Rex had given orders with the mindset of playing a game.
Unlike Ari, the other adventurers who had not signed contracts were displayed to Rex only as dots.
So he had given them orders based on the red health bars displayed on the Interface.
He had told them to retreat once they had lost a certain amount of health, receive healing, and then return to the fight.
These injuries were the price.
That was not the only thing he needed to reflect on.
Rex wondered if he might have viewed Ari as nothing more than an NPC.
According to her status window, Ari could clearly be considered a 4.5-tier being.
However, that was only in terms of physical power and technique.
Her tier was still third tier, and so were her other stats.
Her fangs had merely reached the point of grazing the fourth tier; it did not mean she could go toe-to-toe with a fourth-tier being.
At the cost of breaking both arms, she had to fight the Great Chieftain through extreme overexertion.
All of this was the result of Rex judging people by numbers.
No one had died, but with a little bad luck, someone could have.
‘I···’
Was he truly qualified to be a commander?
Yet, despite Rex’s worries, the adventurers who had succeeded in the operation expressed their gratitude to him.
Ari, too, expressed both gratitude and respect toward him.
“Thanks to Lord Rex’s command, we were able to defeat him.”
By defeating the Great Chieftain, Ari reached the fourth tier, and the party members who had fought alongside her each rose in tier as well.
Although they had suffered injuries that left their lives hanging by a thread, they had ultimately achieved the best possible outcome.
“There is no need to be so hard on yourself, Master.”
With Ari’s warm words comforting him, Rex shed tears and leaned against her.
Although it had not been perfect, his second time commanding troops could also be considered a success.
*
The night of the day they liberated the city.
Since night had fallen and moving the rescued citizens would be difficult, the expedition decided to stay for one night before leaving.
- Cheers!
The adventurers drank from their cups around bonfires in the square,
on a night when the prisoners shed tears mingling the freedom they had truly regained with sorrow for all they had lost.
By the time even Rex had finally managed to fall asleep in the bed provided for him,
deep in the night, Duke left his lodging alone instead of going to sleep.
Ari called out to him as he headed somewhere in the same clothes he had worn during the day.
“Sir, I have something to tell you.”
With one arm held in a sling made from bandages and a blanket wrapped around her, she spoke.
With his back to her, Duke merely dipped his head without looking at her.
“Speak.”
“You intended for what happened this afternoon to happen, didn’t you?”
Duke immediately realized which incident Ari was referring to.
“I apologize for that. It was an experience my liege needed.”
“As I thought···”
Ari had also been beside Rex when Duke warned him.
And once everything was over, she guessed that the assassination team’s injuries had been Duke’s intention.
Duke confirmed her guess.
‘It was an incident that happened in the original story, too.’
Because Rex had viewed people as numbers, he overlooked internal injuries among some of the adventurers, which led to their deaths.
Since that became a lesson that allowed him to grow into an even better commander, Duke could not go against the flow of the original story.
Duke continued speaking while staring off into the distance rather than meeting Ari’s eyes.
“You have every right to blame me.”
However, Ari neither blamed nor reproached him.
“No. Rather, I’m grateful.”
“?”
“It was for Lord Rex, wasn’t it? If so, I would gladly give up an arm. If Lord Rex and I can both learn a lesson under your protection, I welcome it anytime.”
At her words, Duke raised his head slightly.
“Did you know?”
“Yes. The Great Chieftain’s movements were a little strange.”
Just as she said, Duke had deliberately left their injuries untreated.
However, he had carefully intervened whenever they might lead to serious disabilities.
He had stopped the adventurers’ internal injuries at the level of bruises that could heal before becoming serious wounds.
He slowed the blow that had severed Ari’s arm in the original story, allowing her arm to be cut less deeply.
Above all···
“You finished off the Great Chieftain when he pretended to be dead and tried to attack us from behind, didn’t you, Sir Duke?”
“Let me correct your misunderstanding on that point. The Great Chieftain was already fated to die. I merely held him down until death claimed him.”
In the original story, the Great Chieftain pretended to be dead, then took one of the adventurers with him.
It was not a pleasant scene, so Duke had intervened, but it was unquestionably Ari who had ended the Great Chieftain’s life.
“Therefore, let this achievement be yours. Praise and renown for what one did not do are forms of corruption that a knight ought to shun.”
“Understood, Sir.”
As though that concluded the conversation, Duke resumed walking.
Ari lowered her head toward his retreating back.
It was probably just her imagination, but under the moonlight, Ari felt as though Duke’s helmet had nodded.
***
After parting with Ari, Duke headed straight to the place where the Great Chieftain’s corpse lay.
The Great Chieftain’s corpse lay undisturbed in the lobby of the former mayor’s mansion.
However, someone had already arrived there before him.
“Who are you?”
“Ah, you’re Duke. You may not know this, but we’re the people who regained our freedom thanks to all of you.”
They introduced themselves as prisoners.
Surrounding the Great Chieftain’s corpse, they welcomed Duke with delight.
“We were guarding it in case someone took it. It’s our hero’s spoils, so shouldn’t we be the ones to protect it?”
Pleased by their heartwarming words, Duke nodded.
“Even a mere beast knows gratitude for being rescued. That does not make the goodwill of repaying that grace any less radiant, however. Is this cycle of goodwill not the salt that makes the world beautiful?”
“Haha. Thank you.”
“But aren’t you tired?”
“We’re fine. We can endure it for a day for the sake of our benefactors.”
“I understand. Ignoring your goodwill like this would also be rude. I shall take my leave.”
As though convinced, Duke turned around and prepared to leave the lobby where the Great Chieftain’s corpse lay.
At that moment, those who had introduced themselves as prisoners nodded toward one another.
They exchanged glances and quietly drew their weapons.
The one holding a bow aimed at Duke, who was still turned away as though he knew nothing.
The one closest to Duke drew his sword silently.
He thrust the sword toward Duke’s neck without so much as a swish through the air.
However, the tip of the sword stopped a handspan from Duke’s neck and could move no farther.
The citizen who had been a prisoner(?) stared in confusion at the trembling sword tip.
At that moment, Duke, who had been facing away, turned his head back toward them and spoke.
“A knight never forgets the face of the person he saved.”
Of course, Duke did not remember any of them at all.
But if he had never remembered them in the first place, strictly speaking, he could not have forgotten them.
Ignoring the faint voice of conscience that still remained, Duke grasped the air.
As though responding to his hand movement, the Great Chieftain’s heart inside one of the fake citizens’ pockets burst.
Recalling the original story, Duke recited the line he had prepared.
“Even beasts know reason and gratitude···”
The lord in the original story did not even obtain the heart.
After the Great Chieftain pretended to be dead and took one of his comrades with him, Ari ground his corpse into meatballs in a fit of rage.
But the Great Chieftain in this world was relatively intact, so Duke could predict the lord’s next move.
“It seems the lord’s dogs are all inferior even to that beast.”
With those words, Duke, who had lowered his tier before entering the mansion, raised it again.
This time, all the way to the seventh tier.
One of the fake citizens(?) collapsed, suffering from respiratory distress.
Without paying it any mind, Duke finished his line.
“I will not even grant you the honor of holding swords.”
He clenched his hand around empty air.