Chapter 36
I broke out of the formation and dashed straight into the fog without hesitation.
The white darkness blanketed everything, dulling my sense of direction. One wrong step, and I’d be lost before I knew it.
But there was no hesitation in my footsteps now. If anything, I felt lighter.
‘Freedom is great.’
There was no tangled noise, no cumbersome allies. Only the presences that were aiming for me stood out clearly.
I sharpened my senses again.
The direction the air was flowing.
The sound of grass being trampled.
The faint, seeping killing intent.
One by one, I caught the presences of the Phantom Mantises hiding in the white veil and waiting for an opening.
They seemed to have noticed me as well.
The one that breaks away from the pack gets hunted first. Their directions all swung this way at once.
-Kieek!
With a tearing screech, the fog churned violently.
Three bursts of killing intent surged at me at once.
A perfect encirclement, occupying every blind spot. Scythes came flying in, tracing half-circles.
-Swiish!
One person couldn’t block three directions at once. If I stood still, I’d be dead in an instant.
I kicked hard off the ground. My body dipped low as I cut in diagonally.
The blurry outline of a Phantom Mantis bled into view.
A scythe dropped straight down.
Even with the attack’s path blurred by the thick fog, my feet were already moving.
-Whoosh!
Using the ball of my foot as a pivot, I twisted hard against the ground. My body whirled like a spinning top.
The moment its scythe brushed my clothes and sliced through empty air,
I didn’t kill the spin’s momentum; I fed it into the tip of my sword and whipped it at its neck.
-Slish!
Its hard carapace was cut apart like tofu, and green fluid gurgled out.
I didn’t stop.
Using the spin’s inertia, I lowered my body.
-Swoosh!
A hair’s breadth.
The scythe flung from behind skimmed past dangerously close and scraped through the air.
Keeping my body even lower, I slid along the ground.
-Swaaash!
The sound of air being torn apart came from right beside me again. The one on my side reeled its scythe back and slashed in diagonally.
I planted one hand on the ground and shoved my body upward with force. I drove straight inside its guard.
“Hup!”
I cut my breath short.
I yanked the sword in.
Then I thrust it in as-is.
-Thunk!
My sword pierced deep into the mantis’s neck. Without stopping, I dragged the collapsing body toward me and propped it up like a shield.
Another presence flickered behind me.
-Krack!
A huge scythe sank deep into the back shell of the mantis I was holding up.
I’d just realized even mantises could look startled.
Looks like they have some camaraderie after all.
“Don’t worry.”
I’ll make you into one like this too.
***
“Don’t panic! Maintain formation!”
Brun, the captain of House Meyer’s knights, roared at the top of his lungs.
The situation was the worst possible.
Fog so thick you couldn’t see a step ahead.
Magical beasts that could pop out from anywhere.
Above all, there was too much they had to protect.
‘Damn it, of all days…!’
Today was the regular joint expedition of the Meyer barony and the House Edelheid ducal family.
If the magical beasts around the territory weren’t regularly hunted down, they’d attack homes or seize the roads.
But for a lowly frontier barony alone, clearing this harsh forest every time was nearly impossible.
So the two families had formed a symbiotic relationship.
House Meyer received the extra manpower it lacked to maintain order in its territory,
while Edelheid let its apprentices gain real combat experience under the protection of veterans.
A relationship that benefited both sides.
Even among knights, a frontier knight and a knight of the continent’s greatest ducal house were on entirely different levels.
Their support was a godsend to the barony.
‘Until that damn fog rolled in!’
Brun gritted his teeth and tightened his grip on his sword.
This fog was the mist created by the magical beast Phantom Mantis. Normally, it would only be a little denser than ordinary fog.
But this time there were far more of them. Because of that, the mist was so dense it blocked the view right in front of their noses.
‘I never would’ve thought Phantom Mantises, which don’t even hesitate to butcher their own kind, would gather in a pack.’
No doubt about it, an abnormal phenomenon. It was clearly another influence of the Three Great Calamities.
They were only apprentice knights, but they were apprentices of Edelheid. In skill, they were no worse than regular knights. He had high expectations for them.
But with their sight blocked now, the cadets had been reduced to nothing more than baggage.
If he charged out to attack, he worried the cadets would be counterattacked through the opening; if he stayed on defense, he couldn’t keep this up forever.
At this rate, they’d all end up getting wiped out together.
“Sir Brun.”
When Brun was at a loss and couldn’t move either way, Lance from the Edelheid side called out in a calm voice.
“Please take care of the main force. Sir Silvan, come with me.”
“Understood.”
Lance and Silvan dismounted and walked into the fog. Mana wrapped around their sword blades.
“I’ll take the left. Please handle the right.”
“Understood.”
The two knights stood back to back at the farthest distance where they could still sense each other’s presence.
The standard tactic for such limited visibility: entrust your back to an ally and minimize blind spots.
The pale fog swallowed their sight.
All they could trust was hearing.
And the instincts honed by experience.
Lance sharpened every nerve, even suppressing his breathing. Instead of relying on sight, he pushed his body forward as though feeling the space with his skin.
-Rustle.
The sound of leaves crumbling underfoot.
It was faint, but he didn’t miss it.
Lance’s sword flashed briefly. He shot toward the sound like an arrow.
-Puk!
His sword drove in without resistance.
Touch alone was enough.
There was no need to confirm it.
He quickly withdrew his sword.
-Kang!
The ring of steel sounded from behind him.
It was Silvan.
Lance didn’t pay it any mind. Silvan was unquestionably one of Edelheid’s blades.
Then came the sound of slicing, followed by something collapsing to the ground.
The two of them were full-fledged knights of Edelheid.
For two men who had weathered every kind of hardship, a fog like this was no threat at all.
After that, the two kept their spacing and cut down the approaching enemies like machines.
There was nothing flashy about it, but wherever they passed, Mantis corpses steadily piled up.
“Phew…….”
Once the last presence vanished, Silvan let out a long breath.
“This side’s done.”
“This side is as well.”
“Any injuries?”
“None. Though I concentrated so hard that my head’s throbbing.”
Silvan answered, pressing his temples.
Lance felt the same. The fatigue was certainly considerable. Fighting enemies in the fog was mentally exhausting.
“Is it over?”
“I’m not sure. I seem to have heard eleven, though.”
“I heard that too. Who reported it, anyway? To count the enemy’s numbers in that situation…”
“It was a lie, though.”
Lance and Silvan had taken down a total of five Phantom Mantises. He couldn’t sense any more presences. The count was short compared with the report.
In such a tense situation, to dare submit a false report. If something went wrong, it could have led to a serious accident.
It was definitely not something they could let slide. They had to find out who did it and reprimand them.
“The fog’s thinning. Still, it seems the big problem is over, thankfully.”
“…No. It looks like there’s still one left.”
“Pardon?”
Lance stared intently into the blurry distance. He sensed one more presence not far away.
It was different from a Phantom Mantis.
Smaller than one.
And it gave off a foul stench.
“A goblin?”
Had it gotten lost in the fog or something?
Either way, it didn’t matter.
The knight order had been gathered in one place under orders. Wandering alone through the fog at a time like this meant it was the enemy.
‘In other words, something that has to be eliminated.’
Lance thrust his sword into the fog without the slightest hesitation.
-Kang!
Sparks flew.
His sword was knocked back.
“What?”
Lance’s eyes were filled with shock.
It wasn’t a goblin.
Goblins didn’t use swords.
Then it was a human. And a skilled one at that, capable of reacting to a surprise attack.
“Who the hell are you!”
“It’s me. Leon.”
“…What?”
Sure enough, Leon walked out of the fog.
He was in a dreadful state, drenched from head to toe in green slime.
“Leon? Why are you here…?”
“I came out to hunt magical beasts.”
“What kind of nonsense is th—”
Lance’s words trailed off.
As the Phantom Mantises died, the fog they had created dispersed.
The forest gradually came into view.
At the sight revealed beyond it, Lance and Silvan were struck dumb and couldn’t say a word.
The ground was all slick with green bodily fluid, and on top of it the corpses of the Phantom Mantises lay grotesquely scattered.
“You… did all this by yourself?”
His voice trembling slightly.
Lance asked in disbelief.
“Hmm, I guess so?”
“…….”
Leon answered casually. Silvan, who had been stunned into silence, hurriedly came to his senses and shouted in a heated voice.
“I clearly told the cadets to move to the center!”
“If we just sat still, we’d be rats in a trap. I judged that someone had to go out and draw their attention.”
“That’s the job of the regular knights, not some apprentice knight like you!”
While Silvan was scolding Leon for disobeying orders, Lance looked around and checked the corpses.
One, two, three…….
There were seven of them. Two more than what Lance and Silvan had handled back to back.
Twelve in total.
The report had said there were eleven Phantom Mantises. There was one more than that.
Which meant one had already been dealt with before the report was even made.
In the moment when even the regular knights were scrambling, it had been done by a mere apprentice knight. A slave, no less.
Lance’s lips parted.
Then he carefully opened his mouth.
“…Cadet Leon.”
“Yes?”
“Any injuries?”
“None.”
“Not a single one?”
“I’m perfectly fine.”
After the exchange with Lance ended, Silvan raised his voice once more.
“What if you’d been seriously hurt? If you’d even lost your life, could you take responsibility for that?”
“Uh… you don't exactly welcome my death, do you?”
“You brat!”
Their argument didn’t reach Lance’s ears. His mind was already full of other thoughts.
An apprentice knight had exterminated a magical beast all by himself in that dense fog where you couldn’t see a thing ahead, without taking a single hit.
And when he had mistaken Leon for a goblin and attacked, Leon had blocked it perfectly.
Even though it should have been outside his field of vision.
Lance himself couldn’t do that.
Even when he first sparred with Gerard.
Even when they had a rematch after that.
And even now.
In the span of a moment’s distraction, he’d climbed several levels.
“Ha! What a monster.”
Lance couldn’t hold back the laugh that slipped out.