Chapter 56
A funeral procession, a suicide squad, Cardenos's reckless challenge.
Even on the day of departure, the Empire mocked this expedition as impossible.
That fallout had spread to the warriors standing in formation for the departure ceremony.
'Is this really the right thing to do?'
'Fuck, did I come here for nothing? Even people with their heads screwed on straight were sure we'd die.'
'Should I desert as soon as the ceremony ends…….'
Veteran mercenaries had flocked to the West hoping to strike it rich in one fell swoop.
But neither money nor glory was more precious than their own lives.
The Imperial Capital Daily had ceaselessly fanned their anxiety.
During training, they had been able to endure it in silence.
The supplies piled before them, the special dishes served with every meal, and their high morale had hidden their fear.
But once the day of departure arrived, their thoughts changed. The fear they had suppressed surged up to their throats.
"We are not conscripted regular soldiers, anyway, are we? Whether we fight or not is up to us…….."
Someone's muttering became a spark that spread through the ranks.
Commander Astin had declared it himself.
Until they set foot in the Ashen Forest, they were free to lay down their weapons and leave.
In other words, the moment they crossed the wall's boundary, it would be desertion.
Under Cardenos military law, they would be subject to summary punishment without exception.
If they wanted to flee, this was their last chance—before crossing the forest's boundary.
'Better to become penniless than die like dogs here.'
The sounds of people swallowing dry saliva mingled from all directions.
Just as the formation began to roil violently with unease.
Thud-
Astin walked up onto the lofty platform.
All the unsettled gazes of the mercenaries turned toward him.
Twenty years old. A youthful man whose downy hair had barely disappeared.
Though young, he was Cardenos's eldest son.
His bold, sharply defined features radiated the authority of a commander.
But that was all. He did not inspire confidence.
'Even thinking it over, it makes no sense. We are supposed to entrust our lives to that brat?'
'I made a mistake. Why did I ever crawl in here?'
'Is this mob mentality? Was I bewitched by something?'
Everyone knew that Astin was a mature and talented knight for his age.
Not only had he personally proven it through his martial prowess, he had even volunteered to lead the vanguard.
Even so, instinctive doubts began to take root.
The Ashen Forest, of all things.
Nothing would change even if a Swordmaster came as commander.
Amid the formation's silence, the mercenaries' gazes met.
'Once the departure ceremony ends, we need to make a run for it somehow.'
It was at that moment that a tacit agreement was being reached.
Shing-!
The sharp scrape of metal broke the silence.
Astin's golden eyes turned downward over his drawn sword.
The mercenaries looked up listlessly while maintaining their formation.
It was obvious what he would say.
He would grandly proclaim that this was humanity's great undertaking and urge them to go in search of honor and glory.
It would be nothing more than a ceremonial speech for the departure ceremony.
Let him yap as much as he pleased. Whatever he said, nothing would change their minds.
Whoosh-
Astin's cloak fluttered in the wind. His golden hair streamed behind him.
"Can you hear the Empire's laughter?"
A deep, weighty voice drawn up from his core.
That voice reached the ears of the warriors filling the plain.
"The nobles of the Imperial Capital, the intellectuals among the educated elite, and the pigs hiding behind the walls mock us as a suicide expedition. They call us fools walking into a demon beast's jaws of our own accord."
Astin slowly walked across the platform, surveying the formation.
The mercenaries' shoulders flinched.
"Are you afraid? Of course you are. The Ashen Forest is a demonic realm that no one has conquered for hundreds of years. The fear you feel right now is a perfectly normal survival instinct. Fear is entirely natural."
Perhaps it was only their imagination, but Astin's gaze seemed to sweep over the mercenaries.
"Yet being afraid and running away are completely different things. I am no different from any of you. I am afraid of the Ashen Forest. I am afraid of death. Even so, why are we standing here? A new horizon for the Empire? Humanity's great undertaking? Give those grand justifications to the sheltered bookworms behind the walls."
It was a statement that rejected the expectations of the masses up to that point.
The mercenaries who had expected the usual heroic rhetoric looked bewildered.
"Those who gild their faces and paint their wounds blue. The pigs of the Imperial Capital mock and judge us from their cradles. They are probably holding betting pools on how many days it will take the expedition to die. They have no right even to do that. Human worth does not seep out from one's birth."
Astin stopped speaking and fell silent.
As a brief silence settled over the crowd, its agitation gradually subsided.
The weight of that silence pressed heavily down on the formation.
"To make money, to seize honor, to wash away the past. We each stand here with our own purpose. In the end, we have gathered to prove our own worth."
The fallen noble, Julian.
Swordmaster Hendrickson.
Jenkinson, the Ember Knight.
Bagot, who had tempered his fighting spirit.
The old knights standing ramrod straight at the front of the formation.
Astin's gaze passed over them one by one.
"The nobles who slander us from the comfort of their homes are no different from pigs. A common lowlife who has not lost his dreams even in a gutter is worth more. A forgotten veteran is far nobler than those bastards. Knights who lost their houses and bear responsibility understand the honor of nobles. Mercenaries whose every day is a war can speak of survival."
A commander who showed them respect as warriors rather than mere mercenaries.
At some point, the entire expedition held its breath as one.
"That is right. You are the warriors truly worthy of respect."
They were so absorbed that not even the sound of the wind could be heard.
To lay down one's life for a superior who recognizes one's worth was a warrior's greatest honor.
They waited once more for Astin to speak.
"They will never understand. They do not respect us. They do not know that comfortable arrogance is the greatest sin of all. We took up our swords to teach them that their sins are indeed sins."
The mercenaries' breathing grew ragged. Their grips tightened around their spear shafts and sword hilts.
Clear red veins stood out in their eyes.
"I know the thrill of the moment when mockery turns into cheers. So let them laugh to their hearts' content."
Shing-!
The blade cutting through the air traced a red-gold arc.
"I dare to declare it here and now!"
The tip of the sword caught the sunlight and blazed with radiance.
"My sword will be the first to drink the blood of a demon beast, and my shield will be the first to break!"
The last traces of fear vanished from the mercenaries' faces. Instead, they swallowed their anger.
Astin von Cardenos.
That grand noble said he would stand at the vanguard, so why had they only been trying to flee?
Why had they yielded to mockery and lost their nerve before the battle had even begun?
To stick it to those who looked down on them.
Proving that the nobles who looked down on them were wrong was their way.
Hum-!
Astin scattered red-gold sunlight through the air. Three rings circulated fiercely.
In response, rings began circulating within the knights' cores.
Red-gold sunlight wrapped around the currents of air and shimmered.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Ten thousand warriors stomped their feet as though they had made a promise.
Their soles kicked off the earth, and spear shafts pounded the ground.
The unified dull pounding became a marching song in itself.
There was no trace of fear left in the mercenaries' eyes.
"Today, we are not going to die!"
Whoosh!
Astin brought the sword he had raised down in a slash toward the Ashen Forest.
"We took up our swords to conquer the land the Empire abandoned! To make them realize the weight of their sins!"
⸻Waaaaaaah!!
The ten-thousand-strong army raised its weapons and erupted in a roar.
The metallic clash of spears and shields rang out like thunder.
The vibrations from the marching military boots swallowed the land of Cardenos.
"We march."
The commander ordered the army to march.
***
The office of the head of House Cardenos.
The daily papers lay scattered haphazardly across the desk.
[Cardenos's 'Ashen Forest Expedition'—Reckless Youthful Folly?]
[The End of a Reckless Departure Is Nothing but Ruin……. ]
Mockery and skeptical predictions from the public were packed into every line of print.
Valdemar looked down at those scraps of paper.
And yet they were calling it a great undertaking for humanity just a moment ago…….
Rumble―!
It was then.
The office windows began to tremble faintly.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of enormous, rhythmic vibrations followed one after another.
It was the sound of an expeditionary force large enough to be called an army stomping its feet in unison.
Valdemar rose from his seat and walked out onto the balcony adjoining the office.
A sea of people filling the vast plain came into view at a glance.
Only a month ago, this had been a chaotic mess swarming with mercenaries and drifters.
What Valdemar saw now was a single army under control.
Astin's booming voice carried on the wind all the way to the balcony.
―My sword will be the first to drink the blood of a demon beast, and my shield will be the first to break!
A firm declaration that he would be the first to shed blood and the first to break.
A strange light appeared in Valdemar's deep-set eyes.
The House of Cardenos, a grand-ducal house, had risen through generations of leading by example and fighting.
It was fundamentally different from the pigs of the Imperial Capital who only raised their voices from behind the walls.
A Black Lion was either forged at death's door or discarded.
Valdemar had been forged and remained here as the head of the family.
He saw his younger self in Astin.
⸻Waaaaaaah!!
Amid thunderous cheers, the Black Lion banner began to flutter.
People, capital, and a cause.
Strict discipline, systematic organization, and a boost to morale.
His young son had accomplished all of this in a single month.
Leadership that money and mettle alone could never have achieved.
Valdemar watched the army for a moment, then turned and went back into the office.
Plop-
He shoved the piles of paper spread across the table into the trash bin.
No one could pass judgment on Cardenos's eldest son. Not even the emperor of the Empire.
The doubts he had harbored when considering abandoning Astin had vanished without a trace.
"Go. Go and finish proving yourself."
He gazed at the back of his eldest son as it disappeared beyond the window.
If he returned alive, the Empire would face Cardenos's true heir.
"……."
Valdemar's gaze shifted to another place outside the window.
Far away, in a section of the wall set apart from the departing procession.
His eldest daughter, Selena, stood there, her silver hair streaming in the wind.
Selena's gaze was fixed on only one person: Astin's face.
The corners of Valdemar's mouth slowly rose.
Had Astin inspired her? Selena's gaze had changed completely.
Her usual cold cynicism was nowhere to be seen; instead, a beast's fierce gleam shone in her eyes.
Selena was not wearing the casual clothes she wore in the residence.
In the end, Cardenos blood would always draw its own together.
Valdemar turned his head and stared blankly toward the Ashen Forest.
To be cast aside at death's door, or forged there.
That was how the Black Lion bloodline proved its worth.