Chapter 531 - Not All Knights Are Equal

"... To kill or not to kill, that is my question."

The man faltered briefly but spoke in the same tone as before.

The Aspen knight had curly, dark navy hair, a high nose, and eyes set deep enough in their sockets to give his gaze depth. All in all, he was reasonably handsome. Not as handsome as Encrid or Krais, though.

Whatever he looked like, Rem decided to make fun of this fucking idiot.

"Huh? What was that? Can't hear you over all that Ghoul-fucking."

The word he used for mating normally described a male and female animal coupling. Ghouls had no genitalia, making the act impossible. Even if they did, surely no one in the world would do such a thing with a Ghoul. The insult thus went a step beyond asking whether his mother was a Ghoul.

"What?"

"You've got some weird fucking tastes."

"What are you saying?"

"Huh? Can't hear me? Bad ears? You. Filthy. Ghoul. Fuck. Ing. Bas. Tard."

Rem helpfully enunciated every syllable, and the man was too stunned to do anything but listen.

What had that crazed barbarian just said?

It took little time for the words to travel through his ears and reach comprehension. He took pride in his looks, and considered a melancholy gaze and reciting poetry his specialties.

It was all affectation.

At Rem's words, a vein bulged on the forehead of the member of the Knight Order of Aspen's Ruling Prince who hoped to be known as the Poetry-Reciting Knight. The vein was so thick and pronounced it was a wonder no one heard it snap. His lack of a helmet made it all the more visible.

"Don't let a madman's words get to you," Red-eyes said from behind him.

"Oooh, he did it with a Ghoul! He did it with a Ghoul!"

Rem was being childish, sticking out his tongue and spouting whatever came to mind. The Aspen knight knew it was childish. He also knew he should ignore it. The problem was that the man saying these things had a considerable presence, and that his ease was entirely genuine.

Surrounded by assassins from the Swamps of Montterre, with the knight standing right before him, he showed no tension. He even picked his nose.

The knight disliked everything about him: his words, his attitude, his looks.

"Was it good?"

Rem asked with a snicker, and the navy-haired knight who had stepped forward decided he would tear that mouth apart with his own hands.

"You have a foul mouth, barbarian."

Had anyone ever shown him such contempt before? Contempt, perhaps, but no one had ever mocked him to this degree.

That mockery had awakened the demon sleeping within him. Or so the man thought.

Aspen's new knight had little mental discipline. Understandably so: in his entire life, no one had ever overtaken him or left him behind. He had been born talented, had added effort to that talent, and had even enjoyed circumstances that favored him.

A genius born to the Ekkins family. His name was Corwin Ekkins.

He laid a hand on his sword.

SHING!

The blade revealed itself, scattering the light around it. Corwin had named his sword Fate. To put it at greater length, it meant a destiny already decided.

"You barbarian, devoid of rhythm or romance. I shall take your life."

Born a genius, Corwin had awakened foresight as a child. He had always seen the path of his opponents' attacks and predicted their next actions. Hence Fate, the sword that decided his opponents' destinies.

Having won every fight to the death thus far, he naturally had absolute confidence in his sword and his skill.

Corwin spoke as though reciting poetry again. Rem dug in his ear and retorted,

"Sure, you Ghoul-fucking freak. Give it a try."

"... I told you not to engage with him."

Red-eyes added his piece from behind. In words, Rem had won a complete victory.

The vein on Corwin's forehead thickened. His sword pointed forward, releasing intimidation. As Rem shrugged it off, Red-eyes, standing two steps behind Corwin, dug his toe into the earth and kicked forward.

With a loud thump, a clump of dirt flew at Rem. He tucked his chin and raised both arms to block it.

All of it passed in a single breath, a single instant. In that opening, a Swamps of Montterre assassin blew into a blowgun. It was a coordinated attack.

The noise of the earth being torn up, the distraction of intimidation: through that opening came an almost silent needle. Rem casually swept his raised left hand through the air, twice, up and down, too quickly for an ordinary person's eyes to follow.

WHOOSH!

The motion raised a gust, and the incoming needle veered off course and fell. At the same time, a weighted net rattled down over Rem's head, and a blade rose from between his legs.

The assassin from the Swamps of Montterre had spotted an opening in his target.

Of course, it was an opening left on purpose.

Rem seemed to stand motionless, then grinned, an axe already in his hand. To Corwin Ekkins's eyes, each movement etched itself slowly into his mind.

THWACK!

The axe moved.

THWACK-THWACK-THWACK-THWACK!

Moving without pause, it demonstrated what an axe was for. Lines traced its path through the air.

It looked like fruit crushed by a brutal hand. Rem hadn't bothered to cut with the edge, simply swinging however he pleased. The heads of seven charging assassins split, burst, and crumpled. The net flew apart in six pieces overhead.

It all happened in the time it took to exhale once.

"... I beseech you, let your intent dwell within me."

Having seen Rem move, Red-eyes began chanting a spell. Spirit invocation. Another soul entered his body.

With another being's intent housed in his flesh, Red-eyes trembled all over, closed his eyes, and drooled. When he opened them again, his changed presence announced what he had become.

It was a secret art for housing the souls of demonic humans, beings known as nobility even among monsters. In this way, he had aspired to knighthood through a method more refined than Count Molsen's.

After sweeping through the assassins, Rem rested his left hand against a tree and spoke.

"That Big-eyes fellow who set all this up was awfully nervous about us coming here. Couldn't figure out why. You know why? Because it looked like a damn easy fight to me."

As he spoke, three more enemy assassins rushed at an opening just like the last one. Needles and darts showered down from overhead. Poisoned sand spread through the air too.

Rem kicked off the ground and moved. The tree he had touched had already been cut through, and it began to topple. Assassins concealed in or near it scattered in all directions like ants struck by raindrops.

Giving them a cursory glance, Rem flicked a stone into the air with his toe and struck it with the flat of his axe.

CLANG!

He kept the force of his swing steady, then applied more force in a pushing strike the instant the stone met the flat of the axe head. Instead of shattering, the stone shot away faster than an arrow. It tore through the air and burst an assassin's head.

POP!

Blood and brain matter sprayed outward, spattering the ground. Rem continued nonchalantly, his axe propped on his shoulder.

"And the Captain's the same. Won't tolerate sacrificing our men? Then don't. What's there to talk about? Just beat everyone who comes at you to death and you're done. Right, you easy little shits?"

This was no childish taunt, but an honest one. The two Aspen knights briefly met each other's eyes and moved apart.

Their fighting styles differed. But Corwin Ekkins's Fate saw the future. That meant he knew how to coordinate with an allied knight, setting aside how much he disliked doing so.

Rem watched the two take positions in front of and behind him. The red-eyed one's body became red mist, then solidified again. He bore the intent of a vampire, a higher demonic human also known as a blood-drinking demonic human, allowing him to use some of their spells.

Unconcerned, Rem muttered with his axe still on his shoulder,

"You're in a good mood today?"

He wasn't speaking to the enemy. His axe had conveyed its feelings, and he was responding. His ancestral weapon had just told him it was feeling rather good today and wanted to play.

The surrounding assassins formed up and encircled him again. Having faced Jaxon, Rem wasn't remotely impressed by the likes of the Swamps of Montterre. The same went for these two.

A pair of bumbling idiots.

Just as Varnas Hurrier had so confidently believed, not all knights were equal.

"Ever played with someone whose Will never runs dry?"

If an inspired Pell had taken a step forward in his madness while spouting nonsense about the air being different, Jaxon had also experienced something akin to shock upon seeing Encrid.

And so had Rem.

Knighthood wasn't the end.

Encrid had said it through his actions, through his very body, and that message had reached Rem deeply too.

"That bastard had me training like a madman all over again, you know? Huh? Do you?"

Rem let his left hand drop as he spoke. It was time to begin fighting in earnest, in a way he had never shown his allies.

His hand swept his waist, and his left fingertips caught a thick leather cord. At the end of the dangling cord was a leather pouch, just right for holding something palm-sized. A sling.

He had made the cord himself, twisting owlbear hide together with the sinew of a tiger demonic beast. When Krais saw that he had dismantled a suit of drake-scale armor and layered it into a pouch, he had slapped his forehead.

["Do you have any idea how much that costs?"]

["Do I need to?"]

["No. Just keep living in ignorance."]

Krais had never intended to persuade Rem. It was simply such a waste that he couldn't let it pass without saying something. Even a beating or a threat to his life couldn't have made him hold his tongue.

It was much like Encrid growing too restless to sleep if he went even a day without training.

For ammunition, Rem had wandered along the riverbank, gathered dozens of rounded stones, and ground them smooth. He had also asked the smithy to make similarly shaped lumps of iron and collected them.

The sling dropped, long enough to drag beneath his feet. Its cord was far too long, yet for Rem, it was just right.

An axe in his right hand, a sling in his left.

This was Rem's ultimate combat configuration. The same as when he had killed the cannibal Hero long ago.

"Well now, it's been a long time since I used this. You should feel honored, Ghoul-lover."

He mocked his opponent to the last.

Corwin no longer reacted. He had decided to discard his affectations. He, too, was a knight of Aspen, a man who had proved his ability by surviving this long.

His instincts whispered that the gray-haired beast before him was more dangerous than anyone he had ever faced. For an instant, his opponent seemed even greater than his teacher, Varnas Hurrier.

"Nonsense."

He immediately rejected the thought. Make an enemy greater in your mind, and you lost before the fight began. A knight must hold a blade of determination upright within himself.

'I will win.'

Renewing his resolve, Corwin bolstered his presence.

On the other side, Red-eyes assessed the situation more coolly and judged that he needed to steel his resolve. He did so at once.

He had become a knight through a spell that housed another's intent in his body. It wasn't an ordinary method, but neither was it wrong. Varnas Hurrier had acknowledged that.

["Hm? Well, that's an interesting art. And people criticize you for it? Why should that matter? All that matters is that you hold your head high. Besides, keep moving forward and all the paths meet in the end. It's only a difference in method."]

The strongest knight Aspen had ever produced had acknowledged him.

'For Lord Varnas.'

Red-eyes steeled his mind for the man he believed in.

Rem, meanwhile, began spinning his sling.

WHOOSH, WHOOSH, WHOOSH.

Soon a disc appeared above his head.

WHIRRRRRRR!

Its sound alone was powerful enough to overwhelm everyone around him. Then Rem thrust out his left arm without waiting, and what the sling did showed that the sound was no empty threat.

BANG!

The stone struck with his axe had burst an assassin's head and sprayed blood and brains outward across the ground. This time, the blood and brains from the exploding head splattered a large tree trunk to one side, leaving a mark like a ripe tomato thrown against it.

The dead assassin and the tree were more than ten paces apart.

WHIRR, WHOOSH-WHOOSH, WHIRRR!

After loosing one shot, the sling immediately began spinning again.

"Here comes the next one."

Rem had barely launched his first shot before he began winding up for the second. Realizing that the projectile had exceeded his ability to track movement, Corwin instantly activated Fate.

Eyes that glimpsed the future.

Judging that he would be struck if he stayed still, Corwin cut through the air with his sword.

His feet drove off the ground, his body surged forward, and his sword slashed vertically down. Just as it was about to reach Rem's back, an axe appeared and struck it aside with a clang.

In that opening, Red-eyes dropped from directly overhead, trying to drive in the ten red nails that had sprouted from his fingertips. Rem's axe knocked Corwin's sword aside, then struck every nail.

CLANG-CLANG-CLANG!

Sparks flew, and heat flared for an instant.

WHOOOOSH!

As he swung his axe, Rem swept the sling at an angle and launched a second stone before it even reached full speed.

WHIZZ, BANG!

Another assassin died.

The attack had come at an unpredictable moment. The assassins might have frozen in their tracks, but—

"All of you, attack! Anyone who tries to spare his own life will face a punishment worse than death!"

At Red-eyes's shout, they moved again.

Rem still found none of this threatening. He was facing two knights, but...

'Easier to deal with than that directionless bastard or that alley cat bastard.'

Above all, it was better than sparring with Encrid.

That was how Rem honestly felt.