Chapter 541 - The Iron Wall Knight

"You're the lord, aren't you?"

Graham stared at the man who had suddenly appeared before him.

'A madman?'

Drool would have suited the man's appearance perfectly. His gambeson was torn in several places, his scabbard worn, and his helmet dented. He looked like nothing more than a lunatic, but Graham took his stance with sword and shield in hand.

The bedraggled man let out a breath, blinked his bloodshot eyes a few times, and spoke.

"I'm busy. I'll make this quick."

His tone was casual. The killing intent behind it was anything but. No sooner had he finished than a cheer erupted in the distance.

"Waaaaah!"

It came from the battlefield. Graham thought he could hear someone's name amid the cheering, but it was too far away to make out clearly.

He had been on the move, intending to gather every available soldier, rear units included, for the defense if a full-scale battle broke out. Advantage or no advantage, every additional fighter would help reduce their losses. Then this man had popped out of the brush beside the camp and barred his way.

There were hardly any soldiers nearby. Supply troops and everyone else had their attention fixed on the front.

SHIIING.

The bloodshot lunatic drew his sword and tilted his head from side to side, its tip swaying along with him. Whatever he had been through, neither his mind nor his body was in a normal state. His alignment was off, and his balance seemed strangely skewed. Then there was the nonsense he muttered.

"A lord's head would be the greatest feat of all, wouldn't it?"

What kind of bullshit was that? Graham might be the lord of Border Guard, but even a child on the street knew who truly represented this land: Encrid, the Demon Killer and the King's Dear Friend.

In other words, one could call Graham's position an empty title. Not that he saw it that way. The old warrior knew all too well what a blessing it was simply to have time at Encrid's side, watching him and improving his own skills.

Though the man blocking his path staggered as he drew his sword, his skill was clearly extraordinary. An ordinary lunatic would never have made it this far. Graham's own eye told him this opponent was formidable, and a whispered warning from the Frog beside him, whose eye far surpassed any human's, confirmed it. She was Luagarne, the guard Krais had assigned him.

"A knight."

Two words were enough. Just before the Frog spoke, one of Graham's guards had frowned and started forward. Graham stopped him.

"Stay back."

"Sir?"

"Fall back."

Graham was not a calculating man, but neither did he turn a blind eye to the obvious. If the guard stepped forward, he would die. Graham could not stand by and let that happen.

Send a man whose name and face he knew, a man he had eaten, slept, and trained alongside, just to test the enemy's skill? By Graham's standards, a commander who did that deserved to be beheaded on the spot. He could never do it himself. He ordered back the guard trying to shield him.

'Is today the day I die?'

He had no idea how an enemy knight had ended up here in such a state. But if the man really was one of those knights called calamities, blocking even one attack would be a struggle. Two, if he was lucky?

Even so, Graham gripped his sword. Every soldier who went to battle had a duty to fulfill. Quietly offering his neck here was no way for a lord to fulfill his.

"I am the lord of Border Guard."

As Graham faced him, sword in hand, the enemy's blade vanished. He had not even finished answering. There was certainly no time for a battle cry. What saved him was simple, steadfast repetition in training.

Graham had seen Encrid at a time when he thought both his age and his skill had reached their limits. Watching that man had reminded him of beginnings rather than endings, and ever since, he had spared no sweat. That was what saved him.

Out of habit, he swept his sword diagonally, bracing through both legs while trying to deflect the incoming blade. It was a habit born of fighting Encrid, the result of desperate efforts to withstand even one blow.

As he raised his sword diagonally and braced himself, violence almost beyond his ability to bear descended upon it in the form of a blade.

CLANG! SKREEEECH!

It was hardly a perfect deflection. Strictly speaking, he had managed perhaps half of one. Even so, he had withstood it.

As a lord, Graham naturally possessed a fine sword, forged from Valeri steel. Half of one edge was now gouged into saw teeth. Though he had deflected half the attack, it felt as if the web of his sword hand would split. Perhaps it already had, a little.

'I held.'

Even if half of it was luck, the result stood. He had withstood a knight's strike.

Of course, that was only possible because Corwin was not himself. The battlefield, the blood, his flight, and everything else had driven him mad. Only his purpose remained clear: kill the lord before leaving, though it would accomplish nothing and earn him nothing but hatred. He had followed that impulse here.

He had hidden his imprinted weapon in an old scabbard that did not fit and even stolen a gambeson to wear. Lacking talents such as Sir Jamal's Assimilation, he had crept all the way here under cover of the brush. He had only slipped through because Aspen's headlong attempt at a full-scale battle had created an opening at the front. Otherwise, he would certainly have been discovered.

"Fucking frog."

Corwin's bloodshot eyes gleamed, filled with killing intent. Another reason his last blow had failed to take his enemy's head lay at his ankle. The whip coiled around it had saved Graham's life. And its owner, Luagarne, had drawn one conclusion from that strike.

'Half-baked.'

There was no doubt whatsoever that he was a knight. But not all knights were equal. His mastery was so lacking that comparing him with Encrid, Rem, or Ragna would be embarrassing. Which meant...

'I can hold him off.'

But holding him off was all she could do. This could not end well. Luagarne was here guarding Lord Graham because Krais, anxious that the enemy might send a surprise force around their army, had asked her to. No one could have anticipated a knight attacking here. In other words, they could hardly hope for help. This could not end well. At best, they would hold out until they died.

'So should I give up?'

She asked herself. No answer was needed.

CROAK.

Luagarne puffed out her cheeks. There were moments when frustration and despair served no purpose: moments when something, anything, had to be done. Just as the man she had watched always did. She tightened her grip on the whip's ring.

"I'll kill you all."

Corwin pulled his foot back as he spoke. Despite bracing with all her strength, Luagarne was dragged toward him.

BANG!

She raised the Loop Sword in her right hand overhead to block, and his blade slammed into it. She had not seen its path. She had predicted it. Beside her, Graham brought his sword down with a sharp "Hah!"

Beyond the guards, soldiers came running at the commotion, but Corwin had already lost his mind. He believed he could kill his target and escape, no matter who tried to stop him. That alone was madness.

A knight might cut down a thousand alone, but how could one survive in the midst of an army bearing down on him, arrows raining from every direction? Being a knight did not make a man tireless. But if Corwin had been capable of thinking that far, he would never have come here.

His eyes grew redder still. The burst capillaries made him look less like a human than a demonic beast or monster. His blade flew savagely, steeped in killing intent.

WHIIIIIR!

The knight whose weapon was Insight began pressing them with speed and strength. Ordinarily, Graham should long since have been cut down. Yet he endured, even as pieces of armor flew off and flesh was gouged from his forearm.

All this time, Graham had watched Encrid and trained relentlessly, dumping every last duty of his office onto Krais. In doing so, he had risen to a level that could be called a proto knight.

Of course, even a proto knight should not have been able to block these blows one after another. That was how it should have been. Yet he did.

The first reason was Corwin's disrupted Will, damaged during a flight in which he had paid no heed to the harm he was doing it. The second was Luagarne's whip, wrapped around his ankle and constantly hindering him. The third was that Corwin had abandoned his specialty in favor of what was normally his weakness. Rather than wielding his blade through Insight, he was trying to crush them with strength.

"Aaaaaah!"

Stripped of his composure, Corwin screamed with nothing but bitter emotion. The sound was unpleasant merely to hear. Most of the surrounding soldiers frowned, but that did not mean any of them could intervene.

WHOOSH.

His sword cut through the air again. His idiocy might have weakened his Will, but a knight was still a knight. It would be no surprise if this blow took Graham's head. Graham had even ordered all his guards back, afraid they would die.

CRUNCH!

But once again, Corwin failed to achieve his aim. His sword had severed something, but it was not the lord's neck. The Frog's severed arm flopped on the ground, scattering blood like a fish hauled from the water.

"How many more do you think you can block?"

Corwin exuded a sinister killing intent. By now, he had recovered a little of something resembling coolheadedness. It was little more than wishful thinking on his part, but given time, he might have sublimated even that sinister nature into Will and opened a path for himself. Even if it led to the life of a mad knight steeped in slaughter.

If he had survived, that is.

He shattered Graham's shield, broke his fingers, and severed Luagarne's leg as well, but failed to kill either of them. What mattered was that all that time had passed, and the deranged Corwin had failed to notice.

"Well, look at this bastard. Made it all the way here, did you? What'd you come here for?"

The voice stopped the fight. It was a light, cheerful call. Corwin still tried to cut down the lord to the very last, but he could not move as he intended. Along with the voice, something hurtled through the air between him and Graham.

Corwin recoiled instinctively. Graham registered it too late and merely flinched. Whatever it was, it moved several times faster than the sword he had just been blocking.

BOOM!

The object buried itself in the ground with a thunderous report. Dust rose and scattered. A closer look revealed a hatchet. Even Graham had not properly seen it coming. To the soldiers, it had looked like a thunderbolt.

The hatchet kicked up dust as it struck the earth, creating the illusion of light shattering into fragments. Though its head was somewhat small, designed for throwing, the entire blade had sunk into the ground. The force was monstrous.

Corwin's head snapped around. His eyes widened almost to tearing point. Some of their blood vessels burst, sending bloody tears down his face.

"Why are you here?"

The reaper had returned. The gray-haired monster. Behind him stood a black-haired, blue-eyed man, and beside that man, an expressionless fellow with reddish-brown hair. A female soldier panted at their side. Her name was Pin.

On returning to make her report, Pin had seen what was happening and hurried to fetch Encrid. Graham would owe her no small amount of thanks afterward.

Corwin instinctively tried to flee, but something flashed into the space he had meant to cross. He twisted aside. A leaf-shaped sword. The blond Fairy holding it, whose beauty was impossible to forget once seen, spoke.

"I will not let you escape, diminished one."

What nonsense was that? Corwin swept his gaze over everyone surrounding him.

"Brother, it is time for you to meet God."

The words came from a huge, bear-like man standing off to one side. They came true exactly as spoken.

"Aaaaaah!"

With a battle cry that was almost a scream, Corwin examined every possible move in search of escape. His Insight, akin to a supernatural ability, read the future. And in all those futures, he saw an inescapable attack sever his neck.

"No!"

Those were his last words.

THWACK!

The knight Corwin's head flew through the air. Having swung his axe, Rem almost split the falling head again, then left it alone. What was the point of chopping up a dead man's head?

"Crazy bastard."

Rem spat. The bastard left a bad taste in his mouth in more ways than one.

Only then did Graham and Luagarne, now missing an arm and a leg, release their pent-up breaths. Encrid supported them both.

"My limbs will grow back."

Luagarne spoke as soldiers rushed to reattach the severed limbs and bind them with bandages.

"What happened at the front?" Graham asked.

"We sent them back."

Encrid had always treated Graham with respect, but Graham was particularly pleased by those words. They meant no one on their side would have died in this battle.

Encrid spoke matter-of-factly. Some of the soldiers gathered around took in the lunatic unit, which had so neatly beheaded a knight, one of those beings called calamities.

There were not many witnesses. Their army had to hold its positions while watching Aspen withdraw. Yet even here, some had seen for themselves what Encrid had done.

"An iron wall," someone said.

It would replace Encrid's best-known epithet. He had earned a new one: the Iron Wall Sword.

"I'm late."

Krais, Big-eyes, emerged from among the watching soldiers. Beside him, Esther, in panther form, regarded Encrid with blue eyes.

If the war's end meant ruin and despair for Aspen, for Naurilia it marked the birth of a hero. With so many eyes upon the battlefield, word would soon spread.

Evening came after Graham's rescue and the tending of Luagarne's severed limbs. Victory toasts and everything else would have to wait. For the next few days, dealing with the battlefield took priority. They had to watch for any further madness from Aspen, so they could hardly start drinking and pass out.

The soldiers washed, ate, and tended their equipment, spending the evening talking excitedly. Only then did Encrid feel that something was missing. And that missing something appeared in the middle of the night, long after sunset.

"We were lucky to find him."

"He was heading toward Aspen, using his greatsword as a walking stick!"

The scouts patrolling the area had brought back Ragna.

"Ah."

Encrid let out a short exclamation. He had completely forgotten.

"Phew. Found the right place."

Ragna entered the barracks with that absurd remark, then his eyes rolled back and he fainted. Naturally, he was taken straight to the Medical Barracks.