Chapter 104 - Left Behind, Forgotten, and Returned (1)

Without fail, the dead visited Winter Castle when night fell.

And the soldiers of Winter Castle had to suffer through the voices of someone they longed for echoing during the night.

The first day was merely a few soldiers falling for that subtle temptation and causing a commotion. The second day was much the same.

Every night, I stood firm on the wall and growled fiercely into the darkness. Whenever I did, the darkness would stop its teasing whispers, glare at me silently, and then disappear.

The third day and the fourth day were spent in the same way.

And when the morning of the fifth day arrived, the boundary between night and day began to collapse.

Even though the dead had retreated and the sun was high in the sky during the afternoon, sounds of sobbing leaked from all over the castle.

The sorrow spread by the dead during the night had begun to affect the soldiers in earnest.

The soldiers were now tormented day and night by the longing and sorrow for someone they would never see again.

I had to stand on the wall and merely watch the soldiers sob.

Even though it was the dead who had poked at their wounds, the sense of loss and sorrow they were experiencing now was like a scar carved deep into their souls that no one else could dare touch; there was nothing I could do.

As I was now, the best I could do was suppress the dead from running rampant during the night.

Another day passed.

Amidst the gloomy atmosphere lingering over the entire castle, even the knights who had been holding out by relying on the energy built up in their bodies began to waver.

"Your Highness. We should just open the gates and fight them."

Even the face of the bold lord of the castle clearly showed signs of depression.

"Denied."

Vincent passionately argued about how poor the soldiers' condition was.

"I don't know when or how these soldiers, plunged into sorrow day and night, will resort to extreme actions! Asking them to endure further is far too harsh of a treatment!"

"It is better than having their bodies stolen by the spirits."

"Your Highness, if a little more time passes like this, they will lose the strength to even hold their swords and fight! Rather than that, we should open the gates and seek a way out before..."

"That is what they want."

I firmly stated several times.

Because that was what they wanted.

The dead were currently just waiting for the gates to open on their own.

In order to steal the bodies of the living beyond them, and take their blood and flesh.

"Couldn't we just wipe them out before they surge in?"

"How do you wipe out spirits that don't even have physical forms?"

If it were possible to cut them down with a sword, I would have done so already. But the spirits were like incorporeal illusions, so they could never be cut down with a sword.

At least not while they were hiding in the darkness without bodies.

"The soldiers' patience has reached its limit."

Vincent informed me in a heavy tone of how mentally cornered the soldiers were.

I already knew that.

The Rangers roaming the castle with depressed faces and the sounds of wailing echoing from all around meant that they didn't have much patience left.

"Ballorhard's soldiers are strong. They will not crumble."

Nevertheless, the only thing I could tell Vincent was to wait.

Because the time would come soon.

I quietly waited for the moment that would soon arrive.

And when the eighth night came, the moment I had been waiting for arrived.

SCREECH!

The spirits, who had set up camp beneath the walls at night and whispered borrowing someone else's voice, howled with their own voices for the first time.

SCREECH!

With a horrific roar as if thousands of the dead from the underworld were crying out all at once, the pitch-black masses spread widely across the snowfield and seeped underground.

Watching this, I immediately poured out the maximum amount of authority and shouted.

"All hands, prepare for battle!"

At that moment, the knights fiercely circulated their mana circuits and shouted after me.

"All Rangers, to your positions!"

The Rangers, who had been lying limply below the walls as if suffering from depression, jolted in surprise and sprang to their feet upon hearing that majestic roar.

BWOOOOOOM!

The sound of the horn spread throughout the entire castle.

"Unseal the armory, grab your weapons, and get up on the walls!"

"What are you doing, you bastards!"

The knights guarding the gates kicked the Rangers' asses and made a huge fuss.

The Rangers rushed up onto the walls in droves and scrambled to find their positions.

"What did you do with your bow!"

"I-I forgot!"

Among them were those who even forgot to bring their weapons and stood there empty-handed.

I frowned as I watched the unfunny farce taking place on the walls.

There was no greater confusion than this.

However, I did not scold them.

They had been tormented by the dead for a whopping week. It was an amount of time more than enough for ordinary soldiers to have collapsed long ago.

The fact that they still had enough reason left to follow orders, even if they were flustering about like this, was remarkable.

"All hands, combat preparations complete!"

The Rangers, who had been scrambling about for a long time, finally took their positions, and the knights reported in succession.

That was also when the ground began to heave.

THUD.

A pale blue hand abruptly thrust out through the pure white snowfield. There were forearms frozen blue, and deathly pale heads.

Corpses popped out unexpectedly from all over the snowfield.

I watched the sight with a stiff face.

I didn't think the dead would just wait forever for the gates of Winter Castle to open on their own.

Because the gluttony of the dead never allowed them to wait long with a feast set before them.

I had expected that it wouldn't be long before they took the corpses scattered everywhere as their own bodies and pounded on the gates themselves.

But there was something even I had not anticipated.

It was the fact that I didn't know the corpses the dead would use as vessels instead of the living would be so intact.

The soldiers and knights of House Ballorhard who had died in battle fighting against the harsh winter for generations.

The corpses of those among them who could not be retrieved had lain asleep frozen for a long time, only to awaken.

Even if they had parts sliced and severed here and there to tell the tale of the fierce battles they endured in life, they still maintained their human form to some extent. And among them were also the corpses of those who had died relatively recently.

"John...?"

"Good god. It's Gibson!"

The Rangers who recognized them let out groans.

At those words, the other veteran Rangers opened their eyes wide and scanned the snowfield. Their faces were deathly pale as they checked to see if anyone they were close to was among those gruesome corpses.

It was the same for me.

'Please don't be there. Please don't be there.'

I desperately hoped that my uncle would not be among them.

"He isn't there."

Perhaps noticing my expression, Vincent spoke.

"My father isn't down there."

At those words, I could neither laugh nor cry.

I couldn't decide whether I should be relieved that my uncle didn't appear in such a gruesome state, or angry at the miserable end where he didn't even leave a corpse behind. Or I simply couldn't figure out if I should be ashamed of my selfish wish.

I looked at Vincent.

His face was full of a sense of self-reproach.

He was deeply agonizing over the ambivalent feelings coming from his positions as both a lord and a son.

But even in the midst of that, he did not forget his duty as the lord of the castle.

"Everyone, snap to your senses!"

Vincent shouted fiercely.

"Are they really the ones you used to know?! Are those monsters dragging their frozen bodies, approaching to drink your blood and tear off your flesh, truly your comrades?!"

His voice, filled with the mana from his circuits, rang boomingly across the entire wall.

"Consider it a good thing instead! They are the fallen our ancestors failed to collect, and the fallen we failed to collect! Today, in this very place, we will lay them to rest and honor their spirits!"

The moment I heard those words, lines of a poem came to mind.

The first thing that came to mind was the sorrowful requiem of a father who simply fought and fought until his strength gave out and he was murdered, the fleeting song of an extraordinary avenger.

『Piling up green corpses to climb the mountain. Below it, a crimson pond was formed.』

Even if they weren't green corpses,

『And I stand before it to honor your spirit.』

The desire to honor their spirits was the same, so out of all the Poems of Martial Deeds I possessed, none was more fitting for this place today.

After the verses of the [Poem of Requiem] ended, the verses of yet another poem followed.

『The snow-covered mountains, frozen valleys, and walls soaked in red blood remain silent,』

Because those corpses returning to life while frozen were the very history of countless wars Winter Castle had waged,

『Only the blowing horn of the dawn's advance rings out.』

I earnestly wished for the sound of dawn's horn to drive away the night.

My heart throbbed electrically as mana drained away like the ebbing tide.

If it had been me from a while ago, I nine times out of ten would have lost consciousness.

But not now.

Because the me right now was a completed knight, a Sword Master.

Blooming the flame of requiem at the tip of my sword,

I recited the large-scale War Poem, [Poem of Winter], from my lips.

RUMBLE.

A mighty aura spread across the entire wall.

"The snow-covered mountains, frozen valleys, and walls soaked in red blood remain silent."

"Only the blowing horn of the dawn's advance rings out."

The knights fiercely resonated their circuits and recited the War Poem along with me.

BWOOOOM!

BOOM BOOM BOOM.

The Rangers, who had been glaring at the snowfield drowned in sorrow, blew their horns and beat their drums.

No one had ordered them to. As if it had been promised.

I glared beyond the wall.

There were frozen corpses there. Creaking their stiff limbs as they ran towards the wall.

They were no longer formless fears, nor were they incorporeal evil spirits.

They were merely undead with completely frozen bodies.

I glared at them and gathered the chaotic waves and noise ringing out all over into one.

And then spread it across the whole wall again.

Their morale soared terrifyingly.

The wailing of the dead could no longer be heard.

All that could be heard was the sound of beating hearts, and more beating hearts.

My body felt burning hot.

It felt as if my body would burn up if I didn't spew out this heat right now.

"Tonight!"

Unable to hold it back any longer, I opened my mouth.

"The nightmare will meet its end!"

The soldiers roared.

And at that moment, the undead who had come running with creaking steps began to climb the wall.

I leaped atop the edge of the wall.

I could see the undead climbing the wall, chomping their jaws with bloodshot eyes.

The flame of requiem clung onto the Aura Blade gathered at the tip of my sword.

This was not destruction, but purification.

The undead that scaled the wall were engulfed in blue flames and melted away as they were.

"Rest for the dead!"

"To the abyss with the evil spirits!"

The Rangers and knights roared as they drew their swords.

Battles broke out everywhere between the humans and the corpses that had climbed the wall.

The requiem had already begun.

What needed to be burned were the men of House Ballorhard's past generations who had been asleep frozen for as short as a few months to as long as hundreds of years, and the evil spirits residing within them.

I drew my sword and ran along the perimeter of the wall.

I slashed and cut down everything in my path. Countless undead turned to ash from the purifying flames that burned their entire bodies at the slightest touch. But there were still far too many corpses left to burn.

The night, which had felt so long just yesterday, felt endlessly short today.

I gauged the time.

There was no room for leisure. I had to finish them off tonight no matter what.

When dawn came, the dead would discard the frozen corpses again and return to being incorporeal evil spirits. And the nightmare would repeat once more.

"Vincent!"

"Yes! Your Highness!"

"I leave the top of the wall to you!"

At my words, Vincent looked back.

"There's nothing below the wall..."

Confirming that no undead had passed through the gates, he looked at me and widened his eyes.

"Don't tell me..."

Vincent ran toward me.

"N-No!"

Whether he did or not, I threw myself down below the wall.

It was swarming with undead down there.

Spotting me, they reached out their hands and clattered their teeth.

Their abnormally long and sharp nails thrust up toward the sky like spears.

I slashed my sword while maintaining my falling posture.

SCREEECH!

The undead, whose arms were severed at the wrist, screamed before turning to ash.

THUD.

Landing as if sinking deeply into the snowfield, I looked up at the wall.

"Your Highness!"

Behind Vincent, who was calling out for me like a scream, green shadows leapt out.

The shadows landed lightly, stepping on the undead climbing the wall, and the Sword Maidens surrounded me.

『We will cover your back.』

With reliable allies present, there was nothing left to hesitate about.

I charged into the center of the undead.

I cut, cut, and cut them down again.

I burned, burned, and burned them away again.

The undead swept up in the scattering blue flames turned to ash and fluttered away.

I fell into a trance and tore through the ranks of the undead.

And then, I met them.

A group of rational undead that were clearly distinguishable from the undead blindly rushing toward the wall.

The moment I saw them, I froze in place.

They were the knights of the death squad who had thrown their lives away like mere straw during the last battle with the Warlord.

But that was nothing more than an empty shell; their true identity was the most powerful undead returned from death, Death Knights.

And not just any Death Knights, but—

『I have never heard of a knight as outstanding as you being in the camp of the Mad Dragon's Army.』

The ones who were murdered after climbing the mountain to slay the Mad Dragon four hundred years ago,

『This works out well. A knight of your caliber might just know where the King is.』

The kingdom's first-generation Royal Knights.