Chapter 42 - A Song Dedicated to a Big, Beautiful Green Lump (4)

The First Prince, who had leapt down with such momentum, rolled across the ground and slashed his sword.

Blood surged from the Orc Warrior's waist.

The enraged Orc Warrior reached out an arm.

But the Prince was no longer there, and was already charging far ahead.

It was a good strike and a good judgment.

If he had forced himself to drive the blade in deep, he would have been caught in the Orc Warrior's brutal grip and reduced to a bloody pulp.

Vincent saw the Prince exchanging blows with another Orc.

"Huh."

This time, even Vincent could not help being surprised.

With marvelous swordwork that seemed to slice flesh into fillets, the Orc's forearm turned bright red, and soon it clutched its throat and gagged.

It was a scene created without mana, through pure swordsmanship alone, and it was enough to make him want to applaud.

Blocking the Orc Warrior's axe that flew in right after with the Orc's body was excellent as well.

At that moment, the royal soldiers loosed their arrows in unison.

Then, gripping their swords and shields, they went down the slope as if tumbling.

Several Orcs stepped forward and cut off the Prince from the infantrymen.

"His instincts are good, but the one flaw is his lack of real combat experience."

It was good that he had taken down one Orc with such momentum, but that was his mistake.

It was as if he had stuck his head into an Orc's maw just to kill one Orc.

Vincent clicked his tongue and signaled to Filsen beside him with his eyes.

WHISTLE.

When Filsen whistled, Rangers and knights appeared on the opposite slope and on the slopes to either side.

They were troops of the 3rd Legion who had been secretly following behind in preparation for any unforeseen situation.

"When the signal drops, pin down the Orcs with crossbows and secure the Prince's person."

He had no intention of interfering just yet.

The royal infantrymen were fighting better than expected, and the female knight's skill was also better than expected.

He had thought she was just an ornamental knight, but it seemed she had properly learned the sword.

He was watching the Prince's party fight on, nodding unconsciously, when the Prince suddenly began to run wild.

"Tsk."

Vincent frowned.

It was common for novices to be devoured by the madness of battle, and most of them died in that madness.

SWISH.

Vincent raised his arm.

The waiting Rangers raised their crossbows.

The knights drew their swords and tensed their bodies so they could leap into the battlefield at any moment.

All he had to do was lower his hand.

Then he could end this chaotic battle whenever he wished.

But Vincent could not lower his hand.

"Why is he fighting so damn well?"

The First Prince was fighting astonishingly well.

An Orc Warrior's forearm flew into the sky.

Other Orcs intervened belatedly, but they were all split in two.

In a brief moment, as many as four Orcs had been halved.

"Captain."

While he was watching the Prince's fight in constant admiration, Filsen tapped him on the shoulder and pointed toward the northern mountainside.

"You've got to be fucking kidding me."

Vincent clenched his teeth and sprang to his feet.

Below the mountainside, a group of Orcs was approaching.

It was a real Orc combat unit, even carrying a banner.

SWISH, SWISH SWISH.

Vincent's hand busily drew hand signals through the air.

The Rangers all turned the heads of their crossbows at once and fired their bolts.

"Squad One stays behind and watches the situation, and if it looks like they need help, intervene immediately. The rest follow me and stop the Orc unit!"

At Vincent's words, the knights and Rangers all began racing down the slope.

"Damn it. Why is a combat unit here..."

There were times when a scouting party and a combat unit moved at the same time.

It was rare, but not unheard of, for Orcs to join their forces in order to hunt bigger prey.

But this was not one of those exceptional cases.

There was no way an Orc combat unit made up of at least a hundred would join with scouts just to hunt barely thirty humans.

But what could he do?

The Orc combat unit had already appeared, and he had to stop them.

Fifty Rangers from five platoons, and seven knights.

It was a tight force to face an Orc combat unit of one hundred.

"Hooop!"

From the start, he rotated all three rings and drew out his full strength.

He saw ten massive Orc Warriors charging out from the opposite side.

"Knights, take the Orc Warriors! Rangers, keep the Orcs in check!"

At his command, the Rangers who had gone down the slope swiftly loaded their crossbows and fired straight at the Orcs.

Fifty crossbow bolts poured toward the Orcs.

Just before colliding with the Orc Warriors, Vincent searched for the First Prince with his eyes.

The Prince's battle was nearing its end.

A few Orcs remained, but it did not seem they would hold out for long.

"Raaaargh!"

At the earsplitting roar of the Orcs, Vincent withdrew his gaze from searching for the Prince and looked forward.

Now was not the time to worry about the First Prince.

Watching the Orc Warrior thunder toward him, Vincent coated his sword blade with mana.

* * *

The infantrymen, including Hansdeck, were in complete chaos.

One moment, the Prince had suddenly started running wild, splitting Orcs in half, and the next, Rangers who had raced down the slope were rushing past them in a swarm.

"Fire!"

The Rangers stopped briefly and fired their crossbows, then began running again.

Beyond them, a loathsome dark-green army appeared.

At a glance, an outrageous number of Orcs that looked to number at least one hundred were charging in with banners raised and horn trumpets blaring.

"Everyone, stand by while maintaining formation!"

Arwen shouted fiercely.

"Our mission is to protect His Highness the Prince! Leave the Orcs to the soldiers of the 3rd Legion!"

At her sharp voice, the infantrymen's faces went blank.

Arwen did not fail to understand why they were wearing those expressions.

She looked at the Prince, who was gripping his sword and streaming a blue radiance.

Orc corpses filled the area around him.

The only ones left were an Orc Warrior with its arm cut off and a few ordinary Orcs whose spirits had been thoroughly crushed.

The Prince, running wild here and there in the middle of them, did not look as if he needed anyone's help at all.

Even those soon had their heads cut off and their bodies split in two, becoming corpses.

"Haa, haa."

The Prince panted for breath.

The blue radiance that had been flowing out without pause subsided.

And for the first time since the battle began, the Prince's bare face was revealed.

"Y-Your Highness?"

The Prince's face was empty, as if his soul had escaped.

Startled, Arwen hurriedly approached the Prince.

But before she could reach him, she had to stop.

She saw the Prince's eyes.

In those empty pupils, beyond them, grief was surging.

The moment she faced that deep, deep emotion, Arwen's mind went faint.

A terrible sense of loss she had never imagined, and never wanted to imagine, had risen in the Prince's eyes.

"Ah..."

The Prince opened his mouth.

His cracked, sunken voice echoed inside Arwen's head.

BWOOOOOO.

Just then, the sound of the Orcs' horn trumpets came.

The Prince creaked as he turned his head.

Blue radiance filled his empty pupils again.

BANG!

The Prince gripped his sword and kicked off the ground.

"Your Highness!"

She urgently tried to catch him, but the Prince was already far ahead, charging forward.

"Move while maintaining formation! Quick march!"

After shouting that, she entrusted command to Hansdeck and raced after the Prince.

* * *

He walked and walked across the plain.

The only time he stopped was when he encountered those cursed greenskins.

It did not matter how many there were.

If he saw them, he killed them, and if he heard them, he went to find them and killed them.

He tore dark-green bodies to shreds and drank their blood.

He chewed their flesh and appeased his hunger.

And when his belly was full, he moved forward again.

It was not enough.

No matter how many he killed, and killed again, it was not enough.

Even in the heart of the barren land ruled by the Orcs, his craving was not filled.

Even when he chewed flesh and drank blood, he was always hungry, and no matter how many victories he achieved, he felt no sense of accomplishment.

His hunger and sense of loss were like a jar with a hole in it.

Knowing it would never be filled, he poured blood into it.

But the jar with a hole in it soon emptied again.

He wandered the barren land once more in search of blood.

As time passed, the wounds on his body increased.

His skin tore, and his bones were damaged.

Now it was not easy even to take a step.

Even so, he did not stop.

The Mirror-Soul Rite for his wife and daughter, who had been murdered without even a scrap of flesh left behind, had only just begun.

He fought and fought again.

The mana in his heart had long since been exhausted.

But a halo of light still clung to his sword.

The power he had exchanged for his life force was sustaining him.

Each time he fought, he grew older.

His hair, once pitch-black, had turned white before he knew it, and his skin, though bloodstained, had once been taut, but it had already become like that of an old man.

Bony forearms, a wretched body.

He moved forward, creaking all the while.

Then he encountered another group of greenskins.

"Ah..."

For the first time since entering the barren land, his mouth opened.

It was more a groan than language, and more a sob than words.

The crest engraved on the banner belonged to the enemy he had sought so desperately.

And so he cried like a wounded beast, like an enraged predator.

He looked at his arm.

His bony forearm was already deeply wrinkled and sagging like that of a hundred-year-old man.

With even such a hand, he gripped his sword.

Then he charged in.

He cut off the head of the first greenskin that charged at him.

He cut out the throat of the one that came after.

He raised his sword again.

An exceptionally enormous greenskin brought down a rusty axe.

Instead of dodging, he thrust his sword out to meet it.

As always, he intended to cut through the axe and all.

But the sword had already lost its light, and he was now nothing more than a hundred-year-old man.

And the greenskin's attack was far too powerful for an old man to meet head-on.

His arm broke, and his sword flew from his grip.

The huge battle axe carved through his chest as if splitting it open.

The skin split wide, but it was so parched that not even blood flowed.

He rose again.

His split chest, his dangling arm, none of that pain could be felt.

When his wife died, his soul had already died.

He had already lost his life, so there was no way he would feel pain just because his arm or chest had been wounded.

"Grrr."

The greenskin stretched out a finger and pushed his chest.

THUD.

He fell backward in an ugly sprawl.

"Uuugh..."

He writhed and struggled with all his might to rise again.

The greenskin, watching him quietly, stomped on his chest as if crushing it.

CRUNCH.

His breastbone broke, and his chest caved in.

He reached out his hand.

He feebly groped at the greenskin's foot.

At that moment, his fingertips vanished as if erased.

His skin scattered like dust, and his bones flew apart.

The annihilation that began at his fingertips soon spread through his entire body.

His lips twitched.

But before that dried mouth could finish even its first words, the fate of annihilation swallowed him.

And so the man who had burned even his own life for revenge vanished on a nameless plain, unknown to anyone.

A story passed on to no one, and known by no one.

The only one who would remember it all was me.

* * *

Ah...

I felt something squelching beneath my feet.

When I creaked my head to the side, the blood-drenched body of an Orc lay beneath me.

The Orc, its face twisted like an evil spirit, opened and closed its mouth.

It gurgled blood and clacked its jaw.

The Orc's hand seized my foot.

"...!"

The Orc bared its protruding tusks and snarled.

CHOP!

At that moment, a sword flew in from somewhere and cut off the Orc's neck.

ROLL.

Its head rolled away.

Blood surged up.

Hot liquid splashed all the way up there.

I ended up completely drenched in that red blood.

Scalding heat.

At that hot sensation, I was startled.

"Die!"

"Raaaargh!"

At that moment, the world where I had heard nothing suddenly became noisy.

The sound of feet pounding, the sound of metal clashing, and death cries.

My hazy consciousness woke all at once.

Only then did I realize I was in the middle of a battlefield.

The moment I realized that, I became able to look at the emotions of a certain pitiful man, which had completely seized my consciousness until a moment ago, with astonishing objectivity.

"Ah..."

And I naturally understood.

What I had to do now.

[Poem of Vengeance] was an unfinished song.

I had to bring this song to its end.

As it happened, before my eyes was the elite combat unit of greenskins that the man had so desperately wished to annihilate.

Though the age was different, and the pattern engraved on the banner was different, none of that mattered.

I adjusted my grip on the sword.

Then I sang the poem again.

At that moment, the karma of the poem and my soul synchronized once more.

Blood sprayed, and pieces of flesh flew.

I swept madly through every direction.

"Your Highness! Your Highness!"

A clear, high voice, unlike any of the sounds around me, whether heavy or sharp, pierced my ears.

It was Arwen.

At her voice, I looked around.

The Orcs were all dead.

The only one left was a single Orc Warrior pinned beneath my feet.

"Raaaargh!"

The Orc Warrior thrashed and tried to rise.

But I was faster than it.

STAB.

Twilight pierced its heart.

The thrashing body went limp as it was.

The last Orc thus became a lonely ghost by my hand.

「A new verse has been added to [Poem of Vengeance].」

As if it had been waiting, a message sounded.

And the song, a faint singing voice, came to my ears.

「When green corpses were piled into a mountain, a red pool formed beneath it.」

「And before it, I honor your soul.」

The eerie lyrics became a quiet, low whisper.

「[Poem of Vengeance] has become [Poem of Soul-Recording].」

"Ah..."

At that moment, the name of the man I had forgotten in the depths of memory came to mind.

I turned my head.

I saw a man, his whole body covered in blood, raising the broken and torn banner of the Orcs.

"We have won!"

The eldest son of House Ballorhard, a man who bore the same name as that pitiful avenger, roared out the declaration of victory.

How strangely coincidental it was.

I moved my lips slightly.

The last words the man had never finished.

Among the humans shouting victory, I repeated those words over and over.

In the next life, surely, again.