Chapter 56 - No Younger Brother Is as Good as His Elder Brother (2)

Below the wall, monsters were shrieking at the top of their lungs.

At the sight of the malice and murderous intent gleaming in their yellow eyes, Maximilian unconsciously turned his head away.

He saw the wall.

"Shoot! Keep shooting!"

He saw a commander of Winter Castle screaming as he urged the soldiers on.

The soldiers hacked away with axes again and again, trying to cut the hooks loose.

"Don't let a single one of them onto the wall!"

A knight shouted.

A sword caked with filthy flesh and blood entered Maximilian's sight.

The monsters' stench, the reek of blood, the greasy smell peculiar to boiling oil, the sweat of men—all of it made Maximilian feel as if he could not breathe.

His head spun.

The strange scent mixed into it made his head swim.

GRAB.

Just then, someone seized his shoulder.

With a sharp *whoosh*, a throwing axe swept past right in front of his nose.

"Don't stand there spacing out against the wall."

The First Prince, his one and only elder brother, clicked his tongue as he spoke.

Just hearing that calm voice, so out of place on a battlefield where life and death came and went, made the chaos settle.

As if by magic, he felt as though his blocked breath had opened up.

"The one in flashy clothes is the first target."

At those words, Maximilian looked down at himself, then looked around.

Among the Rangers in colorless leather armor with furs thrown over them, he alone was clad in glittering golden armor.

"Thank y..."

"If you die, the Orcs' morale goes up."

"An Orc with higher morale becomes even more persistent."

He had thought his brother was worried about him.

But he was not.

He was saying that Maximilian was getting in the way.

His face flushed hot.

Without realizing it, Maximilian lowered his head and hid his burning face.

But that lasted only a moment.

Maximilian raised his head again and gripped his sword tightly.

He had been briefly stunned after facing monsters for the first time, but now, even if late, he meant to come to his senses and fight.

"Sir Erhim!"

"Yes, Your Highness!"

Erhim Kilinger's voice came from right beside him, though Maximilian had no idea when he had approached.

Perhaps he had been watching from the beginning, because Erhim knew what the prince wanted.

When Erhim gestured, the soldiers and knights waiting below the wall began climbing the stairs.

But before they could even finish climbing, someone shouted.

"Don't come up! You'll clog the routes!"

It was the First Prince.

"Just wait below instead!"

Maximilian looked around.

The wall was crowded.

Certainly, calling up a large number of troops all at once did not seem like a very good method.

He sent the soldiers who had been climbing back down, picked out only the knights, and called them up separately.

Then he had them help the soldiers.

The knights of the Iron Lion Knights, who had been disguised as mercenaries, drew their swords and scattered in every direction.

"It's been a long time, Your Highness!"

"You look splendid, Your Highness!"

The Iron Lions shouted cheerfully as they passed along the wall.

"What the hell, why are you here..."

"We heard you were short on hands, so we came to help!"

When the First Prince saw them, his face went blank with bewilderment.

"Then we'll see you later!"

"Fortune in battle!"

The Iron Lions chuckled, each throwing out a word before passing right by the First Prince.

"It's been a while for you too, Dame Arwen!"

The female knight, who had been busily moving about and dealing with Orcs that had climbed the wall, widened her eyes at the man who suddenly cut in.

"Sir Dunham?"

"You're the same as ever. Whoops."

The man split open the head of an Orc swinging an axe at him, then grinned.

"Let's talk later."

The man cut through a hook.

The Orc that had almost reached the top of the wall hurriedly clung to the wall.

The man crushed its fingers.

GRAAAAH!

The Orc fell with a mournful scream.

Maximilian silently watched as the Iron Lions took positions all across the wall.

Once they joined the battle, the situation on top of the wall immediately improved.

The Rangers, who had been frantic with both sword strikes and shooting arrows, sheathed their swords at their hips again and took up their bows.

"Shoot!"

At the commander's perfectly timed shout, the Rangers loosed their arrows all at once.

A rain of arrows fell, and the screaming Orcs died in heaps.

But below the wall was still packed with Orcs.

There was no way to count how many Orcs had swarmed in.

"There seem to be roughly one thousand of them."

And yet Erhim Kilinger said that number was only a thousand.

If one thousand was like this, then just how many was a great army of eighteen thousand?

Maximilian was completely overwhelmed.

Even in the middle of that, however, his hands were moving diligently.

He knocked away a short spear flying toward a Ranger who was shooting his bow, and cut off a hook caught on the edge of the wall.

When an Orc stuck its head up, he kicked it straight away.

He moved busily like that for quite some time.

And then, suddenly, something felt strange.

"The knights of Winter Castle are gathering in front of the gate!"

Erhim shouted.

Maximilian unconsciously looked down from the wall.

The Orcs were still teeming there.

He looked back inside the wall.

The knights of Winter Castle were there.

They held swords and spears tightly and breathed hard, their eyes filled with a sharp light.

At their head stood the First Prince.

Maximilian could not understand how the man who had been swinging his sword right beside him until just moments ago had gotten all the way down there.

But that was not what mattered now.

"Surely not..."

What mattered was the fact that they were raising their momentum as if they intended to open the gate and charge out.

He believed it could not be.

Outside the wall was full of Orcs.

There was no way a mere thirty or so knights would leap into the middle of them.

But his expectations were wrong.

"Oooopen the gate!"

Along with a magnificent roar came the sound of pulleys lifting something heavy.

CREAAAAK.

The Orcs howling below the wall began to swarm toward the gate.

GRAAAAH!

RAAAAAH!

The Orcs shouted with their eyes rolled back.

Through that commotion came a low voice.

It was a sound like a whisper, far too low and far too small.

And yet, despite that, it pierced the ear more clearly than any noise.

"Snow-covered mountains, frozen valleys, and walls steeped in red blood say nothing."

It was the military cadence the Rangers had sung once before, on the road to Winter Castle.

If there was any difference, it was only that this was not a song sung in a terrible pitch, but something closer to simple speech.

It was sudden.

"Only the horn of advance blown by dawn rings out."

But immediately after that sudden sound was heard, the air of Winter Castle began to heat up to an uncanny degree.

WHOOOOM.

It was as if he could hear morale surging upward all at once.

Heat rode on the rough breaths the Rangers exhaled.

A fierce light flashed in their eyes.

"Snow-covered mountains, frozen valleys, and walls steeped in red blood say nothing!"

"Only the horn of advance blown by dawn rings out!"

Suddenly, the knights shouted those words after him like a roar.

VMMMM.

At that moment, Maximilian felt the mana in his circuits surge madly.

"Your Highness! Circulate your energy and protect yourself!"

Erhim Kilinger shouted like a scream.

As he had said, Maximilian drew up his energy and resisted the sudden anomaly.

The Iron Lions, too, stopped fighting and retreated, calming their surging mana.

What on earth was happening?

He had heard that the Orcs had beings called shamans who used strange sorcery.

Was this that method?

Or had something happened to Winter Castle?

Countless thoughts came and went through his mind.

Suddenly, the Rangers began to sing.

A song with a rough melody rang out across the entire wall.

At that very moment, a magnificent roar came from below.

"Charge!"

He saw the First Prince, his brother, gathering blue flames at the tip of his sword as he rushed forward.

Sword energy like fire, unlike anything Maximilian had ever seen in his life, and beside it, a golden light flashed and sprang out as the knights' Sword Aura began shining a deep blue.

GAAAAH!

GURK!

The Orcs gathered right in front of the gate screamed and flew into the air.

Their dark green bodies, scattering in every direction, looked terribly unreal.

The knights of Winter Castle drove into that gap.

Arranged in a formation sharpened like a wedge, they charged forward, cleaving through the dark green wave.

Orcs with severed limbs and Orcs wrapped in blue flames fell one after another.

The knights trampled over their corpses and advanced.

The Orcs screamed.

The knights roared.

"Ah..."

Maximilian stared blankly at the sight.

At the end of his gaze, he saw a boy at the very front, madly cutting Orcs down.

"My God..."

The noblemen of The Capital had belittled him, saying he had stolen his maternal uncle's achievement.

They had mocked him, saying he could not catch even a goblin, let alone an Orc.

His scoundrel brother, known to be incompetent, violent, and utterly useless, was leading the knights and crushing the enemy.

In that instant, chills ran over Maximilian's skin.

Whether it was because he was moved by the knights of Winter Castle cutting through the dark green wave, or because he had learned the true face of his brother who had lowered himself and hidden his strength, he could not know.

If there was one thing certain, it was only that something absurd was happening right before his eyes.

Driven back by the incomparably brave knights charging toward no fewer than a thousand Orcs, the Orcs were screaming and fleeing in every direction.

His mouth fell open at the astonishing feat achieved by a mere thirty or so knights.

The Orcs below the wall hesitated, then began turning and running away.

The Rangers sang their military cadence as they shot their bows.

Arrows pouring down like a shower slaughtered the fleeing Orcs.

Soldiers poured out through the open gate.

Unlike the Rangers, they were infantry heavily armed with armor and shields.

A hundred infantrymen ran after the knights.

The knights spread their formation wide and began slaughtering the Orcs indiscriminately.

"Your Highness..."

Erhim Kilinger approached and spoke to him.

Looking at the half-dazed knight's face, Maximilian stroked his own.

I must have that same face too.

He forced his stiff face to relax.

Then he steadied his trembling voice and spoke.

"We will..."

He looked outside the wall for a moment.

He saw the forces of Winter Castle driving away the dark green wave.

"...go out as well."

His blood boiled.

But cold water was poured over it.

"That is impossible."

Erhim Kilinger said.

The knights who had fought on the wall were already greatly exhausted, and going outside the wall in that condition would be reckless.

At those words, Maximilian looked around.

"Ah..."

Erhim's words were not false.

He saw the Iron Lions standing on the wall, gasping for breath.

As he looked at them, exhausted to their limits in such a short time, a question suddenly occurred to him.

Why?

What was different between the Iron Lions and the knights of Winter Castle?

Why were the knights of Winter Castle, who had joined the battle first and fought the most fiercely, still so lively, while the Iron Lions were already in that state?

He could not understand the reason at all.

Maximilian bit his lip and looked outside the wall.

The knights and heavy infantry were hunting down the Orcs fleeing in all directions.

Before long, the battle ended.

"We won!"

Lifting a military banner as red as if it were stained with blood high into the sky, the First Prince shouted.

But his gaze was fixed on his younger brother.

Their eyes met, and his elder brother grinned.

But the younger brother could neither laugh nor cry.

He could only stare blankly at his elder brother standing tall in the middle of corpses filling every direction.

But there were others even more surprised than him.

"What on earth is this..."

The high-ranking mercenaries of the Silver Fox Mercenaries completely lost their senses as they looked at the scene beyond the open gate.

THUMP, THUMP.

The battle was over, yet their hearts were pounding even more madly.

In their gaze was a boy returning like a triumphant general, carrying the Orcs' military banner over his shoulder.

GRIN.

The boy smiled.

Precisely toward the place where the high-ranking Silver Foxes were gathered.

The boy called over one of the soldiers and whispered into his ear.

The soldier nodded and ran toward the Silver Foxes.

"His Highness the First Prince says..."

The soldier spoke with a solemn face, as if delivering a royal command.

"He wishes to see you separately after the battlefield has been cleaned up."

At those words, which allowed no thought of refusal, the leader of the Silver Foxes simply nodded.

"Vincent! I won! That makes nineteen now!"

"I have twenty-six, so you still have a long way to go!"

The boy, the First Prince, and the eldest son of the lord of Winter Castle could be seen bickering.

"A Legion banner has to count as at least ten unit banners! Then I have twenty-eight!"

"If you count it that way, I have a Legion banner too. That makes thirty-five for me."

The two men raising their voices over something incomprehensible looked exactly like childish boys.

Except for the blood and disgusting chunks of flesh caked all over their bodies.

"This is completely different from what we heard."

The leader of the Silver Foxes said.

"They said he was worse than his younger brother."

At the words filled with admiration, the Silver Foxes involuntarily looked up at the wall.

The Second Prince was there, looking at his elder brother with a complicated expression.