AN: The shortest chapter yet, at 3,123 words - a prelude to the total gore-fest that will be the fourth chapter of this series!
"Men! Get into formation!"
Londes frowned at the black armored figure. He looked around, scanning the battlefield for any clues that might be of use.
Belius' horse had been sent flying too. It lay dead on the ground, several feet away from their fallen comrade, its back broken by the titanic force of the impact. That alone had been enough evidence of their adversary's formidable strength.
A small crater smoked ten meters away. Was that where the warrior had come from? No, it was impossible. No human but an adamantite adventurer could cross such a distance without being seen. Was that who they were up against? If so, it would be wise to initiate a retreat.
No, that was impossible. The appearance of this warrior did not match that of any adamantite adventurer he knew of.
His men marched into a rectangular formation, three men wide and five men long. More soldiers were pouring into the courtyard. The warrior was outnumbered thirty to one, and with the sheer number of soldiers present, Londes began feeling that they might conceivably win.
"Who are you? Why are you interfering with our activities?" demanded Londes.
Scant moments passed before the warrior spoke.
"This village is under my protection. My master is displeased with your actions. You will die for what you have done here, for the grief you have caused him," said Albedo.
"What? What master? Who do you think you are?"
The floor guardian ignored his words. "Are you the commanding officer of these soldiers?"
"I am," said Londes. He felt as though the warrior was smiling beneath her helmet. A chill shot down his spine as he struggled to form his next words.
"Surrender your leader to me at once and your deaths shall be quick and painless. Bar my way, and you shall be denied its sweet release for eternity," spat Albedo, raising her bardiche. Her voice rang across the battlefield as she took a step forward. The soldiers flinched. Her sheer presence was palpable, and every move she made, however harmless, screamed danger into their hearts and minds.
"You're out of your mind! Archers, fire!" screamed Londes. A score of unslung crossbows filled the hands of the men in the second row. The trained soldiers primed their weapons in a fraction of a second and let loose a fusillade at the warrior.
Arrows blurred at her. Albedo moved so quickly that Londes didn't have time to blink. Her bardiche was a sickly green afterimage as it smashed the bolts out of the air and returned to waist level.
Then did she charge.
The ground exploded beneath her footfall. Albedo was upon them without seeming to move at all. Her enchanted bardiche arced through the air in a graceful figure of eight, lopping off the heads of two men in an instant. It had cleaved through mail coifs and steel gorgets like a knife through air.
"Shields!" cried Londes, raising his own in futile defense. Her axe struck before the order reached his men's ears. Albedo's face was the ultimate expression of indifference as she unseamed the necks of three more soldiers with a single swing of her bardiche, but the twin flames in her pitch-dark visor flared brighter with every kill, and her blade and footwork accelerated as she spun like a hurricane of bladed afterimages.
Albedo smashed through the resisting tide of soldiers, smiling as they rained dozens of ineffective blows onto her. She parried an incoming blow and tore the aggressor's arm from its socket. The man fell from his horse, screaming, and Albedo ended him with a single slash of her bardiche, her gorgeous face marred by cruel indifference.
A sword flashed from her right. Albedo sidestepped the blow with blinding footwork and smashed the aggressor's skull into bloody splinters with a vertical strike. Her bardiche arced through the air and lopped off three heads with deadly precision, and three more as it returned. Man and horse alike were torn to shreds as she struck them down with bright green figures of eight with her war-axe, and fear overrode loyalty as the soldiers began to desert on horseback.
She chased them down, smashing bodies away with every swing of her bardiche. She was surrounded by a dome of severed extremities and blurred metal, where steel plate armor shattered like eggshells hammered on an anvil at its walls. Her enchanted axe was a flickering green blur from which limbs were parted and bodies were split in twain.
"Retreat!" commanded Londes, icy terror flashing across his face. Bodies were swatted aside as the floor guardian barreled through the soldiers with a titanic burst of speed.
She was upon him in an eyeblink.
Albedo seized him by the belt and threw him off his horse. The fall broke every bone in his right arm and dislocated his shoulder. She stomped on a knee, flattening it with a sickening crunch. Londes screamed.
Albedo glanced around the battlefield. Nobody appeared to be watching. Her inhuman senses confirmed this. She glanced at the ragged troops fleeing on horseback in the distance. There would be no escape. The village had been surrounded by a multitude servants beyond level 30 tasked with the purpose of capturing anyone they encountered.
She looked back at Londes. He moaned softly through broken teeth as he crawled on his belly towards his fallen sword, which lay a few feet away.
So foolish, thought Albedo. Don't you know that you won't even be able to stand?
Every closing armored footfall was a death knell to the soldier as his fingers wrapped around the hilt of his sword.
With a sudden burst of speed that surprised Albedo, Londes snapped around and slashed his longsword at her. The silver blade arced through the air and smashed into her shin. A great metallic clang rang out as the sword bounced away without even marring the paint of her armor.
Londes sucked in a deep breath and raised his sword for a second attempt. Albedo caught the blow and ripped the longsword out of his hands, tossing it several meters away.
Five meters away, a shadow rose from the ground. Some part of it seemed strange, as though it did not occupy the regular three dimensions. Albedo seized Londes by the shoulder and threw him towards it, a scream trailing the man as he disappeared through the gate.
•
A brilliant azure flash washed across Turiel's vision to reveal three familiar figures. The outfits they wore appeared no different three days ago as they were now. Even if they weren't, the village chieftain knew he was hard pressed to forget that stentorian voice that rang out with almost preternatural intensity across the courtyard.
"T-Teleportation magic…" gasped Turiel, stumbling back in fright.
"We meet again, Turiel. I trust that the casualties will not hinder the survival of your village?" asked Momonga.
"No, you arrived just in time, Lord Momonga," said Turiel. He knelt on the floor and kowtowed, dipping his head so low that it touched the dirt. "I offer my deepest gratitude."
"Stand. I do not require any elaborate gestures of appreciation," said Momonga.
Sigh, if only we'd encountered the village today. We could have requested for the map and the book in return for killing the invaders, thought Momonga.
"Do you recognize the uniforms of these soldiers?" asked the Guildmaster.
"Yes, they seem to be from the Empire," said Turiel.
Then it's a good thing that I asked Albedo to capture that commander. They might be troops from the Slane Theocracy masquerading as Imperial knights to increase tensions between the Re-Estize Kingdom and the Baharuth Empire, mused Momonga.
"May I ask something, Lord Momonga?" asked the chieftain.
"Go ahead."
"What happened to all the bodies? When we came out of the storeroom and our homes, we couldn't find any of the bodies of the knights."
Momonga gazed out of the window. The courtyard was washed with blood, but the bodies were nowhere to be seen. Long, shallow tracks in the dirt showed where they had been dragged out of sight by the floor guardian.
"My servant buried the dead in an unmarked grave in the woods," lied Momonga. They had been sent back to Nazarick to be experimented on.
"I see," came the reply. Presently, a knock came from the door. When Turiel opened it, a villager was standing there with the sun bearing down on his back. His eyes flashed nervously from the chieftain to Momonga.
"My apologies for interrupting, but the funeral preparations are complete," he said.
"I see…" The chieftain looked at Momonga nervously, as if requesting permission to leave.
"I don't mind. You should go," said Momonga.
"Thank you. Then please tell everyone I'll join you quickly."
•
The funeral procession had taken place under the hot sun. Long rows of weeping men, women, and children flanked the open graves of their friends and kin, who had been buried in simple wooden coffins that would have rotted away in a few weeks, leaving the corpse at the mercy of the elements. Simple gravestones broken from heavy grey boulders had been laid by strong men near the heads of the corpses.
The graves were filled, and the villagers had retired to their homes after more than an hour. The sun was already setting when Momonga and his friends left the chieftain's home after learning all that he knew about the world around them. They had acquired several gold coins in exchange for the aid — Turiel had sold the Yggdrasil ones to a traveling merchant in return for a hefty sum of money.
Presently, it appeared that the village headman was engaged in a serious conversation in one corner of the courtyard with several villagers. Something was terribly off. Flickers of nervousness were flashing across their faces, and their palms sheened with perspiration.
More trouble? Is there another invasion underway?
"Mr Turiel, is there something wrong?" asked Momonga.
Turiel's face lit up the moment he saw the Guildmaster and his approaching entourage.
"Lord Momonga! It seems that a group of knights are fast approaching this village!" he said. They looked nervously at him, and Momonga looked back. He could see the fear written across their faces.
"I see. Well, leave this to me. Gather everyone in the storeroom and meet my friends and I in the courtyard," said Momonga. He stared off into the distance, where a dust cloud had been formed by the footfalls of more than fifty horses.
The villagers were summoned to the courtyard by a sharp clang of the watchtower's bell. Momonga watched as they were herded like cattle into the main storeroom at the behest of their chieftain, recognizing the blonde-haired girl he'd saved earlier among their number.
"[Lesser Dimensional Barrier]," muttered Momonga, stretching his fingers at the large brick storeroom. A shimmering, crystal clear dome surrounded the building, its presence marked by a low, glimmering radiance like light through water.
The Guildmaster turned to look at Turiel. "Oh, right. I am a magic caster."
"I see! A pharmacist visits here sometimes. He is a magic caster too, of the third tier no less!" exclaimed Turiel.
"I know. A villager here told me of that," said Momonga.
"They're here," cut in a voice. Golden light flashed as Ethel pulled his Spear from his inventory space and flourished it in a reflexive display of extraordinary skill. Turiel flinched at the sudden movement and squinted hard at the approaching soldiers.
The cavalrymen quietly rode into the village in a narrow formation. Ethel noticed that their armor was of a significantly inferior quality compared to that of the soldiers he'd watched Albedo massacre. They wore leather vambraces, greaves, and helmets, accompanied by a stingy helping of iron pauldrons, shoulder-guards, and a small cuirass, all of which were interlocked by thin chainmail. They wielded a variety of weapons; most had sheathed swords hanging from their waists, but others utilized maces, spears, and bows.
Quickly, the party of twenty or so men formed a row before them.
One of them, who Ethel had been keeping an eye on the entire time, rode forward. He was far more robust than the other soldiers, and his light burnished armor was of a quality that approached that of even the knights bearing the Imperial livery. His skin had been tanned a deep shade of umber by more than a decade of hard training as a knight, and his coarse hair was jet-black. Broad, scarred muscles bulged beneath the plates of his light armor, and the knight exuded an aura of extreme danger.
His eyes flickered across the courtyard and lingered curiously on the shimmering forcefield that surrounded the storeroom. They turned to Ethel and stopped mid-swivel.
Ethel took the gaze head-on. In a previous life, he might have faltered under such eyes, but there was no sign of weakness here. It was a game that he understood all too well.
"Are you the commanding officer of these soldiers?" he asked, lowering his Spear slightly such that its tip was aimed directly at the knight's chest.
Gazef felt a wave of pressure wash over him the instant he did so. Every biological alarm bell was screaming within him — to stare down at the killing point of such a monstrous weapon was to invite nothing more than complete destruction upon the psyche of a weak-willed man.
"I am the captain of the Royal Select of the Kingdom of Re-Estize, Gazef Stronoff. My men and I have come under the orders of his majesty to subdue the Imperial knights terrorizing the villages in this region," said the knight. Ethel inclined his Spear, and Gazef quietly sucked in a deep breath.
"The Imperial menace has been neutralized," stated Ethel blankly. "Their leader has been slain and their forces are fractured and repelled."
"Mi…ster, what is your name?" asked Gazef. Albedo flinched at the rudeness of his tone but Momonga tightened his hand around her wrist.
"I am Ethel-Red. That is my servant, Albedo. These are my friends, Momonga and Hadriel. We saw this village being attacked and decided to save it," said Ethel.
Gazef responded immediately. He leaped off his horse, leaving its leather stirrups swinging, and bowed deeply to the group.
"I have no words to express my thanks."
"There's no need to, really," said Momonga, waving away his platitudes. "We did it for a reward, after all."
"A reward? Are you adventurers?" asked Gazef, regaining his footing.
"No. Well, I guess we are on an adventure," said Momonga.
"I see. You're quite strong, but I haven't heard of any of your names before, so I apologize in advance," said the captain.
"That is understandable. We're on a journey and happened to set up camp not far from this village, in the forest," said Momonga, gesturing at the treeline. "There was nobody who did not know our names in the past."
"What was that? I couldn't hear that last part you said," said Gazef.
"Ah, it's nothing. Pay it no mind," said Momonga.
"Of course. However, I would like to know the details of the bastards who attacked this village," said Gazef.
"I'm sure that you already know that they were wearing Imperial knight armor. What more is there to say apart from the fact that I killed most of them and drove the rest away? There were more than twenty of them, and they rode on brown horses. They used gladii, bastard swords, and spathae, and some of them had crossbows. I killed most of them and buried their bodies nearby in the forest — I could take you to their graves if you'd like," said Ethel nonchalantly, though he was feeling a little guilty for taking Albedo's credit. Nevertheless, he wanted to prevent the soldiers from asking too many questions about her.
"Know that I do not, for a moment, doubt the veracity of your claims, Sir Ethel. It is simply not every day that one encounters a warrior with a physique like yours," remarked Gazef. It was obvious at first glance that he was capable of titanic violence, but that slender frame and his effeminate features suggested otherwise.
Ethel was about to speak when a lone cavalryman dashed straight into the village, interrupting the conversation. Gravel crunched under his horse's hooves, throwing up a cloud of dust as he came to a sudden stop.
"Sir Gazef! Multiple unknown figures spotted in the area! They are approaching the village!" shouted the soldier.
•
"Damn those bastards…" cursed Gazef as he watched the figures from the window of the chieftain's house.
"Do you know where they are from?" asked Momonga. He'd recognized the Archangel Flames at first glance when he spotted them hovering two hundred meters away, at the side of a grey hooded caster.
"They have many casters specializing in faith-type magic, so I'm sure that they are from the Slane Theocracy," said Gazef. "What's even worse is that they appear to be one of the Six Scriptures. I don't know which one, but rumor has it that they are all capable of easily defeating a whole team of adamantite-ranked adventurers. If that's truly the case, then the battle is lost before it has even begun. Unless…"
So I'm right, thought Momonga, feeling a brief burst of pride at being vindicated.
"You wish to hire me, Sir Gazef?" guessed the Guildmaster.
"Indeed. I will compensate you in any way the kingdom can reasonably provide if you fight on our side in this one last battle. I swear it on my name and honour as the captain of the Royal Select," declared Gazef.
"I see. Even if I asked for your life, you would still agree to my conditions?" asked Momonga.
"Yes. For I cannot conceivably prevail against the might of an entire scripture, and therefore I would be dead either way in the act of defending this village without your aid. My efforts would nevertheless be in vain, and the village will be destroyed. If my sacrifice ensures the survival of this village, then that is truly the better option. If you would honour your end of the agreement, then so be it," said Gazef, tightening his fist in determination.
"Those are wise words," said Momonga, impressed. "I accept your request."