Translation of Sword Art Online’s volume 16, chapter 18.

Latest update: 12th December [continue from last update]

And that’s the end for this stream of updates.

It’ll likely take a while before I release anything for the next chapter.

Yen Press appears to have screwed up colour illustrations on SAO v6. See here. They appear to be offering returns.

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Amazon referrals: v7, P.v3 (Pre-order: v8, v9, P.v4 | Out: v1, v2, v3, v4, v5, v6, P.v1, P.v2)

Available at other retailers too if you haven’t gotten them yet.

Chapter 18

War of the Underworld

7th Day of the 11th Month of Human Empire Calendar 380

18:00

Solus’s afterglow dyed the gate isolating the two worlds in the red of blood.

«Great East Gate».

The humongous structure, built at the hands of gods, that isolated the Human Empire and Dark Empire for over three hundred years started crumbling away this very moment.

Tremors thundered throughout the world like roars from some immense beast in the Great Gate’s death throes, the last of its effectively infinite Life dripping away, while the five thousand in the Human Empire Defense Army and fifty thousand in the invading army watched on without a word. Those crossed from the Human Empire’s central capital, Centoria, in the east to the land of darkness’s imperial capital, Obsidia, in the west as distant, ominous thunder, prompting all in the Underworld to peer up towards the skies.

Seconds passed.

A crack streaked through the core of the over three hundred mel tall Great Gate. White light gushed from within and scorched the soldiers lined up on both the east and west.

The fissure branched out infinitely, reaching the ends of the Great Gate in no time, as the white light chased after, spreading out like a mesh. Giant words in the sacred script erupted among flames upon the gate’s two sides next. There were merely two throughout the vast battleground who understood the meaning behind the words, [Final Tolerance Experiment].

It started just about as those words burnt out.

The Great East Gate crumbled from the top, releasing flashes of light that extended to the skies.



1

“Uoohh…”

An excited voice escaped from Vassago Casals whose upper body went over the command vehicle’s rails.

“This the «final load test»? It puts even Hollywood movies to shame. Shouldn’t we be taking this videography technology instead of the AI, bro? We would be billionaires in no time if we start a VFX studio.”

Despite having his eyes glued to the great spectacle in the distance, Gabriel Miller coolly pointed out upon hearing that.

“Unfortunately, this sight cannot be recorded onto any medium. After all, it’s not polygons that form everything in this world. It’s a grand show visible only to those connected to the STL.”

Half of the Great East Gate had already crumbled into countless pieces of rubble. Though the noise and tremors were tremendous, the massive rocks all melted into light right before they crashed into the ground. Judging from that, it seemed the remains of the gate would not end up as a barricade.

Gabriel stood from the throne installed on the command vehicle’s roof with his jet-black fur mantle aflutter before walking towards a large skull set up by one of the Ten Lords of the land of darkness, the chief of the Dark Arts Users’ Guild, D.I.L.

The skull placed on a small table was apparently an artifact capable of transmitting sound. She said that by speaking into this master skull, his voice would be sent to the slave skulls in the generals’ possession. Though inferior to the Stryker Command Vehicle’s multi-channel transmission system, it was far more effective than sending an army of messengers for every little command.

Looking down into the skull’s hollow eye sockets, Gabriel let out a somber voice suited to his role as the «Dark Empire’s emperor and Vector the god of darkness».

“Warriors of our land of darkness! The time you have await’d hath arrived! Kill all who live! Pillage all without hesitation! ——Trample upon them all!!”

War cries burst forth from all across the battle formations, their volume exceeding the Great Gate’s collapse. The countless machetes and pikes thrust upwards shone in the hue of blood under the setting sun.

The first batch of the Dark Territory Army comprised five thousand mountain goblins, five thousand plains goblins, two thousand orcs, and a thousand giants for a total of thirteen thousand units. He would first have them lead the charge and observe the enemy army’s reaction.

Swiftly swinging his raised right hand down in front, Gabriel gave his first command as a player in this war game.

“Group one—begin the assault!!”





* * *



The one who assumed command over the five thousand mountain goblins on the right flank of the goblin force making up the first group of the fifty thousand-strong invading army was its new chief named Kosogi. He was one of the seven sons of the previous chief, Hagashi, who incidentally died through the Dark General Shasta’s rebellion drama.

Hagashi was extoled as the most cruel and greedy even among the past chiefs. Not only did Kosogi inherit a strong tendency for that disposition, he only concealed a high intelligence unbecoming of goblins under his hideous face.

Having reached twenty this year, Kosogi had been pondering over why the goblins were regarded as the worst among the five races of the land of darkness—the humans, the giants, the ogres, the orcs, and the goblins—for over five years.

Certainly, the goblins were the smallest among the five races and the weakest physically too. However, they once held numbers to compensate for that disadvantage and in fact, they conducted battles against the orcs and humans on equal terms during the ancient «age of blood and iron».

When the races eventually ended their wars, exhausted, the goblin chief, too, gained a seat in the Ten Lords Assembly, the highest aggregation in the land of darkness, upon the conclusion of the five races’ peace treaty. However, the treaty was, in reality, in no way fair. Both the mountain and plains goblins were given no more than the withered wastelands in the north as their dominion and there was nowhere near enough agriculture or game to preserve the Life of a whole race; their children constantly starved and their elderly rapidly died.

In short, they were done in by the chiefs of the other races.

In order to curb the goblins’ greatest strength, their numbers, they forced upon them a vast but infertile land. As such, the goblins had to exhaust all ends to even survive to this current day and could not further their civilization. Having maintained training institutions for their children to practice like the black iums was impossible; they were instead sent down rivers on boats in order to reduce the mouths to feed. All while aware of the treatment their children would receive in the lands of the other races when they arrive.

If only they had fertile land and sufficient resources, their soldiers would now hold not these machetes and plate armor casted from crude iron but tempered steel equipment. They would have amassed Life from ample food supplies and studied sword techniques and tactics. They might have even acquired those dark arts monopolized by the black iums eventually.

If they had, no one would claim the goblins to be an inferior race.

Kosogi’s deceased father, Hagashi, was constantly haunted by his anger and jealousy towards the black iums, but he lacked the brains to think about what he could do about it. He possessed wisdom enough only to hope to stay within Emperor Vector’s thoughts through military exploits in this great war.

What foolishness. How could they hope to distinguish themselves in battle? That was obvious with a look at the army’s arrangement.

It was likely suggested to the emperor by the chief of the Dark Arts Users’ Guild. That woman must have forced the «honor as the shock troops» upon the two goblin races to use and dispose of them from the start. The goblins would charge in as the vanguards and be promptly cut down by those devils of legend, the Human Empire’s integrity knights, before incinerated by her as collateral damage from the safe rear with the intention to rob them of their merits.

—How could he let her?

However, that, in no way, meant that they could disobey their orders. The descended Emperor Vector was not damaged by even a hair after immersed in Dark General Shasta’s attack which instantly annihilated the two goblin chiefs and the head of the Assassins’ Guild. The emperor held absolute strength and the law in the land of darkness decreed that the weak shall not disobey the strong.

However, that black ium female was different. Kosogi was now one of the ten lords, on equal footing as her. He had no duty to obediently abide by her malicious schemes.

The order given to the goblins was truly simple. They would penetrate in with a charge as the vanguard and annihilate the enemy army.

That was all. There was nothing about maintaining the warfront until the flames from the art users poured in from behind. They had the allowance to outwit that woman.

Kosogi secretly passed down a directive to his trusted commanding officers right before the Great Gate crumbled.

The moment the slave skull given to him clicked into movement and delivered the assault order from the emperor, he stuck his hand under his armor and pulled out a small ball he prepared prior. His commanding officers ought to be doing the same at that time too.

The clump of rocks that was once the Great East Gate crumbled completely with a roar and vanished as light.

He spotted multiple watch fires and the glint of dazzling weapons and armor further into the valley that opened straight on.

That was the white iums’ defense army.

Beyond them were lands sufficiently filled with abundance, endless resources, and manpower, enough for the mountain goblins to regain their age of glory.

How could he become some discarded stone? He shall have the plains goblins, cursed with a chief without brains yet again, and the orcs, who were even stupider, play that role.

Kosogi gripped the ball firmly within his left hand and thrust up the thick mountain knife in his right as he screamed in a deep voice.

“All of you, stick together and come with me!! —Chargeeeee!!”





* * *



“First Unit, draw your swords and prepare to engage! Ascetics, prepare your healing arts and incantations!”

Fanatio Synthesis Two’s proud voice pierced through the twilight, in her role as the integrity knight serving as the deputy head for the Human Empire Defense Army.

Jyariin!! The chorus of swords slipping from their scabbards rang through the valley. Their watch fires, whose numbers were suppressed, imbued their steel blades with a red gleam.

A thunderous noise finally approached from beyond the collapsed Great East Gate with the ground practically rumbling from it.

The goblins’ short pace. The orcs’ tepid pace. The giants’ footsteps, which sounded like hammers slammed into the ground, mixed in and overlapped atop their war cries. The howl of the massive beast known as war yet unknown to all humans.

It took everything they had for the mere three hundred guards lined up in defensive lines two hundred mel from the Great Gate to stand their ground. It would not have been strange for their files to collapse before even crossing swords once and to scatter in confusion. This was the first experience all of those guards had in a battle with their lives at stake, let alone with war.

What kept them standing at their post were the backs of three integrity knights standing alone in intervals at the frontmost line.

In charge of holding the left flank was the «Frost Scale Whip», Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one.

In the middle was the «Heaven Piercing Sword» who also served as the force’s commander, Fanatio Synthesis Two.

And the right flank was protected by the «Conflagrant Flame Bow», Deusolbert Synthesis Seven.

The three knights clad in full body armor which would glitter beautifully even in the depths of darkness stood firmly on the ground with each of their two feet and awaited the enemy troops without even a twitch.

Fear and fright were present even within the knights’ chests. They might have experience in real battles unlike the guards, but most of those were no more than one-to-one combat with dark knights. No one had experienced fighting against a force this massive: not Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio, not even Integrity Knight Commander Bercouli Synthesis One who commanded the second unit in the rear.

To top things off, the ruler of the Human Empire, the highest minister of the Axiom Church, Administrator, was no more.

The absolute justice that served as the symbol of the church, too, had long gone missing.

The knights stood on this battleground, trusting in their one last belief. Ironically enough, it was one particular emotion that should have been destroyed through the «Synthesis Ritual» once performed on them.



Deusolbert Synthesis Seven awaited the enemy army with his chest boldly puffed up while gently stroking the aged ring fitted on the ring finger of his left hand, holding onto the Conflagrant Flame Bow, with his right-hand fingers.

Ranking among the oldest integrity knights, he had protected the order in the Human Empire’s northern region for over a hundred years.

He drove away invaders from the Dark Territory in their attempts to cross the mountain range at the edge, exterminated large magical beasts within his base of operations, and occasionally took in criminals who committed taboos. He had ceased thinking about the reasons for his responsibilities since long ago. Believing without doubt that he was a knight summoned from the Celestial World, he held not even a drop of interest in the activities of the humans living on the surface.

What confused Deusolbert at times were those mysterious dreams that would pay him a visit at daybreak without fail.

A small hand so pale it seemed see-through. The light shining from a simple silver ring on its ring finger.

That hand would stroke his hair, touch his cheeks, and softly shake his shoulders.

He would hear a gentle whisper.

—Wake up, dear. It’s morning…

Deusolbert told no one about those dreams. He thought the Chief Elder would erase them with his arts upon hearing of them. He did not want to lose those dreams. After all, the ring shining on that small hand in his dreams had the same design as the one he had on his left ring finger since he woke up as a knight.

Were those memories from the Celestial World? If he fulfilled his mission as a knight in this lower realm and gained permission to return above, could he meet with the owner of that hand and voice once more?

Deusolbert hid that question—or hope—deep in his heart for the longest time.

However, something happened during that severe shock sent throughout the Central Cathedral half a year ago.

Deusolbert, who fought with the two youths rebelling against the church, lost despite resorting to his armament full control art. The black-haired youth, who broke through the Conflagrant Flame Bow with a sword technique he witnessed for the first time, spoke of something he found hard to believe.

The integrity knights were not summoned from the Celestial World. They were mere common folk born in the Human Empire, trained to become knights with their memories sealed.

The highest minister, Administrator, the supreme good, the absolute order, and personification of perfect justice could not possibly be involved in deceiving all of the knights. However, those youths repelled Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio, Knight Commander Bercouli, and Chief Elder Chudelkin, reached the top floor of the Central Cathedral, and defeated even Administrator herself. A party of mere rebels could not hold such might in their swords.

He frankly knew from the start, ever since he first fought them. Their straight sword strokes possessed not even a trace of falsehood or deception.

That then meant the owner of that small hand in his dreams, too, was not from the Celestial World but a human born on the surface.

Deusolbert did something for the first time since he became a knight the moment he realized that truth. He embraced the ring on his left hand to his chest as tears flowed from his two eyes.

After all, unlike the integrity knights, the lives of the people in the Human Empire were extinguished within seventy years at most. In other words, Deusolbert understood he would never meet again the one who called him, “dear”.

Yet still, he responded to Knight Commander Bercouli’s plea and advanced onto where the decisive battle would take place.

To protect the world where he lived with the owner of that small hand, regardless of how far in the past it was.

That was to say, what gave Integrity Knight Deusolbert Synthesis Seven the strength to stand his ground without budging before the great force from the land of darkness was the strength from that one emotion he should have gotten rid of—«love».

And unknown to him, Knight Fanatio and Knight Eldrie, too, stood there to fight alongside him for their respective loved ones.

Deusolbert separated his right hand from the ring and grasped four steel arrows at once from the gigantic quiver set on the ground by his side.

He arranged them carefully onto his divine instrument, the Conflagrant Flame Bow, that he wielded horizontally.

He was nearly done with the incantation for his armament full control art. Fanatio and Eldrie would still restrain from doing so, but Deusolbert’s secret technique could not display its might when it became a ruckus. With the resolve to expend half of his beloved bow’s Life, the integrity knight sucked in a deep breath and uttered the final phrase.

“Enhance armament!”

Crimson.

The humongous flames from the great copper bow dyed the invaders who reached two hundred mel away in a brilliant red.

The four arrows nocked on the bowstring shone too, immersed within deep crimson flames.

“—I am Integrity Knight Deusolbert Synthesis Seven! All who stand before me, you shall burn away, leaving not even your bones!!”

Though it did not remain within his own memories, he once named himself similarly when taking in a single girl from a small village in the northern region eight years ago. However, with his thick steel mask now removed, his voice rang out, accentuated and sonorous.

The knight’s fingers released the taut bowstring drawn to its limit.

Zudoo!! Four streaks of flames shot forth in a radial formation with that roar.



The first victims of what would be later known as the «War of the Underworld» were the plains goblin soldiers who charged in from the left side of the valley.

The new chief of the plains goblins, Shibori, had neither wisdom nor schemes on the level of the mountain goblins’ new chief, Kosogi, and was a youth who could boast only about his constitution and strength. As such, he went up against an integrity knight, possessing overwhelming might even when alone, absolutely unprepared and simply ordered his five thousand soldiers into a tactless charge.

Deusolbert’s four flame arrows pierced into the tightly packed plains goblin army from the front, achieving their maximum potential. A whole forty-two infantry goblins were instantly incinerated in that first strike and sent the surrounding soldiers into a fine disarray. However, as their charge was undisciplined from the very start, most of the machete-wielding soldiers thirsting for blood tread over their torched kindred and continued their disordered rush, pushing their faltering comrades aside.

Deusolbert nocked another four arrows onto his Conflagrant Flame Bow in response.

Instead of spreading out his range, he shot them while still bundled up.

The grand, conflagrant spear impacted upon the direct middle of their ranks and brought forth a tremendous explosion. Many soldiers were blown away amidst the scattered shrill screams. The casualties exceeded fifty, but still, the plains goblins charged on.

Naturally, they would. Two thousand orcs and a thousand giants followed after the two goblin races who kept pace with each other and stopping would be equivalent to getting stomped upon by them, several times their size, moments after.

While the plains goblins lacked a tangible plan like the new chief of the mountain goblins, Kosogi, they held anger and resentment against the scorn and oppression they faced as the weakest race. And that emotion was redirected towards their hatred towards the people of the Human Empire, who would eventually become slaves under them, named «white iums» in their tongue.

Raising the brusque battle axe he held with his two arms, far more muscular than the average goblin, Chief Shibori let out a savage scream.

“All of you! Kill that archer first! Surround him, cut him, smash him!!”

“Orarara—!! Kill!! Kill!! Kill!!”

That battle cry resounded throughout the five thousand soldiers.



Deusolbert took on the imposing anger and bloodthirst without a word as he let loose his third volley of fire arrows. The number of goblins charred to cinders exceeded fifty yet again, but the enemy forces charged on.

He stored away the Conflagrant Flame Bow’s flames as the distance between them reached fifty mel and switched over to normal shooting. Taking steel arrows out from the quiver at a ferocious pace, he fired blindly without any particular target. Each arrow pierced through three goblins, or two at the very minimum.

Guards ran forward from Deusolbert’s sides with their swords drawn.

“Protect Master Knight! Don’t let their blades reach him!!”

The one who yelled that was a young guard commander still at the age of twenty or so. He put the large, two-handed sword, with which he had went through intensive training, before himself. However, its edge trembled, just a little.

Deusolbert thought to ask them to retreat and to not over-extend. He held no confidence that the young guards could endure a real battle awash with blood yet, in sprit, in technique, and in body, despite experiencing the knights’ strict guidance.

However, he sucked his breath in before giving a deep shout instead.

“My apologies. I’ll leave the left and right to you.”

“Leave it to us!!”

The guard commander showed a distinct grin.

Seconds passed.

And the shrill noise made when the plains goblin soldiers’ machetes collided with the longswords of the intercepting guards rang out for the first time.





* * *



Several seconds before that.

In the middle of the gorge, Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio Synthesis Two was awaiting the enemy army in a posture that could be considered only odd by the common knowledge in this world.

She was standing with her feet far apart and the left of her body forward. Her right hand, aligned to her shoulder’s height, was gripping tightly onto the hilt of her divine instrument, the Heaven Piercing Sword. However, her sword was held horizontally in a reverse grip with its bottom end supported by her spaulder.

Meanwhile, her left hand was stretched out forward, her palm supporting the Heaven Piercing Sword’s blade. If Gabriel or Vassago were to witness this scene, they would likely come to the same thought. Simply said—she was like a sniper with a rifle at the ready.

That could be said to be true in a sense. Fanatio drew the rushing enemy army in for as long as possible while scouting out the most effective point.

Though Deusolbert’s Conflagrant Flame Bow could adjust the broadness of its arrow firing, the Heaven Piercing Sword could only shoot a single narrow beam of light. As such, naïvely firing it into the massive enemy army would hardly do much.

She should aim for the commander somewhere within the enemy army—any of the Dark Empire’s Ten Lords.

The Dark Territory led its forces through power and fear. The average soldiers pledged absolute obedience towards their commanders and they would fight on until their end as ordered regardless of any development. But turning that around, it meant they would lose all leadership with the defeat of their commander.

—We, too, were once so.

Fanatio embraced that intense, fleeting thought.

The news that the highest minister, Administrator, had passed away broke down the Order of the Integrity Knights in a single night. It was Bercouli’s words that allowed the knights at the peak of chaos to regain themselves.

—Was our mission, our purpose to live, to obey the highest minister and chief elder’s orders?

—No. We live to protect those living in the Human Empire.

—As long as we have the intent to protect, we will remain knights until we perish.

In reality, not all of the integrity knights had understood and abided by the knight commander. The knights assembled on this battlefield numbered less than twenty.

However, they all held the will to fight until the bitter end even if they alone remained. The same likely went for the five thousand guards who hastened here, this place of death. That was the decisive difference between the Dark Territory forces and them.

Fanatio brought her bare face, stripped from its silver mask, towards her cherished sword’s guard and caught firmly onto the enemy army with her widened eyes.

The goblin unit charging in as the ground rumbled was already narrowing the distance between them to a hundred mel. Deusolbert had started his assault from her right with his armament full control art and explosives flames lit up the twilight in red twice or thrice.

It was in that brief radiance—

That Fanatio finally found her target.

Huge shadows in the middle chased after the goblin forces in the advance party as though urging them on. They were the giants, boasting bodies several times the size of humans’. The one leading them had a tremendous frame a head taller than the rest; he was unmistakably Sigrosig, one of the Ten Lords, a chief she had caught sight of once before.

The giants were a proud, or perhaps terribly haughty, race. They measured superiority based only by the size of their bodies, and it seemed that inside, they looked down even on the true rulers of the land of darkness, the dark skinned humans.

That meant taking down the tribe’s leader with a single strike before the war truly began would cause a great disturbance indeed.

Fanatio took in a deep breath, held it, and whispered.

“Enhance armament.”

White light, bright as Solus, engulfed the Heaven Piercing Sword’s blade as a low noise vibrated.

She accurately seized, with the path its keen edge traced, Sigrosig who ran in from that distant point and shouted out sharply.

“Pierce through—light!!”

Zubaaaa!! The air shook as a dazzling heat ray converged from the might of Solus penetrated through the battlefield.





* * *



“…It began…”

Integrity Knight Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven listened to the continuing sounds of explosions from far away while murmuring so with a sigh.

Renri was one of the seven high ranking knights charged with the duty of defending the Human Empire. In other words, he could be said to personally hold more than just a little of the defense army’s entire war ability.

However, he now crouched, hugging his knees, not at the front of the Defense Army Second Unit’s left flank where he originally was but far behind, in a corner of the dim tent used for stores and provisions.

He had fled.

After running away in the fluster several tens of minutes ago immediately before the battle began, he snuck into an empty tent and had been silencing his breath and pricking up his ears ever since.

The reason he behaved so was based in that same motive he participated in the defense army for.

A failure.

Judged so by the highest minister, Administrator, Renri had done no work of significance as an integrity knight and spent a whole five years in cryostasis. Despite throwing himself onto this battlefield in order to overturn that dishonor, he had lost against his fear in the very end.

Though the memories had been erased from him, Renri was once a youth termed as a genius swordsman, unmatched by all, in the Southacroith South Empire. Advancing to Central Capital Centoria at the young age of thirteen, he brilliantly achieved victory in the Four Empires Unity Tournament the following year and was promoted to an integrity knight.

Even after losing all of his memories until then due to the «Synthesis Ritual» and awakening as a knight, he displayed awe-inspiring talent with the sword. Climbing up the ranks to become a high ranking knight at an exceptional speed, he was personally granted a divine instrument by the highest minister.

The treasured divine instruments in the Central Cathedral were not bestowed by the highest minister’s or the knights’ whims. It was, in fact, the opposite, with the divine instrument choosing its user. Via a certain sort of resonance between the knight’s soul and the divine instrument’s memories.

The resonance between Renri and his divine instrument, a pair of throwing knives, the «Twin Edged Wings», was strong indeed.

However, unbelievably, he had never invoked it. He had never invoked the proof of the high ranking knights, the armament full control art, even once.

That was sufficient for the highest minister to lose her interest in Renri. With Alice Synthesis Thirty becoming an integrity knight after him, his meaning of existence was pushed further into obscuration in light of her overwhelming talent.

It would have been unfair to lay that blame on Renri. After all, Alice’s talent propelled her straight up to the third position in the knight order and was worthy of the strongest and oldest divine instrument, the «Fragrant Olive Sword». Still, Renri was branded as a failure in reality and forced into a long slumber.

The moment he was turned into an ice sculpture by the chief elder’s «deep freeze» art, what came into his mind was a crushing sense of lacking.

He lacked something important to himself… that was why he could not control the Twin Edged Wings despite their resonance.

Renri woke once again after a long time had passed.

It was exactly amidst that rebellion incident that made the Central Cathedral tremor. With the resident knights defeated, including even Knight Commander Bercouli, and the fate of Alice, their trump card, unclear, Chief Elder Chudelkin found it fit to have him thawed.

However, Renri did not fulfil his duty this time as well. Chudelkin and Highest Minister Administrator fell before he fully awakened and all his eyes caught, upon him regaining his movement, was the Order of the Integrity Knights in a state of utmost disorder.

The request to participate in the futile mission to face off against the large-scale invasion from the land of darkness came from Bercouli, who assumed command, in the highest minister’s stead.

Renri felt the high ranking knights who responded, such as Fanatio, Deusolbert, or Alice, shone all the brighter despite having experienced defeat.

He thought he might understand if he went with them. He thought he might understand what he lacked. Why his divine instrument would not answer to him.

Cowering in the corner of that hall, Renri timidly stood up and raised his hand. Bercouli placed his large hand on Renri’s shoulder with a firm nod and said only a single line to him. That he would be counting on him.

Despite that.

The pressure he felt in his first battlefield, or his first actual battle, rather, surpassed what he expected by far. The bloodthirst and lust of the scrambling forces of darkness separated by a whole thousand mel surged towards him as a scorched stench of steel and Renri fled before he knew it.

—Stand. I have to return to my post. If I don’t fight now, I will remain a failure forever.

He must have rebuked himself so, time and time again, in the tent he had snuck into.

However, heavy tremors and ferocious war cries reported the start of the battle while his two hands still remained wrapped about his knees.

“……It started……”

Renri murmured once more.

The pair of throwing knives equipped on both sides of his waist seemed to waver as though condemning their master.

But he could not return now. What expression could he make to stand before the knight commander and those guards who had placed their trust in him once again?

—Nothing will change even if I’m there. A high ranking knight incapable of the armament full control art would just be a bother instead.

Thoughts that sounded like excuses went through his mind and he buried his face deeper in between his knees.

It was then that a soft voice reached Renri from the tent’s entrance, sending a jolt through his entire body.

“Tiezé, how about here?”

Renri cowered with fright, utterly unlike a knight, wondering if they were searching for him, but heard another voice immediately after. Both voices seem to belong to young girls.

“Yes, this tent looks like it’ll do, Ronye. Let’s hide senpai in here and guard the entrance.”





* * *



The giants’ chief, Sigrosig, was a legendary warrior with a bronze beard and unkempt hair, a brawny appearance, and a stature the size of a hill covered all over with countless gashes.

They, the giants, were the very ones with the purest interpretation of the Dark Territory’s only law, «the strong shall rule». With each of them sieved through every possible means of comparing their might, skill, and guts for as far as they could remember, their hierarchy was decided in a manner stricter than the Order of the Dark Knights’. Though the giants’ domains were the high plains in the west region of the Dark Territory, the various kinds of large animals and magical beasts that ought to be spawning there in abundance were constantly depleted. The giants had thoroughly hunted them down as targets for their rites of passage.

Why did they go that far in their pursuit for strength?

If they had not, their souls, their «fluct lights», would break.

The four demi-human races in the Dark Territory were terribly warped existences, with the «soul prototype» confined within flesh not that of humans. A mental safety was necessary in order to guard against the breakdown of one’s psyche.

For example, the goblins anchor themselves by converting the inferiority complex towards humans, born from their small stature, into the strength of their resentment and hatred.

The giants, on the other hand, hold back the distortion of them being human yet not through developing a superiority complex over humans.

Each and every giant would never lose against a human in one-versus-one combat at least. That served as the foundations of their mentality, an absolute rule. That was especially why they imposed such excessive rites of passage on their youth, pulling up each individual’s priority even if it meant reducing their race’s numbers.

As such—

The thousand giant warriors called to this battlefield, contrary to their taciturn nature, seethed with an intense will to fight. To them, born into the times after the ancient «age of blood and iron», this would be the first large-scale battle they experience.

The race’s chief, Sigrosig, thought in all seriousness.

That they would massacre the entire enemy army with the initial charge and end the war.

They would grant no chance to step forward to those determined by Emperor Vector as the army’s main force: the Order of the Dark Knights, the Dark Arts Users’ Guild, and the Pugilists’ Guild. By attaining victory without them, the giants would be validated as the truly superior race.

When the slave skull given to him rattled its jaw, resounding the emperor’s order to charge, Sigrosig felt the old scars carved all over his body rise in heat. He thought it proof that might of those innumerable large magical beasts he had torn apart with his bare hands had transferred into him.

“—Trample them!!”

His thundering command consisted of a single line.

That was enough. Swinging up the gigantic warhammer in his right hand and making the ground tremble alongside the reliable, brave warriors around him, Sigrosig began his assault.

The soldiers of the Human Empire were packed tightly into the valley in front.

To the three-and-a-half mel tall giants, they were weaklings not much different from the goblins. The swords they wear were smaller than even the teeth of a newborn rockscale dragon.

They would crush, punt, and tear apart every last one of them.

The circuit carrying Sigrosig’s superiority complex grew red hot and scattered sparks of pleasure. His rectangular chin warped and exposed a brutal smile.

In that moment.

A foreign sensation that was, however, not all unfamiliar ran up his spine.

Cold. Numbing. Like being pierced through with needles of ice.

He had tasted this sensation a long, long time ago. In the «Fledging Valley» not far from his village. His first trial. When he went to steal snapping birds’ eggs, in that moment the mother swooped down from above…

Sigrosig continued his charge even as he widened his two eyes and searched for the origin of that sensation.

He saw a small, small human at the front of the Human Empire ranks, in the exact middle of the gorge. Long hair with a slender body. A female—a knight adorned in glistening silver armor.

He saw a dragon knight of the Human Empire soaring beyond the mountain range at the edge just once before. He had thought to crush that knight upon landing, but the knight flew away into the mountain range after circling two, three times in the sky.

That bunch was worthless.

Nonetheless. In that female knight’s black eyes.

Sigrosig vividly felt the gaze from the knight despite their distance apart exceeding three hundred mel. The fear or fright, which should have been present, were missing, making up less than even a speck of salt would after falling in a large kettle of hot water.

Instead, it had the coolness of ascertaining and targeting one’s prey.

…Hunt, him?

To hunt him, Sigrosig, the giants’ chief and thus, the mightiest warrior among the Dark Empire’s five races?

“Hgg……”

A shrill shriek, unsuited to his grim expression, leaked out from the depths of his throat.

Strength left his two legs and the large hammer in his right hand grew terribly heavy. Sigrosig’s posture crumbled as he stumbled over.

An instant.

Zubaaa!! A ray of dazzling light shot out from the sword the female knight propped up with that buzz unlike any sound he had heard before. It stabbed through the right side of the chest of the giant running right in front of Sigrosig without any resistance.

If Sigrosig had not tumbled, that light would have blown away his heart next.

Instead, the white light vaporized part of the giant chief’s disheveled red hair and his right ear decorated with his prey’s teeth.

Piercing through another two of his allies running behind, it dissipated into specks of light, leaving behind those fatal wounds.

Sigrosig’s consciousness could hardly register the three giants who lost all of their Life in an instant and fell like logs. Even the intense pain burning at the right of his head was stabbed like some tiny insect before the humongous emotion assaulting him.

That was, in short, terror.

Sigrosig shamefully continued sitting on his backside as his jaw chattered in his trembling.

Even when he witnessed the upheaval during Dark General Shasta’s rebellion, while he was surprised, there was no fear. The ones Shasta killed after turning into that black tornado were no more than a feeble assassin and those goblins. Though he had to admit Emperor Vector’s power, he had no issue there as he was no human but a god of old.

Yet why had that mere female knight inspired such fright in himself?

Sigrosig could hardly bear to be paralyzed in fear from a mere human as his opponent.

“No… No, no, no…”

Smoke rose from his burnt hair as the giant chief moaned.

Impossible. He could not be frightened. White fireworks shot off deep in his mind as intense pain ran through it the harder he fretted. His mouth and tongue convulsed rapidly, spewing out uninterrupted words that came out as strange noises.

“Nononono, kill, kill, killkellkeldell, delldelldelldelldeldel.”

In this instant, the «core»—the self-image of himself as the strongest—rooted firmly in the middle of Sigrosig’s fluct light along with this «situation» where he was paralyzed in fear induced unavoidable conflicts, bringing on the collapse of light quantum circuits within his light cube.

The giant’s two eyes released crimson light.

“Dell, dell, de—————”

While the warriors of the giant race watched on in shock from all around, Sigrosig sprang up with force.

Swinging about his gigantic warhammer as though it was a tiny twig, he restarted his charge with tremendous vigor.

Sending those of the same race in front flying to the left and right, he caught up with the vanguard goblin force before long. Moist noises and shrill screams continuously welled up from his feet upon him pushing on without any attempt to let down on his momentum, but the giant no longer perceived those with his consciousness breaking apart.

The command to kill that female knight alone resounded through the core of his head like a broken bell.





* * *



In the end, the chiefs of the plains goblins and of the giants underestimated the existences known as integrity knights.

However, the chief of the mountain goblins, Kosogi, who led the invading army’s vanguards’ right flank was different. He had paid a high price to study the tremendous military might the integrity knights possessed not long ago.

The excavation of the buried cave at the northern end of the mountain range at the edge and the invasion of Rulid Village, by that large force of goblins and orcs, were planned by Kosogi. Though he stayed put at Obsidia Palace himself, he had granted troops to three of his brothers whom he shared blood with, instigated those of the orc race, and carried out the invasion strategy.

However, it ended as a tragedy. The few soldiers who barely escaped alive unanimously cried out unbelievable stories in front of Kosogi who was astonished over the information that the force was utterly annihilated, his brothers killed in battle.

According to them, the joint invasion force of over two hundred goblins and orcs were made to flee by a single human knight and a flying dragon.

However hard he found that to believe, Kosogi was no fool to abandon for nothing a lesson learnt at the cost of many sacrifices. He decided to never again commit the foolishness of challenging the integrity knights of the Human Empire to a frontal assault.

However, in this particular major invasion, the role ordered of the mountain goblins by Emperor Vector was precisely that.

The dark arts users’ chief, D.I.L. must be well aware of those dreadful integrity knights. That would be exactly why she offered this strategy up to the emperor. To use up the goblins, orcs, and giants and create a disordered melee in the valley before reducing them all to ashes along with the integrity knights.

They could only obey while the emperor approved of D.’s plan. Kosogi racked his brains over three days and nights. How could he carry out the order for a tactless charge while escaping from the jaws of death formed by the integrity knights in front and the dark arts users behind.

The intelligent scheme he finally worked out took the form of those small grey balls distributed to his subordinates.

Having charged over the valley the moment the emperor issued his order, Kosogi discovered a tall integrity knight clad in glittering armor far in front.

Though that was not Alice Synthesis Thirty who destroyed the invasion force in Rulid Village but her disciple, Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one, Kosogi could not distinguish between them. Either way, they were demons scattering death without mercy to the goblin race.

“Right… throw them!!”

Kosogi issued a new command the moment they arrived fifty mel from the knights.

At the same time, he crushed firmly the small ball held in his own left hand.

Small flames leaked out from the cracked ball with crackling noises. Of course, it was no sort of gunpowder. Underworld, as it currently was, had no objects on that level of civilization.

Simultaneously, it was no thermal element generated by arts. Inserted within the balls were small beetles known as «Firestarter Beetles» which lived solely at the volcano at the northern end of the land of darkness, a holy ground for the mountain goblins. They would scatter blazing hot flames and burn one’s hands if crushed on accident.

The grey ball enveloping the firestarter beetles were from the north as well, it was formed by drying a kind of moss out in the sun, kneading the powder made, and drying it once more. As it let out a large quantity of smoke once ignited, it was originally used as a signal. However, through the technique of concentrating like the Assassins’ Guild, Kosogi had amplified the objects’ effect by tens of times.

As a result—

The moss balls thrown by Kosogi and his subordinates as one became what could be considered as impressive smoke grenades. Ignited by the firestarter beetles, the balls spewed out dense smoke that hid away even one’s own nose and shrouded the entire northern half of the valley stretching out east and west.

Not even the goblins with their excellent night vision could fight properly within this smoke.

However, Kosogi’s scheme was not to defeat the enemies by slipping into the smoke. Immediately before diving into the dense smokescreen, he shouted out his third command.

“All of you, ruuuunn!!”

Returning the mountain knife to his back at once, he landed both hands onto the ground. With their small statures, goblins reached no higher than humans’ knees when scrambling on all fours. The smoke was faint closer to the ground with the enemy soldiers’ positions barely visible.

The five thousand mountain goblin soldiers with Kosogi, their chief, completely ignored Eldrie and the guards and slipped past, running on farther into the valley.

The emperor’s orders were merely to charge into the enemy army. It did not specify which part to target. Kosogi set up a plan to pass by the enemy’s main force, especially the integrity knights, without engaging them and to assail their reinforcement units behind.

By sneaking in beyond the front lines, they would avoid the combined attack from the dark arts users and orc archers that would eventually rain down from behind. They would return about and finish off the integrity knights and guards after the flames and arrows deal them a devastating blow, or simply flee off into the endless Human Empire otherwise.

Thus, among the three openings of hostilities in the hundred mel wide valley, the north side alone advanced without bloodshed.

Just about as the second unit of guards in the Human Empire Defense Army stationed behind Eldrie finally noticed the disappearance of the high ranking integrity knight commanding them, Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven.





* * *



The first casualty from the Defense Army was the elderly guard struggling by Deusolbert’s immediate side at the right flank of where the first unit held down the front line.

He did not manage to stop the hand axes thrown by the goblins with his shield.

He was a lower noble that had long commanded a platoon in the Wesdarath West Empire’s imperial guards. Though he certainly had skill with the sword, he could not help but to approach the undisputable descent of his Life and the axe that dug deep into his wrinkled neck dealt him a completely fatal wound. Not even the healing arts hurriedly recited by the ascetics party on standby behind could make up for that damage.

Deusolbert had paused his random firing immediately and performed a high ranking healing art on the fallen old guard. However, the guard shook his head and shouted out while vehemently vomiting blood.

“You must not!! This is, truly, this old man’s sacred task and Life… esteemed knight, I trust you… with our home……”

A moment later, the old guard passed away with what was left of his life force released as space resources.

Deusolbert bit down hard and shot at the goblin who had hurled that hand axe with the blaze from the Conflagrant Flame Bow powered by the old guard’s life.



The guards of the Defense Army continued falling after that, too, sporadically yet without end. Tens of those numbers among the demi-humans lost their lives as well, obeying the command for their ruthless charge to the very end.

Much of the flood of Life resources dispersed throughout the battlefield rose as specks of light—

Far, into the skies above the gorge.

Where a single flying dragon hovered under the cover of night.

Spiraling as they coalesced towards the integrity knight, clad in golden armor, standing atop its back.





* * *



He had neither the time nor space to hide himself.

Renri curled up his back within the darkness in a corner of the supplies tent and awaited the approaching silhouette with his arms around his knees.

The round hole for sunlight faintly shone upon girls who seemed to be fifteen or sixteen years old. One had vivid red hair while the other’s hair was a deep brown. They wore light armor above the grey tunic and skirt that appeared part of some academy’s uniform. Slender, straight swords hung at the left of their waists. He held no recollection of their faces, but they were likely guards from the common folk rather than knights, judging from their equipment grade.

What seemed out of place was the metallic chair pushed by the dark brown haired girl. A black-haired youth sat upon the chair, furnished with four wheels instead of legs, with his head hung down. Renri’s eyes were drawn towards his face.

Approximately twenty? Not only was his frame horribly thin, his right arm was also missing from where his shoulder ended. He could only consider him weaker than the girls from a single glance. However, Renri understood at once that the two longswords held tightly by the young man’s left arm—commanding tremendous presence despite their sheaths—were divine instruments, possibly ranked higher than the Twin Edged Wings.

How could it be? Even if he ignored how he was sanctioned to own those, it still required physical strength on the level of integrity knights to have them on one’s lap like that. However, the youth who blankly stared into space could hardly possess such strength.

He thought to that point before it seemed the girls noticed Renri cowering in the darkness, freezing up after drawing sharp breaths.

It took surprisingly little time before the red-haired girl reached out towards her sword’s grip with her right hand.

Renri spoke hoarsely before she drew.

“I’m not your enemy… sorry for frightening you. Mind if I stand? I’ll show you my hands.”

“…Go on.”

Waiting until the girl stiffly responded, Renri gently rose. After taking one, two steps forward with both hands raised, the afterglow from the roof’s hole lit up his armor of the highest grade an the divine instrument on both sides of his waist. The girl curtly gulped and straightened up in a hurry. Their right hands left the sword handle and chair, and formed a sign of respect before their left breasts.

“Es… esteemed knight! We are terribly sorry!”

Renri shook his head and interrupted the red-haired girl who continued her apologies with a pale face.

“No… it was my fault for startling you. Besides, I’m… no longer an integrity knight…”

Though the latter half barely even made it as a whisper, the girls blinked with puzzled looks. Their confusion came as no surprise. The white mantle hanging around his back and the cross joined with a ring, the Axiom Church’s crest, shining in the middle of his breastplate served as definite proof of his status as an integrity knight.

Renri placed his right fingers at the crest, as though to hide it while exposing the truth with his twisted mouth in self-depreciation.

“I left my station and fled earlier. The fighting had already begun at the frontmost line. It must be chaos at the unit under my command about now. There must be causalities too. And despite that, I can’t move from here; how could I be considered a knight?”

He bit down hard on his lips while glancing upwards.

He saw himself in the widely opened eyes, in the colors of autumn, belonging to the red-haired girl.

Grey hair hanging down slightly from the forehead. Those round cheeks. And two feminine eyes with long lashes, lacking all knightly fortitude— A failure of a knight, confined eternally at fifteen years old.

It was when he quickly averted his eyes from those features he despised.

The red-haired girl covered her mouth with a hand as though assailed by some new cause for surprise.

“……?”

Renri frowned in suspicion before the girl averted her eyes this time and shook her head slightly.

“I-I’m sorry. It’s, nothing…”

Taking the place of the red-haired girl who continued looking down, the girl with dark brown hair who kept silent until now stepped forward and stated her name with a faint yet firm voice.

“We apologize for not introducing ourselves earlier. We belong to the supply unit, I am Novice Trainee Ronye Arabel and this is Novice Trainee Tiezé Shtolienen. And this is… Elite Swordsman-in-training Kirito.

«Kirito».

Renri let out a soft voice from the immense shock of hearing that name.

He knew him. Was he not one of the mere two rebels who cut through the Central Cathedral half a year ago? He was the very one who Renri was thawed to intercept, the one who he missed out on engaging due to his late awakening.

That meant this skinny swordsman was the one who defeated the highest minister, Administrator? Was that missing right arm a relic from battle?

Renri drew his right foot back, feeling a pressure that he could do nothing about from the youth who kept quiet with a hollow expression. Showing no sign she noticed that movement, the small girl who seemed to be named Ronye continued in a tone tinged with resolve.

“Erm… I have no opinion regarding your circumstances, esteemed knight. While we do belong to the Defense Army, we, too, remain here in the back without engaging at the front lines. …That said, that is currently our responsibility. We are tasked to protect this man at all cost from Knight Alice…”

Alice. —Alice Synthesis Thirty.

The young prodigious knight, a stark contrast of Renri on all fronts. She should be preparing for the Defense Army’s secret plan even at the current moment, a large-scale art to halt the front lines on her own.

As though cornering Renri, tormented by an emotion that made him feel even smaller, Novice Trainee Arabel added to her words with a desperate look.

“Esteemed knight, I do apologize if I am overstepping my bounds… but could you possibly lend us a hand? To be honest, the two of us can hardly even defeat a single goblin. We must… we must keep Kirito-senpai safe!”

Renri squinted against the dazzling light in Ronye’s eyes.

He thought it a light that belonged only to those who had carved their mission onto their heart, those determined to accomplish their mission even if it meant casting their lives away.

—Where had I left mine behind, when even a novice trainee girl, yet to graduate from school, has it? Or perhaps I had lacked mine ever since I first woke up as an integrity knight in this Human Empire…?

Renri heard a dry voice trickle from his own mouth.

“You should be fine here… I think. His Excellency, Knight Commander Bercouli, is the one commanding the Defense Army Second Unit and if anything gets past his guard, that’s equivalent to the end of the Human Empire anyway. It’ll end up the same no matter where you run. I plan to sit here until the battle ends. I won’t get in your way if you intend to stay anywhere close…”

With his words fading off into his soundless breathing, Renri went back, deeper into the tent, and sat down with a thud.

It was about then—

That smoke shells thrown by Kosogi, the chief of the mountain goblins, and the rest blew up at the left flank of the frontmost lines where Integrity Knight Eldrie awaited. Taking advantage of the dense, rising fumes, a flood of goblins began slipping past the defense line like water through coarse fabric.

Neither Renri nor two female novice trainees could have possibly known that their aim was precisely the annihilation of the supply unit at the Human Empire Defense Army’s rearmost.





* * *



The progression towards destruction advanced rapidly for the collection of light quantums that made up that soul, that fluct light, belonging to Sigrosig, the chief of the giants.

However, as the collapse caused heavy damage only to certain parts rather than it as a whole, there was a delay before his fluct light ceased functioning. On the other hand, that phenomenon induced a particular «side effect».

With the hatred and bloodthirst Sigrosig had directed towards the humans for decades released all at once, they overflowed from his fluct light and reached even the light cube storing Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio’s soul through the «Main Visualizer» regulating the Light Cube Cluster.

Direct control of phenomena via imagination. The power termed «incarnation» by the integrity knights robbed the freedom of movement from Fanatio’s body despite her lengthy experience.

Charging forth with his humongous frame of almost four mel with terrible vigor, the giant chief swung the large hammer held in his right hand up high.



—Why won’t they move!?

Fanatio thought to beat some sense into her two legs that refused to listen to her, but she could not even ball her hands into fists to do so.

Even with the giant chief as her opponent, the deputy commander of the Order of the Integrity Knights would never freeze up with a mere glare.

She told herself so, but still, her body seemed frozen in her shooting stance with her right knee on the ground.

During a bout with Knight Commander Bercouli, she could not gain any ground with her sword prepared—she went through such an experience. However, this was utterly different from that heavy yet somehow tender presence that emanated from the knight commander and enveloped her. Pain, like leather belts covered in iron thorns wrapped over her one after another, tormented her entire being.

The giant chief, Sigrosig, bellowed out a strange yell as he kicked the goblins and orcs who should have been his allies aside and charged closer. Cutting the distance down below fifteen mel.

He would be no challenge in a one-versus-one; that was how it should have been.

Among the ten lords in the Dark Empire, Fanatio acknowledged only the might of the leader of the Order of the Dark Knights, Shasta. In a prior bout, her helmet unfortunately cracked at the end of an intense battle exceeding thirty minutes and she tasted humiliation when Shasta drew his sword back after seeing Fanatio’s bare face.

However, she never considered defeat even at that time. She was under a strict restriction from Bercouli regarding the usage of the armament full control art when fighting against dark knights. Hence, she should not be falling behind anyone else. The very thought of freezing up from a mere glare was preposterous.

That said, the phenomenon that exceeded Fanatio’s understanding was drawing closer before her eyes, moment by moment.

It would not even take ten seconds before that gigantic iron hammer swings down upon her. She had to stand up and fix her sword stance at once. If she could intercept it with a slash, the Heaven Piercing Sword, a distinguished divine instrument, would never lose to that coarse iron hammer on Sigrosig.

Despite that, she could not stand. Unseen shackles bound Fanatio and the giant chief, a dark red gleam seething in his two eyes, approached before her eyes—

“Humankilldeldelde———

Spouting a scream that sounded no longer intelligible as his iron hammer roared down.

——Your Excellency.

Fanatio quietly muttered with her immobilized mouth.



Dakira Synthesis Twenty-two, a low ranking knight, had offered everything to a sole person ever since awakening as a knight..

Not to the ruler, the highest minister, Administrator. Neither was it to the leader of the knight order, Bercouli.

It was to Deputy Commander Fanatio and no one else. Dakira was strongly drawn by her relentless intensity and the anguish she concealed.

That emotion could be no other than love, going by the Human Empire’s standards.

However, Dakira sealed all emotions away due to a variety of reasons and served as a faceless and nameless member of the unit directly under Fanatio, the «Four Oscillation Blades». Being by her side alone made Dakira feel more fortunate than ever hoped for.

The Four Oscillation Blades were, by no means, some elite unit among the low ranking knights. Fanatio had gathered those lacking power, judged to be at risk if assigned to the front lines on their own, and had them learn combination techniques to raise their survival rate, creating a so-called «unit of leftovers».

As such, they garnered low evaluations from the highest minister and chief elder, and in actual fact, they, the Four Oscillation Blades, all committed the heavy blunder of suffering heavy injuries against the two student swordsmen from the common folk in that rebellion half a year ago. But what hurt Dakira much more was how they failed to protect Fanatio. The time spent on the bed in the ward was filled with incessant thoughts of how it would have been better to die back then.

However, Fanatio spoke kindly instead of harshly towards Dakira after the injuries healed.

With the silver mask that she had never taken off in public removed, the deputy knight commander showed a beautiful smile and slapped all four of their shoulders in turn as she spoke.

—I, too, was saved by the rebels right before my death. Gentlemen, you have nothing to be ashamed of. Rather, that was a good fight. I had never seen a finer coordination of the «Encircling Bladed Oscillation Dance».

Dakira’s mind was made up, then, as tears ran under that helmet.

To not allow any harm to befall the venerated deputy knight commander the next time.

And this was that very «next time».

Regardless of the orders to stay stationed until further commands, Dakira leapt out from the ranks the instant upon feeling abnormality in Fanatio’s state.

There were over twenty mel until Fanatio, on her knee, and the giant chief swinging a humongous iron hammer down onto her from overhead.

Covering that distance in time was not viable with the physical ability of a low ranking knight. However, Dakira dashed on as a blurred streak of light and jumped before Fanatio, intercepting the iron hammer roaring down with a two-handed greatsword.

The resultant noise, shaking the earth, flared out alongside a flash tinged with red.

Though Dakira’s greatsword was far sharper than the guards’ weapons could hope to be, it could not compare to the high ranking knights’ divine instruments in terms of priority. On the other hand, Sigrosig’s iron hammer had its priority raised to a terrible level through the «power of incarnation from bloodthirst» streaming into it.

The skirmish collapsed in a mere half-second and numerous cracks ran through the greatsword’s blade. It took another instant before the sword shattered into fleeting shafts of light. Dakira threw the handle away at once and intercepted the falling humongous iron hammer with bare hands.

Multiple dull noises echoing throughout the body.

Both arms breaking in numerous places from the wrist to the upper arm.

Vision hurling into whiteness from pain. Fresh blood spurting from between armor joints, staining the helmet’s surface.

“Ku… hh… oooh!!”

With teeth clenched, Dakira molded the scream struggling to escape into strength and caught the iron hammer, beyond those two hands’ capacity to support, from below with that helmet.

The steel crossed mask shattered without resistance and unpleasant noises could be heard coming from Dakira’s neck, back, and two knees. The pain surging throughout as scorching flames dipped everything visible into a deep crimson.

However, the lower ranking knight, Dakira Synthesis Twenty-two, did not fall.

Fanatio was right behind. This detestable weapon must not be swung down.

—I will protect her. This time, for sure.

“E…. eaaaaaahh!!”

A shrill yell rang out from Dakira’s throat, freed from the crossed mask’s voice morphing function.

The blood dripping from the injuries all over enveloped Dakira as bluish-white flames.

Gathering at those broken arms, the flames burst as dazzling explosions. The iron hammer shot back, blown over ten mel away accompanied by Sigrosig’s huge frame.

Dakira slowly collapsed while listening to the heavy quake from the giant falling.

“…Dakira!!”

A shout, almost a scream, shot in from point-blank range.

—Aah, Fanatio-sama called out my name.

—How many years has it been?

Dakira smiled while crumbling into the arms extended from the deputy knight commander as her short, straw-colored pigtails and freckled cheeks laid exposed with the loss of her helmet.

Dakira was born and raised in a small village beside the sea in Southacroith South Empire. Her parents were poor, holding no family name and fishing for a living, but the girl blessed with the strength of a man grew up healthily while helping out with her parents’ work.

That girl committed a taboo at the age of sixteen. She fell in love with her close friend of the same gender who was a year older.

Of course, she never found it in herself to confess. Unable to deal with her suffering, Dakira sought penance from Goddess Stacia in an empty church altar late at night. However, as the altar was connected to the Central Cathedral’s automated elders mechanism, Dakira was detected to have violated a taboo and was brought to the Axiom Church, becoming an integrity knight with all of her memories pilfered.

Though she could not remember her name any longer, the older girl Dakira had loved resembled Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio a little.

At peace, Dakira looked on with her dimly blurred vision as Fanatio’s beautiful features crumpled and tears trickled from her long eyelashes.

—The venerated deputy knight commander is crying for me.

She could think of nothing that could make her happier. She had accomplished what she set out to do at the end of those long, painful days and all that remained as death approached was satisfaction.

“Dakira… don’t die!! I’ll tend to you this moment!!”

A heartrending voice rang out at her ears once more.

Dakira urged her broken left hand upwards with the last of her strength and with her trembling fingertips, gently wiped away the drops along Fanatio’s cheeks.

Grinning, Dakira formed those thoughts she had always kept hidden deep in her chest into a whisper.

“Fanatio… sama… I shall… forever… adore… you……”

In that moment, Integrity Knight Dakira synthesis Twenty-two’s Life reached its complete end.

The first fatality from the knight order lowered her eyelids for all eternity.



What——What had I been doing?!!

Fanatio screamed in her chest as she hugged the small body covered in wounds tightly.

The giant chief, Sigrosig, who tried to stand up was reflected within her vision warped with tears along with the remaining three members of the «Four Oscillation Blades» fiercely charging forward in response.

Dakira. Jeis. Hobren. Giro. She had placed them directly under her to train them up and to protect them. Though she gave them only strict words, they were her cherished younger siblings. Despite that, she was protected instead, with one of their lives even sacrificed—

“……Unforgivable!!”

That word was directed at Sigrosig as well as her own self.

She would allow no more casualties. She would protect those three to the end, for Dakira’s sake as well.

That resolve became a «power of incarnation from love» and radiated from Fanatio’s soul with an intensity surpassing the abnormal bloodthirst seething from Sigrosig.

The icy thorns, binding her entire body, thawed in an instant.

Laying down Dakira’s corpse, Fanatio stood up straight as the Heaven Piercing Sword noiselessly floated from the ground into her right hand.

Before her was the scene of Jeis, Hobren, and Giro knocked away with a single swipe of Sigrosig’s left arm after they leapt forward with their greatswords raised.

The crimson light residing within the giant’s two eyes seemed of the flames in the demon world far under the earth. Even the surrounding goblins and orc soldiers had ceased their approach, seemingly afraid.

“Kee… keel… Keelllll!!”

An abnormal scream roared from the giant who sluggishly stood up. However, there was no longer even a smidgen of surprise or fear within Fanatio’s chest.

Smoothly pointed straight towards the sky by her right hand, the Heaven Piercing Sword—

Gained a coating of pure white light with a dull rumble. That dazzling radiance stretched on for over five mel from the sword’s tip and remained as such.

“Humankeeeelllll——!!”

Swinging the iron hammer with both hands, Sigrosig jumped at Fanatio.

“…Return, unto the earth.”

Fanatio carelessly swung down with that murmur. Having extended several times its previous length, the blade of light drew a white streak through the air as it struck the iron hammer’s blunt surface.

A crisp noise echoed with the gigantic weapon dividing into two. Burnt red from the cross section, the melted iron splashed all over.

The huge sword of light came into contact with Sigrosig’s head just like that—slicing down into the ground without its momentum even waning.

The giants behind and the guards of the Human Empire descended into silence at that scene; the legendary warrior, boasting of the world’s largest body, was severed into halves while still airborne.

Fanatio raised the blade of light over her head with a satisfying sound from the two lumps of flesh, falling with a damp noise, and shouted out loud.

“First Unit, middle, forward!! Repel the enemies!!”





* * *



The waves of attacks from the never-ending stream of plains goblins sank Deusolbert into impatience.

There was no chance he would be defeated or even challenged by some average goblin soldier in one-versus-one combat, no matter how many times that was repeated. The mountain of corpses burnt by the flames from the arrows he shot earlier served as actual proof of that.

However, he could not take on all of the enemy troops alone as they came as a wide, horizontal wave. He could only leave most of those on the sides to the guards from the Defense Army.

In terms of individual expertise, the guards surpassed the enemy troops by a significant gap. Their sword techniques, polished through half a year of strict training, were certainly faster and sharper than the goblins who relied on their strength in swinging their machetes. But that strength difference was far less sure than the overwhelming gap between an integrity knight and goblin soldiers. It would be tough to overcome those numbers, several times their own, with purely skill.

Deusolbert keenly felt the desire to share with all of the guards the great strength his body was endowed with. But naturally, there was no art capable of that.

The guards under him lost their lives one after another, one jumped upon by multiple goblins, another collapsing from exhaustion. Deusolbert felt as though his own Life was shaved away each time he heard their shrieks echo through the battlefield.

So this was «war»?

It was utterly different from the old fights: sweeping up intruders on the ground while atop a flying dragon or a one-versus-one duel with a dark knight. It was an ugly war of attrition with each moment certain to add to the number of casualties.

The pride of the integrity knights served no purpose on this battlefield.

Was it not yet? Was the order for the unit to retreat not given yet?

Even the knowledge of how much time had passed since the start of the battle escaped him. Deusolbert cut through the advancing enemy soldiers with the longsword in his right hand and randomly shot with the Conflagrant Flame Bow whenever he could. With his calm lost without his notice, he failed to notice the strange movements taken by a slice of the enemy troops.



The new chief of the plain goblins, Shibori, was far more of a fool than the mountain goblins’ chief, Kosogi; the same went for his cruel nature.

Shibori recognized the integrity knights leading the enemy troops as no more than large magical beasts. He made light of them, thinking that no matter how strong they were, they were just one white ium on their own, doomed after being surrounded.

However, he found the integrity knights to be much more troublesome than magical beasts after the fighting began, barely slipping from their encirclements despite how many charged forth. Ten would be blown away with the explosion from a single fire arrow and even normal arrows flew true, to a horrifying extent, towards their heads and hearts.

Now then, what to do?

The conclusion Shibori reached after some thinking could not have been any more simple or cruel.

He would continue having his soldiers charge forward until the enemy knight’s arrows ran out.

That said, the soldiers sent ahead without a plan were in no mood to simply “go with it”, naturally enough. There was a fair amount with intelligence surpassing Shibori and though they went with his orders, they contrived whatever gimmicks they could.

They began lifting up corpses from their fallen comrades and hiding in their shadows or staying a fair distance from the knight while strafing left and right.



Deusolbert should have seen through such a naive plan at once if he had his usual temperament. However, the screams from the guards whose strength left them shaved away at his calm without his notice. The goblins benefited from how the war started at evening as well.

The enemy was taking awfully long to fall.

By the time Deusolbert noticed that, his stock of more-than-enough iron arrows was nearly exhausted.

“Goood, good, looks like he’s finally out of arrows.”

Shibori scraped the nape of his neck with the backs of the two machetes against his shoulders as he snickered.

The tragic display of the countless corpses of his race, too, failed to instigate much influence on his mind. He inherited that tenacity from his ancestors who had lived through the old «age of blood and iron» which could have been no more appalling.

It appeared a whole third of his allies were done in, but there still remained over three thousand soldiers. If they obtained plentiful meat and land after invading the white iums’ lands, they could replenish their race all they liked.

However, they had to produce significant results to expand their territories. They would first have to take care of that integrity knight in red armor.

“Alright, let’s go, all of you. Surround that archer and drag him down. I’ll take his neck off myself.”

Shibori instructed those forming a barricade around himself, his close aides who were both brawny and boorish, and slowly stepped forward.



“…I slipped up…”

Deusolbert let out a deep groan.

He had finally realized those enemies erratically moving through the darkness and those scarecrows improvised from raised corpses.

After bringing down those manipulating the scarecrows by aiming at the feet rather than the heart, the right hand searched through the large quiver behind and grasped only a fruitless emptiness.

Without arrows, the Conflagrant Flame Bow, a divine instrument, was no different from a plain longbow. Though it was possible to produce arrows from metallic elements with sacred arts, that technique could only be used in a one-versus-one where he had the chance to recite the art. In the first place, almost all of the space sacred energy should have been absorbed by the integrity knight standing by in the sky, leaving the atmosphere dry.

Grinding his teeth as he hung the Conflagrant Flame Bow on his left shoulder by its string, Deusolbert drew the longsword from his waist once more. It was in that precise moment that he spotted a party rapidly approaching through the darkness from in front, with sizes rather large for goblins. Their outfits differed from the small fry he faced off until now. Their chest to around their hips was covered in plate armor and riveted leather belts wrapped about their brawny arms. They held thick, large hatchets that seemed fit to sever even cows in their right hands.

Deusolbert confirmed another goblin approaching from behind those seven—with a frame that exceeded even orcs in terms of height.

Judging from the cast iron armor shining with black luster, the two large hatchets hanging from his hands, and the vivid, decorative feathers swaying on his head, he figured there was no mistake that he was the army’s commander.

The goblin general’s two eyes shining red under his bulging brow collided with Deusolbert’s pair of eyes and the surrounding air creaked in that instant. The swords and machetes striking against each other without pause on the front lines gradually petered out and came to an eventual stop. Both the guards and the goblins gained distance from each other without further words and watched the two generals’ confrontation with held breaths.

Deusolbert held back the numerous approaching guards with his left hand. Brandishing the sword in his right hand without letting down his guard, he questioned in a deep and seasoned yet distinct voice.

“You are one of the ten lords of the Dark Empire… the goblins’ chief, huh?”

“That’s me.”

The large goblin responded with his yellowed teeth showing.

“Chief of the plains goblins, that’s Shibori-sama to you.”

Deusolbert steadied his breathing, rough from the long, fierce battle while gazing straight towards the enemy general.

—If I defeat this general and those close to him, the goblin army would lose its will to fight, even for a moment. If we take the initiative and push the lines back, we would accomplish our role as the vanguards.

Even if he could not use his Conflagrant Flame Bow.

Even if it was eight on one, he could only aim for a certain victory now. He would prove the integrity knights’ strength, said to comparable to a thousand, here and now.

“I am the integrity knight, Deusolbert Synthesis…”

Shibori’s vulgar cry cut his sonorous voice short as he tried to state his name.

“Hold there, who cares about some ium’s name?! You’re meat, meat stuck on that head I’ll be taking!! Get to it… all of you, get him!!”

Uu———raaaaaahh!!

Deusolbert took on the seven elite goblins jumping forward with brutal war cries on his own.

They should have simply continued that boorish war if they lacked the pride of swordsmen so. Proposing this shame of a duel was just—

“Ridiculous!!”

Before picking up the whip, the spear, or the bow, every integrity knight was an experienced swordsman.

Not even a single being there could perceive the motion of Deusolbert raising the longsword in his right hand overhead and swinging it down.

The slash at godspeed drew a dimly white streak of light. A faint noise rang out as the large hatchet raised by the leading goblin was split into two.

That was a moment before that goblin was cut into two from the crown of his head to his stomach, fresh blood gushing out everywhere. However, the knight was gone before that spray reached.

Deusolbert carried out his next attack, having moved to the second before the first even noticed his own death.

It was not some consecutive sword technique like those of Knight Fanatio or the rebels he had once fought against. Those were repeated single slashes in the old style of sword techniques executed from the traditional stance. However, Deusolbert’s skill was polished through a near infinite number of months and years, to a practically divine level. Only the upper ranks among the dark knights and pugilists could react against that single strike.

In actual fact, the second, cut from the left at nearly the same time as the first, had perished with his plate armor severed along with his heart by the time he began swinging down his large hatchet.

The overwhelming power difference was evident in everyone’s eyes.

However, the elite goblins showed no hesitation. Chief Shibori, too, was a superior being that inspired fear in them and they did not even consider opposing his command.

Two who circled around from Deusolbert’s side, bathed in the blood sprays from their own race, assailed him from both the left and right.

The experienced knight showed not even the least panic and first cut into the left goblin from below and drew that into an arc into the right goblin from above. The single immediate motion that ended the enemies on both sides was truly on the level of divinity.

Three remained; no, four if the general was counted too.

Would they come all at once or one after another?

Avoiding the spurts of blackish-red blood with a jump back, Deusolbert prepared his next attack.

The fifth naively slashed at him from the left of his vision. He saw no light reflected off blades from any other direction.

“Nuhn!”

He sliced horizontally with the sword on his left with that curt yell. The tip cut a silver arc and sank into the enemy’s right.

Both of Deusolbert’s eyes opened wide in that moment.

A large hatchet had stabbed through the enemy goblin’s chest from behind, right as he had slashed, and flew towards him.

The massive blade scattered all around the fresh blood from its still breathing comrade as it closed in towards Deusolbert’s throat.

He could neither dodge nor block it with his sword.

Having judged so in an instant, the left forearm he raised collided with the tip of that large hatchet, producing dull light.

A numbing, intense pain. Though he had somehow endured with his reddish-copper gauntlet, the blow spread through his bones from his flesh.

“Ku… oohh!!”

Blowing through his surprise with a shout, Deusolbert forced the enemy’s blade to glance off towards the left. A cracking noise rang throughout his body, informing him of the broken bones in his left arm.

That was no more than a single arm!!

With the slash stopped with his mustered up spirit, Deusolbert charged straight in just like that. Stabbing through the sacrificed fifth’s stomach, his sword reached the overlapped sixth’s body.

However, the feedback was shallow.

He had to quickly withdraw his sword, gain some distance, and link that into his next attack.

Deusolbert pulled the sword out at once, sweat rising onto his brow without his notice.

The fifth slumped over, dead, and beyond that, he saw—

The sixth and seventh throwing their large hatchets away and leaping at him with their arms spread out at a height equal to crawl across the ground.

And there existed no stance fit for attacking an enemy in that position within Deusolbert’s style.

Falling into a momentary rigidness, the knight’s two legs were grabbed simultaneously by the two goblins. Incapable of dealing with their dreadful physical strength, Deusolbert fell onto his back.

His two widened eyes perceived Shibori, the enemy general, jumping forward with his large frame and two battle axes brandished while showing a brutal joy.

—In such a place, against goblins?

—It’s impossible for I, Deusolbert, an integrity knight, to face defeat here.

«Impossible».

That thought could prove to be a dangerous poison for one’s mental state the more stubborn one was. Though he remained above falling into a berserk state like Sigrosig, Deusolbert’s motion came to a complete stop within his numbed consciousness.

The knight could only watch on as the lethal blade loomed closer before he heard—

A scream, hoarse from exhaustion but valiant all the same.

“Esteemed knight———!!”

A single guard charged towards the enemy general and his fiendish features. That was that young guard commander. That youngling whose name he had not even heard yet raised the greatsword his two hands held up and carried out a slash from above with all he had.

In response, the enemy general swung the battle axe in his left hand as though it was a bother.

Gagiin!! A dull, shrill metallic noise rang out.

Though it paled when compared to the enemy general, the guard commander had a large build and wore heavy armor, but was blown away like a paper doll, rolling two, three times across the ground. That physical strength overthrew the gap between their technique, speed, and equipment all too easily.

The two eyes of the demi-human shone red and narrowed. Releasing the murderous aura of a beast’s, he leapt and swung up the axe in his right hand as though to put an end to the guard commander who had yet to stand up.

—No.

—I cannot allow any further casualties as a knight, and as their commander!

The momentary thought stabbed into Deusolbert’s stiff mental state like a bolt of lightning.

There was not enough time to shake his legs free from the two elite goblins binding them, stand up, and move before the guard commander. Throwing the sword in his right hand would only serve to delay the same conclusion by seconds.

Before he could consider what to even do, his two hands swung almost automatically—carrying out what he had never thought of prior.

Nocking the longsword in his right hand as a replacement for an arrow onto the bowstring of the Conflagrant Flame Bow he wielded horizontally, he fiercely tugged at it.

The heavy resistance felt as though he was pulling on a rope fastened to the great earth. The intense pain practically wiped his consciousness blank from the roots.

However, Deusolbert let a groan escape amidst his clenched teeth and pulled it to its very limit. Taking up a posture to fire, he yelled.

“Come, flames!!”

The divine instrument responded to its owner’s will even without reciting its art.

The energy from the flames emitting from all over the bow surpassed all previous manifestations of his armament full control art.

Though the longsword nocked onto the bow could not compare to a divine instrument, it was a named good produced personally by the highest minister. It possessed a priority on an entirely different level from the mass-produced steel arrows. The sacred energy contained within its blade transformed into flames without moderation.

The full body armor on Deusolbert, with its supposed resistance towards heat, turned red hot at once.

The two goblins clinging onto his legs let out shrieks as flames started spouting out from their eyes and mouths, burning them, before they could react accordingly.

The enemy general, turning back upon noticing the abnormality, widened both eyes from surprise and anger as he tried to hurl the axe in his right hand.

However, that was too slow—

“—Burn down to ashes!!”

Shouting so, Deusolbert released the bowstring. Shot forth with a roar, the longsword flapped its crimson, blazing wings as it soared straight. It appeared just like the Conflagrant Flame Bow’s original self—the phoenix that lived in the oldest volcano of the south empire.

“Graahh!!”

The enemy general let out a groan as he crossed the two large axes before his body. The phoenix clad in flames struck the heart of that for an instant.

The large, pig iron axes vaporized all too quickly with a hiss.

And their owner, Shibori the chief of the plains goblins, skipped through the usual processes of combustion, immediately turning into black charcoal— He crumbled into pieces right after and vanished without a trace.

Having witnessed their general’s horrifying death, the goblin soldiers turned around at once and began fleeing. However, over three hundred soldiers could not escape the phoenix’s inferno and disappeared into cinders.





* * *



The distress both Fanatio in the first unit, middle, and Deusolbert in the right flank went through.

Instructing the second unit in the rear, the commander of the Human Empire Defense Army, Bercouli Synthesis One, clearly knew of those as well as the chaos the left flank under Eldrie’s command experienced from that smokescreen.

However, he did not take even a single step.

The first reason was his trust in the knights and guards brought up under his personal care. The second reason was how the Human Empire could not send out its second unit either, with the main force of the enemy’s ground troops, the Order of the Dark Knights and the Pugilists’ Guild, yet to make a move.

And the third reason was the possibility of a surprise attack, something he could not help but worry for, with his knowledge of the Dark Territory beyond everyone’s.

Or in other words, the enemy’s might in aerial warfare.

In this world where the art for flight did not exist—save for the one recorded in the index only Highest Minister Administrator could call out and was lost forever with her death, to be specific—the few «dragon knights» among the Order of the Integrity Knights and the Order of the Dark Knights possessed exceptional war potential. Freely soaring through the skies beyond the reach of swords, they could raze infantry with the knight’s arts and the dragon’s heat rays.

However, they could not be rashly let out onto the war front due to that value of theirs. If they sent theirs out before the enemy and any fell from the off-chance of an art or arrow from the ground, they would be ladened with a tremendous disadvantage from that very point.

As such, Bercouli retained all flying dragons aside from «Amayori», ridden by Alice, in the rear of the battlefield and trusted in the enemy to do the same. Hence, the surprise attack he fretted over would not come from dragon knights.

Aside from them, the forces of darkness held an aerial force that they monopolized.

They were repulsive, winged monsters termed «minions». Created from clay and other materials by dark arts users, they possessed no intelligence and could understand only certain basic orders.

In truth, Bercouli had heard from Alice that the highest minister had created and researched into those same minions in secret. However, it seemed even the highest minister hesitated in deploying the repulsive minions as they were to the Axiom Church. He could only feel it a pity that she had not changed their appearances into something fitting in time before she departed, but there was no use in crying over spilled milk.

Due to those reasons, Bercouli felt it necessary to prepare for minions launching surprise attacks from the skies. And in this situation with the flying dragons held back and the ascetics unit tied up with healing, he was the only option left for aerial defense over a vast area.

To be accurate, the divine instrument Bercouli held, the «Time Piercing Sword», was the only option.

Bercouli focused entirely on his mind while standing firm in the middle of the second unit with both hands against the pommel of his precious sword in its scabbard.

He could constantly sense the difficult battles the three integrity knights and the guards of the first unit went through.

However, he could not take even a single step.

After all, Bercouli had already activated the armament full control art for his cherished sword.

A humongous clock mounted on the Central Cathedral in an age long past had informed the residents of Central Capital Centoria of the time. Its minute hand and hour hand were reforged into a divine instrument, the Time Piercing Sword. The power it concealed was to «cut the future». The power behind a slash would remain in the trajectory where the sword was swung and anyone who touched that would be cut, a technique that was just as exceptional.

Just before the Great East Gate collapsed, Bercouli straddled the knight dragon, «Hoshigami», and created a gigantic «slashing space» spanning a hundred mel in width, two hundred mel in length, and a hundred-and-fifty mel in height right before the Great Gate. Swinging his sword time after time with subtle vertical and horizontal movements, he drew out a fine mesh in the empty air. The total number of slashes exceeded three hundred.

Maintaining those «incarnation blades» on such a scale for over tens of minutes was a first for Bercouli, the practically immortal being who had lived for over three hundred years, as well. The technique was made possible only by separating his consciousness from his flesh and concentrating solely on his mental state. He had left command of the first unit to Fanatio for this one and only reason.

—Hurry… if you’re coming, come quick.

That earnest wish remained with Bercouli despite having reached a realm detached from needless impatience. Putting aside his mental exhaustion, over half of the Time Piercing Sword’s sacred energy was already consumed. He could not dispel the armament full control art for the moment and repeat the act. If he failed to annihilate the enemy’s minions and they assaulted Alice, preparing a large-scale art in the sky above the first unit, they would lose their one and only hope.

—Come, quick.





* * *



Though Renri Synthesis Twenty-seven who abandoned his post was the one stuck with the most pessimistic state of mind among the seven high ranking knights gathered at the Great East Gate, Eldrie Synthesis Thirty-one, too, was up against the wall despite how he should have much more experience in actual battles.

That emotion differed from what Dakira of the «Four Oscillation Blades» held for Fanatio, that honest love. He wanted to offer all of himself to serve under Alice, yet at the same time, he experienced the contradictory desire to place her under his protection as his senior.

Alice was reputed as the greatest genius in the church’s history ever since he awoke as an integrity knight. She possessed a talent at the sacred arts far surpassing the ascetics and priests, was chosen as the owner of the oldest divine instrument, the «Fragrant Olive Sword» with its alternate name, the Eternal Immortality, which had rejected all resonance with other knights, and even had the gift to take in all of Knight Commander Bercouli’s techniques.

She could be seen only as a young girl on the outside, but to most of the knights, Alice was like a lone star in the northern skies, distant from all else. The circumstances had also spurred the rumors that she would succeed the highest minister, Administrator.

As such, Eldrie, too, made no effort to approach Alice after awakening as a knight. It could even be said he actively avoided her.

Though his memories in the Human Empire were stolen through the «Synthesis Ritual», Eldrie was the eldest son of Eschdol Woolsburg, the greatest commander-in-chief of Norlangarth North Empire and a first class noble. In addition, in Year 380 of the Human Empire Calendar, he was the first representative swordsman from the north empire and the champion of the Four Empires Unity Tournament. Even after becoming an integrity knight, his innate pride and conceit as a noble remained.

To that personality of his, Alice’s existence as a knight far superior to him despite being young and female, and her position as Knight Commander Bercouli’s only disciple should have brought him discomfort and never affection.

However, it happened late at night some time after she became a knight.

Eldrie spotted an utterly unexpected aspect to Alice by accident.

Delving deep in the rose garden in a bid for some secret sword training, he saw Alice, dressed in simple sleepwear, throwing herself down before a coarse grave marker and sobbing. The name on the grave marker, a mere cross carved from plain wood, was that of an old flying dragon whose Life went dry several days prior—the mother dragon who gave birth to Alice’s knight dragon, «Amayori», and Eldrie’s knight dragon, «Takiguri».

They might be highly valued for their war potential, but still, they were mere dragons. Was she not just a lower, kept beast? What reason was there for a grave and that grieving?

That was what Eldrie thought then.

However, when he tried to turn aside and snicker, he was shocked upon noticing something hot welling from his own eyes.

Alice, crying as she mourned for the deceased mother dragon. He still did not know why that had made his heart quiver hard enough to have it tear apart. However, Eldrie could only stand still, unable to even wipe his tears, as he realized. That graceful, fleeting figure was the true Alice Synthesis Thirty.

Ever since that day, the aloof Knight Alice appeared completely different when reflected in Eldrie’s eyes. He saw her as a crystal flower, capable of withstanding any draught with her head firmly held high yet close to shattering at any moment—

He wanted to protect her. He wanted to guard that girl from any tormenting, cold wind.

That emotion in Eldrie grew only stronger day by day. Still, his thoughts of protecting were too impertinent. Alice’s talents surpassed Eldrie’s be it in arts or the sword.

The only possibility he had left was his desire to receive Alice’s guidance as her disciple.

From then, Eldrie lived while holding onto a single desire. To have his master, Alice, recognize him as a swordsman and as a man.

That goal was difficult or even impossible. With the true strength of that genius knight, Alice, at a level recognized by even Knight Commander Bercouli, Eldrie’s zealous, desperate training was more to keep his patience strong rather than to catch up to her.

At the same time, he made great efforts to draw his master’s smile out, by even the slightest bit, with conversations over all sorts of topics, meals together, and a pompous manner of speech that just came to him—though that was, in fact, a resurgence of his personality from before becoming an integrity knight.

It was around those days when his effort began to bear fruit, with his skill with the sword growing and him succeeding in having his master’s lip form an extremely faint smile.

The cathedral was assailed by the largest incident in the church’s history.

It should have been standard duty at the start. Certainly, the major crime, «murder», committed by the two swordsmen-in-training was horrifying, but still, accidents involving disputes with bloodshed, the accumulation of unfortunate circumstances, did happen throughout the vast Human Empire at times. In reality, he felt practically no danger or enmity from the students when he saw them brought to the cathedral. He thought them no more than utterly dejected youths from the common folk.

That was why, when his master, Alice, shut them away in the cathedral’s underground jail and ordered at the end of her contemplation—

[Guard the exit to the underground jail for a night just in case.]

—Eldrie was somewhat astonished. And he took up the duty with the thought that keeping vigil in the rose garden was nice once in a while, but felt a great shock when the criminal did escape just as the eastern skies began to turn white.

Admiring his master’s insight, Eldrie stood before them to accomplish his role—and yet of all things to happen, he had to lose; and he had no excuses to deny that. He faced off against commoners with torn chains as weapons and he even made use of the recollection release art for his divine instrument, «Frost Scale Whip».

Truly, he could only admit his defeat. In the end, those two broke through the upper ranking knight, Deusolbert, Deputy Knight Commander Fanatio, his master, Alice, and even Knight Commander Bercouli, and ended up even defeating Highest Minister Administrator. Alice had clearly mentioned as well, in the log house at that meager north village he did not know the name of, in front of one of those criminals. That he was the strongest swordsman who surpassed even the integrity knights.

He did not feel regret over losing to that black-haired youth in terms of might with the sword.

That was not it; he was not the one; those thoughts hurt.

The one to release his master, Alice, from the ice garden that confined her heart was not him but that youth. Eldrie’s heart jolted at that realization.

Hours before the Great East Gate collapsed, his ma