Chapter 22 : Monster Invasion(4)
Despite the overwhelming numerical disadvantage, the knights were not the least bit intimidated.
Rather, they loosened up their bodies and calmly held their positions.
Kyle watched that sight and called out to Acacia standing behind him.
“Acacia.”
“Yes, my lord.”
“Watch closely.”
“……I do not understand what you mean.”
“That training and real combat are different.”
At Kyle’s words, Acacia—who rarely ever went against him—wore an uneasy expression this time.
Kyle, knowing exactly what he was thinking, added,
“To your eyes, the knights of Ragnar might look pathetic. In truth, aside from fighting, there are many who are unqualified.”
“……They are the ones who fall behind because they cannot even climb a mountain properly. Did you not just see it? I question whether there is anything to expect from knights who cannot even climb a single cliff like that.”
From the standpoint of someone who had watched the survival training himself, Kyle did not refute Acacia’s words.
However, no matter how much the Ragnar Knight Order as a whole had been declining in every aspect, there was something that remained unchanged.
They had lived fiercely enough that waging war against monsters had become their main occupation.
They were specialized in dealing with monsters rather than fighting other people.
“If you confirm it with your own eyes, your thoughts will change.”
Kyle did not try to persuade Acacia any further.
If he saw it and experienced it firsthand, he would naturally come to understand what Kyle meant.
At Kyle’s words, Acacia merely lowered his head.
‘It is suspicious this time as well, but if the Grand General says so, then that is how it is.’
Kyle did not even look at Acacia and instead fixed his gaze on the towering cliffs rising on both sides.
He had deliberately chosen this terrain.
He wanted to give the knights a chance to make up for the mistakes they had made so far.
‘Ragnar Knight Order, if it is you, you can do it.’
Turning his gaze, Kyle met the eyes of Akun, who was still standing without donning armor.
Akun grinned and turned his body toward the knight order.
“It is time to relieve the stress we have built up. Erase any ill feelings that arose between us during training for this moment! I will do the same!”
Soon, the look in the knights’ eyes completely changed.
Akun checked each of their gazes and recalled the question an old senior had once asked.
― When facing monsters, are we knights?
It had always been so.
Akun’s senior, and even the senior before him, would ask that question of their juniors whenever they faced monsters.
And every time, the seniors answered like this.
― When facing monsters, we are nothing more than hunters, not knights.
Akun never forgot those words.
Moreover, knowing well the efforts Pan had made to preserve the lineage of the Ragnar Knight Order by any means, he could not forget them.
“Let’s go, to hunt!”
Clank!
At the same time, the knights threw off their cloaks and metal armor.
Battles between people required thick armor, but in battles against monsters, armor was nothing more than an obstacle that slowed movement.
After all, the moment one was caught by a monster, losing one’s life was the same regardless of whether armor was worn or not.
Having removed everything that hindered their movement, the knights raised their respective weapons clad only in leather armor.
Watching that scene, Acacia’s eyes widened.
“Have you gone mad and decided to die?! Hurry and put your armor back on—!”
As Acacia was about to continue speaking, he immediately shut his mouth upon seeing Kyle raise his hand.
“This is Ragnar’s way of fighting.”
Kyle himself was also not wearing any armor.
Only Acacia and the members of the Special Operations Unit were clad in metal armor.
In the meantime, Akun shouted once more toward the knights.
“Maintain two ranks!”
As soon as the order was given, about fifty knights stepped forward.
Then the remaining fifty, including Zero, kept their distance from the front rank and fixed their eyes on the front.
Boom!
The vibrations felt through the ground grew stronger by the moment.
Before long, monsters revealed themselves and blackened the mountainside.
At that, Kyle drew his red sword toward the horde of monsters.
“Special Operations Unit, focus on eliminating large monsters. Leave the small monsters to the Ragnar Knight Order.”
Kyle swept his gaze over the Special Operations Unit members who had drawn their weapons after him, then stopped in front of Seros.
“Seros, go all out.”
“Yes, my lord!”
“The battle will continue until the monsters disappear.”
At that moment, a large monster could be seen charging at the forefront, thundering down the narrow path.
An Ice Troll.
A monster with pure white skin and a length of about 3 meters, it possessed tough hide that swords could not pierce, sharp fangs, and claws capable of tearing steel apart in an instant.
As Acacia was about to move to eliminate the Ice Troll, Akun moved first.
Blue aura surged along Akun’s sword.
As Akun kicked off the cliff and rose into the air, another knight leapt up in sync with him.
“Commander! Finish it decisively and come back!”
The knight stretched out his hands toward Akun’s feet and shoved him upward with all his strength.
Boosted high into the sky by the knight’s assistance, Akun freely rotated his body and dropped onto the Ice Troll’s head.
The weakness of large monsters.
That was the eyes or the head.
Of course, the Ice Troll boasted tremendous regenerative ability, but that assumed a body part had been severed.
Akun drove his sword, surging with blue aura, straight into the Ice Troll’s head.
Puk!
Kroooaar—!
The Ice Troll let out a single roar, as if screaming its death cry.
In the meantime, Akun swiftly pulled his sword from its head and landed as he leapt far backward.
Then Akun raised his sword again at the sight of orcs charging over the Ice Troll’s body.
“First rank, clash!”
The charging orc horde collided with the first rank of knights.
The first-rank knights held their positions, precisely driving their swords into the vital points of the orcs through the gaps between the erected wooden barriers.
While the first rank held firm like that, the second rank of knights prepared to move.
“Stand by!”
Zero, who had taken command of the second rank, issued his order calmly.
Following that command, the second-rank knights did not move, and only after about thirty minutes did Zero shout once more.
“Second rank! Rotate with the first rank!”
At Zero’s instruction, the second-rank group ran forward, stepped on the shoulders of the knights in the first rank, and soared into the air.
They soon landed atop the wooden barriers and drove their swords into the monsters’ heads.
“First rank, fall back!”
Akun shouted, having already joined the first rank.
The first-rank knights quickly retreated according to Akun’s order.
The second rank was holding back the monsters’ advance atop the barriers to buy time for the first rank to recover their stamina.
Zero, too, swung his sword fiercely, bolstering the morale of the second rank.
“Hold on!”
While the Ragnar Knight Order held out in turns at the narrow passage like that, Kyle and the Special Operations Unit also moved.
They selectively dealt with only the large monsters, and at that sight, the small monsters began to hesitate.
The battle raged on for about two hours, but in the end, the monsters failed to break through the narrow passage.
Rather, the situation had turned into one where the Ragnar Knight Order went berserk, pushing the monsters back and advancing forward.
From that point on, as the monsters began turning their bodies and fleeing one by one, even the remaining ones hurriedly turned their steps toward the mountain range.
The joy of successfully completing the first defensive line was brief, and the knights began cleaning up the monsters strewn across the ground.
Aron predicted the monsters’ next move to Kyle, who had returned after finishing the battle.
“My lord, even though they move by instinct, their next attack will definitely come from above the cliffs.”
“Most likely.”
“We cannot hold them off here to the very end.”
“I never intended to station ourselves here in the first place.”
At Kyle’s words, Aron tilted his head in confusion.
He could not understand what the food the knights had struggled to bring was meant to be used for.
However, Kyle took his gaze off Aron and looked elsewhere.
“Acacia, distribute the food to the knights.”
“Yes, my lord!”
At Kyle’s order, Acacia gathered the knights who were in the middle of delivering finishing blows.
“Food will be distributed!”
Once the food loaded onto the carts had been handed out, Kyle stepped forward before them.
“From now on, the knights are to continue hunting in the mountains. Even if the monsters are gathered together, some will inevitably be weeded out and left behind.”
There was no need to stubbornly block ten thousand monsters here to the very end.
However, there was a clear reason Kyle had brought the knights all the way here.
‘By now, Pramo must have made his decision.’
It was a necessary process, both to buy time for Pramo to decide and to create small fissures among the monsters.
Above all, there was nothing better than this for raising the morale of the knights who had been cowed by training.
“Commander Akun.”
“Yes, Grand General.”
“I’ll leave the command of the Ragnar Knight Order to you. I need to return to Chaplin Castle.”
“Understood.”
“Never allow the monsters that return after defeat to go back into the mountain range.”
Seros looked at Kyle, who was leading the way while pulling a cart piled with the knights’ armor with one hand.
Sensing Seros’s gaze, Kyle muttered quietly.
“Are you curious?”
“To be honest, I don’t understand why we’re going about it in such a roundabout way.”
Although the Special Operations Unit’s numbers were small, they were not so incompetent as to be overwhelmed by monsters.
There was no reason for the Ragnar Knight Order to step forward and risk injury.
“The moment I make use of you, the Ragnar Knight Order will lose its driving force for growth. They will come to rely on you. They will gaze at you with endless admiration, believing that you will protect what they are supposed to protect.”
“……Is that really the only reason?”
“Protect them once, and they will want you to protect them twice. Eventually, that becomes something taken for granted. Haven’t you experienced that countless times already?”
Seros knew this to be true as well, but right now, there were far too many pressing concerns.
“I understand that fostering independence is important, but right now is a time when everything must be resolved swiftly. We don’t know when or where Those Who Worship Darkness will begin operating again.”
“Even if Those Who Worship Darkness begin operating again, it doesn’t matter.”
“My lord…….”
“The military power of the Tylers Empire is not that weak. They only need to hold out while I make Ragnar strong again. If they can’t do that, then it would mean that my past fifteen years were meaningless.”
Kyle spoke while looking straight into Seros’s eyes.
There was no need to feel impatient.
This was the task of reviving a ruined territory.
Without investing that much effort and care, even if Ragnar were raised again, it would eventually collapse like a sandcastle.
He could never bear to see such a sight, even in death.
“I must create a fortress so solid that it will never collapse even when I am away from Ragnar.”
To do that, the pillar called the Ragnar Knight Order had to be firmly established.
To make the Ragnar Knight Order grow in a short period of time—if that was the goal, then even if it was troublesome, he could endure it all.
Yet Seros still wore an expression of doubt.
“But I still don’t understand why the knights threw off their armor……”
“In defensive battles, they are knights, but in the mountains, they become hunters. The perspective is different from the start.”
Ordinary knights readily fought fellow humans of the same kind for the sake of their nation.
But Ragnar did not place its focus on fighting humans.
War against monsters.
That was the destiny of those born in Ragnar, and also the reason they lived.
“……I still don’t quite understand.”
“That’s fine. Just watch, and your judgment will take shape.”