Chapter 7: The Fortress
A small roadside tavern.
Having decided to spend the night since the journey was long, Roan's party stepped inside.
―Bang!
"And I'm telling you!"
The sound of drunk mercenaries slamming their cups on the table and making noise could be heard.
"I saw it with my own eyes! Greyhill is a complete wreck!"
"So the Elfordo Knights really were wiped out entirely. I honestly thought the part about the fortress being stripped apart was an exaggeration."
"It was bound to happen. They got heavy imperial support and all they did was eat and laze around."
"All they ever did was make rounds around the fortress perimeter, wasn't it? Deserved to fall."
"I heard there's at least one who's still alive?"
"Isn't that more shameful? Means they let all their companions die and kept their miserable little life by crawling around on their own."
Contempt mixed with scoffs.
As if there was no need to pay respect to those who died so pitifully.
‘Insolent bastards.’
Jane muttered inwardly and looked over at Roan.
‘He seemed to have decided on that person as a companion. He's a strange one, but he does seem to care about his companions…’
The thought that a commotion might arise.
‘To subdue a small space…’
Jane was thinking up an optimized spell—but Roan didn't change his expression even slightly.
"…Hey, Del Roan. Are you alright?"
"With what?"
"Those people are looking down on the one you're trying to make your companion."
"I'm fine."
Roan answered immediately.
"Someone who's fixated on putting others down just means they have no confidence in their own ability."
Roan raised his voice as if deliberately wanting the other party to hear.
But the other party didn't respond to those words.
They only flinched and averted their gaze.
Of course they did.
Roan, the explorer of Basement Floor 9, and Jane, the genius mage.
They were 2 people whose names had started circulating as rumors near the Mage Tower.
After spending a night in that now-quieted tavern—the next day.
Beyond the brightening forest path, a massive fortress wall began to come into view.
Greyhill—an imperial-owned fortress.
But when it came to actually calling it a fortress, it was far too damaged for that.
The collapsed walls were scorched pitch black, and the ground was riddled with gash-like craters as if scarred all over.
"Ugh… another place like this? I hate these kinds of places…"
Jane looked into the inside of the broken gate.
A desolate landscape with no sign of human life.
With each gust of wind, tattered flags fluttered limply, and over it echoed the cry of birds that fed on corpses.
"You always hated dark and eerie things, didn't you?"
"No I don't!"
"That's a relief then. We're going deeper inside."
Roan pointed at the fortress.
More precisely, at the entrance leading into the buildings of the fortress.
"Wh-what…? Why…?"
"It's where the traces of the order's presence are."
"Wait… wasn't all of that stripped bare inside too?"
Right.
Since they were wiped out, the inside would have been thoroughly ransacked.
But even so, that wasn't a reason not to go.
"If you don't come quickly, I'll leave without you."
"Ugh, fine…! Okay! I'll come!"
Watching Jane hurry along behind him, Roan opened the door.
Inside was more harrowing than outside.
The stench of rotting blood grew steadily thicker.
Scattered pieces of armor lay strewn about everywhere, with what looked like fragments of human flesh stuck to them.
A torch barely clinging to its flame let out a puff and went dark as if to say it had done its job.
And at that moment—
―Drip, drop!
Something fell from a gap in the ceiling.
Splat!
A bloated, ruptured mass of formless flesh crawled across the floor.
With a rattling sound, twisted limbs clad in pieces of armor began forcing themselves upright.
"Yikes!"
Jane startled violently and reflexively fired a spell.
Kaboom!!
A fierce dance of flame, 3 shots in rapid succession.
The monster's body evaporated in an instant and scattered into the air.
With that, Jane looked down at her own hands.
"…Huh?"
Normally a complicated spell requiring a long incantation.
It had been possible to use it quickly thanks to the passages inscribed in the rune stone.
"Looks like you're getting the hang of it now."
Roan replied briefly.
"Still, be careful. If you rely on it too much, you won't be able to use it without it later."
"…Hmph."
Jane forced out a scoff.
Still, the tips of her fingers trembled ever so slightly with pride.
Because she had activated the magic without being overwhelmed by fear.
***
Having found no traces, Roan's party went deeper inside.
―Bubble.
With a wet, squelching sound, something else crawled out from the wall.
Monsters that had forcibly taken on the shape of people.
They appeared in a group—monsters that moved in a peculiar way.
And there was something their forms and behavior had in common.
Broken swords, pieces of armor, tattered flags and melted shields, and so on.
In a situation already strange enough for that alone, strange behavior began again—
―Squelch… drag…
They were dragging their wet feet, struggling to form ranks.
Just like a knight order.
"…Something's off."
Jane, who had been forming a fireball, said with a puzzled look.
"Indeed."
Roan agreed.
Though Jane seemed to find even that reaction puzzling.
"That's it? I thought you'd definitely know."
"Come on, I don't know what I don't know. That's exactly why I couldn't go straight to Lowell."
The words were light, but his eyes were serious.
Then the monsters began stirring and straining out a voice.
"We… knights… companions—"
"Ah, I think I get it."
Hearing that voice, Roan spoke as if he understood.
"It seems like someone already swept through here. So they're mimicking the knight order they devoured. Asking not to be harmed because they're the same kind."
"…Meaning there's something strong enough to make them do that."
Jane's eyes narrowed after saying that much.
"…Wait. Could that be the knight you mentioned? Cedric Lowell?"
Roan answered with silence.
What came to mind was a black iron suit of armor.
In his previous life, Cedric had been chosen by it and built his strength through it.
But it hadn't been all good.
From the middle of the journey onward, his body had been continuously eaten away at.
‘…Something feels a little off with my body.’
He remembered Lowell saying that.
‘Ah, everyone's struggling. We've got a long way to go, so let's hold on just a little longer.’
Roan and the rest of the expedition had dismissed his signal as nothing—
And in the end, Lowell's journey concluded with him becoming the vessel of a Transcendent.
‘…But now I know.’
Was what Roan thought—but wait!
‘Hold on. The Lowell of this life is still just an ordinary wandering knight. He shouldn't be strong enough to frighten monsters like this…’
A doubt began to arise.
"We… will not vanish… the knight commander in black armor—"
As if to turn that doubt into certainty, the monsters let out a chilling chant.
"…Jane."
"What? Suddenly so serious."
"I think we need to move quickly."
Having made that declaration, Roan immediately leaped into the gap between the monsters.
"We are… companions… we are the knights…"
"We will not vanish…"
Monsters steeped in open fear.
But as Roan's party charged at them, their true nature seemed to come out.
The formless monsters charged all at once, radiating a ferocious intensity.
―KABOOM!!
As the lead one was sent flying off Roan's shield, Jane's flames incinerated everything else.
Blood and black smoke mingled and made the air acrid.
"Uuugh…"
Companions who had vanished in an instant.
The overwhelming gap brought fear flooding back.
The remaining monsters that could not overcome it all scattered, fleeing into the walls and the dark.
"Should I go after—"
"No. No need to do more."
Roan stopped Jane.
His gaze was directed downward, toward the objects the vanished monsters had dropped.
Shattered pieces of armor and sword fragments. Over them, a handprint stamped by something firm.
Then, the interior brightened by Jane's flame magic came into view.
Traces remained of stone having been wrenched out whole.
Too rough for a person, too precise for a monster.
And the direction it faced was toward the outside of the fortress.
"…Did you find them? The one called Cedric or whatever?"
"For now, got a rough trace."
Having said that, Roan went back outside the fortress.
The wind was similar to before, but for some reason it felt slightly more eerie.
Roan looked down at the ground.
Between the scars he had thought of as mere traces, footprints were visible.
Footprints with an uneven center of gravity, as if awkward.
They stretched out toward the forest surrounding the fortress.
"Let's go. Before it's too late."
"…What happens if it's too late?"
"The armor will swallow him whole."
"Then that means the knight is wearing the armor right now, doesn't it? What's the plan—just rip it off and smash it?"
"No."
Roan recalled his previous life.
Before the armor revealed its true nature, Lowell had shown ability that was practically like flying.
He was as good as the person who wielded that armor's power most masterfully.
By now it was difficult even for Roan to imagine Lowell without the armor.
‘And if possible, I want to see everyone alive just as they were before.’
Roan, offering the reason as if making excuses to himself, moved his feet toward the forest.
"I won't smash it. A training process will be needed, though."
He added an explanation that would be impossible to understand even if heard.
‘What in the world is the training process—’
"Hm?"
Jane stopped mid-thought and looked ahead.
The deep heart of the forest.
At its center, a man was standing.
Black iron armor.
Through the gaps of the enormous armor that seemed to have swallowed a person whole, a glint of eyes could be seen.
The eyes were bold and brimming with confidence. As if possessed by something.
Like a solitary wolf, he began to move in a wide arc, circling around them as the center.
"…He's covered in blood. Corpses are strewn all around him too. Like he's showing off."
There was no answer to Jane's words.
Normally, Roan would have at least given some kind of response—
Jane shifted her gaze.
She could see Roan staring blankly at the armored knight before him.
And at the moment those 2 gazes met—
The clang of metal, an eerie wind, and the stillness of the forest all settled at once.
―Thwang!!
The armor forcibly twisted the soft dirt underfoot.
And with a lightness that was hard to believe, the armored figure came flying in.
The movement of a wolf lunging to sink its teeth into the throat of the one who had trespassed on its territory.