“…I’m heavy.”

“It’s fine.”

“I mean, you have to move as quickly as possible, so it would be impossible for you to do that while carrying me……”

Despite my protests, Mister Richa didn’t back down. Instead, he knelt down right beside me, where I was half leaning against a tree.

“Argh.”

In but an instant, my body was hoisted onto his shoulder—he pulled me up—before he rose to his feet. I was slung over him like a sack of grain before I even knew what was happening.

What had started as thoughts like ‘Let’s see what’ll happen’ had immediately turned into ‘Huh? Huh??’.

“…You are heavier than you look.”

What was this called again? The fireman’s carry? Shoulder carry? Military-style carry?

Whatever it was, it definitely wasn’t a princess carry. I was draped sideways over his shoulder, covered in sweat. I didn’t dare wiggle even a little, afraid that if I tried to, Mister Richa’s back would probably snap.

“You look quite thin.”

That was only because I bought clothes to fit my height, so they ended up hanging a bit loose… In truth, this body easily weighed over 100 kg.

I mean, unless I was incredibly underweight, I would be 90 kg at the bare minimum, just from my height alone, plus the muscles covering this body.

Anyway, I was, in fact, quite heavy. Definitely heavy enough that someone smaller than me, especially trudging through mountains, should absolutely not carry me around.

“Let’s go.”

However, Mister Richa refused to give up. And so I was hauled along like this, unable to persuade him with words and too worried about his back to resist physically.

“Cough.”

“…Hold on just a little longer.”

Besides, he was the one suffering. This wasn’t all that bad for me actually. My body and head felt like they were set ablaze, which would make it quite difficult for me to walk around properly.

“……!”

“I killed it, so don’t worry……”

Also, this made it easier for me to protect Mister Richa. I skewered a Demon with an Arcane Spear before it could even rush at us, and then spat up a bit of blood for good measure.

I just hoped that we would manage to reach Munmund like this. The moment we’d arrive, I’d just collapse like the Archmage once had, complaining that the backlash from overusing my Arcane Power had wrecked my insides and that I absolutely couldn’t fight.

Overusing Arcane Power left internal damage that even Divine Power couldn’t heal—to be precise, it would only make things worse if it were injected inside a body suffering from backlash—so I wouldn’t have to worry about appearing suspicious or anything.

Having firmly resolved to fake it, I coughed up a bit more blood.

“…The city walls.”

After an hour, or two, or maybe even more, the walls came into view.

“Demons?!”

Of course, the guards on the wall greeted us with extreme suspicion. Considering that the two of us had just come out of a Demon-infested forest, that was only natural.

“Pull them up first! We can investigate later!”

Nevertheless, they still lifted us inside, since someone seemed to have decided it would be better to just let us in and interrogate us afterward rather than risk leaving us outside to die to the Demons just because we seemed a bit suspicious.

“Don’t move. One wrong move and you’re dead.”

Of course, just because they pulled us onto the wall didn’t mean their suspicion of us had diminished. Mister Richa and I were surrounded on all sides by soldiers, the tips of their spears pointed at us, scrutinizing us warily.

“…Before the question, I think this guy needs some Demonic Energy Neutralizer.”

“I’d… be grateful for that.”

However, the first thing that drew their attention naturally was Mister Richa’s dark veins. One soldier stepped back, returning with a small pouch.

“Thank you.”

The pouch was passed along, hanging from the top of a spear. They didn’t give him any water, though.

“…Cough. Do you need some water?”

“It’s fine. If you take anything out here, it’ll only make them more suspicious.”

Right… I suppose that made sense. I immediately recalled those tightly sealed curse jars from before and decided to remain silent. In the meantime, Mister Richa chewed up the medicine as is and swallowed it.

“Priest.”

“…I can’t feel anything from them at least.”

“Hmm. So are you really a scout? What’s your unit?”

After these minimal precautions—confirming that we weren’t Demons at least—the questioning began. We kept our hands raised as we answered them one by one.

They were mostly focused on confirming Mister Richa’s identity. Since he was originally from here, his questioning went smoothly enough.

His firmly established identity eased some of the guard’s hostility.

“And that young man beside you is……?”

“Step aside for a moment."

At that moment, someone pushed the soldiers aside and strode forward. Compared to the others, his gear was of far higher quality, and his dark blue hair gleamed under the light.

He definitely seemed like someone high-ranking. My instincts immediately estimated his position.

“…Atya?”

But when he suddenly blurted out that name, I lost all focus.

“…I guess you do resemble my nephew a great deal.”

“……”

Rather, who the hell was this Atya? Even someone who unmistakably looked like some noble knew of his name. As I felt my mind being thrown into a complete mess, I clutched my arm, pain piercing through it. It was two-thirds of what I had felt in that cabin before.

No, it was exactly the same.

“…Sir Wizard?”

“Hrgh……”

“Sir Wizard?”

Mister Richa, who still had his arms raised, grabbed hold of me in alarm. I hadn’t even noticed when my arms had dropped. All the soldiers around us stared at me unsettled. But even that quickly faded into the background.

“It hurts……”

The pain was crushing, like my whole body was being ground in a mortar with a pestle.

‘What are you doing?’

And then I heard laughter. Whose laughter was that?

‘Your chains are shaking, brat.’

I completely forgot about trying to keep myself upright, toppling to the side. The world tilted as I heard distorted voices reach my ear “Brin—octor—!”. I could see Mister Richa seemingly collapsing in my blurred vision.

‘Or could it be?’

And then I saw someone step forward within my distorted vision.

‘Are you finally letting me out?’

The skull of a mountain goat loomed into my view.

Then darkness surged in.

* * *

“Still not making a move today?”

Staring out at the distant scenery, the Knight Walter muttered to himself. His field of vision was filled with the barren wasteland of the Demonic Realm and the hordes of Skeletons roaming about.

“Maybe they’re just waiting to gather more before coming at us.”

“Hmm, are they really?”

However, the number was far too small, making one think things like ‘Is that all?’ yet too many to dismiss as ‘safe.’

It felt too rash to make a move but inadvisable to completely ignore them.

“To me it looks more like they’re some kind of trap, preventing us from acting rashly.”

How long would this strange standoff last?

Were those Demon bastards really just dragging things out this time? Or were they concealing a far greater force somewhere else, just waiting to surprise attack them?

It was impossible to know until the enemy actually made some sort of move.

“…It’s frustrating.”

“I agree.”

Of course, considering the information they had received from other cities, the more likely answer was the former.

After all, mustering enough troops to ravish the entire Eastern Front wasn’t easy, no matter whether they were Demons or people. The centuries-long stalemate was proof of that.

If either side had ever had surplus troops, the other would have been annihilated long ago.

Therefore, this current pressure was only temporary. Unless they had suddenly abandoned the Southern Front and rushed all their forces to the East, they wouldn’t be able to maintain this.

Once reinforcements from the South arrived, this would end.

“But do you really think they’re targeting only one spot on the Eastern Front?”

“…What do you mean?”

“Think about it. If their aim really was to break through one spot in the East, wouldn’t it be far more effective to gather forces in secret and pierce through in one concentrated attack, instead of applying pressure to every city, raising everyone’s alertness like that… They’re practically shouting, ‘We’re going to attack the East, so focus all your attention here!’ don’t you think?”

“Hmm……”

While Walter wasn’t bad at planning for individual battles, he severely lacked the talent when it came to grand strategies spanning multiple regions.

So he worked his sluggish mind to process his friend’s words.

“When you put it like that…… It does seem a bit odd.”

“So you think so too?”

“But if they’ve poured this many forces into the East, what else could they possibly be aiming for?”

“Well… I don’t know.”

The Southern Front, where defense had weakened after sending their troops to the East, perhaps?

But then, why had the Southern Front always been so lax to begin with? It was all because of that damned desert. Neither people nor Demons could cross it easily, since both would starve to death before they could reach their goal. It was the greatest obstacle for both sides.

“Hmm… Unless they sent Skeletons, right? Why aren’t they doing that? Skeletons don’t need food to function.”

“That thought also crossed my mind… But well. Skeletons need corpses to be made, right? To both keep us in check and launch an offensive on the Southern Front, they would need a massive amount of corpses… Do you think that’s possible?”

“I see……”

“Besides, unlike this Front that can be crossed in a day, the Southern desert is far too vast… If they even managed to reach the city walls, one could call it a miracle.”

After all, Skeletons might not need food, but they did require a steady stream of Demonic Energy to move.

In the heart of the Demonic Realm, where Demonic Energy was plentiful, it might be possible, but across the desert—where the amount grew thinner and thinner the farther one went in—they would collapse long before they reached the goal of their march.

So they wouldn’t be able to use Skeletons.

“Then what about the North……? No, that would be impossible. That’s the one place they’ll never be able to breach. And the West…isn’t it protected by a mountain range as impassable as the desert? There’s even the Great Temple there.”

At his friend’s words, Walter lost whatever doubts he had. The reality was simply that none of the Fronts were easy to pierce through.

“I guess… they really are simply targeting the East.”

“That’s what I think.”

“And… who knows? Maybe they were going to move against us directly but couldn’t because of that black thing that showed up on the first day?”

Walter smirked, trying to change the subject.

A memory from a few weeks ago of something momentarily dyeing the horizon pitch-black flitted through his mind. 

“What if that thing comes charging at us?”

“Hah, if it was going to attack us, it would have done so already. And what kind of enemy uses such an attack on their own troops instead? The priests said it wasn’t even for some sacrificial ritual.”

Of course, while there were no signs of a sacrificial ritual, it certainly was something made of Demonic Energy. Every priest who witnessed it had shuddered at the sight.

“Whether it was just some internal strife or who knows what… I’d say it was a stroke of luck for us.”

But ultimately, it hadn’t harmed the city at all. Quite the opposite, it had cleared away a good chunk of their foes. Wasn’t that enough?

“I can agree with that, especially with young Guderian’s return.”

The day the horizon had been swallowed by black—or more precisely, the night—was the day they had found the ruined shell of a Dullahan laid out before the city gates.

It was the corpse of Guderian, a Knight who had died twelve years ago and had once been heir to a knightly house famous in this city.

“What if it was a trap?”

“Please. Every priest in the city rushed to purify it. And besides, we weren’t attacked when we recovered the remains.”

No one knew who had brought it to the gates. Whoever did it had to have used the night as cover, leaving not a single witness.

But was it really just a coincidence that the body of a Knight, whose corpse had never been found and thus had never been given a proper burial, returned to them precisely at that moment? Immediately after that, darkness had swept across the desert and massacred Demons?

“…I don’t want to believe Demons would ever show us that kind of kindness.”

“I agree with that.”

…It couldn’t have been the Demons. It just couldn’t have.

They couldn’t take it as kindness for those things to return the body of Guderian after killing him. The flesh and blood piled up between them was far too deep for that.

“But still, the world does sometimes hand out these kinds of unexplainable blessings.”

So perhaps it really was just a stroke of luck.

“Or maybe he was drawn back here by my kindness, haha!”

As the young man with wheat-colored hair had said, the kindness he had shown to the knight trainees had, in turn, been returned to his junior.

“What kindness……?”

“Oh, come on, those were the sincere words of a young man that lodged at my house.”

“Then that boy needs to get his eyes checked.”

“What are you talking about? He even wore glasses to see the world properly.”

“Then maybe he took them off at that time.”

Walter smacked his friend over his head. “Ouch! You lunatic, you don’t just hit someone’s helmet like that—!” But regret washed over him immediately after.

“Ah, my mistake. I should have told you too that good fortune will surely find its way to you as well—Argh!”

“Revenge, you bastard!”

Regret in the form of his friend’s palm slapped him across his back. Retribution for Walter’s earlier hit.

“All Knights, assemble!!”

“Huh?”

And then came the news that made them forget about everything else.

“Munmund has sent for aid! A Great Demon has appeared!”

It was the type of news that made everyone forget about prayers for someone else and all the possibilities they had been discussing.

“…So Munmund was their target after all.”

And that message wasn’t just delivered to the city of Mannafeld alone.

“Fortunately, we haven’t taken off south for long. If we head north immediately, we may still be in time.”

The Inquisitor exhaled, stroking the muzzle of the horse that had once belonged to the Demon Knight.

“…We’re going full speed ahead.”

The wheels of chance and fate had begun to turn.