「Go back.」

That was the word the lord left for his knights.

In a moment of extreme crisis. It was an order given while fighting against endlessly attacking enemies.

For the first time in their lives, the knights protested against their lord.

My lord. Our great lord.

Lord to whom we are not lacking in dedicating our swords, loyalty, and lives.

Esteemed lord who inherits the noble hero’s blood and is renowned as the kingdom’s finest.

How can you say such a thing?

How can you give such an unjust order?

If there is a life that should return alive more than anyone here, it is you, my lord. How can you order us to commit the disloyalty of leaving you behind?

「If I try to escape, the enemies will never let me go, but conversely, if I remain, they will focus on me.」

「So, go. Make sure to return and report what happened here. That is my final order to you.」

The knights swallowed their rising emotions and tears.

The lord, and the comrades who decided to stay and fight with him, comforted the knights.

The knights also wanted to stay, but unfortunately, there was no time for arguments.

Leaving behind the wounded lion raging valiantly, the knights chosen as messengers fled.

Their breath was labored, and their bodies were infinitely heavy with fatigue, but still, the knights did not stop.

The humiliation of having to flee as knights, abandoning the lord to whom they had pledged loyalty.

Compared to the wretchedness of having to leave, using their lord as bait instead of protecting or fighting alongside him, physical pain was merely a trivial matter.

One knight’s head was cut off by a blade as sharp as a guillotine.

One knight’s stomach was pierced by a stone spear that rose from the ground.

Skin blistered from being engulfed in flames, and they turned into living statues swept by cold air.

Yet, they did not stop their feet.

They had to return.

They must return.

To fulfill their lord’s last order, to resolve the grudges of fallen comrades, to know what the cause of this nightmare was.

For even one to survive and fulfill that wish, they truly exerted themselves to the utmost.

And—they failed.

It was a miserable failure.

It was a brutal death.

The lord’s struggle, the comrades’ dedication, the desperate flailing, all vanished without value.

The enemies plowed over the scars of battle as if trying to leave no trace, and they couldn’t even leave behind belongings, last words, or even corpses.

They even used necromancy to tear apart their souls left on the ground.

Thus, everything seemed to end.

“—Shall I help?”

Someone’s voice awakened the knights.

It gathered together the knights who had been shattered, lost their intelligence and sense of self, and were scattered like mere fragments of thought.

“I can help if you want.”

It was a beautiful girl.

It was a girl as black as obsidian.

It was a girl with a red flower ornament in her hair that suited her quite well.

The girl reached out to them with an innocent, naive face like a child’s.

“Come, tell me what you desire. What do you wish?”

The knight, who was small but agile, approached the girl.

The knight, evaluated as having the domain’s strongest superhuman strength, grasped her hand.

The knight, known for his excellent eloquence in chatting with soldiers opened, his mouth.

The knights, once many but now merged into one, answered the girl.

Let me(us) return.

It was a prayer.

It was a desperate wish.

To that wish, the girl responded with an angelic face.

“Alright, I’ll help. Well, the chances of success are about fifty-fifty though.”

Saying so, the girl handed them a small seed.

With that, vitality sprouted in their bodies that had been mere insubstantial illusions.

However, the level was feeble.

“Now, go fulfill your wish. But be careful. Once you forget your wish, it’s hard to remember it again.”

With those words, the girl disappeared.

The girl didn’t tell them how to create a body, but they already instinctively understood the method.

Slash!

The necromancer, who had been disposing of the souls of victims left in the forest one by one, as if handling trash, became the first sacrifice.

Slash!

The mage, who went out searching, annoyed that the cleaner hadn’t returned, became the next.

Slash!

The subordinates sent by the tower’s mage to assess the situation were added to the list.

Slash!

The mage, who belatedly realized something was wrong and tried to contact the tower, also became their prey during the attempt.

The seed planted in the knight’s heart turned all of that into their power.

Their presence, which had seemed like an illusion, grew stronger, and their physical bodies filled with strength.

Nevertheless, they did not stop.

Far from stopping, they craved more blood and slaughter.

To return, they couldn’t be interfered with.

To avoid interference, they had to kill all interferers.

To kill interferers, they had to devour more lives.

It didn’t matter if more troublemakers flocked as a result, making the path back more difficult.

They no longer had the rationality to judge such things.

The knights didn’t know why they had to return, or what they should do after returning.

They might have known once, but their souls were already too much of a mess to recall it.

The girl’s advice not to forget their wish had long been forgotten amidst the vengeful fury and thirst for slaughter that seemed to burn their souls.

Specters who had lost their purpose. Corrupted souls. The remnants of once honorable knights now spreading death—merged into one mass, having forgotten all their individual names, now only the name they were collectively called remained.

The death knight, “Friedel”, pounced upon discovering another interferer.

“Gack!!”

“It’s a Death Knight! How, why wasn’t it detected until it got this close!?”

“Report to Lord Rognir! Quickly!”

***

The fact that a battle had broken out could soon be known.

The intense mana waves and explosions that could be felt even from far away.

Evidence that all sorts of attack magic was being unleashed came through tingling sensations on the skin.

In the running carriage, Sophia asked Dorothea, “Was it alright to leave the White Knight behind?”

“We had no choice.”

The White Knight, who had received the order from Gale to “protect the party”, had tried to follow along, but Dorothea detached him, not hesitating to even half-threaten that if he followed, it would cause trouble for his master.

And that threat wasn’t particularly exaggerated or anything.

“We don’t have any particular foundation or position in the Magic State, so we can just flee elsewhere if necessary, but it’s different for Gale. If someone as noticeable as her, not just a magic doll, was with us, our identities would be exposed immediately, right?”

If it were to circulate that the Witch of the North’s top mentee and 4th rank mage of the Tower of Protection had picked a fight with the Tower of Control’s elite forces, just thinking about the aftermath was enough to give a headache.

Of course, even doing this, those who would nitpick would dig through their past actions to nitpick, but still, as long as they didn’t directly participate in combat, there would be room for excuses.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ says the worry is excessive when the person in question probably doesn’t even care!]

“Whether that guy cares or not isn’t important. What’s important is whether I end up owing her or not,” Dorothea spoke gruffly, but no one present believed it to be sincere.

The Tin Knight wanted to tease her a bit more and see the witch’s reaction, but unfortunately, he couldn’t.

In front of the carriage.

A huge fireball came flying through the darkness of night.

Whoosh!

As the Tin Knight leaped forward and swung his shield—exploding the fireball.

[The ‘Tin Knight’ points out that while the power isn’t bad, using flames that are easily visible in the middle of the night is a bit much!]

Naturally, no one answered the Tin Knight’s words.

Instead, various spells came flying in.

Dorothea’s right hand, wearing navy gloves, exerted its power and stored away the horse and carriage.

The ebony staff let out a cry and blocked all the incoming spells.

Dorothea’s eyes grew calm at that ferocious power.

There was no concept of power control in the mages’ attacks.

If they knew the carriage’s identity, it meant they attacked knowing Gale might be inside, and if they didn’t know, it meant they tried to kill regardless of who the opponent was just for approaching.

Thinking there was no need to hold back on this side either, Dorothea drew up her mana.

The undead she had gathered while conducting reconnaissance work wrapped around the party’s bodies like fluttering curtains.

While it had no function to block attacks, it was quite useful for concealing outward appearances.

“Go!”

As soon as the disguise magic was cast, Dorothea released the staff’s barrier.

And as if waiting for that, two shadows, gold and gray, shot forward.

Of course, the opponents wouldn’t go down easily either.

While hiding their bodies in the darkness, they simultaneously sent out their familiars to try to block the Tin Knight and Adelaide’s approach.

The types of familiars were diverse.

There were golems, spirits, and though few in number, magic dolls also existed.

They blocked the Tin Knight and Adelaide with various threatening abilities, buying time for their masters to use new magic.

A textbook mage’s fight.

However.

Slash!

Boom!

A fish-shaped spirit was divided into dozens of pieces.

A stone golem over 2 meters tall flew like a kicked ball.

In the pitch-black darkness, the enemies’ silent astonishment could be felt.

Unless it was a particularly special exception, a familiar’s performance was proportional to the mage’s level, and familiars handled by the tower’s elites were beings that could each independently slaughter dozens of soldiers.

Such beings falling with a single blow like small fry, the opponents’ astonishment was understandable.

If they had known that Dorothea, watching from behind, was thinking, “The fact that he’s handling them individually instead of mowing them down all at once proves his high level of skill,” they might have been lost for words in bewilderment and frustration.

Naturally, Dorothea wasn’t just watching.

The undead, imbued with Dorothea’s mana, clung to the mages and cursed them, and the mist of poison scattered around Dorothea’s body tried to poison the enemies.

Since it was a tactic that couldn’t harm Adelaide, who was being protected by Sophia’s holy magic as well as the Tin Knight, who wasn’t alive to begin with, Dorothea could freely unleash indiscriminate area attacks.

Although the actual effect was minimal because the enemies were also high-level and tried to resist through their magic, that was enough.

While the mages’ feet were tied dealing with Dorothea’s necromancy, the teacher-pupil pair completely shattered their familiars.

Unless it was a truly special familiar like Gale’s, the outcome for a mage who had lost their vanguard was obvious.

“Gack!”

After lightly cutting down the mages blocking the way, the party advanced into the forest interior.

Towards the place where traces of intense battle could be felt.

***

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