As the dim dawn broke, the darkness that had blanketed the land receded.
The snowfield, once again gleaming white, was a scene of utter chaos. Keldric slowly guided Boreas through the muddy snow.
“This is…”
Alyssa, who had kept pace with Keldric, looked around with a bewildered expression.
Most of those who had fallen, scattering blood on the snowfield, were Baron Gottfried’s soldiers.
Keldric’s torch deception tactic from the night before had been remarkably effective. So effective, in fact, that Baron Gottfried’s army had been utterly routed, scattering in disarray.
However, in this vast snowfield where feet sank with every step, there was nowhere to easily escape.
Then, the cavalry and soldiers, carrying half a dozen torches each, would approach and deal with them.
The result was the scene of carnage that unfolded before Keldric and Alyssa.
The bodies scattered haphazardly across the snowfield numbered at least forty. Alyssa’s expression turned slightly uneasy.
“…You won.”
“So it seems.”
Unbeknownst to Keldric, Alyssa was actually quite taken aback.
Using torches to deceive the enemy at night. On its own, it wasn’t particularly unusual.
No, in fact, even on its own, it was quite a unique deception tactic… Her surprise lay elsewhere.
‘So skillfully…’
Keldric’s orders were detailed and easy to understand. Carry four or five torches each, and move back and forth busily, shaking them to resemble a bustling army as much as possible.
But thinking about it and putting it into practice were two different things.
Moreover, thanks to this appropriate tactic, the lives and assets of innocent villagers could be preserved. That was a greater achievement than she had expected.
Even if Keldric had forcibly captured Baron Gottfried, if Runt had been reduced to ashes, Lord Lothar, who would have come to offer congratulations, would have worn a face like he’d eaten dirt.
Keldric moved like a seasoned knight. As if he had done this many times before.
The novice knight who asked Alyssa about everything because he didn’t know much was nowhere to be seen.
Could a single battle change someone so much?
Alyssa’s eyes changed slightly. It was the look of an explorer.
She had become a little more curious about the giant knight before her.
‘Wow, it actually worked.’
In reality, Keldric, who had no idea he was being looked at with such eyes, was marveling to himself.
He had simply imitated a deception tactic that appeared frequently in books like the Romance of the Three Kingdoms, and it had worked better than he had expected.
An indescribable pleasure surged through Keldric’s spine.
It was the pleasure of his tactics working so well and achieving such good results.
But it was time to put aside personal feelings. Keldric ordered the soldiers to collect the bodies buried in the snow.
Even if the bodies were left outside as they were, they would freeze due to the cold, so there would be little chance of a plague breaking out.
But the problem was wolves and other beasts. Leaving the bodies unattended would surely attract such creatures.
“Collect only what’s easily visible. There’s no need to exert too much effort.”
The collected bodies were soon piled up in the middle of a wide, snow-cleared open space.
The soldiers counted them, and the number exceeded fifty.
“More than forty, was it?”
“That’s a lot of troops to have regrouped, considering they were defeated. We might have been in serious trouble if they had fought as they were.”
Lord Henri clicked his tongue and muttered.
Indeed, if that was the number they had dealt with during the night, there must have been at least eighty in total.
That meant that Baron Gottfried had roughly gathered the troops that had scattered while fleeing.
Keldric slightly revised his assessment of Baron Gottfried’s abilities upward.
Although he had been completely defeated here, Keldric thought that even getting this far was the best he could have done.
There was nothing more dangerous than empathizing with the enemy, but there was definitely a need to look at things from various perspectives.
“Bring fire!”
Some soldiers brought dry straw and firewood from the village, and soon piled it up under the pile of corpses.
Some of it was wet with snow where it touched the ground, but there was plenty of dry straw, so there was no need to worry about starting a fire.
Whoosh!
Along with acrid smoke, a distinctly unpleasant smell began to permeate the air. It was the smell of burning hair and a foul, rancid odor.
Keldric moved away from the scene with a grimace. Alyssa, who looked like she was about to vomit, followed behind him.
Keldric’s gaze narrowed slightly as he looked at her.
‘Come to think of it…’
Alyssa had shown sensitivity to smells from their first meeting.
The stench emanating from the mercenaries made Keldric frown as well, but Alyssa’s reaction was even more severe.
She was particularly sensitive to the smell of something burning, and at times, she had even skipped meals, saying she felt nauseous.
Could it be that it was something related to Alyssa’s past? Keldric slowly pondered the question he couldn’t get an answer to.
“Alyssa. Are you alright?”
“…Yes. I’m fine.”
Alyssa pretended to be nonchalant. But she couldn’t hide her slightly pale complexion.
Keldric decided not to delve any deeper at that point.
It was ridiculous to make assumptions when the other person was silent, and he figured Alyssa would tell him when the time was right.
“Lord Keldric. Do you intend to stay here?”
“That…”
At Lord Henri’s question, Keldric looked far to the south.
The snowfield, stretching out endlessly, was truly magnificent. The footprints and dug-up snow scattered across it made it difficult to trace any tracks.
Which of the scattered tracks belonged to Baron Gottfried?
There was no need to bother figuring that out now; he could simply follow the tracks heading south…
“When will Lord Lothar’s army arrive?”
“Let’s see, it’ll probably take at least three or four days…”
“Then, we’ll head west.”
“W-West?”
“We could go ahead and block the path, or scout the area nearby.”
Lord Henri reluctantly agreed. Keldric’s gaze shifted to the side.
West, the direction in which the dirt road that ran through Runt stretched out.
The direction in which the sun was setting was definitely west.
It didn’t have any metaphorical meaning, but Keldric couldn’t help but imagine Baron Gottfried’s territory to the west.
In one way or another, they were a setting sun.
And the rising sun was on this side. Keldric had no intention of sharing that warmth with everyone.
‘Jacob.’
Jacob’s pale, bloodless face occasionally appeared in Keldric’s dreams.
Then, Keldric would toss and turn, unable to fall asleep easily.
“We’ll stay in Runt for one more day, and leave as soon as dawn breaks.”
“As you say, my lord.”
Leaving behind the smell of burning flesh and acrid smoke, Keldric stared blankly to the west.
If the opportunity to avenge everything came, should he seize it by any means necessary?
Keldric couldn’t easily come up with an answer.
☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩ ☩
After staying in Runt for another day, Keldric finished preparing to depart as soon as dawn broke.
Thanks to this, the soldiers, who had been roused from their half-asleep state in the cold weather, were miserable. But Keldric was no different.
Still, he was better off than Alyssa and Lord Henri. The two of them couldn’t even speak properly in the even colder morning breeze.
As they finished preparing to leave, some of the villagers and the village chief came to see Keldric and Lord Henri.
“Sir Knight. Thank you so much.”
“If you hadn’t been here, sir, I don’t know what would have happened to our village…”
They had long known that Baron Gottfried’s army was no different from a large band of robbers.
They knew best about the tragedy of Einhorn, the neighboring village. Especially since some of the survivors of Einhorn were in Runt.
And it was Keldric who had driven them away.
In fact, if it had been another knight, they would have taken something as a pretext, but Keldric didn’t particularly want any compensation.
That left a deep impression on the villagers. At the very least, they had been prepared for the soldiers to cause trouble, but Keldric strictly controlled such behavior.
“If you follow this road, is it Einhorn?”
“Ah, yes. That’s right. It’s about half a day away from here.”
“Sir Knight. Please be careful. Einhorn is probably crawling with bandits.”
A villager who had fled from Einhorn spoke with concern.
Keldric had no intention of staying in Einhorn. But if there were bandits there, he couldn’t just pass by.
“I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Lord Keldric. We should probably get going.”
The conversation ended there. The villagers and the village chief saw Keldric and the detachment off for a long time.
The sight of them coming out to the very edge of the village to see them off filled many of the soldiers with an inexplicable sense of pride.
“Once this territorial war is over, should I settle down in Runt…”
“Those who say things like that always end up dying.”
It was an unfamiliar experience for them.
They were used to suppressing bandits and maintaining security near Bogenberg, but receiving gratitude from people from other regions…
“It doesn’t feel bad.”
“…I suppose not.”
The atmosphere became warm. Although the icy north wind was still blowing incessantly from beyond the northern mountains, the soldiers quickened their pace with smiles on their flushed faces.
After walking for some time, the sun was already at its peak and gradually setting.
Keldric didn’t particularly intend to march them hard, so he allowed them to rest appropriately, unlike before.
Thanks to this, the morale of the soldiers was quite high.
Having won two battles with Keldric while being outnumbered, they couldn’t help but feel confident.
They walked until late lunch, perhaps what could be called an early dinner.
The dirt road, which seemed to go on endlessly, gradually became dirty and covered with snow, making it difficult to pass.
Keldric felt a bitter taste in his mouth at the fact that this was the trace of a village where traffic had disappeared.
“Is that it?”
How long had they walked? Lord Henri pointed to a certain place. Keldric’s gaze followed his.
In the distance, following the dirt road blurred by the snow, they could see the entrance to a village that was half in ruins.
Keldric’s expression hardened. Lord Henri also scratched his cheek with a slightly grim expression.
“Let’s go.”
“O-Okay… Let’s.”
The sight of Einhorn as they approached was more tragic than they had expected.
The entrance to the village was a mess, burned to the ground.
Two or three bodies hung from the palisade, half-burned and barely standing, that had not been recovered.
As they went deeper into Einhorn, tragic scenes were constantly revealed. Keldric’s expression gradually became serious.
Originally, at this time, when a lord plundered the territory of a hostile lord, it was customary not to massacre the villagers as much as possible.
If they were to acquire the rights to the territory later, they would have to collect taxes from the villagers of that territory. In other words, it was a self-restraint out of necessity.
However, that was only the case when they were simply plundering supplies. Einhorn had been completely reduced to ashes.
In this case, if there had been no massacre, there were two possibilities for the surviving residents.
They were either sold into slavery or fled to other villages nearby.
There were not many bodies in the burned-down Einhorn.
The survivors would have gone to Runt, and those who were not seen there would have been taken as slaves.
Moreover, with the village in this state, it would take a long time to rebuild.
A long time would be needed. To rebuild the village, to gather those lively people, and to forget what had happened here.
But someone would not forget. Perhaps one of the surviving villagers would write ‘Baron Gottfried, you son of a bitch’ on some nameless tombstone.
“God damn it, this is fucked up.”
“Those bastards… it’s a mercy we sent them to hell.”
The soldiers were just as heavy-hearted.
They had just met the simple villagers a half-day ago, and now, faced with this contrasting tragedy, their stomachs churned.
“Keldric, what should we do?”
A soldier on horseback approached and asked. Keldric hesitated to answer for a moment.
“…Any survivors?”
“I’ll look.”
It was a vain hope. In this cold weather, there was no way anyone could have survived in a place where everything was destroyed and burned.
As the soldiers dispersed for a moment, Keldric noticed Alyssa getting off her horse and collapsing, and he approached her.
The fire had died down, so the smell of burning was faint, but Alyssa’s complexion was not good.
She covered her nose and mouth, constantly gagging and trying to soothe her nausea.
“Ugh…”
“Alyssa. Are you alright?”
“…Yes, I’m fine.”
Tears welled up slightly, making her blue eyes sparkle.
When Keldric met Alyssa’s eyes, he glimpsed the anger and hatred within them.
‘Wise, but consumed by hatred.’
The demon’s words came to mind. Keldric looked around with a heavy heart.
If anyone had to witness such a sight, wouldn’t they be consumed by hatred?
‘…Baron Gottfried.’
Baron Gottfried, and the fire-emblem mage who accompanied him.
The mage Alyssa was chasing might be related to them.
Suddenly, a piece of wood that had not yet been extinguished rolled over. Keldric stared down at it.
The color of the scattering embers was slightly reddish and sticky.
It was an unusual fire. These embers remained everywhere.
It was only a matter of time. Keldric stared blankly at the northern mountain range beyond the approaching white clouds.
Soon, a cold and bitter north wind would come. Then these hot embers would be completely extinguished.
However, the embers ignited in the heart are not easily extinguished.
Even if the north wind arrives.