Chapter 6. The Catalyst (5)
Wayton and Alex were running toward the village with all their strength.
Under ordinary circumstances, Wayton, who could wield mana, would have been far faster than Alex, but Alex knew the surrounding terrain like the back of his hand.
Ever since he was a child, he and his friends had roamed every mountain in the area.
Unlike when they had been traveling with thirty knights, the two now took the narrow trails normally used only by animals, paths that people rarely ventured onto.
“We’re almost there!”
“Yeah, I can tell!”
Neither of them had any idea what Klein had seen that made him believe the village was in danger.
But there was no chance the words of someone who had slaughtered those trolls with a single strike were mere speculation.
With that thought in mind, the two finally reached the outskirts of the village—
And their eyes widened.
A gigantic Ogre stood there, black energy rippling around its body.
Worse still, it was a Twin-Head Ogre with two heads!
Even Wayton had only ever seen such a formidable monster once before.
The sight of that creature wreathed in ominous darkness was terrifying enough to make him pray it would never appear in his dreams.
Even so, the five knights were attacking the Twin-Head Ogre together. Yet with every heavy but astonishingly swift blow it unleashed, the knights were sent flying, coughing up blood.
But they seemed prepared to die.
If they were forced back two steps, they advanced three.
If they were driven back three, they pushed forward four, relentlessly pressuring the Ogre.
The more they did so, the more the darkness erupting from the Ogre weighed down upon their shoulders.
At times, spikes even shot out from wherever shadows gathered…….
Wayton could say with certainty that he would not survive even five seconds in that battle.
Then, amid the fighting, a man standing behind the knights shouted.
“Now!”
The five knights, who had been fiercely pressing the Ogre only moments earlier, simultaneously squeezed out the last of their strength and pinned down its legs.
Only then did Wayton and Alex turn their attention toward the boy who had shouted.
The black-haired boy created an ominous, blood-red disc above one hand, then hurled it toward the Ogre with all his strength.
The Ogre also seemed to realize how dangerous it was and raised a barrier of darkness.
“How dare you!”
At the boy’s second shout, the barrier shook violently.
And the Ogre was not the only thing that trembled.
Alex’s legs gave out entirely, sending him collapsing to the ground, while Wayton dropped to one knee.
It was the voice of an absolute ruler, one that could not be resisted.
Wayton could say with certainty that even the Monster Fear of the Twin-Head Ogre he had encountered in the past could not begin to compare.
But perhaps that became a poison in itself.
Shane’s voice shook Wayton’s very soul.
At the same moment that the Ogre’s heads fell to the ground, Wayton and Alex caught a fleeting glimpse of its shadow stretching toward them.
—
While Rodwill and the other four knights stared at Shane in astonishment, Shane did not relax his vigilance.
He knew from his previous life that spirits, which had no physical bodies of their own, were always tenacious.
Of course, severing both heads of the Ogre they had been using as a body would have dealt enough damage to shake even the Rotten Tree Spirit’s very existence.
But it should still have been capable of escaping.
Night had already fallen, and as a Dark Spirit, the Rotten Tree Spirit could hide within any shadow it pleased.
Of course, no one present was as sensitive to dark mana as Shane, so he would be able to detect it easily.
But things would become far more troublesome if people returned and it entered someone’s body.
Not only would killing it become difficult, but unlike when it hid inside a shadow, once it took refuge inside a human body, it could enter a dormant state there. Detecting it would then become difficult unless Shane touched the host directly.
At that moment, Shane spotted a young man and a middle-aged man collapsed near the eastern entrance of the village.
They were Alex and Wayton.
“Hmm.”
Were they the messengers Klein had sent ahead?
Just as Shane wondered that, Alex forced himself upright on trembling legs, and Wayton approached beside him.
“A-Are you all right?”
“Things here are finished. What about your side?”
Shane already expected that the other battle had ended as well, but he asked anyway.
Just as he had thought, by the time Alex and Wayton had left, every troll that could be considered a leader had already been killed. All that remained were lesser monsters such as goblins and kobolds.
Kobolds could be somewhat dangerous, but even if a few goblins escaped, the village militia should be able to deal with them.
“Th-The young man with the Knight Order told us to come back and evacuate everyone from the village…….”
“That no longer seems necessary.”
As he spoke, Shane looked toward the fallen Ogre.
Meanwhile, Alex could not stop his heart from pounding.
Klein’s martial prowess in the forest had been extraordinary, but Shane’s shout, which had struck directly at his heart, had filled Alex with awe.
He was desperately trying to think of some excuse to exchange even a few more words with Shane when—
Shane suddenly extended a hand toward Wayton.
And that was when something went wrong.
“Ghk! C-Captain Wayton……!”
Almost at the exact moment Shane moved his hand, Wayton, who had remained silent until then, seized Alex by the throat and retreated.
“It seems you did not have enough time to enter dormancy.”
Shane spoke in a chilling voice.
Alex could barely think under the crushing pressure around his throat.
As he struggled in pain and barely managed to turn his gaze toward Wayton—
He saw that Wayton was already enveloped in black mist.
‘How did this happen?!’
As his consciousness slowly began to fade, Alex looked toward Shane, who continued staring coldly in their direction.
“Human. Let me go. Then this human lives.”
The voice that came from Wayton was so eerie that it was difficult to believe it belonged to the same hearty man as before.
“Do you truly think something like you can escape from me?”
“This human dies.”
“If I let you go, even more humans will become victims.”
“Then. The negotiation—”
“Too late.”
“……?”
Too late, rather than no?
Before the Rotten Tree Spirit could even express its confusion, light erupted beneath its feet.
“Human……!”
The earth surged upward in an instant and restrained the spirit.
The ground became as rigid as steel. No matter how much strength the spirit exerted, it could not move.
“How?!”
Using the knowledge inside Wayton’s mind to understand its condition, the spirit was shocked.
How could a boy who had not even reached adulthood cast magic without an incantation?
Of course, recalling the era before the current calendar, beings capable of such things had not been unheard of.
But Shane had activated the spell so discreetly that even the spirit itself had failed to sense it.
Mana was the very force from which spirits were formed!
Whatever else might be possible, there was no conceivable way someone should have been able to cast magic without even a spirit detecting it.
“Do you think something as insignificant as you could understand?”
Shane understood the meaning behind the shock on its face and gave a dismissive smile.
“W-Wait, human! Are you planning to kill this human too?!”
“Why shouldn’t I?”
As he spoke, Shane raised one hand and drew a magical formula with mana.
A metallic sword blade formed above his outstretched palm.
“……!”
After beginning his new life, Shane had little intention of killing humans.
But that did not mean he intended to become soft.
He had only resolved not to commit acts that amounted to indiscriminate slaughter.
That did not mean he intended to spare his enemies.
“Even if you remain inside that body, that man will die anyway, won’t he? No. He would probably rather die.”
No one in this world understood better than Shane what it felt like to have control of one’s own body stolen away while remaining trapped within, forced to endure the violation of one’s flesh.
The metallic blade above Shane’s hand began rotating at high speed.
“Farewell.”
“W-Wait!”
Just as Shane was about to strike Wayton’s neck with his hand, which had transformed into a blade, without the slightest hesitation—
Alex lunged forward and grabbed Shane’s arm.
For a commoner to dare lay a hand on a noble was, by itself, enough to warrant a severe beating.
Yet Shane merely twitched one eyebrow as he glared at Alex.
“Did you not hear me? Even if I leave him like this, the man will die.”
“Is-Is there no other way?!”
With a desperate expression, Alex clung to Shane’s arm and dropped to both knees.
At that moment—
A memory flashed through Shane’s mind.
[Please survive. I beg you.]
A blood-soaked man with three swords strapped across his back was pleading with a handsome blond man.
The bloodied man gazed at him with a desperate expression.
[……I’m sorry.]
The blond man then fell from the cliff.
The blood-soaked man, now left alone, turned around and looked toward Shane.
No.
More precisely—
He looked toward the vast Undead army that served as Shane’s eyes and shouted.
[My death will not be meaningless.]
The man looked as though even taking a single step should have been impossible.
Yet he drew the swords from his back and fought like a madman.
Only after destroying fifteen Death Knights did he finally die.
“……It was you.”
“Y-Yes?”
“…….”
He looked very different now.
Back then, his hair had turned completely white, and his body had been covered in scars, making him look nothing like the ordinary young villager standing before Shane now.
But there was no mistaking it.
In Shane’s previous life, Alex had been one of the Death Squad members who had accompanied Klein to the city where the Imperial Princess was imprisoned in order to rescue her.
In the process, everyone except Klein and the Imperial Princess had lost their lives to Shane’s Undead army.
Alex had been the last member of the Death Squad to die while protecting Klein.
Had Alex not helped Klein escape down the cliff back then, Klein’s survival would not have been guaranteed.
He also would never have encountered the Fortuitous Encounter waiting below.
‘So that is why his face seemed familiar.’
Shane stared at Alex for a moment before letting out a quiet sigh.
‘I would rather not do this if I can avoid it.’
However, individuals powerful enough to stand beside the future Klein were exceedingly rare.
And now, one of those chosen few was standing directly in front of him.
Shane reluctantly decided to accept the risk and met the gaze of the Rotten Tree Spirit, which remained bound and unable to move.
“I will give you one more chance.”
“What?”
Before the Rotten Tree Spirit could properly respond—
Shane sent mana flowing into Wayton’s body, where the spirit was hiding.
“Come inside. This is the only way you will survive.”
“……Human. Insolent.”
At the same time, the black mist that had seeped into Wayton’s body slowly began moving toward Shane.
