kscans

Chapter 280 - The Third Prince

The fallen leaves crushed by military boots were a reddish brown. The armed group of about forty men advanced through Rubel Wald, a forest as red as blood.

"We are getting a little too far ahead, are we not."

The knight with silver streaked hair, to the left of the three men leading the unit, spoke. His right arm bore three large scars, remnants from a battle in the eastern forest, on the opposite side of the kingdom from here.

The knight in the center, a man in his mid twenties, responded lightly to his subordinate’s words with a simple, "Is that so." He was the commander of the legion, Prince Craig, the Third Prince of the kingdom and Captain of the Third Knight Order.

He was a short haired man wearing a blue surcoat embroidered with white roses, an attire more suited to a state function in the Royal Capital than the middle of a forest. He had a rugged face and a well balanced, toned physique. He possessed the contradictory qualities of elegance and wildness. Some might call it ambition.

"I must give weight to the words of my adviser and his experience."

Craig slowed his pace, though he did not relinquish his position at the front.

The adviser, dispatched from the Second Knight Order, was a baron whose domain lay on the border between the central and eastern territories. Craig surmised he was effectively a watchdog, placed there at the behest of the Chancellor or his older brother, the Second Prince.

"Your Highness."

"You are right. Even if we are at the center of the circle formed by our eight units, we are still surrounded by the forest. We cannot afford to be careless."

As he spoke, Craig glanced at the man in his early twenties to his right.

"If any monsters approach, we are relying on this one’s eyes."

"Leave it to me, Captain."

He wore the unique equipment of this knightly order, a long cloak with a large collar wrapped over his light armor. He was a so called quasi knight, a commoner promoted for his strong aptitude for handling magic.

Craig looked back at his unit.

"Just do as you have been trained. This is a battlefield, so the unexpected is bound to happen anyway."

The captain’s words drew laughter from the knights following the three men. The military inspector frowned but said nothing more.

The commander’s personal unit raised its combat readiness.

A report had come from the detachment at the three o’clock position, signaling a magic signature believed to be that of a dire wolf boss. The tension aligned the footsteps of the unit members, despite their different standings.

Even so, this meant the subjugation was proceeding according to plan.

As he grasped the rhythm of his unit, Craig’s mind was on another matter. This was his first independent military operation, and he thought about the person who had orchestrated this sudden deployment.

First was the Oracle Princess. His stepsister, who was in fact his cousin. She had predicted this Monster Flood in the west, an event the prophetic crystal had said would not occur.

Craig recalled the spring festival he had also attended. It was magnificent how she refused to yield to the wearying pressure of the royal court, which prized conservatism above all else, and saw her will through. But this picture was far too bizarre to have been painted by that girl’s slender, guileless arms.

Then what of the biggest stakeholder in this affair, Grand Duchess Bertold, the one responsible for the kingdom’s western region. She was his aunt.

She had been thrust into the nominal position of Grand Duchess in her mid teens to fill the void left by the far too early retirement of his other uncle, Alfina's father, a man whose name even he could not mention lightly.

Having now gained experience, she was a formidable woman who had become a major power in the west, even while being pushed back by the east. But still.

I suppose neither of them is the genius, or the madman, to conceive of something like this. It must be that old man after all.

The Head Librarian, who had unraveled the mechanism of the Monster Flood. Had it not been for this deployment, Craig would have visited his room by now to hear his story.

But for him to paint a picture of this magnitude so suddenly, after decades of silence, was far too unnatural, even for a genius.

If that was the case, then someone else had given these three their ideas. Someone utterly unconventional, yet who had remained inconspicuous until now. An impossible existence. Who could it be.

"Leylia, was it. That was a prosperous village."

The words escaped Craig’s lips unintentionally. It was a simple association, born from a convergence of the strange and the abnormal.

"Do you think so. It looked like a rustic little hamlet to me."

"No, it is unquestionably a prosperous village. The vitality of the villagers is different somehow."

The men to his left and right voiced opposing opinions. Just as Craig was considering how to handle the tension that sparked between the old and young knight, the quasi knight turned to face forward.

"Captain. A reaction is approaching. There are probably three, no, four of them. Judging by the size and color of their magic, I am certain they are dire wolves."

"Considering the direction, it is not the boss. Should we mobilize the third and fourth squads, or perhaps evasion would be, no."

The experienced, silver haired knight stopped mid sentence and scanned his surroundings.

"This is much closer. The angle is wrong. They are above us. They jumped, now!"

Simultaneously with the quasi knight’s words, a heavy thud echoed on the ground before them. A four legged beast, two sizes larger and far sturdier than a warhorse, had landed. From the branches of the massive tree before them, two more dire wolves followed.

The particularly enormous alpha, leading its two subordinates, bristled the fur around its throat, its forehead magic crystal emitting an ominous light. It was as if three eyes were glaring at the intruders in its territory.

"This is bad. They are coming from the ground, too. This is the target we initially spotted. We will be pincered at this rate."

"Impossible. Two bosses?"

The veteran knight cried out in surprise. The unit members behind them grew agitated.

"I see. So this is a battlefield. The unexpected does happen."

Craig tricked himself into a state of momentary calm. He grinned at his men, baring his canines. Then he looked at the man with the most experience fighting dire wolves.

"If I give you half, can you hold the left?"

"You would split our forces?"

"We are being pincered in their territory, and we are outmatched in mobility. In that case, we must force a one on one situation. That is simpler, is it not."

"What is the status of the other units."

"The surrounding detachments are rushing to our position."

The quasi knight shouted after pulling up his cloak’s collar and glancing left and right. The adviser looked at Craig and tapped his own arm.

"Fifteen men will be sufficient for a defense. My experience is different from yours, Your Highness."

"I believe I promised to respect your experience, sir. Very well. Then I will take the rest and engage the right." A trail of red light traced the air as Craig drew his sword.

"Just do not break. As long as we do not fall, this battle will soon turn into our hunt."

At their commander’s words, the unit members drew their swords one after another. Leading his rallied troops, the prince faced the three eyed beast. His heart stirred with a cold thrill in what was his first real battle.

Right. I will make thinking about the one who put me to use my reward for getting through this.