Chapter 54

Chapter 54: Chapter 54

The greatest difficulty in defending against any attack was the lack of initiative.

Since they had no way of knowing when the enemy would strike, they could not help remaining on edge, and that was far more mentally exhausting than one might imagine.

They did not have to worry about food, but Rickart and his friends had no walls they could trust and rely upon.

There were not even any trenches or stakes around the defensive tower. They lacked even the most basic defensive fortifications.

Adventurers would sooner die than pick up a shovel. That was the greatest difference between them and a regular army. Soldiers in a real army spent far more time holding shovels and pickaxes than weapons.

Moreover, it had been three days since Volka and Delphy departed, yet there was still no sign of their return.

Worrying about his friends was another thing wearing away at Rickart’s mental strength.

Rickart was not the only one who knew that a full-scale attack was imminent.

The question was, when?

Below the highlands, a festive atmosphere continued day after day. It was rare for so many people to gather outside their village communities, so everyone appeared excited and delighted simply to be there.

Even after night fell, people lit great fires, roasted meat, sang, and danced. Minstrels played their lutes while jesters performed amusing tricks.

Since everything below was clearly visible from above, they could even see men and women making physical love in secluded places.

"Hey, you lovebirds! Eat this!"

Apparently offended by the sight of people making love, members of the Widowmakers Clan hurled excrement and stones at the couples.

When the startled men and women hurriedly straightened their clothes and fled, the clan members cackled in amusement.

Reinhardt simply drank himself senseless and enjoyed the festive atmosphere, while Rickart, Boribori, and Marie took turns guarding the suspension bridge one at a time.

A round full moon hung in the night sky, making the night brighter than usual.

When the moonlight was especially bright, it almost seemed like morning, though that was a slight exaggeration.

Beneath the strangely brilliant moonlight and amid the pleasantly cool air, Rickart sat warming himself by a campfire with Marie.

Marie kept edging closer to him, however, so Rickart subtly moved away.

She moved closer again, and he moved away again.

This happened several times.

Rickart was not completely oblivious, so by now he had some idea of how the girl felt.

Once or twice would have been one thing, but if she kept doing this, it would become troublesome.

When Rickart deliberately continued avoiding her, Marie looked slightly embarrassed and spoke.

"Um, Ricky..."

"Hey, I wanted to..."

"We can’t let down our guard, Marie. We didn’t come here to have fun."

Rickart deliberately spoke coldly.

Marie, who had been about to say something, closed her mouth and lowered her head.

A night with such brilliant moonlight should have felt special, but now it only seemed cruel.

Rather than soothing her heart, the moonlight seemed intent on laying it bare.

If I’d known this would happen, I wouldn’t have moved so close to him.

I shouldn’t have tried to say anything.

Despite how trivial it was, a deep wave of regret washed over Marie.

However, just as Rickart had warned, something ominous actually did happen.

Dozens of people, each carrying a torch, were climbing toward the defensive tower.

Rickart sprang to his feet.

Marie, who had been sitting with her head lowered, flinched in surprise. She, too, soon sensed that something was wrong.

"Hey!"

Rickart shouted toward the members of the Widowmakers Clan.

He was telling them to stop fooling around while staring down the cliff and start keeping a proper watch.

At first, they looked confused by his reaction, but the sight of dozens of torches quickly brought them to their senses.

What was that?

The people approaching the defensive tower were not civilians.

Every one of them carried a weapon at their waist.

They were adventurers.

Strangely, however, they did not draw their weapons and remained silent, as though conducting some sort of religious ceremony.

They merely stopped at a distance and stood there without moving.

Why were they doing that?

What were they up to?

At that moment, the man guarding the narrow path leading to the defensive tower suddenly sprayed blood and screamed.

"Argh!"

Rickart’s head whipped around.

Armed men who had somehow remained hidden until now broke through the entrance and rushed up the path.

The battle had begun.

Rickart drew his sword and spoke to Marie.

"Stay with Bori. If things go wrong, cross the bridge."

"R-Ricky, what about you?"

Rickart did not answer. He ran toward the entrance.

However, the man who had killed the sentry saw Rickart and immediately sprinted elsewhere.

At the same time, five or six men approached Rickart in close formation, each holding a shield as tall as a person with both hands.

Rickart stopped short and thought,

They came fully prepared.

With the shield wall pressing toward him, there was nothing Rickart could do. He tried to reposition himself quickly, but the enemies who had stormed the area with a clear plan were not about to stand back and let him.

The shield wall advanced rapidly toward Rickart.

He suddenly realized that they intended to push him straight over the cliff.

Meanwhile, the dozens of people holding torches merely watched without joining the fight.

That was because they had been ordered not to fight unless victory seemed certain, at which point they could join in of their own accord.

The low-ranking adventurers were useless and rarely followed orders properly anyway, so they had merely been brought along to draw attention.

They had succeeded in distracting the defenders, so whoever had issued the orders seemed fairly clever.

However, the enemies’ enormous shields obstructed their vision, and because they were packed so tightly together, changing direction was difficult.

One of them poked his head above his shield to see what was happening.

Rickart swung his sword with uncanny precision.

There was a sharp chop, and the upper portion of the man’s skull, including his eyes, was cleanly sliced away.

The remaining shield bearers continued pushing forward in confusion.

An unfortunate member of the Widowmakers Clan was caught in their path and driven backward.

Unable to mount any sort of response, he was pushed all the way over the cliff.

"Aaaaaaargh!"

His arms flailed in the air as he fell toward the people enjoying themselves around a large bonfire below.

One particularly unlucky person was struck by the falling man, killing them both instantly.

Crunch!

Their bones had suffered such severe fractures that they protruded through the flesh in more than one place.

The area that had resembled a festival only moments earlier descended into chaos in an instant.

"Aaaaaah!"

Things were equally chaotic atop the cliff.

Reinhardt, who had been drinking when he noticed the enemy’s attack, raised his enormous club and began hammering them through their shields.

"You bastards! I’ve been itching for a fight, so this is perfect!"

Boom!

His attack was so immensely powerful that it shattered a shield outright.

He then reached toward the nearest enemy, grabbed the man by the face, and tore at it.

Once the troublesome shield bearers had been neutralized, Rickart quickly looked around and assessed the battlefield.

The torch-bearing adventurers hesitated, unable to decide whether they should join the battle, while the enemies of intermediate rank and above drew their weapons and began fighting in earnest.

Rickart first shouted at the low-ranking adventurers holding the torches.

"Come any closer and you’ll die!"

Since it was Rickart who had issued the warning, rather than anyone else, they immediately faltered.

At the same time, the intermediate- and high-ranking enemies who heard his shout converged upon him all at once.

Clang! Thud! Clink!

At last, Rickart swung his sword, its blade flashing brilliantly in the moonlight.

As always, he broke his enemies’ swords, severed their necks, and cut off their arms.

The moment Rickart unleashed his uniquely simple and lethal swordsmanship, two men fell, one to each stroke.

Upon witnessing the terrifying swordsmanship they had heard so much about, someone shouted,

"Fall back! Bring the nets! Drive him toward the cliff!"

Rickart immediately realized that bastard was the leader.

Having someone who knew how to command a large group made the situation exceedingly troublesome.

Wolfgen, a clan master of the Hagen Guild, had kept his distance from Rickart from the very beginning and directed the battle from afar.

The intermediate- and high-ranking adventurers moved according to his commands.

Though they were not quite as disciplined as a trained army, they still managed to force Rickart into a difficult position.

They hurled throwing weapons at him from a distance and cast nets whenever they saw an opening, refusing to confront him directly.

Like a tiger being hunted, Rickart could do nothing but remain in constant motion and evade their attacks.

He had been outnumbered from the start, and now the terrain had placed him at an even greater disadvantage.

At that moment, however, Rickart instinctively realized something.

These people had come to kill him, not to seize the defensive tower.

The instant he understood that, Rickart concluded that their only chance of victory was for him to lure the enemy away.

Almost simultaneously with reaching that decision, Rickart leaped down the embankment.

He then charged toward the low-ranking adventurers holding the torches.

"W-Whoa!"

The startled low-ranking adventurers hurriedly scattered and cleared a path.

"What are you doing, you bastards?! Stop him!"

Wolfgen was so dumbfounded that his anger surged to the top of his head, and he roared at them.

The low-ranking adventurers merely grumbled inwardly.

Weren’t you the one who said we didn’t have to fight?

Rickart raced down from the highlands, and the high-ranking adventurers who had been waiting to finish him off hurriedly gave chase.

Rickart’s tactical judgment proved correct. A gaping hole appeared in the enemy forces surrounding the defensive tower, allowing the Widowmakers Clan to begin its counterattack.

The enemy force was suddenly split in two. When all their high-ranking adventurers—the core of their fighting strength—ran after Rickart, even Wolfgen briefly panicked.

How did things turn out like this?

We nearly had them!

Even amid all this, the torch-bearing low-ranking adventurers merely stood around and watched.

What? It looks like we’re losing.

We would’ve been the only ones in danger if we’d joined the fight for no reason.

Whew, what a relief.

As for the high-ranking adventurers, their objective was to kill Rickart, either to avenge their personal grudges or restore their clans’ tarnished honor.

They had never been interested in capturing the defensive tower in the first place.

Only the unfortunate intermediate-ranking adventurers were caught in the middle, unable to advance or retreat.

To make matters worse, Boribori finished dealing with the situation near the suspension bridge and joined the battle in earnest. The intermediate-ranking adventurers alone had no hope of holding out against him.

"Fuuuck..."

Wolfgen stood there in despair and swore.

Then Boribori’s sword swung toward him, and his consciousness promptly went dark.

Meanwhile, Rickart raced down from the highlands while drawing the high-ranking adventurers after him. He changed direction toward an area without civilians and continued running.

His breath rose painfully in his throat, and his vision spun, but the dozen or so swordsmen relentlessly pursuing him spread out to surround him.

When one of them approached, Rickart stopped running and counterattacked.

However, the reflexes and physical abilities of high-ranking adventurers approached the limits of the human body. They did not surrender the distance between them so easily.

They had clearly come fully prepared today. They abandoned any notion of a fair duel and focused solely on surrounding Rickart while maintaining a distance that was neither quite within reach nor entirely beyond it.

Their expressions made it clear that they intended to kill Rickart by any means necessary.

Beads of sweat formed on the faces of Rickart and his enemies alike. Their eyes shone with utter concentration as they struggled not to lose focus for even a moment.

Rickart could tell at a glance.

His enemies intended to take him with them even if they suffered fatal wounds in the process.

And there were not merely one or two such people.

There were ten of them.

Has my time finally come?

Is this as far as I go?

The thoughts briefly crossed his mind.

Yet he was not afraid.

That was simply how it was. Nothing more.

While his senses were stretched taut like a tightly drawn thread, someone suddenly addressed him in a calm voice.

It was Gramschwitz.

"Do you have siblings as well? Losing a brother is like losing one of your own limbs. The pain and grief..."

Rickart did not know who the man was, but because he also had siblings, he understood those words.

That allowed him to guess the depth of the grudge Gramschwitz bore against him.

But this was no time for mutual sympathy.

The bond tying them together through resentment could only be severed with a sword.

"Hyaaah!"

Someone behind Rickart let out a battle cry.

Rickart did not turn around. Instead, he charged toward the enemy in front of him.

Someone is attacking from behind. If you want to coordinate with him, you’ll have no choice but to attack as well.

As expected, the enemy before him stopped measuring the distance and thrust his sword directly at Rickart, prepared to die.

A moment later, attacks also came from both sides.

Rickart twisted his upper body halfway around and bent his knees deeply. He raised his arm and pressed the flat of his blade close to his body.

Then he pulled the sword with all his strength.

The blade rotated horizontally, knocking aside several swords at once.

Claaaaang!

That created a priceless opening.

Rickart gritted his teeth and swung his sword again.

Whoosh! Thud!

A body collapsed.

After deflecting several attacks, Rickart finally carved halfway through one man’s waist.

Despite each being counted among the strongest warriors in their respective regions, the others trembled.

"M-Monster...!"

Even swordsmen prepared to die were appalled by him.

But once Rickart seized an opportunity, he knew how to maintain his momentum and never let it escape.

The enemies’ footwork became tangled for the briefest instant.

Rickart swiftly closed the distance, swinging his sword from side to side and bringing it down in a flawless display of attack and defense.

Clang! Clank! Thud!

It had transcended simple swordplay and reached the realm of art.

If only one true sword technique existed in the world, it seemed as though this alone deserved the name.

Two men collapsed in sprays of blood.

Blood also streamed from Rickart’s upper arm.

As the shadow of death fell over him, Rickart instead felt an ever-growing sense of exhilaration.

He drove the enemies back fiercely, just like the Nameless Man.

He resembled both a raging torrent and a roaring flame.

Yet at the same time, every movement was precise and delicate.

The swordsmen confronting Rickart had devoted their lives to the sword and expected to die by it.

They could not help being captivated.

How could something be so beautiful?

But this would end only when Rickart died or all of them did.

When three of the ten fell in an instant, the enemies widened the distance again and reorganized themselves.

"Huff! Huff!"

They exhaled sharply as they steadied their breathing.

Their encirclement was no longer complete, however.

Rickart broke through the opening and raced across the highlands again.

Naturally, the enemies pursued him.

It was then that he heard a voice.

"Ricky!"

Startled, Rickart looked up toward the highlands.

Marie was running toward him in a hurry.

His eyes widened when he saw her.

What?

Why?

The remaining seven swordsmen were also taken aback by the appearance of someone new.

However, they did not appear to be as vicious as the Ernberg Five, because none of them immediately tried to seize Marie as a hostage.

Not that Marie was someone who would allow herself to be quietly captured.

Rickart kept running and eventually met Marie halfway down as she raced toward him.

Neither of them spoke.

They merely ran side by side while looking in the same direction.

In a way, the situation was almost absurd.

When they rounded the mountainside, a field of early-blooming buckwheat flowers spread out before them.

It looked as though fine snow had fallen across the ground. The gentle moonlight of the round full moon settled over the field, creating a breathtaking sight.

Rickart and Marie raced through the flowers.

For a moment, neither knew how the situation had come to this or why they were even running.

The waist-high plants brushed against them with a soft rustling sound that tickled their ears.

They could not run for long, however.

A sheer cliff lay ahead.

Perhaps it was because of the peculiar madness mingled with the moonlight, but for the briefest moment, it felt as though it might be all right to join hands and leap from the cliff together.

Rickart stopped running and turned around.

The seven swordsmen were also standing in the field of buckwheat flowers.

Rickart’s meteorite-iron sword, Marie’s true-silver sword, and the seven other blades all reflected the moonlight.

Everyone gasped for breath.

Rickart spoke.

"I’ll move to the right. Marie, put some distance between us when I do. The enemies will converge on me. Join the fight once they do."

Even now, Rickart continued making tactical judgments.

"No, um..."

"What?"

"Sorry, but I don’t think I’ll be able to say it unless I say it now."

Rickart turned to Marie.

Marie looked back at him.

Their blond hair, drenched in sweat, clung to their faces.

Her enigmatic eyes shifted between green and brown, while his jewel-like blue eyes shone with incomparable beauty.

They were close enough that either one could have leaned forward and kissed the other.

After their earlier conversation, Marie had been afraid that it might be their last.

But she could say it now.

Her heart pounded.

"I think I like you..."

"..."

It truly was an inappropriate time for a confession.

Yet the buckwheat field bathed in moonlight was so beautiful that she wondered when else she could reveal the pure feelings she had experienced for the first time in her life.

Rickart remained silent for a long while.

Then he smiled bitterly and spoke gently.

"Sorry. I don’t believe in love. But I could die for you."

The boy could understand the resentment his enemies bore toward him, yet he could not understand the girl’s innocent love.

No—to be precise, he could not accept it.

That was because he still believed love was merely another name for the cruelest of curses and the seed of misery.

Love and resentment resembled one another.

Marie’s mind went blank, and for a moment she could not think of anything.

Wait, what does that mean?

He rejected me, didn’t he?

Rickart said nothing more and threw himself to the right.

Just as he had predicted, the enemies remained wary of Marie but converged on Rickart.

The grass rustled beneath their feet.

A moment later, Rickart and the seven swordsmen collided.

Beneath the bright moon, the ringing of metal occasionally echoed across the field, and red blood scattered over the white buckwheat flowers.

One or two at a time, the swordsmen fell, making the field of flowers their grave.

Gramschwitz fell as well.

One after another, their grudges dropped like wilting blossoms.

In Marie’s eyes, Rickart looked more beautiful, desperate, and magnificent than ever as he swung his sword.

You jerk...

But as wounds began appearing across Rickart’s body one after another, Marie ran forward in a half-dazed state and began fighting for him without even realizing it.

It was a truly absurd situation.

A boy and girl who had just suffered heartbreak were fighting with their lives entrusted to each other.

Entrusting one’s life to another was something that could only be done with the person one trusted most.

The swordsmen did not flee, not even the last one.

In the end, all of them fell in the buckwheat field.

But corpses were not the only things that fell there.

Unfulfilled revenge and a rejected first love fell with them.

The round full moon seemed to watch the two of them with bated breath.

Neither of them spoke.

The silent moonlight and humble buckwheat flowers, the blood and sweat running down the boy’s body, and the single tear tracing the girl’s cheek spoke in their place.

Chapter 10: Unfulfilled Feelings — End.