By taking bearings from the distance traveled and the surrounding terrain, then checking those calculations against sunrise, sunset, and the stars, one could determine one's position fairly accurately.

However large its margin of error, his map was still a military map. Its scale might be inaccurate, but it contained as much information as could possibly fit on the page. Thus, Ivan could calculate both his present location and the maximum distance the tauruses could have advanced in two days.

Ten villages lay within their marching range, fanning out from the infiltration route. Five of those would have actually been plundered.

'Bertomont must have fallen.'

This was not an incursion a local lord far from the front could withstand without any advance preparations. Ivan walked through a burned-out village.

CRACKLE. CRUNCH.

A blackened human bone crunched beneath his foot. A shinbone, stripped clean of flesh. A woman's, large enough to belong to an adult.

A long shadow fell across him. A structure blocking the sunset loomed over him. He turned his head. There was a mound of bones.

'Former members of Tumor's personal guard infantry?'

The footprints around it belonged to adult tauruses. Among tauruses and orcs, only Tumor's infantry did anything this "wasteful" with "food." Other demons, such as necromancers or daemons, sometimes did so for magical rituals, but not tauruses. These stupid creatures regarded humans as food.

Piling up corpses and setting them on fire, twisting some into grotesque shapes and hanging them from poles—this was abnormal behavior. It was an offering to Tumor.

'A demon high-ranking enough to preside over the ritual is leading this band.'

He had to raise their threat assessment a notch. A soldier of at least centurion rank had invaded with an elite force easily a thousand strong.

Passing through the village with no survivors, Ivan unfolded the map in his mind again. Red dots spread outward from the Bernina Mountains, like the Black Death contaminating the green plains.

'Moramdon, Ledemieux, and Demontmort could still be classified as safe areas.'

He stretched his legs, then chewed and swallowed a nutrition bar. He pictured the domains still in the early stages of invasion and considered where any survivors from this domain would flee.

Moramdon, the nearest, was a small domain of about four villages. Ledemieux at least had a fortified stronghold. The broad plains stretching out from Demontmort offered no suitable defensive line.

To face the demon army in a pitched battle, the defenders would need at least equal numbers. Tauruses were every bit as mobile as cavalry. In that case...

'Moramdon won't be enough. At least four domains will have to unite.'

Assuming he was absent, it would take the combined forces of at least four small provincial domains like Bertomont to stop the current taurus force with local troops alone.

Once those domains united, once they had mustered the bare minimum of military strength, what would the great counts attempt before the lords assembled to resist the demons?

'If I rally them under Etakrich's name and hold the great counts in check...'

Guillaume's plan to march on Saint Matilene, acclaimed as the hero who had saved the country, would collapse. Ivan would stop the demons himself, unite the assembled lords' forces, and march to the relief of Saint Matilene.

Then Guillaume's only option would be to bar those lords' path with his own troops. That would end his masquerade. From that moment on, he would be nothing more than a rebel. Such was the importance of a just cause in aristocratic politics.

If Guillaume attempted a pitched battle after losing his justification, it would be his last. Picking off scattered troops took considerable time and effort, but cutting off the enemy's head amid a concentrated army was familiar work. Surely Guillaume's camp could not be more formidable than the royal residences of the Seven Dragon Generals.

Ivan clicked his tongue and loosened his muscles. As soon as he felt the nutrition bar dissolving in his stomach, he kicked off and broke into a sprint.

* * *

Bertomont, a small domain comprising a handful of slash-and-burn farming villages and a few trading settlements, fell on the second day of the taurus incursion. It had not held out even half a day.

Only a few survivors, including its lord, Baron de Noire, barely managed to escape Bertomont. They had scraped together scarcely fifty subjects, including five knights.

"Where in the world... What in the world is happening...!"

"Was there not word that the Grand Duke of Etakrich was personally leading an expedition into the Bernina Mountains? If you wish to request aid, perhaps we should go there..."

"What good would it do for us to ride off on our own!"

Baron Noire shouted at his retainer, then immediately regretted it. This was one of the few vassals who had stayed by his side. Simply remaining with him even now, after his domain had burned to the ground, deserved better treatment.

The baron drew a deep breath and looked around. A few members of his household, five knights, and barely fifty refugees he had managed to gather. That meant his thousand or so subjects had gone straight into the demons' maws.

They could not all have been wiped out. Only a day had passed. Yet Baron Noire would rather they were all dead already. Being alive, defenseless amid the demon host, would be more terrible than death.

"Lord."

He crossed himself and continued.

"We must seek refuge in Moramdon, then request aid from the Grand Duke of Etakrich and Saint Matilene. If we abandon them and flee now, who will protect them?"

"Your Excellency, but retreating with the refugees will take too much time..."

"Throw away our subjects to buy time for our retreat? And then what? Could we still call ourselves nobles? Do you truly believe that?"

Was there any future for a country lord who had lost his subjects and fief, with no position as an administrative noble? None. The House of Nobles in Saint Matilene would distribute the reconquered domain among the nobility and discard him. The pretext would be that he had abandoned his noble duty...

The baron clenched his teeth and shook his head. Could he endure such a future? Even if he lived only one more day, he must live as a noble and die as one. That was how his house would survive.

"If you leave the highway, you can delay their pursuit as much as possible. They won't know the lay of this land."

"But they will catch up eventually."

"Even in this state, we should be able to buy you a couple of hours. I'll hold out long enough for you to reach Moramdon. Take care of my family."

He had brought neither armor nor proper equipment. His shabby attire consisted of a light tunic, his sole weapon a longsword.

But he was a noble who had survived the last war. A knight who had fought on Tumor's front and lived, from before the Hero's Party appeared until now. Had peace really lasted long enough to make him soft? He still prided himself on being fit for active service.

He surveyed his few knights. All were veterans who had ridden alongside him in the same campaign. Even now, in their twilight years, they remembered war.

"Well, even if we have only a day left, oughtn't we live it as nobles?"

"I'd rather live another year as a noble, Your Excellency."

"Then you'll have to try harder."

The baron chuckled, and the knights burst into raucous laughter. Yet the six shabbily dressed old men raised their spears and swords sharply as they moved to the rear of the refugees.

"We'll buy you time here. From this point onward, leave the highway and don't stop until you reach Moramdon. Warn Baron Serte of Moramdon and ask him to summon the neighboring lords."

"But will they listen to us? We'll be lucky if they don't simply stand by and watch!"

"Then this country will fall to a single band of demons."

The baron gave a self-mocking smile. Where had all the men gone who had defended their homeland against demon corps numbering well over a hundred thousand? How could so few now be plundering its interior?

Had the Eastern Front collapsed? Without even time to send a courier? Was this truly how the country would end?

The nearby great lords could probably repel a demon force the size of the one that had ravaged his domain with ease. But the failure to stop it early, the fact that demons had penetrated this far, and that nobody between the Eastern Front and this distant land had realized it...

What state were the domains beyond the Bernina Mountains in? If these were only the vanguard, if the corps on the Eastern Front had collapsed, what would become of the country now?

Despair weighed heavily upon him. The knights here who had fought in the war had probably realized the same thing.

"It's too early to give up."

An unfamiliar voice came from beyond the undergrowth. The knights immediately leveled their swords and took their stances. Whoever it was, an unfamiliar visitor was always a threat. Especially when they were this vulnerable.

Soon a man emerged through the bushes. He looked every bit as shabby as they did, his clothes ragged, seemingly torn by branches. Bloodstains covered him as though he had been soaked from head to toe and had only just dried.

By any measure, he looked like a bandit. Baron Noire narrowed his eyes and spoke.

"Who are you, sir? We are in no position to receive visitors."

"Ivan Petrovich Yermov."

The man roughly pushed aside the brush and stepped onto the highway. He carried a heavy bundle made from a hastily tied cloak. Doing his best to ignore the thick blood seeping from it, the baron growled.

"That is not a name from these parts. What business does a noble of Krasilof have here?"

"Killing demons."

Ivan's voice was matter-of-fact. He sounded less like a man on some extraordinary mission than someone here to finish his usual work.

"And how did you learn of this, to appear alone at such an opportune moment?"

"Do you have time to spare?"

"What?"

"I asked whether you have time for suspicion, demands for proof, and waiting until you're satisfied. You looked to be in a hurry."

"That is no reason to blindly heed an uninvited guest."

"I bring word from the Duke of Etakrich."

Ivan tossed the roughly bundled cloak at the baron's feet. The knights were about to react sharply to his insolence, but stopped at the sight of what spilled out as the cloak rolled open on the ground.

It contained five severed taurus heads. Brutish bovine heads with lolling tongues, still drenched in blood that had yet to clot. Their sharp fangs belonged to carnivores. The veteran knights did not question their authenticity for an instant.

"Baron, your summons may not persuade the neighboring lords. The Duke of Etakrich's word is another matter."

"Proof... There is no proof to convince those nobles. No proof that the order comes from the Duke of Etakrich."

"Stake your head on it. Tell them that if it is false, you will accept execution for forging the duke's orders."

"What?!"

"Do you have anything left to lose?"

Ivan glanced over the subjects, then looked back at the baron.

"Whether the neighboring lords unite and stop the demons or you are driven back and ruined, you have nothing more to lose either way."

"Is the grand duke's name not too exalted for me to vouch for this on your word alone?"

"I give no guarantees."

Ivan dropped his bloodied sword. Its edge was chipped and battered. This was what came of grabbing whatever weapon was at hand. He really did need to use properly maintained weapons.

"Instead, I'll prove it. Don't stake your lives on buying time here. Even spending them on something more valuable would hardly be enough. Carry the Duke of Etakrich's message to every neighboring domain. The duke is still fighting in the Bernina Mountains at this very moment."

"So the front has indeed been pushed back to the Bernina Mountains...!"

"Now go. Gather an army in the grand duke's name and return. Enough men to establish a front at Moramdon within five days."

Ivan took the sword from the foremost knight and turned away. The knight, who had relinquished it before he knew what was happening, stared blankly at his hand.

It had been taken before he could react. He had not even perceived the approaching hand. That alone told him the measure of the other's skill, and he gazed at Ivan's back, somewhat cowed.

Ivan inspected the sword and spoke quietly.

"Well maintained."

"These are still times when it sees plenty of use."

"Excellent."

At Ivan's words, the knight abruptly asked,

"What reason have you to risk your life? You're from Krasilof, aren't you?"

"Do demons distinguish between humans by nationality?"

Ivan chuckled and secured the sword at his waist.

"Or did your country's hero choose whom to save by nationality?"

"You speak as though you were a hero yourself."

"I'm not worthy of that."

But he could imitate one. Ivan swallowed the words with an effort. Gilles Vert's parting words came to mind. Hadn't he said Ivan had never ceased to belong to the Hero's Party, either then or now?

He still could not see it that way. This was not some inferiority complex, merely a dispassionate, objective appraisal of himself. Inferiority complexes were for petty men like Gilles Vert.

He would save these people for his own purposes. Not because he valued Thilles's survival or its subjects' lives. Only for his own purposes: to hold the great counts in check and eliminate one of them. His reasons were purely political.

So he could not proudly call himself a member of the Hero's Party. The hero and his companions had tried to save everyone they saw with no ulterior motive, simply because those people were before them.

No sane person could emulate those lunatics. Ordinary people had ordinary lives to live. Ivan therefore decided to content himself with being a scout.

Thus Ivan, an objective modern man, was not thinking of himself as a member of the Hero's Party. He was merely humoring a friend's nonsense for a while. He was trading on that friend's name, after all.

"Thank you for your selfless service."

Ivan glanced at the baron, who bowed with a deeply moved expression. He was about to walk away, then stopped.

"Ah. One more thing."

"Speak."

"Where does your loyalty lie?"

"With my liege and this country, of course. With the great, thousand-year royal house of Thilles."

At the baron's answer, delivered without a moment's hesitation, Ivan nodded quietly. That would suffice.

That ended the conversation. The baron reassured his subjects and led them off the highway. Left alone, Ivan resumed walking and thought,

'I left the tracks intact. They'll be here within half a day.'

He had laid a trail, interspersing the fleeing refugees' tracks with the corpses of the small, scattered taurus pursuit parties. Now they would come charging in blind fury, straight toward his position.

Could he face a thousand well-trained tauruses alone, with at least one centurion or higher among them? He could. He had done it before.

By fighting a delaying action and whittling them down rather than confronting them head-on, he had taken on twice that number. But what if he faced tauruses massed together, attacking in square formations?

He could do it. He had seen it done. Gilles Vert had managed it before reaching his full potential, when he had only just been knighted. If Ivan could not even match him in his youth, how could he hope to serve as a scout?

Once he had seen something, he had never found it difficult to imitate. That was what his training had been for.

Ivan checked his weapons and lit a campfire in a suitable spot. He stirred it with damp branches to send up plenty of smoke. Warming a nutrition bar over the embers, he chewed it noisily, his cold eyes fixed on the stretch of horizon where it met the forest.