"Enkie, a wave."

It was afternoon. The sun had yet to set. At Aesia's call, Encrid relaxed his grip on his sword. Luagarne had just been unwinding the whip from her waist, saying she would show him how Frogs fought.

"Let's go. It won't be something you see every day."

Luagarne wound the whip back around her waist as she spoke. Encrid agreed, and everyone came along.

"Off to see a fucked-up place. Fuck, fuck, fuuuuck."

Rem followed, singing to himself, while Dunbachel forced her feet into motion and spoke.

"Let's go. The Demonic Realm. Oh, what fun."

Her voice held no excitement whatsoever.

Walking almost at a run toward the city's northwest, Encrid recalled the proto knight he had once seen fighting on the battlefield against Aspen. How his heart had pounded at that charge, the scarlet cloak streaming behind. This time, it would be a knight. And real combat, not a spar. He would be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to it.

They arrived at the western gate. Its two enormous doors had each been carved from solid stone. He wondered how anyone had managed to shape them. Some thirty soldiers had gathered, all armed with longbows and lined up atop the wall.

"You're here? Never seen a gate like this, have you?"

Oara greeted Encrid with a gentle smile in front of the closed gate.

"Did you carve it yourself?"

"No, my grandfather did."

It sounded as though there was a story behind that answer, though now wasn't the time to hear it.

"Hey! Rowena's man! Show us some spirit!"

The shout came from outside the gate.

"Open it."

Oara gave the order to the four thick-armed soldiers standing before the gate, then tapped Encrid's forearm.

"Just watch from the wall today. Behold! One man's undying love will show us a miracle!"

Partway through speaking to Encrid, Oara turned her words into a shout toward the opening gate.

Encrid did as she said. He set foot on the stone stairs leading to the top of the wall. Built from stacked bricks, they had a chest-high railing on the side away from the wall. He climbed with his hand on it. There was no dust on the railing, evidence that people passed this way every day, brushing it with their hands.

"Oho. Looks like a public execution."

Rem followed him up, sounding as though he'd found something entertaining to watch.

"Is that funny?"

Dunbachel showed a rare flash of irritation. She might pretend to limp after Rem beat the shit out of her, but she seldom expressed such negative feelings. Encrid realized that the scene before them had prodded some wound of hers, but let it pass. He thought it was something she had to work out for herself.

"Sure is."

Rem chuckled as he answered. Dunbachel shut her mouth, merely sticking out her lips in a sulk.

Luagarne ate dried insects without comment. It was nice to see her enjoying them, calling the insects near the Demonic Realm a delicacy. The tavern owner deserved a few extra silver coins.

CROAK.

SLURP.

Luagarne flicked out her tongue and swallowed an insect in an instant. Even the sight of her long tongue whipping around an insect and eating it had begun to feel rather endearing with familiarity.

"Those taste good?"

"Want one?"

At Rem's question, Luagarne opened her palm. A white insect lay on her mucus-covered skin. A pupa. Rem didn't eat it.

Encrid's gaze traveled right along the wall. He saw that Aesia, too, had climbed onto the opposite stretch of wall. Their eyes met, and she indicated the front with her chin, seemingly telling him to watch. He glanced at her, then turned his gaze away.

"Oah!"

It came from outside the gate. Someone's battle cry.

"Oah!"

The soldiers lined up on either side echoed the cry.

THUD!

The longbowmen atop the wall stamped their feet in time with it.

"Fuuuck, I'll do it. When I say I'll do it, I fucking do it!"

Rowena's man shouted where he stood alone.

The wave hadn't even begun, but Encrid felt an ominous prickling across his skin. Seen from atop the wall, a deep-gray forest lay beyond the lands of humankind. A place stained by the energy monsters exuded. The Demonic Realm.

The ground immediately before the wall was ocher, but it grew steadily darker toward the Demonic Realm. In front of the gray trees, the soil looked almost black. It looked rotten enough to stink, and there was indeed a faint smell of decay. A mound of earth rising like a burial mound seemed to mark the forest's entrance. Monsters began crawling out before it.

GROOOOOAN.

The monsters' cries shook the earth and traveled through the air to the wall. To Encrid's eyes, their sound seemed to become a spear, flying toward the wall only to be stopped. His sensory arts had matured, taking him beyond feeling presence to something akin to seeing it. Once again, he felt that all the time he'd spent holding out against knights had not been wasted.

He could see the monsters beyond the gray forest. Some crawled with both hands planted on the ground. Others had arms long enough to reach it. Some drooled from mouths split wide on either side, and some had two heads. Every one had long fingernails. One had toenails longer than its fingernails. It walked on its hands rather than its feet, only touching its feet down now and then for balance.

Monsters with muscle fibers visible through their split skin. Ghouls. Man-eating creatures that preyed on humans. The spitting Ghouls in the colony they'd destroyed had been unusual, but there were many stranger things here.

["The Demonic Realm makes monsters evolve."]

Hadn't Luagarne said that? This sight made her meaning instantly clear. And there were so many. More than fifty had emerged in just moments. Nothing was visible between the gray trees, as though a black screen covered them. Ghouls kept pouring out.

They didn't call it a wave for nothing. Right now it looked like a gentle incoming tide, but the moment they began to run, it would become a wave. Naturally, these weren't ordinary Ghouls. There would surely be the familiar kind even in the Demonic Realm. But these were a colony. Creatures that had formed a colony inside the Demonic Realm. They had banded together to claim land, chew flesh and bone, and drink blood.

'They're different.'

Three or four ordinary soldiers were considered enough to safely take down one Ghoul. Skilled soldiers could handle two. But against these Ghouls? Encrid judged that it would take at least ten soldiers, assuming they fought in a defensive square. Experienced soldiers, every one.

'If they go in carelessly, a few soldiers will simply be torn apart and killed.'

One Ghoul picked up a stone from the ground and crushed it. Let your guard down, and you died. Fight those things at close quarters? These weren't opponents ordinary soldiers could take on.

The sunlight seemed to dim. In fact, it failed to properly illuminate the area near the Demonic Realm. It looked as though the Realm rejected sunlight. The trees' peculiar gray and the earth's distinctive dark brown made it seem that way.

This was when fear would arrive. Seeing hundreds of Ghouls crawling out of the Demonic Realm could do that.

GROOOOOAN.

Their cries were like soot rising from beneath the earth. Low, thick, and leaving a trace. How should humans face the terror racing across the ground? Encrid himself would strike out with his sword.

"What a load of shit."

Rem scoffed.

"Why are they even holding a public execution?"

Dunbachel avoided facing reality.

"This will be your first time seeing both Ghouls from the Demonic Realm and the people who fight here. Watch closely."

Luagarne never stopped trying to pass something on to Encrid. It was as though she'd made it her goal to teach and teach until the moment she died. Perhaps she thought that unless she did, he wouldn't properly absorb even one thing she taught him.

Just before the wall, behind Rowena's man, an answer came to the subterranean cries the Ghouls had spread.

"Oah!"

The same cry as before. A shout to stand against the soot rising from beneath the earth.

"Smile!"

At the shout that followed the cry, the troops atop the wall stamped their feet with a thud and proclaimed the spirit and conviction of those who faced the Demonic Realm in this land, in this city.

"Let's die smiling!"

They were all followers of Oara, the smiling knight. So they would die with smiles on their faces.

"I love you, Rowena!"

The soldier who had lost the bet shouted from the very front. Oara honored her wagers. Even words spoken lightly, she faithfully kept. A knight was, by nature, someone who kept their word. It was an oath. Will was willpower, and determination came from conviction. Someone who failed to keep their word would be unable to properly wield their Will as a knight.

GROOOAN!

The subterranean cry raced over the ground. The soot-clad Ghouls began to charge. Black eyes tore the light apart, and greedy tongues sought red blood and tender flesh.

GROOOOAN!

In Encrid's judgment, Rowena's man had the skill of at least a high-grade soldier even by Border Guard's standards. Send him to the Border Guard in Martai, and he'd soon pull his weight. But he couldn't hold off a wave of monsters alone. Even so, he did not retreat.

Encrid couldn't see the soldier's face from atop the wall, but then came a bold shout, presumably from Rowena.

"Come back alive, and what the hell! Let's get married!"

Hearing it, he felt he knew what expression the man was wearing. He would be smiling. Even if he died, he would die smiling.

"Going down?"

At some point, Encrid had placed a hand on top of the wall. Rem had noticed.

"Perhaps?"

He would follow his heart. That was how Encrid lived. And so that soldier would not die today.

Encrid pressed down with the hand he'd placed on the wall. It was a high jump, and everything he carried made him rather heavy, but it shouldn't be too difficult.

"Don't think you'll need to step in."

Rem continued, gesturing with his eyes.

Below the wall, the man who'd been shouting behind Rowena's man had already burst forward. It was a heavy run rather than a nimble one. His feet pounded the ground as he picked up speed. Soon he passed the soldier, tracing a long line all the way to the Ghouls. Despite its apparent weight, his stride was faster than the Ghouls charging on all fours, using their hands as feet.

Rowena's man was just meeting the first Ghoul.

"I love you, Rowena!"

Declaring his love with something close to embarrassing excess to the very end, the soldier thrust his spear. He had no attention to spare for whoever was coming up behind him. He focused on killing the Ghoul. The spearmanship he displayed was quite impressive.

With a thud, the spearhead drove into the skull of the Ghoul springing up from below. A calm, accurate thrust. The soldier tried to pull his spear free, then abandoned it and grabbed another he'd planted at an angle in the ground. Only then did he realize someone had rushed out from behind him. The man shouted,

"A good start!"

Watching from the wall, Encrid recognized the charging figure, too. It was Oliver, the squire.

"Oliver of the Hexagonal Mace!"

One of the soldiers lining either side shouted. Oliver had an epithet, and he was now proving he'd earned it.

Six Ghouls had charged. The soldier had killed one, leaving five. Oliver held a long shaft with a lump of iron at its end. The iron head was hexagonal. He slowed his run slightly, then kicked off again and leaped among the Ghouls. By changing his speed, he denied them a chance to react. An excellent tactic. Amid them, Oliver swung his mace.

BANG-BANG-BANG!

It sounded like firecrackers going off. The mace cracked and shattered Ghoul skulls. Black blood and fragments of bone flew into the air.

Oliver hadn't gone out alone, either.

"The wager's over. Get back."

He sent the soldier to the rear.

Thousand Brick had four squires. Every one of them could have passed for a proto knight. No, they fell short of proto knights, so it would be more accurate to call them all capable fighters. Following Oliver's lead, the other three moved. Their weapons were similar. One carried a flail, a spiked iron ball joined to a shaft by a chain. Another wielded a morning star, without the chain. The last had a long-handled war hammer.

The four squires formed a battle line, advancing and swinging their weapons.

BANG! CRACK! CRUNCH! SNAP!

Bones broke and blood flew. In the midst of the battlefield, the four squires shouted,

"Let's die smiling!"

Encrid recalled the charging proto knight he'd seen on the battlefield against Aspen. These men, too, wore scarlet cloaks. This sight made his skin tingle just as that charge had. He resented Oara's instruction to simply watch. Of course, he could ignore it and go out. But there was neither time nor opportunity.

"Let's go."

Oara moved first. The knight advanced with her two proto knights.

"Having fun, aren't they."

Rem muttered. His hands must have been itching for action, too. Dunbachel stopped pouting and pressed close to the parapet.

The two proto knights moved. The man used a club shaped like a thick sword. You couldn't have called it a sword even under threat of death. It had a handle, but no guard. Instead, there was a long, thick mass of iron. Its surface looked rounded. He seemed to be carrying an iron pillar. He swung it as though it were a wooden sword. Naturally, it was nothing of the sort.

BOOM!

Three or four Ghouls tore apart and burst under a single blow.

The short-haired blonde proto knight fought very differently. She flicked thin daggers out, or drew a pointed, awl-like sword to stab and withdraw. Her fighting was so quiet that not a sound reached the wall. The destructive force was different, but the lethality was much the same.

GROAAAH!

The Ghouls' cries sounded like screams. Green smoke seeped from the nostrils that were merely holes in their faces, with no bridge of a nose, followed by streams of black blood. Then they dropped dead. Their heads hadn't burst, but they pitched face-first into the ground all the same.

"Well, well?"

Rem reacted to the sight. He seemed to recognize something.

And then there was Oara, the knight. From deep within the Ghoul wave emerged a Ghoula, its breasts hanging low. A female Ghoul, and the leader of this horde. It stretched a hand forward. Its arm extended like a mollusk's body, stabbing toward Oara.

The arm seemed to stretch straight out, and even viewed from atop the wall, it crossed the allied troops in the blink of an eye. Encrid only recognized it as an extending arm because he was watching from a distance. Had it happened right before him, the surprise would have left him scrambling to block. It was that fast. That alone made it clear: this monster could conceivably take on a proto knight single-handedly.

Along the path the four squires and two proto knights had made by smashing and stabbing hundreds of Ghouls to death, Oara's back appeared in Encrid's sight the moment the Ghoula's arm stretched out. The knight swung her sword.

It was a diagonal rising cut. A swing that would have been meaningless if performed where she stood. But the movement that followed gave that simple swing meaning. Matching her step to the speed of her rising sword, Oara moved forward. The knight's blade sliced diagonally through the Ghoula's arm. Yet the strike was not finished.

A simple line, but the straightest possible one. A line connecting two points. Encrid did it often enough himself, but he had never done it like that. Oara marked one point where she stood and another on the monster dozens of paces away, then simply drew the line. There was no other way to describe it.

SHICK! CRACK!

Oara left afterimages at intervals: the moment she first kicked off the ground, the moment she severed the Ghoula's arm midway, and the final moment, when she split it from chest to head and finished with her sword raised toward the sky.

"Not a chance."

Oara spoke. The Ghoula died. And Encrid trembled with excitement.