Starting with the poisoned sand, Aspen's assault commander unleashed one secret weapon after another: poisoned darts, throwing daggers, even caltrops deftly scattered across the ground.

A caltrop bristling with sharp iron spikes rolled beneath Pell's foot just as he was about to plant it. He avoided it by landing on the tips of his toes rather than the sole of his foot.

Dodging the poisoned sand, darts, daggers, and caltrops cost Pell his balance. The moment his foot touched the ground, he wobbled, his body tilting slightly to the left.

'Got him!'

The assault commander had been waiting for that moment. He drew a short sword and leveled its point at Pell. He had one attack, usable only once, that could work even against a proto knight.

It was a magic sword inscribed with a spell. The spell in its pommel detonated, and the forearm-length blade shot from the hilt in his hand, tearing through the air.

BOOM!

It went off with a deafening roar. Just as it seemed Pell was about to acquire a blade as a bodily ornament, he rose into the air, his body parallel to the ground.

Had Jaxon been there, he would have known that the tap of Pell kicking off the ground had come just before the dagger's thunderous report. But no one present had such sensitive hearing.

RRRIP!

The spell-launched blade swept along Pell's side, tearing through his light-brown gambeson without touching flesh. The layers of cloth and cotton packed inside spilled onto the ground in place of his guts.

As it happened, the falling clumps of cotton and cloth covered the entrails of the Aspen proto knight killed in the previous fight. The dull gray fluff became a blanket for the dead.

TAP.

Pell landed again, straightened, and held his sword upright before his eyes.

Had he only pretended to lose his balance? Watching his secret weapon fail, the assault commander concluded that his opponent was far more skilled than he was. What made him think so?

'I couldn't dodge that.'

Whether Pell had dodged through reflex or calculation, he had done something the commander could not. Of course, in a fight to the death, skill was only one factor, not everything. The assault commander lowered his stance and drew the axe strapped to his waist.

"Hah..."

Pell looked up at the sky and sighed. His gaze was not on the assault commander. A glance at the sky, a glance at the ground, another sigh.

"Hah..."

The assault commander intended to counterattack when his opponent charged. Instead, the man suddenly started sighing, and what came out of his mouth was something else entirely.

"Do you know?"

Know what?

"Even when you know and understand it all, breaking the vessel, the shell, of your former self isn't always a pleasant thing."

As he spoke, Pell's gaze turned skyward again. On his way here, he had decided how he would live from now on. Born in the wastes and raised as a Shepherd, why was he here? What had he taken to the battlefield for? This was the process of finding answers to those questions.

'To move forward.'

He had watched the back of a man whose dogged advance went beyond stubbornness into sheer foolishness. There was a saying that when you gazed into the abyss, the abyss gazed back. Pell had watched Encrid and come this far, beyond frustration and despair. Once, he had thought his talent alone would let him catch up in no time.

"So much happens in this world. And as we live in it, we sometimes encounter things we never imagined."

There was no moonlight, the sun was blazing, and it wasn't dawn, but sometimes people could still become intoxicated with something. Pell had found his answer, yet now he was drunk on sentiment. He let out another sigh.

Now he would have to forget his past self and welcome the self of tomorrow. He had made up his mind, but he needed no deliberation to know the process would not be easy.

"... Did you eat some bad shit?"

Aspen's assault commander muttered as he subtly edged his backside away. The man looked like a crazy bastard, no matter how he considered it.

Pell lowered his gaze to the commander. The man's last remark had struck a chord.

"I believe I did," he agreed.

"What?"

"Hmm, air. I must have taken in the wrong air."

"What the fuck are you talking about?"

The unexpected turn frightened the assault commander. He would rather get stabbed. Why did someone who could fight so well have to spout this insane nonsense?

Pell considered what was different here, starting with Encrid. What exactly set this place apart?

'The atmosphere was different.'

How? There was something like an aura flowing through the air around Encrid. And what did that aura flowing through the air change? The air.

"Ah."

As Pell let out a brief exclamation of realization, the assault commander shouted, "... Cut the crap. I'm not dying at the hands of some crazy bastard!"

He hurled the axe in his hand, a weapon he had favored for years. Pell twisted and caught it. As he did, he wondered: perhaps the air wasn't different after all? His revelation faded in an instant. This didn't seem right.

In any case, his opponent abandoned the fight and bolted as though his ass were on fire. He ran to the horse he had ridden out on, flung aside the spare weapons on its saddle, and fled.

CLIP-CLOP! CLIP-CLOP! CLIP-CLOP! CLIP-CLOP!

Hooves pounded the ground, raising billows of dust that obscured the view. Pell had no intention of chasing him, so he never even drew his sword. The soldiers facing each other saw it too.

"Without even drawing his sword?"

Two soldiers at the front of the opposing Border Guard and Aspen armies muttered exactly the same words, though naturally they were too far apart to hear each other.

When Pell returned after routing Aspen's assault commander, Krais came hurrying up from the rear and asked, "It's actually better that you didn't kill him, but was that intentional?"

"It just worked out that way."

Pell's once-hollow gaze had changed a little. He had broken his shell and been born anew. His eyes shone with the same mischief they had held when he first met Encrid, their light pure and direct. That mischief set his tongue moving.

"Roford, if you go out there and get yourself killed, you'll call me Big Brother for the rest of your life."

"I'd rather die on the battlefield."

At Pell's words, the rival he had grown grudgingly fond of stepped forward, fully armed. He was the third of the four.

"Come out, anyone! I am Roford of the Scar—no, the lunatic unit!"

Watching him, Krais felt a little reassured. What they were doing did serve the purpose Abnaire had predicted, but it was also a desperate struggle simply to dispel Krais's anxiety.

There had been two paths open to him. One was relatively safe, with fewer threats and variables, but required accepting sacrifices. The other was dangerous and fraught with uncertainty. If things went wrong, they could all be well and truly fucked. That was how Krais saw it.

Nevertheless, they had chosen the second path.

'Captain, it'll be all right, won't it?'

Krais asked the question inwardly. The choice had not been his to make. Left to him, he would have taken a third path: surrender the cities without a fight and seek asylum. Never mind those who stayed to the bitter end and died; he would gather his own people and run.

Well, that was just talk. Nurat had seen him clearly. Krais no longer had anywhere to retreat to either. There were far too many familiar faces he had grown attached to. Could he abandon them all? He could not answer easily.

Before Encrid left, after laying out the two paths, Krais had asked his captain, ["May I be greedy?"]

That was what Krais had asked, and Encrid had replied, ["When have you ever not been?"]

Smiling when there was nothing to smile about, Krais had said, ["You're one to talk, Captain. In that case, bring them all back alive."]

Encrid had grinned, his face full of mischief, and answered, ["Yes, sir!"] with a joking salute.

Because he trusted that captain, Krais had kept Audin, Teresa, Roford, and Pell here. Otherwise, he would have chosen the first path and sent them all to meet the enemy along its route.

No, not just them. He would have thrown in every remaining ranger to wear the enemy down before the battle began. That would have been the best course. It was probably the tactic the enemy had chosen.

As Krais pondered this, he saw Roford knock his opponent down.

"I'm the big brother!" Roford roared in victory.

"You crazy bastard! I never said I'd be the little brother if you won!" Pell shouted from their lines.

Krais wondered what the hell was wrong with these lunatics. Teresa stepped out after Roford.

"Brothers. It is my turn now."

The urge to fight ran through those of Giant blood. Teresa held it in check with faith, but when an opportunity like this came, she still found it hard to resist. All the more so after the inspiration she had recently taken from Encrid.

A stir ran through Aspen's ranks when a woman warrior as large as Audin appeared. Had they already sent out everyone they could? No, they hadn't.

If this continued, it would do more than lower morale. It would look as though they had lost before the battle even began. To prevent that, another proto knight stepped forward from Aspen's ranks.

He was the real thing, kept in reserve in case the battle took an unexpected turn, and far more skilled than the man Audin had faced.

"A mercenary? Bound by a contract? How pitiful. You seem to have Giant blood. Yes, dying here would be better for you."

In Aspen, he was known as Emel the Sentencer. He pronounced his opponents' fates. Not always: he only did so when victory was certain, which was also how he had earned the nickname.

Starting with Audin, Teresa was the fourth fighter. Of the four duels, this last one was the second shortest, after Audin's.

Teresa took Emel's sword with her body and struck him with her shield. She used the body deflection Audin had taught her to turn the blade aside, but his cuts were sharp enough to draw blood.

Flesh was sliced open. The blade had not reached bone, but these could hardly be called minor wounds. Even so, she did not stop.

Red droplets scattered through the air. Over three exchanges, only Teresa bled, but by shedding that blood she seized an opening to smash him with her shield.

Thinking quickly, Emel planted his foot on the shield and tried to leap backward. First, he needed distance. This was not his preferred range.

As he tried to spring back out of reach, Teresa timed her movement and simply let go of the shield. She could do that because she had been holding it in her hand rather than strapping it to her arm.

It was remarkable enough that she could fight while merely gripping such a heavy shield. The move was difficult to foresee, and Emel had certainly not seen it coming.

"Oof!"

The shield he meant to use as a springboard suddenly lost its resistance. With too little purchase to push off properly, Emel managed to retreat only two steps. Teresa followed without a trace of a smile.

Their bodies seemed to overlap and tangle in midair. Then came a grinding crack. Not everyone heard it, of course.

"Win! Fight!"

The soldiers had begun cheering and shouting at some point. Aspen's troops were loud, screaming even harder because their fighter appeared to be overwhelming Teresa. Border Guard's elite soldiers, on the other hand, kept even their cheers disciplined.

FLAP-FLAP-FLAP!

They shouted in time with the flag's movements.

"Bear Brother and Sister!"

"Teresa!"

"Giant Goddess!"

"Teresa!"

Had Teresa heard, she would likely have smiled broadly and asked which brother or sister had devised the chant. But she could hardly go searching through friendly ranks in the middle of a fight.

At point-blank range, she used Neckbone Extraction, a technique from Balaf-style martial arts. A move that demanded innate strength flourished in her hands.

It was no elaborate technique. All it involved was gripping the head with one hand and pulling while striking down on the shoulder with the other.

Emel did not simply let it happen. The moment she seized his head, he thrust his sword at her throat. Teresa twisted only her neck to evade it, but this time blood gushed out.

In exchange, she gained a dangling piece of spine as her trophy.

Blood shed for the first time in a while, the heat, the battlefield: all of it filled her with boldness. That boldness unleashed the Giant nature she normally kept hidden. In other words, she roared.

"I'm the biggest sister of all!"

Though Pell and Roford had influenced the wording.

Both armies, having witnessed all the fights, fell silent again. To Aspen, these people were all crazy bastards. Never mind the results: why did they keep spouting such lunacy?

The point worth examining was why their victories had been so overwhelming. Aspen's commander could not understand it, but Krais nodded inwardly.

Think about it. Their usual opponents were knight-level fighters, including Rem and Ragna. Had the men Aspen sent out also been fighting knights every day?

'Not a chance.'

This outcome, then, had been predictable. Of course, Krais had worried all the same; only after seeing it happen before his eyes did he feel relieved. More importantly, these were merely the fighters he had kept here as a precaution.

Show the enemy a wall through disciplined drill, then break their spirits with the strength of Audin and the others. Now the enemy could not possibly launch an all-out battle. This was what Krais had been aiming for.

* * *

'That bastard.'

Having suffered more than enough, Abnaire found an image of the enemy strategist forming in his mind. An old, seasoned man, well into middle age. His methods suggested as much.

He was wrong, of course. His opponent was a big-eyed man with a face young enough to be called boyish. Not that it mattered. The association had simply come to him.

"You son of a bitch."

Abnaire could not hide his admiration. But this was only the beginning.

There were things one must not forget even in victory. Those who had sacrificed themselves to achieve it, for instance. Rather than the front, Abnaire focused on where the true battle was unfolding. There would be glorious fallen warriors there. Everything was for victory.

Besides, his strategy had proved effective. He had arranged for them all to meet the enemy at exactly the moment, exactly the time, he wanted.

Encrid had set off after the allied army advanced, and his pace had not been fast. In contrast, the wolf Beastman Varnas Hurrier had already made repeated trips into the mountains while Aspen was publicly talking of war. He had gone to familiarize himself with the terrain.

Then he had left "in advance," before his own army formed ranks, to secure favorable ground and fight at a time of their choosing. If they could throw the enemy off balance in the bargain, all the better.

They had gone to considerable trouble, even setting up doubles for Varnas and the others whose presence was known, lest spies discover their departure.

Abnaire's preparations had played a part in this too. Then a thought struck him: could preparation itself be called strategy? It could. If they won, that was what it would become.

Lose, and you were a traitor. Win, and you were a hero. That was always the way with bold strategies.