The central force at the head of the expedition had the greatest concentration of knights. Most were Old Faith lords from the western regions near the capital, Hasra, and the knights in their service.

When they first charged the ogre, they had been full of confidence. However large and powerful it might be, they believed it could never withstand a lance charge by knights.

"Charge!"

"You are the ogre hunters!"

"Raaah!"

Filled with fighting spirit, the knights saw nothing but the ogre’s dark red hide. They would run it through with their lances and bring it down, then draw their swords and cut off its head, winning immortal fame. Every lord would seek out the knights who had slain the ogre, promising them all manner of gold and jewels.

Their hopeful charge lasted only a moment before several horses at the front suddenly pitched to the ground. Dozens of pits had been dug across their path.

"Huh...?!"

"What the hell!"

Only then did the horrified knights realize that the ogre had filled the ground before it with pits a little deeper than a man’s knees. Worse, it had cunningly arranged them in a horseshoe, with the open end facing its opponents. They would not notice as they entered, but would have to turn back to get out.

The knights had never imagined a monster would resort to such tricks. As they halted in confusion, the ogre grinned and pointed a finger. At its signal, the trolls nearby began hurling rocks.

"This is fucking insane!"

"Block them!"

Rocks the size of human heads battered armor and shields with resounding crashes. Even blocking with spirit could not entirely absorb their force. As the knights hunched like turtles, the other large monsters behind the ogre, along with orcs and assorted creatures, spread out and descended on the entire central force.

And their leader, the ogre, advanced head-on and began trampling the knights in earnest.

"Aaaaargh!"

"Guh, ghk."

"I am Massio of House Dobel—guh!"

The martial skills the knights had spent their lives honing were utterly useless here. With rocks still raining down around them, how could they face an ogre charging at them on foot?

Blows battered their heads and bodies. When they covered themselves with their shields, the ogre’s mace-like fist soon came crashing down. All that remained afterward was a crushed mixture of flesh and metal.

Only a handful at the very rear, who had not entered the monsters’ trap, managed to survive. And without the knights’ protection, the soldiers of the central force were helplessly overwhelmed by monsters attacking from every side.

* * *

'Damn.'

Seeing the central force crumble, Shan quickly looked east. The right wing, facing the detachment that had emerged from behind the hill, had not wiped out its enemies as the left had, but was fighting with a substantial advantage.

*'Center collapsing, left victorious, right holding steady...'

*His mind, ordinarily none too adept, made judgments with astonishing speed in battle.

Retreat now?

No. That might get them out of immediate danger, but it offered no future.

Human hearts were terribly fragile. With the central force’s morale already broken, regrouping was unlikely to make it an effective fighting force again. Better to settle things now, while they were at least serving as a shield with their lives.

After working through those complex calculations in moments, Shan raised his voice.

"No retreat! Circle around and kill the ogre! I’ll lead!"

His thin, shrill voice, not yet fully broken, rang sharply across the battlefield.

"Join up with the center!"

"Attack!"

Though the order came from a mere knight-errant rather than a lord, the left wing, uncertain what to do, stopped thinking and began to obey. What they needed now was someone to give them a clear direction, right or wrong.

Depending on whether someone stood at their head, humans could be anything from a helpless flock of sheep to a pride of valiant lions.

"That banshee over there! Archers, shoot if you have silver arrows!"

"Take down the werewolves!"

"We’re joining you!"

In battle, every knight was both a supreme warrior and an experienced field commander. Rather than gathering for another lance charge, each coordinated the infantry they had hired and struck the flank of the monsters swarming the central force.

As Shan raced toward the ogre after giving his orders, Lug hurried after him and shouted.

"Sir Shan, I’m coming too!"

"Change horses first!"

"Yes!"

Lug’s horse was foaming at the mouth from carrying its enormous rider through the fighting. Only then noticing, Lug called out an embarrassed acknowledgment and hurried back toward the infantry.

Shan drove Arwin toward the rear of the force, where the ogre was rampaging, at lightning speed. The creature abruptly halted after crushing five soldiers to death with one sweep of its mace-like arm.

The knights at the front had apparently not been entirely helpless. Broken weapons protruded from its body here and there, and it was bleeding.

"Whew..."

The huge eyes looking down at Shan held a keen intelligence quite unlike a monster’s. Rather than attacking at once, it raised a hand large enough to squeeze a man to death with room to spare, and pointed at him.

Something came hurtling from behind it with a rush of air.

'Damn—'

Having missed how the knights at the front had been defeated, Shan was appalled by the trolls’ barrage of rocks. Fortunately, quick-witted Arwin dashed out of the barrage before he could even give an order. Shan raised his arm and knocked aside the one rock she could not evade.

"Ugh."

The small shield, forged by melting down the shield he had taken from a knight of the Kingdom of Ajun, did its job. His arm tingled, but the impact was manageable. Expecting to expend a great deal of stamina before this was over, he deliberately conserved his spirit.

While he maneuvered to evade the barrage, the ogre came striding toward him. Its powerful legs and long arms, which let it run on all fours, gave it terrifying speed.

Its hand shot up, blotting out the sky, then plunged toward Shan and Arwin as though to flatten them both.

"Dodge!"

Arwin leaped at his shout, and a huge crater opened where they had just been. With that much force, he doubted he could block the blow even if he poured all his spirit into his shield. No, perhaps only the shield would remain intact, while his body shattered beyond recognition.

Shan guided Arwin around the ogre to confuse its vision, then realized its attention had shifted away from him. One of the left-wing knights who had ridden up with him had driven a lance into its thigh.

As the enraged creature swung its fist and reduced that knight to a bloody pulp, Shan sprang from the saddle.

Leaping into the air was normally extremely dangerous, since it left him unable to control his body. But it was a different matter when the enemy’s attention was entirely elsewhere.

The reddish-brown back of the ogre’s head drew near, perfectly positioned for a piercing thrust.

'Good. One strike like this—'

Just as he prepared to thrust his lance in anticipation, a rock suddenly flew in from behind and struck him squarely in the side. One of the trolls, still throwing regardless of whether they hit their own leader, had landed a lucky shot.

He would never ordinarily have allowed such an attack to hit, but focusing entirely on the ogre had been his undoing.

"Guh..."

Shan fell several meters and tumbled across the ground, so winded he could barely even groan. Had he not been wearing enchanted plate armor, the impact would have crushed his organs and killed him.

Unfortunately, he was given little time to suffer. The ogre finally noticed where its approaching enemy had gone, raised its fist, and brought it down again.

Acting in haste, Shan planted his lance upright where the ogre’s fist was falling, then rolled away at precisely the right moment. The force of the blow drove the lance through its fist and wrist, deep into its forearm, all the way to the elbow.

[────────]

The ogre roared in agony, flailing the arm impaled by the lance. Though several weapons were already embedded in its body, this seemed to be its first wound of such severity.

Shan struggled to his feet, knocked another incoming rock aside with the shield on his forearm, and backed away.

An orc spotted him and charged, but Arwin came rushing in, rammed it aside, and stopped before Shan. The collision, backed by her enormous weight and barding, sent the orc tumbling with broken bones.

"Th-thank you!"

Shan quickly grabbed Arwin’s reins, mounted, and tried to steady his breathing. The dented side of his armor kept pressing into his abdomen, making it difficult to breathe.

"Hah, huff..."

A glance to the side revealed some of the left-wing infantry keeping the trolls occupied. More precisely, the archers among Roden’s Altoan mercenaries were shooting at them.

As arrows ridiculously small compared with their bodies lodged shallowly in their skin, the trolls scratched irritably at their wounds. The arrowheads were coated with exorbitantly expensive anti-troll alchemical poison, which interfered with their regeneration, causing extreme itching and reducing their ability to heal.

Rich as Roden was, it was a luxury he would never have contemplated had the royal treasury not covered the cost.

"I’m here, Sir Shan!"

Lug came charging up with a shout. Swinging his longsword with his long arm, he rode past and slashed along the forearm of the ogre as it rushed to trample the infantry. The creature howled in pain and tried to grab him, but he was already too far away.

While Lug bought time, Shan steadied his breathing and drew the sword at his waist to replace his lost lance. The lettering engraved on the magic sword, Guardian of the East, glimmered faintly.

[ROOOOAR!]

As he rode toward the ogre again, a medium-sized monster blocked his way and roared. It was an owlbear: a huge bear with a beak instead of teeth and feathers covering its body in place of fur.

Rather than stopping Arwin, Shan urged her to run even faster.

"Hah!"

The slash, carrying both Arwin’s explosive speed at a full gallop and the huge horse’s weight, sheared clean through the owlbear’s heavy upper body. The sword’s enchantment amplified its cutting power, allowing such force without much spirit expenditure.

Having dispatched a large monster in an instant, Shan carried that momentum straight toward the ogre.

Surrounded by five or six knights, including Lug, it was desperately swinging its mace-like fists in every direction.

"Ugh!"

"Ghh..."

Intimidated by the wind pressure of its fists, the knights could not readily close in. Brave though they were, approaching a giant over four meters tall as it swung its fists wildly was no easy task.

That, of course, did not apply to Shan.

Riding straight at it, Shan committed each of its movements to memory and predicted the next. An arm swung left, then rebounded to the right. One step forward, then right again—

'Now!'

As a fist barely skimmed past Shan’s helmet, Guardian of the East flashed like lightning and sliced diagonally through the creature’s left arm. The severed limb was so massive that it landed not with a soft thud, but a resounding crash.

"Oh!"

"He did it!"

"Magnificent!"

"It’s not over yet! Focus!"

Rebuking the admiring knights, Shan watched an enormous volume of blood gush from its arm. Its remaining right arm was difficult to use as well, with Heart Destroyer embedded in it.

Perhaps realizing defeat was near, the creature’s perpetually confident face twisted hideously. It abruptly turned and ran. Even unable to use one arm, it was astonishingly fast.

"It’s running!"

"After it!"

If they let it escape, it would gather monsters somewhere else and act as a horde lord again. Then they would have to endure this terrible battle once more. Knowing that, the knights urged on their exhausted horses and raced to finish it off.

Shan, who had used a considerable amount of spirit to sever its arm, rested briefly before following. As he did, an ominous feeling struck him.

There seemed to be an unusually large number of dead knights scattered where the ogre was fleeing—

"Stop!"

Even as Shan shouted, the charging knights’ horses stepped into pits and fell. The fleeing ogre swiftly wheeled around and crushed a knight together with his warhorse.

After a moment’s deliberation, Shan immediately jumped off Arwin. Even for a Horace warhorse, running across deliberately prepared traps like these was far too dangerous. Yet if he left the ogre alone, all the knights who had just fallen would die.

Seeing Shan approach on foot, the ogre twisted its face and hurled itself at him instead of swinging its fist as before. It meant to crush him beneath its enormous body, wherever he tried to flee.

He could kill it by driving his sword into its oncoming face, but then its momentum would surely crush him to death as well.

Shan immediately leaped over its body, drawing his sword along its exposed back. Bright red blood streamed down, revealing white spine.

[────!]

With a short scream, it swung its severed left forearm at him. Even the stump was longer than an ordinary person’s arm, making it a considerable threat, but Shan evaded it with a step back, then slashed diagonally behind its knee as it rose.

With its tendons cut, the leg could no longer support its bulk, and one knee crashed down. A slash behind the other knee rendered both legs useless.

'It’s over!'

Now that it was kneeling, its chest had dropped to the perfect height for him to climb up and stab. Shan stepped onto its knee and drove his sword into the center of its chest.

Converting nearly all his stamina into spirit, he sent Guardian of the East sliding smoothly through the thick chest muscles to the hilt. He could not see it, but at that depth it must have gone not merely through the heart, but right out its back.

"Hah..."

The same weakness he had felt after severing the cockatrice’s neck washed over Shan, and he let out a deep sigh. He wanted to fall asleep that very instant, but the battle was not over yet.

With the blessing of vitality, he only needed a little rest—

"Ugh!"

Then, astonishingly, the ogre raised its remaining right arm and seized Shan despite its destroyed heart. Too exhausted to react in time, he was caught in its enormous hand.

As it held him and stared, its eyes brimmed with fathomless malice. It seemed determined to take its killer with it, whatever it cost, even as it died...

"Guh..."

Its tightening grip forced the air from his lungs.

Several things kept the ogre’s monstrous strength from crumpling Shan to death.

First was A Thousand Forms, which he had softened like clothing and wrapped around his upper body. Instinctively hardening it in that moment of danger, he had formed truesilver armor that protected him like an exoskeleton.

Second was the lance embedded in its right arm. It had severed several tendons from the hand through the forearm, preventing the hand from exerting its full grip.

And third, even an ogre could not use its full strength with a pierced heart. It was quite literally squeezing out its last reserves before death.

Even so, the ogre’s strength was enough to cut off Shan’s breathing. No matter how he struck the fingers clamped around his body, they showed no sign of loosening.

Just as he faced imminent suffocation, a sharp shout came from behind.

"You bastard! Let go!"

Lug limped up, one leg broken in his fall from his horse, and slashed the ogre’s fingers with his longsword. He seemed to have poured nearly all his strength into spirit. Though his sword was no extraordinary enchanted weapon, it severed several thick fingers.

Freed, Shan quickly rolled clear. The ogre screamed in frustration and lashed out at Lug as though venting its anger. The lanky knight flew like a twig, without even a chance to scream.

"Guh, hah—"

As Lug went flying, Shan hastily caught his breath a couple of times, then lunged back in and thrust his hand into the hole in the ogre’s chest. Gripping the hard hilt tightly, he pulled it free with all his might.

Blood burst from the hole in its heart and drenched him. Only then did the ogre collapse, as though its strength had finally run out.

* * *

'Is it really dead?'

Even after the ogre fell, Shan circled it without lowering his guard. He could hardly do otherwise after nearly dying from carelessness once already.

He had hunted many monsters, but never before had he seen one display such tenacity with its heart pierced. Not even trolls, renowned for their overwhelming regeneration, could match this.

'Ogres can move even with their hearts pierced... I need to remember that.'

Of course, he had no way of knowing whether another ogre would appear in his lifetime. Still, he needed to record it, at least, so someone else would not repeat his mistake. Had he not suffered precisely because those who had hunted ogres before either had not known or had failed to tell anyone?

Meanwhile, utter chaos had broken out around him. With the horde lord dead, the monsters that had moved as one until moments ago began turning on one another or fleeing every which way from predators.

The humans, still absorbed in battle, realized what had happened and cheered.

"The ogre’s dead!"

"We won!"

"Yaaaaah!"

Many had despaired of surviving when the central force was annihilated, and their joy at being alive was immense.

While everyone else rejoiced, Shan looked gravely down at Lug, who had taken the ogre’s blow. Beside him, priests Roden had hurriedly summoned examined the knight.

"How is he?"

"I’m afraid there’s little hope. His injuries are too severe..."

Lug’s condition after the ogre’s final, desperate blow was dire. It was no exaggeration to say that every bone in his body was half crushed. He kept coughing up blood as well, suggesting damage to his organs. At this rate, he would surely die before long.

In truth, it was almost a miracle that he had survived being struck by the ogre at all.

"I’m sorry. A more skilled priest might be able to help, but this is beyond us."

As the priest lamented with a sorrowful expression, Shan looked down at Lug’s face and thought for a moment.

Just about two seconds, to be precise.

Taking the red medicine Sherin had given him from Arwin’s saddle, Shan immediately poured it into Lug’s mouth.