Chapter 108

The swordsmanship learned from the Emperor’s four knight orders was slightly different from general swordsmanship.

Thanks to the supreme magic tool, the full plate armor, defense could be disregarded.

“Die!”

“Surround and stab!”

The enemies charged with sharp battle hammers and straight swords.

With all their might, they could easily pierce the 2mm iron plates that composed the armor.

Clang, clang, clang!

The battle hammer struck the helmet and bounced off, while the straight sword that hit the torso bent and broke.

“Crazy!”

“What, what is this!”

They were unaware that the thickness of Tenitia’s white armor exceeded 6mm, and even if a leader-level sword user stepped in, they couldn’t break that armor.

Tenitia let out a wolf-like laugh at their confusion.

With a wrist snap, she spun the longsword and knocked their weapons away.

“Uh, uh?”

They stared at the weapons that slipped from their hands with disbelief.

The longsword raised to shoulder height slashed down diagonally.

Savage!

Her sword, without any mana blade, cut through their cloth and leather armors, liberating their wretched spirits from sinful bodies.

“Step back!”

Only then did the leader, realizing she wasn’t just a rich house guard with money, but a knight, lunge at her.

He was a burly man who seemed twice the size of Tenitia.

Twisting his muscular body, the enormous straight sword swung horizontally.

Whooosh!

It easily pierced through the common chain mail and threatened to crush the body inside.

Tenitia laughed fiercely, her red eyes glowing from beneath her helmet.

“For Duke Valenciaunos!”

She stepped back with her right foot to firmly establish her center and swung her left arm, parrying the straight sword.

Clank, clank!

The straight sword couldn’t slice through the curved gauntlet plate and slid sideways.

Rather than simply blocking with strength or relying on the armor’s durability, the knight’s combat method was to divert the shock so it couldn’t fully transfer.

Since the armor wouldn’t be penetrated anyway, the key was to evade attacks without losing one’s center, and Tenitia understood this well.

The leader’s step got caught as the sword missed wildly.

Tenitia seized the opportunity and thrust her sword.

Thwack!

The leader, wounded in the belly, groaned, and Tenitia effortlessly lifted him with her left hand and tossed him into the water.

Splash!

The lake in February, with snowmelt flowing down from the mountains, was as cold as ice.

The leader sank without even a scream.

The enemies stepped back in shock at the absurd death of their leader, who had been among the top fighters in their gang.

At that moment, another leader with a short beard climbed aboard and stabbed the thigh of an enemy trying to flee with his knife, tossing him into the lake.

“Surround them! I said surround them! Grab their limbs and throw them in the water! They’ll sink right away!”

His shout changed the hesitating enemies’ gazes.

“Catch them!”

“Legs! Legs!”

With the bright moon overhead, Tenitia’s white armor shone like platinum, while the enemies’ clothing was all dark.

From above the deck, they looked like dozens of evil spirits vying for light.

In an instant, the white armor was engulfed by the dark enemies.

“Your thinking is shallow.”

Tenitia murmured as she summoned the mana blade.

The longsword’s blade turned red, and she spun gracefully like a dancer.

Her heavy armor creaked as a red line streaked across the air like a comet’s tail.

Swish!

The mana blade, capable of cutting through steel, sliced through the enemies’ weapons, arms, shoulders, necks, and torsos.

Body parts flew as if thrown.

She approached the leader, who had committed the sin of not recognizing the strong.

No mere enemies could dare to block the knight, who was walking forth with the crimson mana-bladed sword under the moonlight.

“A-, ah.”

The short-bearded leader clenched his teeth.

He too was a sword user, capable of slicing down two soldiers in leather armor at once when focused.

Just now, Tenitia had cut down everyone who fell into her sword’s trajectory in one strike.

Ten? Twenty?

“AAAAAH!”

The leader leaped back into the ship he had arrived on.

Tenitia burst out laughing and chased after him across the deck.

The other leaders and enemies, who were climbing the rope ladder, panicked at his escape, calling out.

“What’s happening?”

“I heard something from above.”

“…We’re doomed.”

The enemies’ ship wasn’t a small rowboat, but rather a size just slightly smaller than a cargo ship.

There were more than thirty rowers alone, and the enemies aboard matched that number.

Thud!

Tenitia leaped so forcefully that the flagship deck shook.

In her full plate armor, she soared several meters and landed on the enemies’ ship.

“Uh, uh, uh, AAAAAH!”

The fleeing leader was stomped on the head by her steel boots and collapsed to the ground.

* * *

Valenciaunos stood atop the mast and cast a spell.

“Sharp piercing flames!”

Each chant unleashed flames across the night sky, as powerful as the combined might of ordinary magicians.

Drawing a long parabolic arc, fire spears rained down on the enemies’ ship, exploding with a bang and engulfing the entire vessel in flames.

The enemies, terrified, jumped into the water, most of them sinking immediately.

“What a foolish sight!”

The enemy leader clutched his head, watching the scene before him.

A knight was leaping between ships like a stepping stone, cutting down the approaching enemies, while a royal magician unleashed tremendously powerful spells from a distance that arrows could hardly reach, preventing them from nearing the cargo ships.

Sounds of drums and trumpets echoed from the flagship.

Thanks to the moonlight, they could see the oars casting long shadows below the cargo ships.

The ships in the front row accelerated, rearranging into three rows.

At the same time, the leading flagship turned to block the pathway between the enemies and the cargo ships.

“Are they trying to buy time with those two? How foolish do they think we are…?! Slow down! Bring me my bow!”

The leader pushed his ship forward while pulling back his bow along with his guards.

He was an exceptional archer from the longbowman background, capable of targeting at distances up to 350 meters, and he had trained his subordinates similarly.

“Got him.”

Just as he correctly aimed at Valenciaunos’ face, a maid leaning against the flagship’s mast said the same.

“I got him.”

Though she wore spectacles, she didn’t actually need them; her green eyes sparkled under the moonlight.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

The sound of arrows piercing the night lake echoed, and the heads of the guards exploded like rotten pumpkins.

“What, what is this!”

“Aaah!”

“Dodge!”

The leader, overwhelmed, threw himself to the floor while Rudi grinned wickedly at him from below the deck.

“If you stick your head out again, I’ll shoot you right away.”

The flickering green eyes shone with heat named sincerity.

At that moment, the cargo ships carrying grain pressed on steadily behind the flagship.

The enemies weren’t fools, trying to scatter to bypass the flagship, but it wasn’t easy.

Three crew members aboard one cargo ship exchanged glances, watching the fierce battle unfold.

“Wouldn’t it be okay to help a bit?”

“That knight looks a little dangerous.”

“He’ll only get stronger from here.”

Upon closer inspection, they had features that definitely didn’t belong to any human, yet the crew, wrapped in scarves, couldn’t recognize that.

In a low voice, one crew member sang a prayer.

“We will go to the deepest depths. Riding endless backs of horses. Rejoice. Even if we never return.”

A large wave swelled and sank deeply before the flagship.

Watching the red knight fight for some time, the three soon burst into subdued laughter.

* * *

Duke Seberik of the North interpreted Lysena’s words.

“I thought it would be better to be a bit brazen to suppress the enemy’s advance. As long as we could get through that situation.”

“I did my best back then, and now I’m doing my best again. Sometimes I might say cowardly and unapologetic things.”

“The Duke Seberik didn’t say that. Let’s say I did it all myself; he just let it go.”

Around him on the rear deck of the flagship lay the bodies of the enemies.

“Clear it out.”

“Yes.”

The northern soldiers threw the bodies into the lake, and Seberik headed to the deck railing.

“Die!”

He kicked the face of an enemy trying to surprise him with a dagger from the rope ladder, sending him tumbling into the lake.

“Just spare me…!”

An enemy begging for mercy was tossed into the lake after drawing a dagger as well.

He was the northern commander leading hundreds of thousands of soldiers, having witnessed many deaths since childhood, including those of close ones.

Having endured the death of his father, he didn’t hold a sliver of remorse for the deaths of mere enemies.

Finally avoiding Valenciaunos’ magic, he smiled cruelly and coldly at the ships of the enemies.

“Winter.”

Whether the rumors that he brought blizzards were true or not was unknown.

However, the moment his longsword began to shine with a blue light like eternal snow, even the three infiltrators hiding aboard the cargo ship felt a sudden chill.

Seberik slashed his longsword downward.

Swoosh.

A crescent-like aura blade streamed out long.

It was a trajectory that pierced through all five ships passing by the flagship.

The five ships had considerable distance between them, and how he could hit them all with one aura blade didn’t matter.

Crash!

In the end, only the clear truth that no one could escape winter remained.

The five ships with frozen cross-sections were severed and sank beneath the water.

Valenciaunos watched that and began to reconsider all plans for the use of force against the North.

“Fighting Seberik is madness. I can’t turn an opponent who acts out of belief into an enemy. I shouldn’t even prepare for it. Erase the option of conflict from my mind.”

He acknowledged the mistakes from before his return.

“I need to firmly align with the North. The current situation seems like admitting that the imperial court has been making moves against the North.”

He grasped the situation.

“I’ve let five ships slip away, allowing Seberik to unleash his aura blade. Damn it. This isn’t good. I’ll need more points.”

He strategized.

Seeing Valenciaunos above him, Seberik thought as well.

“The Emperor’s twin… such impressive talent. He can shoot dozens of fire spears strong enough to sink a ship without seeming overly strained.”

In truth, he was struggling not to gasp for breath, but Seberik didn’t discern the acting honed against Jeilliris.

“I did my best back then, and now I’m just doing my best again.”

Whether that was true or not was uncertain.

He might have spoken out loud, aware that Lysena was listening.

However, Seberik was indeed satisfied with both the words and the following ones.

“Sometimes it might lead to a bit of cowardly and brazen talk.”

It was enough for him to recognize that Valenciaunos was not a wild monster but a human with desires.

Seberik knew because he acted on conviction.

A person acting on conviction was incredibly exhausting.

No matter how difficult it was, they wouldn’t stop, stubbornly making those around them suffer.

“If Valenciaunos were an absolute monarch, it would be quite troublesome.”

If not that.

If he were a royal steeped too deeply in the romanticism of heroic sacrifice, hiding the grim realities with provocative words and sensational statements.

“I’d want to take him to the North.”

Seberik’s gray eyes glimmered softly.

* * *

Tenitia transformed all the enemies on one ship into shapes resembling sausages before their intestines, then freed the chains of the rowing slaves, jumping to the next ship to repeat the same task.

She had once again made a leader deserving of compassion, while the boss trembled at the sight of it.

That armor must weigh dozens of kilograms, yet how could she soar around in it like that?

“Kneel and surrender, and I will spare you.”

As she landed, shaking the deck, she always started with that phrase.

Having been rejected more than ten times and still offering chances, she was indeed a model knight.

The enemy leader, seeing what had happened to the other ships, raised both hands and knelt.

While law is far and the fist is close is the life of the enemies, at this moment the knight’s fist was closer than the leader’s.

“Excellent judgment.”

Tenitia confidently declared, discarding the leader’s weapon into the lake.

“Will you really spare me?”

“A knight keeps their promises.”

The leader brightened for a moment.

Splash!

The ship capsized violently, and Tenitia sank like a stone.