A horn echoed from beyond the hills, signaling the discovery of more enemy forces and a continuation of the charge. Princess Liana’s expression stiffened as she absorbed its message.
“Confirm the situation! Have the Templars advance to the hilltop! Hero, come with—”
Her face was turned halfway toward me when a thundering roar cut her off. Clearly different from the preceding gunshots, this sound had to mean that now they were firing cannons.
Liana’s complexion paled visibly, the color draining from her lips.
“I told them so many times…!” she murmured.
We’d already known it was going to be a trap; that was why the plan was to turn back if the enemy was too numerous. However, it wasn’t so simple to stop a group of horsemen after they initiated a charge. Once the riders’ bloodlust was riled up, they couldn’t be expected to make level-headed decisions—all the more when they were proud, prestigious warrior types. Their greatest fear was to be seen as cowards.
The next sound that rang out over the hills was a united chorus of guns, which was quickly followed by a second volley. The priests gave up on the barrier-maintaining chant as every defense was breached. With fatigue on their faces, their cohesion lost, each individually stumbled back into the chant required to re-erect the barriers from the ground up. Next came the roar of the third volley, and then, finally, the horrific sound of cavalry colliding with infantry.
The princess cried out “Hurry!” but we were already picking up the pace. I was the first to reach the hilltop, but there was too much smoke covering the battlefield below for me to make out the details. I could only tell from the cycle of guns and the horses’ brays that the combat still raged on.
The princess and her knights arrived shortly after me, and we watched as the smoke thinned bit by bit. First, I saw the forms of knights felled by gunfire, then orc soldiers crushed flat by the horses, with a few trampled knights among them. Then I fully took in the disastrous scene. Stretched across the valley at the base of the hills was a legion of orcs in a checkerboard formation. The knights had managed to cleave through some of the squadrons with their fierce charge. Unfortunately, that put them smack-dab in the center of enemy lines, and they were nearly surrounded.
A number of gunners were stationed around the orc legion, and they would eagerly rain gunfire upon any knight who tried to approach. As orcs were so short, they had to crane their necks to see soldiers on horseback, so they were at no risk of catching their brethren in the crossfire. What’s more, this caldera of gunfire sprouted countless sharp thorns as well as the orcs’ long spears. If a rider on the perimeter fell from his horse, these spears would rain down on him.
Had the allied army’s commander already fallen? Their forces seemed to spiral into chaos. Some men simply dawdled where they stood, while others recklessly sliced deeper and deeper into enemy formations. Others still, perhaps having lost their sense of direction in the smoke, wove through the gaps as they strayed into the enemy’s midst on their own.
Each time the guns roared, more of them would fall to the ground. Over half had already sunk into pools of blood, and it was only a matter of time for the rest.
“Blow the retreat horn!”
Immediately on the princess’s order, a shrill horn sounded. It was already too late. The orcs that the troops had smashed through to get there had already regrouped behind them and were on the verge of restoring their formations. Once those were complete, the riders would have nowhere to run.
“Start chanting!”
The princess’s words made me doubt my ears, but the faithful Knights Templar began their chant without a complaint. They readied themselves to attack.
I could no longer stay silent. “Your Highness,” I said. “It’s already too late.”
“I know. But even if only a handful can be saved, I must continue to fight.”
“And in exchange, you’ll lose your Knights Templar. That’s not a fair trade.”
“It will take over a decade to reconstruct the Knights Templar, yes. But if we abandon those men without shedding a single drop of our own blood, the royal family will lose all its credibility. That would mean losing the force unifying humanity. We would be dragged back to the days of fighting among ourselves, and should it come to that, we’ll have lost over a hundred years of progress. That is why my blood must be shed, here and now.”
She made her decision, staring far, far into the future. I guess that’s precisely why that young woman became the Princess Knight who tied the lords’ armies together. Far more than those foolhardy daredevils deserved, if you ask me.
Still, her decision was most likely the right one.
Then let me ride with you, is what I would have liked to say. But I still didn’t have a grasp on how much power I would be able to wield here. I only play the game once I know my own hand.
“Hero, please return to camp. Tell Rigel to take the priest and withdraw.”
After a moment, I said, “Godspeed.”
“I pray your good fortune carries on as well, dear hero. Please save humanity in my place.”
“I will, without fail.”
“And my brother too.”
My nod brought a relieved smile to her face. She turned back to the enemy, calling out another order.
“Charge!” she cried, a fearless smile on her face.
Knights clad in pure-white armor and wielding shields and spears of light raced down into a tempest of devastation, a whirlwind of iron and flames.
As I watched them go, I pondered: How am I going to save this world?
✦ ✦ ✦
It started off as a rather unremarkable day. My high school entrance exams were approaching, and I was thinking pointless escapist thoughts as I stretched out in my chair. Won’t someone blast me off to another world, where I can be a hero? I thought. And that was exactly what happened.
One moment, I felt as if someone had answered in the affirmative. The next, I was plunged into water.
Luckily for me, the water was shallow, and as I sprang up, I came face-to-face with a naked young woman. She introduced herself as the water priestess and pleaded for me to save the world. I became a hero and, without any real grasp of the situation, spent my days fighting alongside her. After five years, I managed to defeat the demon lord, and thus the world was saved. It was a harsh but wonderful adventure.
Then, on the night I was supposed to be wed to the water priestess, I was returned to my original world. Thankfully, I was no Urashima Tarou returning to find that everyone I knew had died long ago. Only half a year had passed in my home world. All the wounds I had accumulated over five years had vanished, and my well-tempered body had turned back into the feeble one I had before being summoned. In addition, I missed my exam date by quite a while.
Over the next ten years, I would frequently be sent off to other worlds by an unknown entity of whom I could detect nothing but a presence. Each time, I would save the world.
This new world I’d found myself in was my thirteenth.