I let out a breath as I completed my wide-range scan of the area. The dust had settled in the north and south. It looked like those fronts were done for now.
“North and south are clear,” I muttered, nodding to myself.
Then, I checked my mana and nearly choked.
Seriously? She used that much?
Lilith could tap into my mana thanks to our contract, but she treated it like her own personal battery. She’d gone full throttle, no hesitation. Five percent of my total magic pool gone, just like that.
She better not plan on spamming that move again. It was one thing to borrow a little; it was another to throw around catastrophic death spells like candy.
Golden Roar: Dragus Genocide.
An S-rank annihilation spell with obscene power… and an equally obscene cost. It sucked the caster dry, leaving nothing but smoke and a headache. Normally, it was the kind of spell you used when your back was to the wall and there were no other options.
But for Lilith? It might as well be her go-to greeting.
Which, honestly, made her just as broken as the spell itself.
Still, I had my own hands full with the western front. Or at least, I was supposed to, until a gruff voice called out.
“Hey, you. Villager.”
I turned to find the knight commander glaring at me from atop his armored steed. He stroked his thick, iron-gray beard, the rings on his fingers flashing in the sunlight, and spoke with a voice like grinding stone.
“What’s your read on the battlefield?” he demanded, his tone full of condescension, like he couldn’t quite believe someone dressed like me had any insight worth hearing.
We were stationed just outside the west gate of the city, a stretch of no-man’s-land that bled straight into monster territory. Not exactly an ideal picnic ground. Technically, it was part of the road network connecting the capital to the outer provinces, so the visibility was decent. You could see a long way down the highway in either direction, which made it all the more unsettling.
“The state of the battlefield?” I echoed, arching an eyebrow.
The knight commander gave a theatrical shrug, as if I’d just asked him something profoundly beneath his station. “Understand this,” he said, voice heavy with superiority, “I’ve been instructed by Lady Cordelia herself to keep you nearby on the battlefield. Special orders. Otherwise, someone of your station wouldn’t even be allowed to speak to someone like me.”
He sniffed disdainfully, fingers curling around the hilt of his sword like he was bracing for contamination.
“Well,” I drawled, “sorry for the inconvenience.”
His head snapped toward me. “You impudent—”
“Yes?” I asked, innocently.
He leaned down from his horse, eyes narrowed. “Do you even comprehend what it means for a mere Villager to be granted proximity to the commander of the knights?”
Ah. So that’s the flavor.
I sighed internally. One of those guys. Great.
“Anyway,” I said, brushing off his indignation, “you asked about the battlefield, right?”
I’d already completed my recon. The scan had revealed the full picture.
One Ogre Emperor. Twelve Ogre Kings. Over a hundred Ogre Generals. Not a single common Ogre among them. They were sending elites only. Which meant this front wasn’t a decoy. It was the real target.
The others hadn’t noticed yet. The knights were still busy patrolling, as if this were routine. But if my estimates were right, we’d be making eye contact with the enemy in five, maybe six minutes.
The commander squinted at me, trying to decide whether I was ignoring him or genuinely too dense to understand courtly protocol. “Well?” he demanded again. “Your analysis?”
I cracked a smile. “Seems manageable to me.”
He reeled, face contorting in disbelief. “Manageable? You think this is manageable?”
That was my cue. I dropped the polite tone like a mask and shifted gears.
“Tell me, Commander,” I said, tone suddenly casual. “Do you know why Cordelia’s called the Berserker?”
His jaw clenched. “Watch your tone.”
“Sure, sure,” I said with a lazy wave. “But do you know the reason?”
“I’ve heard that Lady Cordelia was originally just a village girl,” the knight commander said, his voice softening with something like reverence—or was it disbelief? “When she was twelve, before she’d even begun to mature as a Hero, she was attacked by a horde of goblins numbering over a thousand.”
“That’s not the whole story, though, is it?” I countered, watching him closely.
“No. At fifteen, she slew an evil dragon, one of the legendary beasts classified as a Calamity,” he replied, his tone now tinged with awe. “That’s what I’ve been told.”
“Exactly. And every one of those monsters should’ve been far beyond anything she could’ve handled at the time.”
He nodded slowly, brows furrowing. “I’ve always thought so too. That’s why people say it was due to a magical rampage. That she lost control of her mana, and it granted her the strength to survive… And that’s why she later subjected herself to brutal training to master that chaos. To learn control over a force that would break most people.”
I shook my head once, then again, more firmly.
“No. Cordelia’s never had a magical rampage. Not even once.” I stared out over the plains, jaw set. “No matter what people say, she’s always been ice-cold in a crisis. Calm, calculated. That’s just who she is.”
“Then how?” The commander blinked, genuinely confused now. “How did Lady Cordelia defeat foes no one should have been able to face?”
That was when it started. The first scream ripped through the ranks. Then another. Then chaos.
Some fled, bolting without a word. Others crumpled to the ground where they stood, eyes wide, weapons falling from trembling fingers.
The knight order split into two: the deserters and the paralyzed. Most didn’t even try to fight their instincts.
And the commander? He chose the latter.
His knees buckled beneath him as he dropped to the ground, arms shielding his head.
“N-NOOO!”
“G-Get it away!”
“It’s here! IT’S HERE!”
“Someone help… HELP MEEE!”
About ninety percent of them chose flight. Abandoning swords, shields, and even their armor, they scattered like roaches under a torch, vanishing into the wilds with terrified cries.
I stood alone, watching the panic with a grimace.
“Well. That’s one way to clear a battlefield,” I muttered.
And then I saw it. Roughly three kilometers ahead, a monstrous silhouette broke through the heat shimmer on the horizon.
My stomach gave a slow, reluctant twist. Its body was easily over ten meters tall. Each step shook the earth like a meteor strike. The damn thing probably weighed in at several dozen tons.
ZUUUN.
A low, tectonic rumble rolled across the field, shaking dust from my boots.
I let out a bitter laugh.
“Yeah. That’s not a monster. That’s a walking natural disaster.”
ZUUUUUUN.
The sound hit like a physical force. The kind of chest-caving bass you’d feel at a stadium concert, right in front of a wall of subwoofers cranked past sane limits. Not just loud. Violent. It dug into you, reverberating through your lungs, grinding into your guts with every pulse.
That was the sound of the Ogre Emperor’s footsteps.
A seismic, guttural thrum that rolled across the ground and echoed straight through the pit of my stomach.
I didn’t blame the knights for running. Honestly, I couldn’t.
The thing looked like something out of a kaiju movie, and its classification wasn’t any less terrifying. S-rank difficulty. An entity designated as a natural disaster all on its own.
No one here had the firepower to even attempt a proper confrontation.
Life’s not something you should throw away just to look brave. There’s a reason people say: of all the thirty-six stratagems, fleeing is best. Can’t disagree with that.
And this “kaiju”? It wasn’t alone.
The Ogre Emperor was flanked by twelve Ogre Kings and over a hundred Ogre Generals. A literal army of high-level monsters, marching in perfect sync behind a walking apocalypse.
“Commander,” I said lightly, turning to the knight still frozen on the ground like a man awaiting execution.
He looked up, eyes bloodshot and wild. “W-What is it, Villager? Aren’t you going to run? Even trained knights fled without a second thought. This… This isn’t a battle. It’s suicide!”
I ignored the hysteria in his voice and stepped forward, striding directly toward the oncoming titan.
“You said Cordelia defeated monsters she had no business beating,” I said, keeping my tone calm, conversational. “The kind of things that shouldn’t even be possible to take down solo. That’s why people assumed it had to be mana rampage, right?”
“Yes, that’s what the records say,” he replied, still on the ground, staring at me like I’d lost my mind.
“But she’s never once lost control. Not ever.”
“Then… how?”
“You want to know why?”
“What are you getting at?” he snapped, half in fear, half in frustration.
I turned to glance back over my shoulder, a faint grin tugging at my mouth. “Have you ever read the full report on Cordelia?”
The knight commander tilted his head, confused.
Good, I thought. This part always takes people a second to catch up.
“Oh, I’ve read the reports,” he said stiffly, as if reciting protocol could shield him from the storm bearing down on us. “This entire campaign is part of Lady Cordelia’s growth program. That much is obvious, isn’t it?”
I gave a quiet hum of acknowledgement. “Then you remember the part about her first battle? How she supposedly fought off a goblin horde to protect a village boy and then lost control of her mana when he died?”
He nodded. “It’s in the official records. And later, when she fought the Evil Dragon Amanta, it says she experienced another rampage, triggered by the trauma of remembering that same boy’s death.”
“Right,” I muttered, my tone flat. “Makes sense now.”
He squinted at me. “What are you implying?”
“She’s an idiot,” I said, smiling bitterly. “Cordelia probably told the truth, exactly how it happened. That the village boy handled everything. But someone up top didn’t like that version. They twisted it, polished it, and handed out a prettier lie. Wrote her as the uncontrollable prodigy. Brushed the rest under the rug.”
My gaze dropped to the trembling earth beneath us, then rose to meet his again.
“Tell me, Commander. Cordelia never lost control. Not even once. And yet, she defeated monsters way above her level. Doesn’t that sound off to you?”
He hesitated. “What are you saying?”
“The village boy,” I said quietly, each word steady as a drawn blade, “never died.”
I turned away from him, lifting one hand in a lazy, parting wave as I began to walk toward the field.
“Goblins. Amanta. Every last one. I took care of them.”
The second the words left my lips, I launched forward.
The air split around me in a thunderous crack as I broke the sound barrier. Wind tore past, screaming in my ears. The monster loomed in the distance, two kilometers out, but the ground between us vanished in seconds.
I wasn’t done talking. But introductions came first.