After taking a thorough look around the knights’ training grounds, Alan had just decided it was time to leave when a terribly battered knight rushed into the Knight Training Academy grounds. Alan hurried to meet the afflicted man.
“Tell me, where did you get those injuries?”
“Commander Alan! I’m George, vice-captain of the Fourteenth Unit.”
The Fourteenth Unit? That would be William’s!
“I-I have a report,” George continued. The news he delivered next nearly knocked Alan off his feet. “Demons have been sighted in the twenty-third monster emergence zone!”
“What did you say?!” Alan cried.
Astonishment filled his veins with ice and froze him to the spot. He wasn’t alone; Rosetta and Ginger next to him couldn’t stop their horrified exclamations.
“That is unfathomable! Demons were supposed to have gone extinct twenty-five years ago!”
“A-Are you sure this isn’t some sort of mistake?!”
It was only natural to think that. The soldiers of the demon army were supposed to have been completely wiped from the world twenty-five years ago.
“No, there can be no mistake. They were speaking and riding horses. They’re presently engaged with the Fourteenth Unit, but they far outnumber us. The situation is dire; immediate reinforcements are necessary, sir.”
“I’ll go!”
Alan leapt on top of a nearby horse, but he was stopped by Marquess Ginger.
“H-Hold your horses! No matter the emergency, the commander going to deal with it personally is against regulations! At times like this, you are supposed to order a mobilization of a midsize standby unit to—”
“If we wait for them to mobilize, the Fourteenth Unit will be wiped out! What happened to your usual innovative posturing, my lord?” Alan glared at him.
“Urk!” Ginger was a little shaken when faced with such an intense look from a man who was usually so composed and unargumentative.
“Even so...rules are rules! At the very least, you must bring someone from the medical staff with you if you’re heading to a war zone.”
When she heard that, Rosetta jumped onto a horse herself. “Then I’ll accompany him. I am versed in medicine and healing magic.”
“Thank you, Rosetta. I’ll leave treatment of the wounded on-site to you,” Alan said.
“Hold on a moment! You are Alan’s attendant, not a member of the knights.”
“Let’s go!” Alan said to Rosetta.
They both glanced sidelong at the still-complaining Ginger. Ignoring him, they grabbed their horses’ reins and set off.
“Hey! Hold it right there! In the first place, what can someone old and powerless like you even...”
Ginger’s voice faded into the distance as Alan and Rosetta galloped toward the embattled Fourteenth Unit.
✦ ✦ ✦
“To think they would appear in the Fourteenth Unit’s jurisdiction of all places,” Alan muttered as he tightly gripped the reins.
“Is it especially bad if it’s that unit?” Rosetta asked as she rode beside him.
“Yes, they’re an experimental unit—made entirely of recruits who underwent the new curriculum,” he answered grimly.
At first, they had a handful of experienced knights with them for support, but thanks to William’s achievements, it was decided that they were more than capable of handling missions on their own and were left to their own devices.
“The difference between the monsters that normally appear in dangerous areas and demons is intelligence. Demons are thinking monsters; they can speak to one another and have their own culture, and that’s exactly what makes them so dangerous.”
While demons had a basis in crude monsters like goblins or orcs, they still closely resembled humans in appearance. Before the war ended, everyone—not just knights—knew this much about demons. They had to. However, having come up in a time of peace, this was the first time Rosetta had heard it.
After she came to terms with this information, she spoke.
“You mean... with the new four-month curriculum, there’s only enough time to hammer recruits with the basics like Template Magic, bare-minimum regulations, and how to do their tasks correctly?”
“Right. Template Magic and a little combat knowledge is more than enough to overwhelm unintelligent monsters. But defeating intelligent enemies with the fewest casualties possible? You need at least a year to thoroughly build the heart, body, and mind of a battlefield-ready soldier.”
That was why Alan had raced to help as soon as possible.
Nothing he said explained why the demons that were supposed to have gone extinct in the human world after the Titanomachy were here.
Stay safe, everyone in the Fourteenth Unit. Don’t go kicking the bucket before this geezer.
✦ ✦ ✦
Meanwhile, the Fourteenth Unit under attack in the monster emergence zone was faring exactly as Alan had feared. Faced with intelligent enemies for the first time, the young knights were being completely routed.
“T-Take that!”
A knight wildly swung his sword down at one of the demons.
“You think such a large swing would hit me?!”
Unlike unintelligent monsters, demons knew perfectly well that a raised sword would soon be brought down, so the attack was easily dodged.
“Off with your head!” the demon crowed.
“Argh!”
The knight’s head was cleanly cleft from his neck by the counterattack.
Not too far away, the story was much the same.
“W-Water Group, a-and this time...I’ll go with number six.”
One of the knights was trying to launch a magical attack, but with little success. It was obvious the knight was preparing an incantation. In his confusion, he wasn’t even sure what magic to use, so he was like a pig ready for spit-roasting.
“As if I’m stupid enough to let you finish!”
The knight’s heart was pierced by the demon’s spear. He groaned, once, and met his untimely end.
Pathetic as they were, the ones with the will to fight were among the better ones.
“Ah... Ah...”
There were some who had simply fallen down in fear.
This was different, completely different from any of their missions so far. It was easy to fight brainless monsters after a few scuffles. They always followed the same patterns, so anyone could defeat them the same way every time by exploiting those. It felt nothing like an exchange with lives on the line, more like a one-sided routine.
What unfolded before them proved that demons were no brainless beasts, and lives were very much on the line. The battle-savvy demons knew to switch up their tactics, and they read the inexperienced knights’ moves like open books.
This was a true struggle for survival.
“Get a load of these idiots, they’ve got no combat experience at all!” jeered one demon.
And he was exactly right. The knights had undergone a curriculum focused on efficiently hunting monsters, not the previous curriculum, which would have knocked some sense into them. That curriculum devoted plenty of time to sparring matches, providing recruits with a taste of actual combat experience. Rather than efficiency, it focused on personal experience in order to prepare them to find the best course of action during real combat, or to build up the courage to avoid being paralyzed by fear.
But there was really no point in bringing that up after the fact.
“Ha ha! Die!”
A demon slashed his sword downward at the knight who had collapsed in terror.
Clang!
At the last moment, his attack was blocked by the sword that belonged to none other than William, captain of the Fourteenth Unit, who had leapt in from the side. He swiftly held up his free right hand toward the demon with no uncertainty.
“Lightning Group, Eighth Magic.”
“Graaaaargh!”
Direct hit, point-blank. The electric shock fired from William’s hand fried the demon to a crisp black char.
“Do not falter! You have me with you!” William called above the fray, in a clear voice meant to rally his panicking men. “It was only a few times, but we had sparring matches at the academy! Remember that training, calm down, and fight!”
Despite this being William’s first fight with demons, his words were confident and carried weight.
“Well, well. So there are guys with backbone even among lowly humans.” A deep voice rang out.
When William looked in the direction the voice had come from, he saw a demon who rose above the others push his way out from within their group.
He was Realgo: a burly, mustached, intimidating ogre demon three times the size of the others. He was riding a massive horse and holding an equally large ax with a trident attached to its tip. The young soldiers gulped before this imposing sight. William alone readied his sword without wavering.
“Ha! The bigger they are, the harder they fall. Blaze Group, Twenty-Third Magic!”
William’s magic made the blade of his sword burst into flames.
“Haah!”
William galloped toward Realgo and swung his flame-clad sword at him.
“I will commend your spirit for coming at me with no hesitation.”
Yet, when Realgo dropped his axe—
“Still, you’re twenty years too young to mess with the great Realgo, general of this new demon army!”
William was easily blown away by that single strike.