Chapter 34: Change of Location

“Still, it’s a bit of a shame. I wanted to put them through training for at least ten weeks.”

I couldn’t help but say it out loud, and Kalserik, who was leading his horse beside me, looked at me as if I were some kind of monstrous object.

“...Was it perhaps your preference to kill off all your soldiers before they even got to fight?”

It seemed the training had been rather brutal.

Kalserik’s words were one thing, but the shock and horror etched in his eyes were even clearer.

“Was the training that rough?”

“To be honest, I almost regretted calling my brothers here. Shouldn’t my brothers also be put through the same training?”

“Well, of course.”

“Ha... I’ll be cursed to no end.”

Kalserik shook his head. He said it like a joke, but there was a fair bit of truth in his tone.

“Why? You want to back out then?”

“...Who said that? I’ve already called them, so don’t think of bringing up nonsense.”

Really, his judgment was quick.

Just my style.

The boldness to drop to his knees and beg for his life without hesitation.

The decisiveness to entrust his future to me.

Ever since the ruins of Glowingsteel had been discovered, Kalserik had been conflicted. But when I announced the wages for the warriors, he finally surrendered.

He had acted as though he’d leave after just a year even if it killed him, but then he completely changed his attitude—pledging loyalty to me and summoning all of his kin to Kushan City.

That was how the Kalserik Brotherhood threw itself into my service entirely. Thirty-five Experts, one hundred elite warriors, and about two hundred and fifty of their family members.

By the time this Demonic Beast subjugation ended, they would all have arrived in Kushan City.

“Still, your brothers are lucky ones.”

I swept my eyes over the marching soldiers.

Was it because they had been freed from the hellish training? Even though their armor and weapons weighed heavy—and even though their gear was being carried by the supply wagons—their faces were all bright.

Not knowing at all what kind of future lay before them.

Kalserik asked again with a grim expression.

“Are you truly... going to carry out that operation? That lightning thing, or whatever it is?”

“Of course. Isn’t that what operations are for—to be carried out as planned?”

“Good heavens...”

“You said earlier that ten weeks of training was too much, right? I guarantee you, those ten weeks of training will feel like heaven compared to what’s coming.”

“...I can’t deny that.”

Kalserik gazed at the soldiers with a pitiful expression.

Pathetically enough,

the soldiers all looked genuinely happy.

At present, we had crossed past the Inner City, moved beyond the Outer City,

and reached all the way to the rural villages.

It was because of the beautiful scenery spread across the villages.

Gentle hills covered with lush pastures, lovely trees forming small forests.

The scent of warm sunlight mingled with the fragrance of wildflowers, and the fresh breeze blowing from the woods awakened the senses.

Among the soldiers, quite a few were smiling brightly, stretching one hand out to savor the breeze.

“Even after seeing those faces... you can still go through with this?”

Kalserik resented me. But his resentment was misdirected.

“You should resent the Storm King.”

How dare he insolently set his sights on *my* Kashu City?

Because of him, it looked like only our soldiers would have to die.

Operation name:

Lightning.

A tactic I devised to cut down the Demonic Beast subjugation period—which normally took over a month—into just one week.

Usually, a Demonic Beast subjugation in Roberland was carried out by gradually pushing in from the outskirts of their habitat, eliminating the beasts step by step. It was a method of cutting down the overflowing beasts from the outside to reduce pressure... which, of course, consumed a great deal of time.

So I chose a different approach.

Instead of shaving away at the edges of their habitat, I would concentrate force on a single point and pierce straight into the center in one strike.

The core of this operation was to seize the center of the habitat first, then wipe out the Demonic Beasts that would go berserk and charge at the sight of humans.

A new kind of strategy—exterminating the beasts from the inside out, not the outside in.

“That... something new isn’t always something good. There’s a reason people haven’t tried it, isn’t there? Demonic Beasts don’t feel fear... they’ll all rush in like they’re ready to die...”

“Which is great, isn’t it? We won’t have to waste time hunting them down one by one.”

“But you won’t get any sleep.”

“Then I’ll just kill them quickly and sleep afterward.”

I knew it would be hard.

But since these were the soldiers I had handpicked, trained by my younger brothers, I believed they would endure and prevail.

“Forward! Border ahead!”

“Border confirmed!”

From the front ranks, the warning was passed soldier to soldier.

I lifted my head.

The beautiful scenery ended abruptly at a single boundary line.

The watercolor-like greenery stopped, and from that point began a barren, gray landscape.

A land where no human could live—the Border.

‘Well, perhaps this is even better.’

After returning from deep within there, my army would lack nothing to be called an elite force.

What lay ahead was a week more valuable than ten weeks of training.

*         *         *

Why had Roberland become the continent of lawlessness?

The answer lay in the Border.

Roberland was a vast continent, but in truth, only about forty-five percent of its land was habitable for humans.

And even within that forty-five percent, there were mountain ranges, deserts, swamps, and forests where true human life was difficult... meaning the actual livable area was far less.

In any case, people generally called such places the ‘Azure Lands.’

And then there was the remaining fifty-five percent—the ‘Ashen Lands.’

The Ashen Lands were truly lands where everything was gray.

The soil, the plants, all gray.

Crops planted in the Ashen Lands grew twisted in grotesque shapes, giving off a foul stench that made them inedible.

On occasion, starving animals would nibble on such plants, but every one of them suffered in agony and eventually turned into Demonic Beasts.

The Ashen Lands were the lands of Demonic Beasts.

Here, Demonic Beasts grew at least three times faster than in other regions, quickly multiplying in numbers, and powerful mutated variants not found on other continents appeared frequently.

Because of this, kingdoms like Gloryland had never been able to develop in Roberland.

Each Azure Land, isolated like an island, formed a closed sphere of life centered around a single city. Each city functioned like a small kingdom, repeatedly clashing and cooperating with its neighbors.

Even crossing just one neighboring region meant the culture was different, the vegetation was different, and the economic structures were different—making it difficult to unify under any larger political system.

In that situation, criminals and fugitives from Gloryland and Oldland had flooded in for centuries, constantly stirring up social, political, and military chaos… It was no wonder this place had come to be known as the Continent of Lawlessness.

Though the explanation was long, in the end, it could be said that what created today’s Roberland was the ‘Ashen Lands.’

In the cities, these Ashen Lands were called the ‘Border.’

Beyond the ‘Inner Territory’ where the citizens lived lay the ‘Border,’ swarming with Demonic Beasts.

Naturally, people feared the Border—but that didn’t mean they trembled in terror.

For to survive in Roberland, one had to constantly face the Border.

If they didn’t venture into the Border to subjugate Demonic Beasts, prevent Waves, and secure the trade routes to receive supplies, the cities simply could not survive.

In particular, the warriors of Roberland regarded the Border as something as familiar as their own hometown.

They felt tension whenever they went, but since they constantly came and went, there was no need for fear.

But today, the three thousand warriors who followed me into the Border were far more tense than usual.

“The Border near the trade route wasn’t like this… Why is it like this here?”

“That’s because the free warriors frequent that side a lot. They take on many subjugation requests there. But this place is so vast and remote…”

“Even so… I’ve been a warrior for ten years, and I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“I’ve seen it once.”

“When?”

“Five years ago, in Gesht City.”

“…Isn’t that the city that was destroyed by a Wave?”

“That’s right. I once escorted a merchant caravan going there, and the atmosphere was exactly like this. So once we finished the mission, we fled right out of there.”

The sound of the warriors murmuring reached my ears.

I only nodded inwardly.

Because this was my first time seeing something like this too.

Normally, you had to venture quite deep into the Border before Demonic Beasts would appear, but this time, attacks had continued from the very moment we set foot in it.

Not only had the late Count Kxias been negligent in managing the Border, but for the past two months, political turmoil had delayed even the scheduled subjugation efforts.

“Flock of Deer-Ox spotted ahead! Estimated at three hundred!”

At the warning from the vanguard, the atmosphere among the warriors froze cold.

“Deer-Ox… three hundred of them?”

“We’ve just stepped into the outer edge, not even the depths of the Border, and there are three hundred?”

Deer-Ox were four-legged Demonic Beasts resembling water buffalo.

They had large heads and short, thick necks, but carried slender, long antlers like those of a deer.

They weighed around 150 kilograms, and were infamous for their explosive speed, which came from their long, thin shins and thick thighs.

When they charged all at once, they could topple even a fairly large village like a sandcastle.

And there were three hundred of them.

A formidable enemy.

“…Not an easy start.”

“But are we really going to fight the way we trained?”

“We haven’t even tested it for real yet.”

“This feels uneasy…”

Though the warriors had crossed the Border many times, everything felt unfamiliar today.

Even the weapons they carried were different, and the tactics were new.

They had worked hard to learn and master them over the past month, but they had never had the chance to see if they truly worked.

The warriors were shaken.

Which was precisely why,

I considered this an opportunity.

‘If they win this battle with ease, their confidence will take root.’

A perfect opponent, against whom they could personally experience the results of their own efforts.

“First and Second Battalions! Form a phalanx in the front! Squad leaders at the head!”

My shout, infused with Aura, made the ground tremble.

The shaken warriors snapped to their senses.

Perhaps the harsh training hadn’t been in vain—for the one thousand heavy infantry leapt into motion just as their bodies remembered, forming a tight formation.

The elite warriors (Aura Users) serving as squad leaders braced their shields at the front, while the four squad members quickly dug into the ground with short spades, burying the shields and resting long spears over them at varying angles to hold them in place.

In the first rank stood the squad leaders shoulder to shoulder, creating a wall with their shields, and beyond that wall, the second, third, and fourth ranks of squad members raised five-meter-long spears, forming a dense hedge of spikes like the quills of a hedgehog.

The shields used were kite shields.

Unlike the round shields favored by free warriors, which barely covered the upper body, kite shields extended down to cover the shins, providing superior defense.

“Third and Fourth Battalions! Prepare javelins!”

Chojajak!

At the following command, the other one thousand heavy infantry set down their shields and drew their javelins.

My heavy infantry were, as the name implied, soldiers armed with a wide variety of equipment.

Each of them bore chainmail and shield, a five-meter pike, a two-and-a-half-meter spear, javelins, a sword, and gauntlets and boots reinforced with iron plates.

Since they carried three different types of spears, they even had special packs designed to hold three spears apiece, slung over their right shoulders as they marched.

Their armament was cumbersome, but thanks to it, they could adapt to any situation—fighting as sword-and-shield infantry, as pikemen, or as spear-and-shield infantry. They were an all-purpose corps.

Although their training period had been short, the warriors of Roberland already had extensive combat experience, and since I had conducted strict selection, they were already fully capable of real battle.

Kkeeeeeeeh!

Dudududududu—!

Just as our formation was complete, the distant Deer-Ox herd spotted us.

They let out terrible cries and charged at us in a frenzy.

For truly, Demonic Beasts were creatures that foamed at the mouth and rushed madly the instant they saw humans.

Dudududududu—!

Gray dust clouds rose up.

Even at considerable distance, their charge radiated a terrifying force, and tension spread across the faces of my heavy infantry.

That satisfied me.

‘They’ve really been trained well.’

Though their faces were stiff with nerves, their movements and stances remained flexible and textbook-perfect.

‘This is it.’

I had waited so long for this.

From childhood, I had always wanted it.

An army just like this.

Unlike my soldiers, tense to the point of rigidity, I felt nothing but a pounding exhilaration.

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