The situation kept getting worse.
It felt as though they had killed dozens of gnolls, yet the area was still completely filled with them. Despite the soldiers’ efforts, as well as those of Catherine and Bilford, there were now too many gnolls climbing over the wagons to count.
Milton too has barely any mana left after treating wounded soldiers several times.
“Hup!”
Thud!
This was already the eleventh charge.
Karl has finally learned how to steady himself and absorb the impact the moment his horse slams into a gnoll.
Whoosh! Whoosh!
But the warhorse that had to take all eleven of those charges head-on was slowly reaching its limit.
All the way here, it had carried Karl on its back without rest, sprinted at full speed before they formed ranks, circled endlessly within the formation, and then charged headfirst eleven times.
It would be stranger if it weren’t exhausted.
Karl knew very well that his horse was beyond fatigued.
However, his riding skills were too crude for him to quickly switch to another horse gathered in the center of the formation.
He had never learned how to transfer from one horse to another while mounted.
And there was no time to dismount and switch either. If Karl stopped even for a moment, the gnolls breaking into the formation would strike at the soldiers’ backs.
The number of conscripts had visibly decreased now.
One by one, slowly but surely, they had fallen. Already half of them were dead.
The circular formation had shrunk significantly compared to before, and even the imperial soldiers guarding the gaps between the wagons had no choice but to fall back as their backs became too exposed.
At least one saving grace was that, thanks to their sturdy armor, none of the imperial soldiers had died…. though they had suffered minor injuries.
“Aaargh!”
“Help me!”
As the conscripts died, the formation shrank even further.
Karl clenched his teeth.
Now it wasn’t just that the horse was exhausted. There wasn’t even enough space left to attempt another charge.
Not only the pack horses but even the warhorses were trembling with anxiety, unable to settle.
Karl glanced at Catherine and Bilford.
Catherine who could wield mana was cutting down gnolls like a tiger among sheep, and Bilford, though not quite at her level, was also fighting fiercely.
But even to Karl’s eyes, the movements of the two had clearly slowed compared to before.
Catherine wasn’t exhausted. She was simply conserving her mana in case the worst happened, so she could save Karl and escape.
But Bilford, a young squire who had only just come of age and couldn’t use mana, had long since reached his limit.
“Huff! Hah…!”
He was fighting precariously, almost leaning against his armor.
Clang!
With his stamina so depleted, Bilford didn’t have the confidence to block attacks with his arms extended, so he kept them tightly tucked against his body.
A gnoll’s axe struck his vambrace, then slid along the curves of his armor and glanced off uselessly.
If he had been in proper condition, he could have simply twisted his waist to deflect it and immediately taken the creature’s head. But with his legs heavy and unresponsive, Bilford staggered slightly before gripping the pommel with effort, lifting his sword, and thrusting upward.
Thud!
The gnoll, which had been lunging forward to bite into his neck, had its jaw pierced and its brain struck.
“Hup!”
Pulling his sword free as he twisted away from the collapsing gnoll, Bilford staggered, trying to resume the fight.
“Bilford! Fall back and get treatment!”
At that moment, Karl shouted loudly.
A sudden fear gripped him. Bilford was a valuable talent, and losing him in a fight against mere gnolls was unacceptable.
And tactically, it made far more sense for Bilford to receive Milton’s healing and return to the fight rather than continue in his current, broken state.
“Hah! Hah! Hah! Hah!”
At Karl’s shout, Bilford forced his drooping head upright and quickly scanned his surroundings.
After a brief moment of hesitation, he swung his sword one last time to drive back a gnoll, then threw himself toward the shield wall formed by the imperial soldiers, almost collapsing.
“Hmph!”
An imperial soldier gently caught him with his shield, then smoothly turned and pulled him inside the formation.
As the soldier turned back to face forward, the shield wall immediately reformed, solid and steady.
“Milton! Hurry!”
In his urgency, Karl struck Milton on the back with the longsword in his right hand as he shouted.
He didn’t even realize he had just hit Milton with his sword, nor that he had spoken to him so harshly.
Of course, Milton had no room to care about something so trivial. He rushed to the collapsed Bilford and began casting a healing spell.
Bilford didn’t even have the strength to stand on his own. He lay face down on the ground, drool spilling from his mouth.
He was so exhausted that even his own body weight made it hard for him to breathe.
A battle that had gone on for so long without a moment’s rest. During that entire time, Bilford had fought relentlessly, without a single break.
Thanks to him, the formation had held until now, and the soldiers had been able to conserve at least some of their strength, keeping their spears and shields from falling.
For a young squire who couldn’t even use mana, it was an unbelievable level of performance.
Damn it!
But because he had pushed himself beyond his limits, even in his oxygen-deprived, hazy state of mind, Bilford couldn’t help but blame himself.
If only he had a little more stamina. If only he were just one year older. If only he could use even a tiny bit of mana!
Then things would never have gotten this bad.
He could have protected Catherine’s back while cutting through the gnolls in every direction.
There would have been almost no casualties, and the battle wouldn’t have dragged on like this in the first place.
The two of them alone could have wiped the gnolls out!
Though Bilford blamed himself, if Catherine had heard those thoughts, she would have harshly rebuked him.
There are limits to arrogance.
To be capable of guarding Catherine’s back would require such exceptional skill that knights everywhere would compete to recruit you.
Bilford was measuring himself against the standards of the Imperial Knights, a group that selected only the very best in the Empire.
It was a naive and overconfident line of thinking, revealing just how much this young squire who couldn’t even use mana yet overestimated his own talent.
And yet, in truth, if he had just one more year, Bilford did possess the talent to stand at Catherine’s back and cut down this tide of gnolls.
But there was no meaning in dwelling on what-ifs.
“…Damn.”
Karl muttered hoarsely, his voice nearly gone, as he looked around.
There was hardly any need to look anymore. The circular formation had shrunk too much.
Even riding a horse no longer had any meaning, so Karl finally jumped down from his utterly exhausted mount.
“Sir Karl.”
Milton, who was crouched on the ground treating Bilford, reached out to stop him.
But Karl firmly shook off his hand.
“Focus on treating Bilford!”
Bilford needed to recover quickly for the formation to hold.
Right now, Bilford was more valuable than Karl, so he had to be prioritized.
Ironically, for Karl to survive in this situation, he had to risk his life to buy time for Bilford to recover.
Clank!
Karl lowered his visor with trembling hands.
His vision was restricted and stifling, but it was better than leaving his face exposed.
In fact, the discomfort he had felt from wearing only a breastplate now felt like a lie, as he desperately wished for armor that could fully cover his body.
Even if it made movement a bit harder, if he were wearing full plate armor like Catherine, there would be nothing to fear!
Huff! Huff! Huff!
Inside the helmet with the visor down, Karl felt dizzy from the heat of his own breath swirling around him. His ears felt completely blocked.
With his hearing dulled, he had to frantically turn his head, trying to grasp the flow of the battle through the narrow slit of his visor.
Now off his horse, the small stature and frail build he had been able to conceal were fully exposed, making him look like a lost child who had wandered into the middle of a battlefield.
“Aaaargh!”
At that moment, a sharp scream rang out, clear even through his helmet.
Karl quickly turned his head.
In the fleeting scene, he saw Catherine’s spear cutting down gnolls as they pushed into the collapsing formation.
And beyond that, his eyes caught a conscript who had been tackled by a gnoll, lying on the ground with no one to help him, on the verge of having his throat torn out.
Catherine was holding another position.
Bilford couldn’t move right now.
The imperial soldiers were already at their limit just holding the line in front of them, and it would be too much to expect the conscripts to help him while maintaining the formation.
“Hah!”
“Sir Karl! Don’t!”
Before Milton could grab him, Karl surged forward, his red cloak and the crimson plume of his helmet streaming behind him.
In truth, Karl himself didn’t even know what he was doing.
Like a beast driven into a corner, he was acting purely on instinct to survive.
Instinctively, Karl understood what he had to do in this situation.
To live, he had to fight.
With his small and frail body, yet as fierce as a beast that had tasted blood, he charged forward like a young lion!
Whoosh…!
The sound of his own breathing echoed in Karl’s ears.
His nerves, stretched taut with tension and fear, sharpened his judgment.
His previously tense body loosened just enough to find the optimal strike, and his stiff legs, once planted rigidly on the ground, now extended with spring-like force.
Karl’s wrist moved fluidly as he drew his sword. The blade, aimed at mid-level, seemed to pause as if left alone in the air.
Yet Karl was moving forward, and naturally, the edge of the blade slid upward in a smooth arc.
As if drawn in a painting, far too clean to be something shown in a first real battle.
Like slipping through a narrow gap, the blade drove in along a delicate and razor-sharp trajectory.
Thud!
The sword fell like a flash of light, cleaving the head of the gnoll that had just been about to tear into the conscript’s throat.
It didn’t split cleanly, but the back of its skull cracked open, exposing its brain. It was dead.
Gasp!
Only the sound of his own breathing echoed in Karl’s ears.
Instinctively, he took a quick step back, retrieving his sword, raising it high, and shifting his center of gravity as he leaned forward.
Slash!
This time, a long, downward strike from above exploded forth.
It struck the head of the gnoll trying to force its way through the soldiers’ line with flawless precision!
Crack!
He perfectly executed a movement he had only properly learned over the past two days in his very first real battle.
The clean downward cut split the gnoll’s skull and drove through, cracking its long snout apart as well.
It was an excellent attack.
But Karl froze in panic.
“Gah!”
The blade lodged in the skull wouldn’t come free!
Catherine and Bilford had never imagined Karl would be killing enemies this quickly, so they hadn’t taught him how to efficiently pull a sword out when it gets stuck in a corpse!
Karl, who had been swinging his sword as if walking in a dream, his reason gone, suddenly snapped back to his senses.
His body lurched forward as the sword stuck in the falling gnoll dragged him along.
The blade was still embedded below, and another gnoll surged toward him from the front.
At the sight of Karl left completely exposed, someone seemed to scream.
“Aaah!”
Karl remembered how the soldiers twisted their spears to pull them free from gnolls, and with a shout, he wrenched his wrist with all his strength.
The blade embedded in the gnoll’s head twisted, widening the gap, and Karl’s body fell backward.
Grrgh!
The gnoll that had finally broken into the formation lunged at the fallen Karl.
Karl had never learned how to swing a sword while lying flat on the ground.
“Ah!”
At the sight visible through the narrow slit of his visor, Karl reflexively thrust his sword forward.
Clang!
Karl’s longsword and the gnoll’s axe collided.
Karl gripped his sword with all his strength, but he couldn’t withstand the power of the monstrous gnoll, which was stronger than an adult man.
The sword was knocked helplessly from his grasp.
However, the gnoll’s axe, crudely made with poor metallurgy, also failed to endure the blow, and its head shattered.
Fragments broke apart and fell from the handle.
In that fleeting instant, the gnoll released the axe handle and lunged with its claws, aiming for Karl’s head and neck.
Karl saw his death before his eyes.
He wanted to live.
“Graaah!”
Karl screamed as his head and neck were seized.
Under the gnoll’s tremendous strength, his body was shaken helplessly like a toy.
Crack! Crack!
The gnoll opened its jaws wide, trying to bite into Karl’s neck. Fortunately, the sturdy helmet provided by the Empire protected down to below his neck.
Its teeth slid against the armor, tearing at the collar of his clothing and violently scratching the slightly exposed collarbone.
Brutal strength, a horrific stench, and the pain of flesh tearing apart!
At some point, Karl’s scream had abruptly cut off, and he looked as though his throat had already been torn out and he was dead.
Thud! Thud! Thud! Thud!
Yelp!
But in the instant a series of dull impacts rang out, the gnoll that had been savagely tearing at Karl let out a cry, twisted its body, and fled.
The moment the gnoll pulled back, Karl sprang to his feet and, unbelievably, rushed at the crouching creature, clinging to it and ruthlessly stabbing its neck and shoulder with the dagger in his right hand until it died.
“Haa! Haa! Haa!”
Before his breathing could even steady, Karl threw aside the dagger and frantically groped around before grasping his sword.
In that brief moment when the gnoll lunged at him, Karl’s cold, machine-like survival instinct had instantly found a way out.
Blocking with his arm would only cripple him. So he entrusted himself to the armor and offered his head and neck.
Then, he drew the dagger at his right side and killed it.
Even Karl himself had no idea how he had come up with it, or how he had managed to pull it off.
Karl staggered, drenched in the blood pouring from the gnoll that had been on top of him.
But he steadied himself again and, with a cold, composed motion, turned his head to find where he was needed.
“Treat the others! I’m fine!”
Karl shouted loudly, stopping Milton, who was rushing toward him.
Truly, Karl was fine.
His entire body felt as if it were burning, yet at the same time freezing cold.
Perhaps because of the adrenaline, he couldn’t feel any pain at all.
Even with his body pushed to its limits, he met the eyes of Bilford, who had been crawling toward him on all fours.
But with no time to say anything, Karl immediately raised his sword and ran toward another spot.
The battle was not over yet.
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