Chapter 127
Chapter 127: The Rabbit With a Shield
The veterans of the Silver Shield Legion marched through the night.
At the lower reaches of the Marbius River, teeming with monsters, they pushed through blood and mud to cross. The surface of the water was tangled thick with the corpses of Imperial soldiers.
Yet without sparing a single glance, they pressed on in silence, swiftly trampling across the southeastern plains. In the distance, the fortress of Vistrass County came into view.
Three flags hung from the low, wide battlements.
One bore the crest of the Bermak Count's household, another belonged to the Alliance Forces, and the last displayed a pattern of a mountain hare leaping against the backdrop of a ridgeline.
"……They've turned?"
"That's right, Comrade Commander. They've turned."
Legion Commander Erdman Falter strokes his beard.
It was not an unexpected development. On the way here, they had seen the same flags flying over the territories of Edric Marzan and Viscount Crono Parcel.
A silence spread through the ranks of soldiers.
"Then…… What exactly are we supposed to be protecting?"
Orders had been given, but the place to protect had vanished.
"Sir Falter, His Majesty's command is absolute."
"I am well aware of that."
Even so, a clash was unavoidable. They did not choose their battles for favorable odds. These were warriors who would willingly march toward their deaths, if it meant glory for the Empire.
***
Two armies face one another.
The Niboria Imperial Forces numbered four thousand five hundred from the Silver Shield Legion and five hundred from the Imperial Cavalry—five thousand in total. The Mountain Rabbits, by contrast, had consolidated the southeastern noble armies to boast a force of no fewer than seventeen thousand.
At that moment, Captain Royce fixed his gaze on the soldiers blanketing the plain and spoke.
"That's the Silver Shield Legion. These are not men who move at a few words. They've come ready to die."
Calix knew this with absolute clarity as well. Not only the enemy, but the very situation itself was compelling them toward battle.
Vice-captain Marik pointed this out as well.
"We have no way of knowing when Marquis Ashapel will stab us in the back. There have been no major issues yet, but supply problems could arise at any moment."
Therefore, there was only one answer.
"We must march north. We have to reach the Imperial capital."
Hesitation was a luxury.
Calix surveys the enemy lines with sharp eyes. The gold of a top-rank swordsman flashed, alongside dozens of flickers of violet.
The elite of the elite.
Naturally, he did not underestimate the enemy's strength. At his side was a seasoned veteran of the Silver Shield Legion himself.
"But…… Do we really have to fight?"
"Is there another way?"
"……There isn't. Offer them surrender and they'd only fly into a rage."
At Volga's question, Gregor answers with a thoroughly deflated expression. As though words were unnecessary, both armies had already completed their formations.
The moment either side advanced, a full-scale battle would unfold.
The old man fiddled with his shield, chewed his fingernails, and shifted his weight on horseback again and again. Calix was not at ease himself—but he did not waver.
The situation was overwhelmingly favorable to the Mountain Rabbits.
‘They're mostly infantry.’
Their numbers surpassed three times over, and the cavalry advantage was theirs as well.
And above all else.
‘The Forces of Darkness are pursuing the Imperial army.’
The northern horizon churns ominously. They had not yet come into view, but the mana in the air was unmistakably pushing outward.
"We'll go with a delaying action."
"You want to stall for time? Why?"
A look of puzzlement crossed their faces at Calix's decision—but only for a moment.
"The Imperial army has been caught from behind. Something wicked is descending from the north."
"Surely not……"
"No, not the Legion Commander. If it were, I wouldn't need to explain it separately."
At the reply that followed, a short exclamation escaped.
They had sensed that victory was on their side.
"So the plan is to make them fight each other, then move in?"
"That's right."
"Wow, that's pretty wicked."
"……"
"I mean—absolutely brilliant."
Hadiya's backhanded compliment leaves him speechless, but Marik's serious voice draws words back out.
"Distance?"
"Half a day at the latest. Could be just a few hours if we're short on time."
"Then a rotational engagement seems best. The mercenaries' neural accelerators have limits. We operate the cavalry in shifts, wearing them down slowly without overextending."
"Yes. My thoughts exactly."
Just then, a fist-clenched hand shot up into the air.
"Cook Comrade!"
It was Gregor.
***
An old rider crosses the battlefield alone. He emerged from among the Mountain Rabbits and advanced toward the mass of Imperial soldiers. As the distance narrowed, the faces of old comrades came into clearer focus.
Gregor had come to persuade them.
"Whether he succeeds or fails, either way we buy time."
Despite the opposition of many, Cook Comrade had granted his request.
It was, in effect, a final chance.
Soon, fragments of past moments flickered through his mind.
A rainy night—the forces of the Elvra Holy Empire pushed through the undergrowth and came flooding in. Gregor held his ground with composure, pressing his back against another's, aligning the line of shields.
"Your body's gone cold."
"What can you do. We hold out like this."
Cries and screams ringing through the forest. Every last one of them belonged to the enemy. Back to back, they burned through a cold night with heat.
Whooooosh.
A frozen field. After days without food, they shared a soup with a few scraps of meat. In truth, it was hardly more than plain water.
"Tastes like a shoe."
"Right—who told you to survive so stubbornly?"
"Heh heh, that's because this body here is 'Tough-as-Gristle Sorte'"
A worn-out joke, a rough hand. And yet that single bowl was the most delicious, the most sustaining thing in his entire life.
Thud.
The feel of the shield in his hand was no different from that day.
Gregor rubs the surface of the shield with his yellowed sleeve. He should have polished it before leaving—no matter how many times he tried, the distinctive silver would not shine through.
And soon, his eyes met those of an old comrade.
"Gregor."
"……Erdman."
In an instant, the veterans of the Silver Shield Legion stirred quietly.
"Is that really Gregor?"
"You were alive all this time! You stubborn bastard!"
The hostility softened, and warmth crept in. Even Gregor himself briefly forgot his purpose and let a grin cross his lips.
"Ahh, old comrades. Still burying your heads in those iron helmets, I see?"
"You rotten wretch!"
A hearty burst of laughter rang out. Legion Commander Erdman Falter gave him a brief glare, then finally let the corner of his mouth curl upward.
"Gregor, I'd heard you became a mercenary! But to think you were the Mountain Rabbit himself!"
Yet the warmth faded quickly. They had once been the closest of friends, the finest of comrades-in-arms—but now they met as enemies.
With so little time to spare, and so many watching eyes, this was no place to reminisce.
"Old comrade, have you come to return to the Silver Shield Legion?"
"No. I am already walking my own path."
"Then what have you come here for?"
Gregor drew a breath, then answered with respect.
"Comrade Commander. No matter how fierce the wind, you don't pitch a tent before a wildfire."
"……"
The air turned heavy in an instant, but he pressed on without minding it.
"The black ones are bearing down from behind. How can you draw your blade against the Mountain Rabbits?"
"Where do you get the gall to say such a—!! Sir Falter, this man is an enemy of the Empire! Cut him down at once!!"
The Imperial knights shouted at the top of their lungs, but Erdman Falter stared his counterpart down, turning the words over in his mind. The black ones was a term unique to the Silver Shield Legion.
It referred to beings born in shadow.
"……We've been caught from behind."
Even with his mind not fully intact, decades of experience drove a fierce sense of crisis through him.
Why were the Mountain Rabbits not attacking?
Because they had no need to.
Why had Gregor stepped forward?
The wish—the sole wish—to somehow save his old comrades.
Erdman could not help feeling his pride sting. Yet he did not outright reject the other's proposal. Within him, reason and feeling, principle and pragmatism clashed.
Those beneath him would fight if he told them to fight. Even in a battle with no chance of victory, they would hold until the end.
But…… It would be a meaningless death.
That, precisely, was the problem.
At just that moment, Gregor asked quietly.
"Sir Falter, do you remember the oath we swore? As members of the Silver Shield Legion—to protect the Empire, to guard the Emperor, to drive out the enemy……"
"……May all that is wicked be utterly destroyed."
"You remember well."
As though reading his heart, he cut away only the final passage and passed it over.
"Then what, precisely, are you trying to fight for?"
"……"
"To protect the Empire as a member of the Silver Shield Legion? Or to guard the Emperor?"
Erdman Falter's eyes close.
"Our duty is to follow orders. However—if we turn a blind eye to the true enemy and only chase after the wrong ones…… that too is folly."
"Sir Falter!!"
The reactions among the Imperial forces split sharply. The veterans quietly nodded their heads; the Imperial knights erupted in voices of shock.
A man's convictions waver. He realizes that he has received a wrong order, and has been following it. And so, his eyes opened.
At that, the finest of Mountain Rabbits gave a nod.
"Yes—folly. I too once committed that folly. I left to take responsibility for my choices, and yet in the end I found myself returning."
"……Have you ever had regrets?"
"I've long since forgotten it all—nothing remains."
The man cast out from the Legion says he has neither regrets nor grievances.
"So then, comrade—turn that blade toward the rightful side now. Do not drive a sturdy shield and a well-worn sword into the wrong belly."
At that moment, a cold air pressed in from the far edge of the plain.
All who had taken part in the eastern front drew breath as one. When the wind fled away, dark crimson particles swirled through the air.
"The black ones are here!"
"The wicked ones have come!"
Only then did Erdman Falter's mouth open.
Not an answer, but a single question.
"Does your faith hold still?"
Without a moment's hesitation, Gregor struck his shield and answered.
"This body is a shield. If a wound remains upon your back, I have already breathed my last. Iron rusts, and the life of a man is shorter still—"
Falter raised his shield and answered low, in turn.
"Yet our will shall be eternal."
Boom!
A weathered fist strikes the shield.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
It began with two, but by the end it was a unified chorus of four thousand five hundred. The Imperial knights raved of treason and scrambled away, but not a soul paid them any mind.
Only those with the right to remain stayed.
***
A black stormcloud swallows the plain. The Corrupted who had crossed over from the Land of Shadows blanketed the earth. The stench and the smell of blood they had forced themselves to forget came rushing in.
"They're coming."
"Battle positions!!"
Within the Mountain Rabbits' camp, there was no small amount of confusion. They had not expected Gregor to succeed in his persuasion.
And they could not easily trust the Silver Shield Legion.
"It would be better to keep them well apart. We don't know what they might do."
"Will that be enough? We have to think of the one-in-ten-thousand chance. For us as well, having our backs taken would be the end."
From Airien to the dwarf Basim, a current of distrust circulated.
Calix listened to the opinions around him, then fixed his gaze intently on Gregor. If the man had a tail, it would surely be swinging left and right without pause.
"Gregor—the Silver Shield Legion will need to take the center."
"Surely not the front line?"
"……Yes."
In one sense, it was a harsh pronouncement.
To say ‘we cannot trust you, so we push you into the heart of the battlefield’. And sure enough, the old man's face flushed red.
"As expected of Comrade! He knows exactly the use of old men. I know my place to die well enough, so worry not!"
"……"
Before a word could be said in reply, Gregor was already humming a tune and calling the Legion Commander over. Naturally, Erdman Falter was not pleased with Calix's decision.
"The Silver Shield Legion holds the center, and the Mountain Rabbits take the flanks?"
"That's right!"
"Can they actually pull it off? What will you do if only we survive?"
But somehow, the question that came back was strange. It was not dissatisfaction with the role—he was questioning the very ability of the Mountain Rabbits.
"That won't happen, I'm telling you."
"Can we really win this?"
"Well, if it looks like we're losing, help yourself to a few pieces of rabbit meat!"
The veteran soldiers around them snickered with amusement.
To Volga's eyes, that sight was as if—
"Gregor…… Times four thousand five hundred?"
Tremendously reassuring.
And a short while later.
As the earth began to be stained by the footsteps of shadow, a single fragment of stillness drifted across the battlefield. The Silver Shield Legion formed ranks at the center, while the Mountain Rabbits spread like unfurling wings on either side.
A faint mana, a corrupted energy crept in like fog. In that instant, a long beast's cry spread from beyond it. Sharp fangs and claws, twisted silhouettes, slowly came into view.
It was the first encounter with the darkness that had enveloped the northern continent.