Screams and cries filled the air.
Each swing of the sword sent monsters spraying blood, marking their end.
Due to the nature of monsters, where the strongest occupy the center of the mountain range while the weaker ones are pushed to the outskirts, we hadn’t yet encountered any particularly challenging creatures. Only low-level monsters had appeared so far.
Jack and I cut down monsters in droves, advancing deeper into the mountains.
“Gray’s squad is so slow!”
We kept an ear on the sounds of the Gray Knights handling monsters nearby, ensuring we stayed aligned with the frontline.
Occasionally, Jack and I paused to rest and gathered valuable materials from the monster corpses.
“We’re going to be rich, Dame Cherrya!”
Jack grinned, tying a monster’s skin around his waist.
“I was born rich, you know. Born with a *silver spoon in my mouth.”
“Our family has a silver spoon, too.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Our extermination progressed smoothly, so much so that Jack and I could engage in light banter.
“It’s easier than I thought.”
“Maybe we’ve just gotten stronger. Remember when you first joined Emblem? You were so scared of even low-level monsters that you pee yourself.”
“Ah, ah!!! No, it’s not! It wasn’t pee; it was the water bottle I had on my waist that burst!”
I teased Jack, narrowing my eyes, and he, flustered, patted his chest in protest.
“Dame Cherrya, I heard that you couldn’t even pull your sword out of the hide of the first low-level monster you encountered!”
“Hey, how old was I then?”
“…Seven.”
“And how old were you when you pee your—”
“It was my water bottle.”
“Fine. How old were you when your water bottle burst?”
“……..”
Jack turned red and clammed up, so I poked his puffed-up cheeks with my fingers and answered for him.
“Thirteen.”
“Dame Cherrya!”
Laughing, I moved forward toward the next frontline. Jack, grumbling, followed behind me.
“You’re really…Dame Cherrya is so…!”
“Wait.”
His complaint had an unusual tone to it, making me stop and listen.
A scream echoed through the mountains—a human voice, filled with pain.
“Damn, something’s gone wrong.”
The scream came from the left. Since we’d already cleared this area of monsters, Jack and I hurried in that direction to check it out.
“It’s coming from over there?”
As we got closer to the source of the scream, we saw a figure emerge faintly in the distance.
“A knight from Gray’s squad.”
Judging by his uniform, he was from the Gray Knights.
His hair color, style, and even the shape of his head seemed familiar.
It was the same knight who had exchanged barbs with Jack earlier during the Crown Prince’s speech.
He was limping, his left thigh soaked in blood where a spider monster had pierced it.
That must have been the cause of his pained scream.
The spider monster, with its sixteen legs, was a mid-level creature known for its speed and surprise attacks. If we left him alone with an injured leg, he’d die.
“We have to save him.”
My body moved faster than my mind.
“Dame Cherrya!”
Jack tried to grab me, but I shrugged him off easily. Pushing off the ground, I darted forward like an arrow.
“Why are you saving that jerk?!”
Jack’s shout echoed behind me.
“He’s not a jerk right now; he’s just a person!”
When a person needs saving, you don’t need a reason.
Even the Crown Prince had said earlier: help anyone who falls behind so we can hold the frontline together.
If the Gray Knight’s front collapsed, this whole operation would start to crumble, bit by bit.
Fortunately, he was still managing to stand on two feet, holding off the spider monster’s vicious attacks with his sword. With some emergency care, he could still be of use.
“Step back!”
I shouted, pulling out my sword. Since I was still far away, I needed to buy some time.
But the Gray Knight scowled at my words.
“I’d rather…than accept help from Emblem!”
Instead of retreating, he advanced into the spider monster’s strike range. His pride seemed to have made him forget his situation.
“What a fool!”
Was he eager to die? The spider monster’s three legs lunged toward him at once, aiming to pierce his body before he could raise his sword to defend himself.
“Agh!”
In the end, as a last resort, I gathered all my strength and threw my sword at the spider monster’s body.
“Screeeeeech!”
Direct hit. My sword pierced the spider monster’s body, causing it to thrash in pain and momentarily halt its attack on the Gray knight.
Only then did the Gray knight, realizing how close to death he had been, stagger backward.
However, unless the spider monster’s head was cut off, it wouldn’t die. Watching it begin to move again with my sword still embedded in its back, I pushed myself to move even faster.
“Agh! Aah!”
The Gray knight tried to mount an attack, but his injured leg gave way, causing him to stumble sideways—unfortunately, right toward the spider monster’s thrashing legs. One of its sharp legs was poised to pierce him, like a knives.
“Ugb!”
I grabbed a nearby branch and hurled it at the spider monster’s leg. A slicing sound echoed as one of its legs was severed. In that instant, a silver flash appeared out of nowhere.
“Shriek!”
The spider monster’s head flew off with a final death cry.
“Sir Enoch!”
The Gray knight, seeing Enoch decapitate the spider monster, looked at him with tearful gratitude as if he’d met his savior.
Enoch, after flicking the spider monster’s black blood off his sword, turned to look at me, who had arrived a bit too late.
He glanced at my sword, still lodged in the monster’s body, his expression hardening before he yanked it out and handed it to me.
“Do you even understand the meaning of a sword to a knight? Why throw it in a situation like this?”
Enoch reprimanded me in a low, grave voice. Accepting the sword he handed me, I retorted.
“If I hadn’t thrown it, your precious Gray knight would be dead.”
“If he needed saving, I would have done it. Stop doing pointless things.”
“Pointless?”
This brat—seriously? Saving someone and he calls it pointless?
Suppressing a sigh, I wiped the blood off my sword. Meanwhile, the Gray knight, whose life had just been spared, knelt before Enoch.
“Thank you, Sir Enoch. And I apologize.”
“For what?”
“I humiliated myself by accepting Emblem’s help. I… I should have just died then…”
Oh? What was he saying now?
I stopped wiping my sword, taken aback, my mouth agape.
“Your teammate was definitely Emmett, wasn’t he? Where is he?”
“He… he was injured and had to withdraw.”
“Pathetic.”
“I’m sorry.”
Enoch’s cold voice could freeze the room in the middle of summer. Just hearing it made me feel the chill, and I wanted to rub my arms.
“Where’s your gratitude?”
“Th-thank you, Sir Enoch.”
“Not to me.”
Enoch gestured toward me, awkwardly standing in the midst of the Gray knight’s disciplinary moment.
“Thank the person who risked their life to save yours.”
I, rather unexpectedly, found myself flustered.
“I… I didn’t really risk my life…”
🍓; *Someone who is born into wealth and privilege.
