Chapter 35: Toward the Snow-Covered Wall (2)
35
“….”
“……!”
When I said that while wearing my uniform, silence followed in the temporary ward for several minutes.
Crack!
No, to be precise, it wasn’t exactly silence.
The expressions of the other knights, including Boran, as they looked at me were vicious, as if they were staring at an enemy.
‘No matter how much the family has fallen or whatever, the backing of a ducal house doesn’t just disappear.’
Now that things had already gone this far, neither side could easily back down first.
Still, in this standoff, the one with the advantage was me, backed by a ducal house.
‘Of course, once he gets the report afterward, Heinkel won’t let this slide.’
I forcibly suppressed the chill that ran down my spine.
‘Once you arrive at the Wall, respect the hierarchy there.’
I had completely crushed Heinkel’s parting warning in just three days.
I couldn’t even bring myself to think about how I’d deal with the aftermath.
‘To hell with it. They started it first, so what are they going to do?’
Just as I pushed aside the rising anxiety and met Boran’s gaze—
“Uh, um…!”
What broke the taut silence that felt like it would explode at the slightest touch was the small voice of a healer named Pion.
“Young Master, your wounds are deep. Visiting should be… later….”
Another beat of silence followed.
But upon hearing Pion’s words, Boran examined my face.
‘He probably wants to stop here.’
The Boran confronting me now was a vice-captain.
Though he was a member of the closed-off group known as the Big Raven Knights, he wasn’t in a position where he could ignore rank and hierarchy entirely.
“…I’ll pretend I didn’t hear what you just said.”
With that stiff remark, Boran gestured with his hand, and the knights surrounding me immediately withdrew.
“We were discourteous. We’ll take our leave.”
With those words, the knights exited the ward.
By the time their footsteps—rougher than when they had entered—completely faded away—
“Phew~!”
As the tension drained out of me, I let out a sigh of relief and plopped myself onto the bed.
“Heh, thanks to that kid, we avoided the worst-case scenario, huh?”
When Ian, who had been watching the standoff with amusement, said that, I relaxed my expression and agreed.
“Seriously. I almost really drew my sword.”
After saying that, I smiled and spoke to the healer named Pion, who had been looking at me.
“Thanks to you, it ended amicably. Thank you.”
“E, excuse me…?”
As the vicious expression I’d shown just moments ago disappeared, Pion flinched as she looked at me.
‘Well, it’s not like I can go bulging my veins at her too.’
With anyone else maybe, but picking a fight with healers at this Wall?
That was practically suicide.
Besides, that healer had taken care of me for an entire week, so unlike those knights, there was no reason to be needlessly hostile toward her.
“Oh my, look at how your voice changes in front of a woman. What are you, some kind of split personality?”
Ian, however, didn’t seem to think that way, and he clicked his tongue at me.
“Don’t say such nonsense, Uncle. And….”
Brushing off his teasing, I continued.
“If you met a real split personality, you wouldn’t be saying that.”
The foul-mouthed young lady of Polwyvern.
I said that while recalling Laia, but Ian tilted his head as if asking what I was talking about.
“That aside, what are you planning to do now?”
But his confusion was brief.
Stopping the small talk, Ian spoke to me with a rather serious expression.
“Thanks to you, your reputation—which wasn’t great to begin with—will hit rock bottom, and this whole Wall will feel like sitting on pins and needles.”
Just as Ian said, having openly challenged the vice-captain meant I had damaged their pride.
Even so, I felt no regret.
In that situation, rather than trying to gain trust through half-baked conversation, it was faster for me to cross the Wall and head outside.
And besides, it wasn’t as if I gained nothing at all from that verbal clash.
“Being treated like a useless burden and stuck here is way worse than becoming a madman.”
I answered while recalling the faces of the knights who had been looking at me.
The looks the knights had given me when they first saw me were dismissive, or indifferent.
But now, the way they looked at me had changed to hostility—and wariness beyond that.
“Even if they think of me as an enemy now, they won’t think I’m incompetent, right?”
After saying that, I unpacked the belongings I’d brought and began writing necromantic formulas into a blank book.
“You just got here and already beat the hell out of everyone, and now what are you doing?”
“Isn’t it a three-day recovery period anyway? Instead of wasting time, I might as well chant some sutras—do some groundwork.”
Runes and symbols that filled the pristine white pages in an instant, and the geometric lines connecting them.
Seeing that, Ian shook his head as if he were sick of it.
“I was thinking of swinging a sword while we’re here, but looks like there won’t be a peaceful day.”
“Is it here?”
“The trail leads this way. I’m sure of it.”
Outside the Wall.
In the northeastern tundra forest.
In a barren land where no one lived except mountain worms, two men were walking.
A crossbow on their backs, a short spear in one hand.
Wrapped tightly in snow boots and fur clothing, the two men were watchers who guarded the Wall.
Ignoring the biting cold, they carried out their duty.
“The knights sit around enjoying themselves at the watch posts, while only our guys suffer out here.”
“It’s the knights who wipe out the monsters we find. Don’t belittle them like that.”
At the man’s words, the companion who had been complaining waved his hand as if he understood.
“So, what’s with that young master? I heard during the shift change that he had a go with the vice-captain.”
Still, even on duty, one couldn’t help but let conversation bloom.
At the subtle question, the man gave a small snort and replied.
“Watch your mouth. He’s a Young Lord.”
“Tch, a Young Lord, my ass.”
Though it was meant as a warning, what the companion showed was mockery.
“I heard he caused trouble at the main house and ran off this way—what, is the Wall their personal dump?”
“Who knows. From what I hear, he’s been doing this and that.”
Though insults toward Leinrant came out, the man didn’t bother stopping them.
Unlike the Big Raven Knights, who were former Leinrant knights, the watchers were from settlements scattered around the Wall.
As far as they were concerned, the ‘main house’ was just a story from some faraway land.
“He’s doing all sorts of things. That brat, they say he uses necromancy?”
“It’s not a confirmed rumor. Even if we head back, don’t go saying stuff like that.”
Thus he spoke, a man who kept to proper boundaries, yet even he was no exception in finding the uninvited guest who had come to the Wall unwelcome.
Unlike Young Lord Delain, who possessed formidable swordsmanship and a steadfast character, the rumors attached to Young Lord Klein were nothing but ominous.
The reincarnation of Akimond, a second wife obsessed with necromancy, and so on.
Because of that, when word spread that he was coming to the Wall, there were hardly any who welcomed his visit.
While they were busily chatting away like that, the two men arrived at a certain spot.
A clearing formed in one corner of the dense forest.
Scattered everywhere were traces of human presence and the carcasses of animals.
“Stop.”
At the hand signal from the man in the lead, the man who had been watching their rear sat down on the spot and lowered his body.
“Droppings. Not long ago.”
Saying so, the leading man felt around the area where the underbrush had been pushed aside.
Food scraps strewn about and charred firewood clearly showed that someone had camped here.
“They didn’t even bother to erase their tracks properly, and they’re just letting food smells linger. Complete amateurs.”
After saying that, the man pulled back the hood covering his face and put a pen in his mouth.
“The map.”
“Here.”
Taking the map handed to him by his companion, the man marked the location of the campsite.
“As expected, these bastards came from outside.”
The man twisted his lips and spat out the words.
The similar traces his colleagues had found over the past week.
When those were connected by lines, a path almost like a road emerged.
“No way, this is monster territory, isn’t it?!”
The man guarding the rear asked back in disbelief.
The line drawn on the map cut straight through monster habitats.
Even crossing the snowfield was something you had to risk your life for—yet they had gone straight through monster territory?
“They’re not ordinary humans. And it’s not just one or two of them.”
After saying that, the man folded up the map and looked toward a point in the forest.
Judging by the route they had analyzed, there weren’t many places this unidentified group could be heading toward.
All that remained was to return to the Wall and report this to the knight order—
Rustle!
“What is it?!”
At the sound of bushes being parted, the man immediately raised his crossbow and aimed it there.
Click!
The companion guarding the rear instantly aimed his bow in the opposite direction, eliminating their blind spot.
A linkage as natural as flowing water.
But a moment later—
Squeak!
What emerged from the bushes was a white rabbit.
“Damn it, you scared me!”
Only after seeing the small rabbit did one of the watchers lower his bow in relief.
“Let’s go back, captain. Just the two of us going in won’t do any good—!”
“Fuck!”
At that moment, as he was saying that to the man with the crossbow, a curse rang out from behind him.
Grab!
“U, uagh?!”
There wasn’t even time to be surprised.
The man called captain had grabbed his collar and bolted like mad.
“Wh-what is it!? Why are you doing this?!”
“Do you really not know?!”
When the man asked while running in confusion, the captain, his face drained pale, shouted.
“It’s October! Why would a hibernating rabbit appear now, and of all places, in that frozen wasteland?!”
Hearing that, the man who had been frowning just moments ago widened his eyes.
“W-wait. Then that rabbit is…?”
The man, gripped by terror, looked back.
Squeak! Squeeeak?! Squeee—!!
The pure white rabbit they had just seen was chasing after them.
“This is, mi… cra…!”
Now he was running even faster than the captain.
Thududududu—!
The body of the rabbit chasing them had swollen to dozens of times its original size, but that wasn’t the problem.
The problem was the rabbit’s head.
On the massively bloated body were countless rabbit heads densely packed together.
“Is it a monster?!”
“N-no, it’s not!”
The captain’s voice, almost like a scream, denied his guess.
That thing scattering dead blood and filth was not a monster, but an undead.
A grotesque abomination made by stitching together the corpses of wild animals.
“Run to the Wall no matter what! We have to tell the knight order—!”
“That won’t be allowed.”
What answered the desperate man’s voice was an unfamiliar one.
Fshhk—!
A black arrow shot toward them as they fled.
His companion hurriedly twisted his body to dodge it, but after that, luck was no longer on his side.
“Uagh?!”
In the recoil from twisting his body in haste, his foot caught at that very moment.
The monster that had been chasing them slammed straight into his body.
Crunch!
“Gheee…!”
Without even being able to scream, the man’s body was crushed to pieces.
And at the same time, countless shadows appeared in front of the man who was still running.
“……!”
Men and women clad in black robes.
Around them stood all manner of corpses, as if guarding them.
It felt like looking at an exhibition made of corpses.
“Kgh…!”
Realizing there was nowhere left to run, the man raised his crossbow.
Even with death close at hand, he was a member of the watchers.
Even if he were to die, he would never submit to them.
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