Aura stood on the rise with her army behind her.
The dead filled the field in rows.
Helmets rusted.
Armor broken.
Bodies still.
Only the wind moved among them.
Then someone came running straight at her.
Fast.
Too fast for an ordinary human child.
Aura watched the figure draw closer across the open ground until she could finally make him out clearly.
A young boy with a hooded coat and a sword on his hip.
He did not slow down until he was already close enough to be killed.
Then he stopped, planted his feet, and pointed at her dramatically.
"I have found you at last."
Aura blinked once.
The boy straightened.
"I am the Knight King Shamrock."
He put a hand on his chest.
"And I have come to strike you down, Aura the Guillotine."
Silence.
The wind stirred his hood.
Aura looked at him.
Then she looked at her scales.
Then back at him.
She could sense nothing.
No mana.
Not even a trace.
It was like looking at an empty patch of air that had decided to start talking.
"…Who?"
Shamrock frowned.
"The Knight King Shamrock."
"Yes, I heard that part."
Aura tilted her head slightly.
"And why exactly are you here?"
"To slay evil."
He put a hand on the hilt of his sword.
"To save the innocent."
He pointed past her.
"And to put my name in history."
Aura stared at him for a moment.
Then a small smile touched her lips.
"I see."
She looked him over again.
No mana.
No fear worth mentioning.
Just confidence.
Or stupidity.
Possibly both.
"How insignificant," she said.
Shamrock's brow twitched.
"That's rude."
"You came alone."
"Yes."
"You don't have any mana."
"That's not your concern."
"And you want to kill me."
"I want to defeat you."
Aura's smile widened faintly.
"I don't really care about the difference."
Shamrock drew his sword.
Steel flashed.
Aura did not move.
She only gave the smallest motion with her hand.
At once, the dead behind her began to move.
Metal groaned.
Bones shifted.
Dozens of corpses lurched forward with weapons in hand.
Shamrock's eyes widened.
Then narrowed.
"…That's cheating."
Aura rested one hand against her cheek.
"It's war."
The first puppet came at him with a rusted spear.
Shamrock moved.
He stepped inside the thrust, knocked the shaft aside with one clean motion, and slammed the flat of his blade across the corpse's jaw hard enough to spin the head halfway around.
The puppet crashed into the dirt.
A second came in from the left.
A third from behind.
Shamrock pivoted between them.
His sword moved in bright, tight arcs.
Flat strikes.
Pommel blows.
Kicks.
He hit one puppet in the ribs and sent it sliding into another. He ducked beneath a sword swing, struck the back of a knee, then whipped the flat of his blade up into the corpse's chin.
The puppet only staggered.
Then came on again.
Shamrock clicked his tongue.
'Right. They don't feel pain.'
Three more rushed him.
He retreated half a step, then burst forward instead.
His blade cracked across a puppet's wrist. The hand holding the axe flew loose. He turned, struck another across the temple, then drove his shoulder into the third and sent it tumbling down the slope.
But the ones he knocked away kept getting up.
Shamrock's frown deepened.
Because he was not cutting them.
He couldn't.
Not even dead ones that had once been human.
So every blow he landed was with the flat.
And it wasn't enough.
Aura watched from the rise, unmoving.
"Interesting."
Shamrock glanced up at her while parrying another rusted blade.
"What is?"
"You can't cut them down."
He slammed the flat of his sword into a puppet's throat.
The corpse bent backward.
He kicked it away.
"I don't kill humans."
Aura smiled.
"They're already dead."
"That doesn't matter."
A spear came for his side.
Shamrock caught it under his arm, twisted, and yanked the puppet forward. His sword flashed up and cracked across its helmet with a sound like a bell.
Then another corpse grabbed at his shoulder.
Then another.
The dead were starting to crowd him.
Aura looked faintly amused now.
"You have odd principles."
"As a true knight should."
"That sounds tiring."
Shamrock leapt backward as a sword hacked down where his leg had been.
He landed, spun, and drove a fast series of flat strikes into the chest and head of another puppet until it dropped.
It rose again.
His eye twitched.
"This is very annoying."
Aura's smile grew.
The puppets came from all sides now.
A shield-bearer shoved in front while two spearmen thrust from behind it. Shamrock darted around the side, smacked one spear off line, ducked the second, and hammered the shield-bearer in the neck with the flat.
The body collapsed.
A mace nearly took him in the ribs.
He twisted away, but not fully.
It clipped his side and sent him skidding through the dirt.
Pain flared.
Shamrock planted a hand and sprang back up.
More were already on him.
He moved again.
Steel flickered.
Boots dug into earth.
The field around him became a mess of shattered formation and broken bodies that refused to stay down.
He was good.
Far too good for his age.
His swordsmanship was clean. Quick and efficient.
He used the terrain well too, forcing corpses into each other, slipping around longer weapons, using fallen bodies as obstacles.
But there were too many.
And they did not tire.
A puppet with a broken face swung a halberd.
Shamrock ducked under it and drove the flat of his blade into the corpse's elbow joint. The arm bent wrong. The weapon dropped. Shamrock kicked it aside and turned into a backhand strike that sent another puppet rolling.
He took a breath.
A mistake.
A dead hand seized the edge of his coat from behind.
Then another latched onto his arm.
A third drove in from the front with a sword.
Shamrock's eyes widened.
He tore one arm free, turned his body, and barely avoided the blade. It sliced across his side instead of going through him.
He hissed and slammed his forehead into the nearest corpse's nose hard enough to crush it flat.
Then he ripped free and jumped back.
Blood ran down his coat.
Aura watched him with mild interest.
"He's surviving longer than I expected."
The dead pressed forward again.
Shamrock lowered his center of gravity.
His breathing had changed.
He looked at the army.
Then at Aura.
Then back at the army.
'I need to get through them.'
That was the real problem.
None of this mattered if he couldn't reach her.
He burst left instead of straight ahead.
A sudden angle.
He sprinted across the slope, drawing half the puppet line after him, then pivoted sharply and cut back through the gap before it could close. His sword flashed twice. Flat to the face. Flat to the wrist. He ducked a spear and kept going.
Closer.
He was actually getting closer.
Aura's expression shifted a little.
The faintest hint of surprise.
A knight corpse rushed him from the front.
Shamrock jumped.
His foot planted briefly on its shield.
Then he launched himself higher.
Over one row.
Then another.
He came down in front of Aura's line with his sword already moving.
A puppet met him immediately.
Then another.
Then three at once.
Shamrock fought through them with sharp, desperate precision. One flat strike to the jaw. A kick to the knee. Pommel to the temple. Sword guard to the throat. He slipped through a narrow space, nearly clear.
Aura finally took one step back.
Just one.
Shamrock saw it.
A grin flashed across his face.
"I'm coming for you!"
Aura's smile vanished.
A dozen puppets surged at once.
Too many.
Shamrock cut one aside with the flat. Slipped the second. Smashed the third in the head.
The fourth caught his shoulder.
The fifth slammed into his back.
He lost balance for one second.
That was enough.
The sixth puppet drove a rusted sword down toward him as he fell to one knee.
Shamrock turned.
Too slow.
The blade was coming straight for his throat.
Then—
A flash of gold.
Magic tore through the battlefield in a clean line.
The puppet disappeared.
The air shook.
Several more corpses behind it burst apart in the same instant, bodies blown apart by a single precise attack.
The entire field went still for half a breath.
Shamrock looked up.
Aura did too.
An elf stood between them and the town beyond.
Silver hair.
White cloak.
Staff in hand.
Expression flat.
Frieren.
Shamrock blinked.
Then blinked again.
"…Whoa."
Frieren looked at him once.
"You're in the way."
Shamrock stared.
"That's your greeting?"
Aura's eyes narrowed.
"…Frieren."
Frieren's gaze stayed on her.
"It's been a while, Aura."
The dead shifted around them.
The wind moved across the ruined field.
Shamrock slowly rose to his feet, still breathing hard, blood on his coat, sword in hand.
Then he looked from Frieren…
To Aura…
And grinned despite everything.
'This got way better.'
---
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