"I watched your cadet selection test personally. And I know the ranking competition results. You are exceptional."
It was vague. Just like the comment about the birthday banquet, phrased in a way that could suggest memories, but could also, if she assumed otherwise, still make sense. A Commander with an eye for talent might notice an unusual cadet during the entrance exam.
Rankings were public.
Or perhaps she wanted to believe he had no memories, and so she kept finding ways to make his behavior fit that interpretation.
Perhaps, without realizing it, she was searching for evidence that would let her feel safer.
She genuinely didn't know. Echi closed her eyes and opened them again.
"…Thank you for the high evaluation."
"Still... be careful. Monsters are not like humans."
"Yes. I will be."
She bowed her head slightly. He held her gaze for another moment, then stepped back.
"Then rest well."
"Commander, one more thing."
He stopped and looked back at her. Echi hesitated, then asked.
"Why did you come back to the tent but not light the lamp?"
"..."
"Were you trying not to disturb my sleep?"
"…I wasn't planning to sleep, so you needn't have worried about it."
He answered with a slightly strange expression and turned fully away. A signal to leave. Echi gave a small bow to his back and stepped out.
The moment she was in her own tent, she dropped onto the cot as though something had gone out of her legs. The lamplight cast shifting shadows on the ceiling that moved in ways she couldn't quite account for.
What was casting the shadow of Yurien's ambiguous behavior?
Her thoughts were too cluttered to untangle. She closed her eyes.
The demonic sword, which had been watching quietly, chose now to speak.
[He told you to be careful around monsters? As if he could protect you better than you can protect yourself. If he knew you once cleared an entire node alone, he'd be terrified! What a joke, right?]
"Don't speak about Yurien that way. Actually... don't say his name at all."
[But I'm right! Why are you being like this?]
"Quiet, Val."
[All you ever say is quiet. So unfair.]
"If you stopped going on about killing people, maybe I'd be gentler with you."
[…Honestly, you being gentle would feel strange. Let's keep things as they are.]
"…You twisted thing."
The demonic sword grumbled.
Echi shifted, tossed her outer clothes aside, and lay flat. She was too lazy to remove her makeup. She got up and took it off anyway.
She changed into her pajamas, swapped her day gloves for plain silk ones, and settled back on the cot. Just before sleep took her, she asked:
"The accumulated killing intent... monsters won't do much to resolve it, will they."
[Better than nothing. But you know this already. The malice that makes me comes from the hatred between people. That's why, when the shell controlled you, it only hunted humans. So why are you asking something you already know?]
"Just thinking."
[Look, let's just kill Ian, yeah? One quick clean strike. You'll feel so much better, I promise—]
"Drop it and go to sleep."
[Tch.]
She closed her eyes. She had expected more vivid dreams after everything, but that night, her dream was faint and soft. She found herself in a grand banquet hall, bright with color, dancing with someone.
A wish that had never come true. In the place where reason went quiet, it bloomed anyway.
* * *
The state of White Raven Gorge was not good. Even before entering, something was wrong in the air, a pressure that had nothing to do with the weather.
From inside came muffled sounds: metal grinding on metal, something howling.
It was daytime, but the fog was heavy. A foul smell came with it.
"The fighting here must have been bad."
"They poured boiling oil, by the reports. Dying like that leaves a mark on a place. There'll be ghouls and skeletons everywhere. Redcaps too, probably."
Baraha answered her observation as they came to a halt at the gorge entrance. He gave her a light pat on the shoulder.
"Take care. Don't get separated from the Commander."
"Yes, Senior."
The force split: Commander Yurien took the right side, Giosa owner Teresa took the left. Vice-Commander Baron remained at camp with a small guard - which meant his squire, Baraha, stayed too.
He'll be alright... right?
In the original timeline, Baraha had died during this subjugation.
She still didn't know the exact cause. Only that it had happened on a stormy night, lightning and heavy rain. They were supposed to return before nightfall, so for today, at least, he should be safe.
She said goodbye to Baraha and moved to join the group gathering on the right side.
She had dressed in a black dress with a wide-brimmed feathered hat, not mourning-black but a deep, slightly purple-toned fabric that wouldn't show blood easily. Since the mission wasn't expected to be long, she carried only a small bag: jerky, water, a few tools. It was attached to a strap around her thigh, under her petticoat, rather than belted at the waist. A backup dagger was strapped to her other leg.
The uneven weight would have thrown off most people's balance. It hadn't bothered her in years.
With the sword simply held in hand, she looked less like a soldier and more like a noblewoman out for a walk with an accessory. Except the sword was far too cheap to serve as any kind of decoration.
Echi moved forward past the lingering stares.
At the front of the formation, Yurien was conferring with the other knights. She stopped a short distance back and waited.
When they finished, the knights dispersed to rejoin the formation.
Unlike the nervous glances from the squires and cadets, the formal knights showed little reaction to her attire. A few even seemed faintly amused.
Yurien looked at her face rather than her clothes. As he passed her, he said quietly:
"Don't stray."
It didn't require a response. He moved to the front of the assembled formation and turned to face them. The scattered hum of conversation died under his gaze.
"Most of the monsters inside the gorge are expected to be ghouls and skeletons. Redcaps may also appear - keep your eyes on the ground at all times. If you encounter a dullahan, squires and cadets are not to engage. Report to your assigned knight. If you exhaust your silver powder, resupply from your knight's provisional squire. If you sustain an injury, report to your knight and fall back to camp. No casualties. Questions?"
His voice was not particularly loud, but mana carried it through the formation. Cold and precise - like a blade that had already been drawn.
Without raising his voice, every knight was focused. Respect, reverence, readiness. He received all of it without acknowledgment.
No questions. No objections.
Yurien raised his right hand. On his palm, a golden sigil, the crest of the Holy Sword.
Above it, RanGiosa emerged. A seamless sword of single metal, hilt and blade continuous, laced with a faint golden pattern.
Forged long ago by a blacksmith who had used humanity's sense of justice as material and inscribed it with humanity's sense of duty.
Yurien grasped it. No battle cry, no chant. He simply held the Holy Sword, faced forward, and said quietly:
"The subjugation of White Raven Gorge begins."
The words landed as though spoken directly into each person's ear. The force split and poured into the gorge from both sides.
They pushed through the fog. The smell was immediate, rot and something older than rot. In the mist, shapes moved: bloated things dragging themselves upright, and skeletal figures with scraps of grey flesh still clinging to bone. Ghouls and skeletons.
The moment they caught the scent of the living, they let out sounds that were half-shriek and half-groan, and came.
Mana-charged swords cut through the fog in bright arcs. Each knight swept through the front line; squires finished what was left; cadets followed up at the edges. The standard formation of the Celestial Knights - every unit anchored to one Master Knight.
The ghouls and skeletons were numerous, but against a Master they were scarecrows. The advance was steady. No signs of crisis anywhere.
It was, in every meaningful sense, a subjugation.
Among them, Yurien stood apart. He had no support unit behind him. He didn't need one.
A general of an army stays protected at the rear. The Commander of the Celestial Knights was not that kind of Commander. He was a one-man army.
White mana traced the path of RanGiosa's blade. Anywhere the white mana touched, monsters dissolved into powder. Beautiful to look at. Devastating in practice.
Following behind him, Echi turned the sword's properties over in her memory. Mana amplification. Purification. Power that grew stronger against evil.
She had known about it from the outside - she had never been able to touch RanGiosa, not in the years before the reversal, because the Holy Sword did not accept a master who had committed evil deeds. She had carried it with her physically, unable to wield it, all through those years of gathering Giosa.
A sword she could never hold. The sword of the one person who had believed in her. The sword of the man she had killed.
She had carried it all that time - and what had been going through her mind?
'He's someone I can never reach. Just like RanGiosa, which would never let me hold it.'
With a quiet, bitter smile, Echi walked in Yurien's wake. As the only person behind him, with no rear unit assigned, she was more observer than participant. He was cutting through the enemy so completely there was nothing left for her to do. By her standards, it was entirely without difficulty.
'Without difficulty' was, of course, her standard and not theirs. Most of the knights who passed her - focused on their own units - managed to notice Echinacea as they did. And a single thought rose in most of them, wordless but unanimous.
'A monster found itself another monster.'