Catching sight from the corner of his eye that his master, Felice Loto Amelia, had her eyes tightly shut, Lucas Gisedore felt a swirl of conflicting emotions rise within him—relief, pity, and regret.
The Princess had harbored an extreme aversion to calling that forth. For that to grant her wish was synonymous with the loss of many lives.
There was a limit to what a mortal could handle. That was not a being meant to be controlled by the Princess, who belonged to the mere human race. That was precisely why her magical power alone fell utterly short, demanding the mana—the very wellspring of life—of others.
Of course, the price the Princess intended to offer would be her own mana.
However, Lucas and the residents of the Wind Cats had already secretly formed a pact with that behind her back. It stipulated that an equal, fixed amount of mana would be drawn from Lucas and all the Wind Cats. With this, the burden should not prove immediately fatal. In the first place, standing idly by would mean their total annihilation anyway. A risk of that degree was no longer a reason to hesitate.
The problem lay in their next course of action, but an escape for all of the Wind Cats was unrealistic. Even if it were possible, there was no place within this kingdom that would welcome wanted fugitives like them.
If so, there was only one path for the Princess to choose: send an emissary to Her Highness Rosemary and have this land declared as Her Highness's direct domain.
The only reason Count Ketzer could currently march his forces into this land of Eastend was that Her Highness Rosemary had yet to make an official declaration. Once that declaration was made, Count Ketzer's domain army would have no choice but to withdraw.
Naturally, if Her Highness Rosemary were to be defeated in the Throne Selection War, the ruler of this territory would geographically fall to Count Ketzer regardless.
Still, left as they were, the Wind Cats were doomed either way. If they became the subjects of Her Highness Rosemary, they would secure the right to survive for the four years of the Throne Selection War. There was no longer any room for choice.
Therefore, the Princess would command that to protect this land, while Lucas would run as her emissary to Her Highness Rosemary in the Akinashi Domain to convey her intent. From there, a personal letter declaring Her Highness Rosemary's dominion over Eastend would be dispatched to Count Ketzer and the royal capital, forcing his army to pull back. There was no other way.
If so, prioritizing the elimination of the scum before his eyes was paramount right now.
Caesar, the man whose left half of his face was horribly burned, pointed the tip of his greatsword at Lucas.
"Ever since you burned me, I've dreamed of tearing you limb from—"
He began to spout a long-winded speech. Lucas cut him off, raising his longsword and aiming the blade directly at Caesar.
"Caesar, I am rather busy at the moment. I wish to end this farce quickly. Come at me however you like."
He treated him like nothing more than a greenhorn knight who had only just enlisted in the order.
"You bastard!"
Just as expected, countless blood vessels bulged across Caesar's face as he bellowed in rage, prompting Lucas to let out a deep exhale.
Despite the passage of many years, this man seemed not to have grown in the slightest.
When quelling a rebellion on the frontier under government orders, Caesar had senselessly slaughtered a great number of innocent civilians. The unjustified killing of civilians was one of the order's few strict taboos. For violating it, Lucas had thoroughly beaten Caesar into the ground before the entire order. Afterwards, he had vanished from their ranks, but Lucas had never imagined they would cross blades in a place like this.
"This time, I shall not hesitate either. I will kill you for certain."
Spitting those words, Lucas honed his mind entirely for combat.
Caesar's greatsword swung down at an extraordinary speed aiming to cleave Lucas's skull in two, but Lucas dodged it with a slight shift of his center of gravity.
"It's useless!"
Along with Caesar's triumphant roar, a sharp pain shot through Lucas's left arm, which should have cleanly evaded the strike. Putting distance between himself and Caesar, Lucas looked down at his left arm to find it riddled with countless punctures.
"Hoh... Water magic, is it?"
He had likely compressed countless fine droplets of water and fired them from his sword at high velocity. This was a tactic favored by Geralt, who was a squad captain back then. It was an exceedingly vicious technique that slaughtered enemies regardless of whether or how they dodged.
"Yeah, I trained over and over after that just to kill you! Right now, I'm confident I can handle it even better than Geralt!"
Good grief, after over a decade of training, this was all he had to show for it? It seemed the outcome was already in sight.
"My, my, do you truly believe you've won simply by mimicking another?"
Shrugging his shoulders with a heavy sigh, Lucas posed the obvious question with a faint smile.
"Stop bluffing! Your left arm's gotta be useless by now. This is my win!"
"A single right arm is more than enough for the likes of you."
"Keep barking!"
As Caesar charged forward, Lucas kicked off the ground and leapt backward.
"Running won't save—"
Convinced of his victory, Caesar's face twisted in ecstatic frenzy as he lunged to pursue, but Lucas abruptly kicked off the ground with all his might straight toward him instead.
"Bwah?"
Letting out a foolish yelp, Caesar stumbled in surprise as Lucas casually brought his longsword crashing down upon him.
Though caught off-balance, Caesar managed to intercept Lucas's longsword with his greatsword, but—
"Gwaaahhh?!"
Suddenly, a raging blaze erupted from Lucas's longsword, engulfing Caesar's upper body entirely.
Screaming, Caesar tried to swat away the flames with his empty left hand as Lucas rushed in, slamming his longsword into him repeatedly.
Caesar desperately tried to parry with his greatsword, but it burst into flames, sending a blast of superheated wind howling outward.
"How foolish. That is a technique any idiot could think of. Unless your skill with the blade itself has improved, it is utterly meaningless."
Lucas slowly approached Caesar.
"W-Wait—"
He unleashed a relentless flurry of strikes. With every blow, flames and scorching gusts raged forth.
"S-St—"
Caesar seemed to be begging for his life, but Lucas continued to swing his blade without paying him any heed.
Finally, the blackened, charred corpse crashed heavily to the ground. At the same time, Lucas unleashed the Flame Ring he had been weaving.
In an instant, it incinerated not only the black scorpions that had been targeting the Princess and the Wind Cats, but also the clay binding their entire bodies.
Aiming the tip of his sword at the stubbled man in the navy robe—Ruby—Lucas declared his victory with firm resolve.
"The tables have turned."
The swift defeat of Caesar, an overwhelmingly powerful warrior, sent a shockwave of unrest through the surrounding soldiers. Amidst the height of that chaos—
"Good grief, in the end, I've got to step in myself? If it was gonna come to this, I should've just ignored that prideful blockhead from the start."
Rubbing the stubble on his chin, Ruby muttered to himself and pointed his right hand toward Caesar's corpse.
"Take one more step, and I will kill you. I will not pursue, so withdraw your troops and run away with your tail between your legs!"
Closing the distance to Ruby in a few strides, Lucas thrust his longsword at the man's throat, issuing a warning in a low voice.
If Ruby, a mage of considerable skill, were to flee this battlefield now, it would throw the soldiers into no small amount of disarray. Judging by their movements, most of them were likely hired mercenaries. They would hardly commit the folly of throwing their lives away for an inconsequential lord.
"Me, run away? That's a bad joke."
A chill ran down Lucas's spine, and he swept his blade in a horizontal slash to sever Ruby's neck, but—
"What?!"
Lucas's longsword halted mere inches from the face of a black skeleton clad in luxurious clerical vestments, which had materialized before his eyes in an instant.
Pierced by the red light glowing deep within its eye sockets, a shiver raced down his spine. In that fraction of a second, he kicked off the ground, putting distance between himself and the creature, and took up a stance with the Princess behind him.
"M-Monster..."
As if their survival instincts had been triggered by the appearance of the skeletal abomination, the soldiers surrounding the Wind Cats' cave slowly edged backward.
"Deimos Lich, it's our pact. Go ahead and take as much mana from these guys as you want. In exchange, play along with this farce."
Very well.
The moment a deep male voice echoed directly into their minds, the enemy soldiers collapsed to the ground one after another.
Furthermore, the skeletal monster raised its bony right hand.
Undeadification.
As it uttered those soul-chilling words, countless black masses manifested at the tip of its right hand.
The sight of those countless writhing masses made Lucas feel as though the blood throughout his entire body were flowing in reverse.
"Ket! Protect the Princess and the others!"
He roared from the depths of his throat. It was truly the nick of time. Lucas and his companions were enveloped in a transparent blue membrane, and the pitch-black bones that shot forth at blinding speed from the countless black masses weathered away into dust right before their eyes.
In stark contrast to Lucas's group, the countless black bones pierced through the chests of Caesar and the soldiers lying on the ground. In an instant, the bodies of Caesar and the soldiers turned a venomous hue.
"Now then, time for round two."
Ruby snapped his fingers, and the corpses of Caesar and the soldiers snapped upright with unnatural, violent jerks. Simultaneously, their entire bodies began to bulge and swell grotesquely.
In mere moments, what used to be Caesar and the soldiers had transformed into pale-skinned undead.
"Kill everyone except that woman."
With Ruby's command, the bell tolling the start of a new battle rang out.