Behind my back, I heard the gate crash down.
With a heavy thud, the earth shuddered. Someone was shouting something on the other side, but the roar of the flames swallowed their voice. As I ran, I started to look back over my shoulder, but caught myself.
"...Leaving the bill to a kid. I've really gone soft."
It had been a gruesome sight. That boy had grabbed the smoldering, charred timber and the glowing, blackened iron with his bare hands.
No matter how many times I witnessed it, I could never get used to the smell of scorching human flesh or the sound of it sizzling. And I had let him do it of his own free will.
It didn't matter if he had an extraordinary mana capacity or if he could cast recovery magic at an unnatural speed. I had incurred a massive debt. That was the long and short of it.
"Still, that was some ridiculous strength."
It was a force so immense that even with the battalion commander and that maid pulling on him together, they couldn't pry him loose. Physical Enhancement. And an exceptionally potent surge of it, too.
Yet something about it had felt off. Judging by how he channeled his mana, he seemed accustomed to physical enhancement. But the way he carried himself was all wrong. The way he set his hips, the way he braced his footing... it looked like a raw recruit. Moving like that, he wouldn't amount to much swinging a sword.
"Well, he is a noble, after all."
Like His Excellency and Milady, nobles naturally possessed a high baseline of mana. When they picked up physical enhancement, they could sometimes unleash absurd amounts of power. That was likely all it was.
I started to wonder what might happen if he actually learned proper combat mechanics, but shook the thought away—I had to focus on the task right in front of me.
Glancing at Milady's profile as she ran beside me, I eased off my pace slightly.
"Milady."
"What?"
"In your current state, you can't go toe-to-toe with that giant."
She glared at me. Before she could snap, I pressed on.
"When I fought him head-on, the best I could manage was a scratch on his arm. If you try to trade blows with him, you'll probably go down in seconds."
"...So what, you expect me to just stand by and watch?!"
"Can you manage a single, all-out strike combining earth magic and physical enhancement?"
Milady fell silent.
"Milady."
"I've recovered a little, so I can... but only once."
"Once is all we need. The moment I open up a gap. Drive it home right then."
"...Fine. We do have a shot at winning this, right?"
"I wouldn't tell you to do it if we didn't. No offense, but you're easy to underestimate, Milady. You're tiny, after all. That bastard reeked of arrogance, so he'll look down on you and walk right into it. Think of it as a first-encounter trap."
Milady nodded, shooting me a resentful glare.
"I hate it, but fine. Make sure you do your part properly this time."
"Ouch, right where it hurts... On my honor as the vice leader of the Laufen Knight Order, I'll see this finished."
Rocks pressed in from both sides, abruptly narrowing the path. In the open clearing just before the bottleneck, people had ground to a halt.
The line was barely moving. It looked like those burdened with heavy baggage were clogging the passage ahead. Perhaps the fall of the fortress had broken their spirit, because even after spotting us, they prioritized fleeing over putting up a fight.
Standing at the very rear of that line was the giant warrior. Naturally, he carried no pack.
When he saw us, his expression curdled into a scowl.
"Impossible...?! You're already past that gate?!"
Then his eyes drifted to the girl beside me.
"If your only reinforcement is a slip of a girl, this is manageable..."
The man drew his blade and turned to face us.
"Now then, shall we start over?"
I drew my sword, closing the distance.
"Let's start with a proper greeting, then."
I charged in, letting fly a throwing knife. This was our second bout; I had a solid read on his abilities. He was undeniably skilled, but if he had a flaw, it was that his swordplay was too textbook, too clean.
As expected, he deflected the knife and parried my alternating slashes from left to right. But whether from the uneven footing or sheer fatigue, his edge wasn't quite as sharp as before. Besides...
"My, my. Looks like nobody patched up that arm yet, did they?"
The cloth wrapped around his left forearm was soaked a dark crimson from beneath the wraps. The bleeding hadn't stopped.
"Silence..."
I focused my assault relentlessly on his left side. Once, twice. I herded his movements, forcing him into a stance that guarded his injured arm. Even in this state, cutting him down alone would take time, but tough luck for him—I wasn't alone.
On the third exchange, I drove my weight forward, slashing across his torso from the right. The man leapt backward, maintaining the guard that favored his left side to reset his spacing.
I wasn't about to give him the chance.
"Now!"
A sudden gust whipped in from the flank.
Milady surged into the space I had vacated. The instant her boots hit the ground, the earth surged upward, locking her ankles in place.
The man's eyes darted from me to Milady. But they still carried that dismissive arrogance.
He raised his blade, bracing his stance.
"Die!"
Her halberd whipped through the air. Thanks to the reach advantage, it could strike home even from where I stood. In fact, it was the exact sweet spot where a polearm delivered its maximum crushing force.
The impact landed with a dull, heavy thud.
It was an indescribable noise, like a battering ram crashing into solid masonry. A split second later, his sword snapped in two.
The shattered blade spun through the air, embedding itself in the cliffside. The halberd's axe blade sheared straight through the man's torso and tore out the other side. As it exited, the broken sword struck the rock wall with a sharp, ringing clang.
The man stared down at his ruined weapon in dumbfounded horror.
The only reason his body hadn't been blasted backward was his sheer mass. He swayed on the spot, then collapsed heavily to his knees.
"Im... impossible..."
I rushed over and dropped to one knee beside him. He was still breathing, and I had a mountain of questions.
"Hey. Who hired you? Who the hell do you—"
"I..."
He wasn't listening. His eyes were glassy, no longer reflecting my face.
"A man like me... was not meant to die... in a place like this..."
"Hey."
"I was supposed to return to the Royal Capital... and then..."
With that, his breath gave out.
I heard him say "Royal Capital," but which Royal Capital, and whose pawn was he? I couldn't be certain from just that...
I rose and looked down at the corpse. Just ahead lay the mouth of the narrow trail, where the gap between the rocks was wide enough for only a single person.
While I had been trying to interrogate him, Milady had already slipped past.
The man closest to the entrance spun around in a panic. Laden with oversized packs for the mountain crossing, his movements were sluggish. An obvious grunt.
He managed to draw his sword and put up a guard, but Milady cut him down without breaking stride.
From there, it was purely routine work. The enemy's morale was nonexistent, and they had zero stamina left after the battle. Their mobility had been utterly crippled by their supplies. To begin with, none of them had any real combat skill. We pushed up the mountain path and rapidly overtook the head of the column. Within the cramped confines of the trail, Milady had naturally swapped her halberd for a scavenged sword, but even then, it was hardly a struggle.
Among the ranks we cut down were a few staff-bearers, but perhaps having spent all their mana setting the fortress ablaze, they didn't put up any resistance. Their combat ability was lower than the standard grunts. I kept one of them and a single foot soldier alive for questioning, starting with the staff-bearer.
"Why should I... in a backwater like this..."
"Who hired you?"
"...I don't know. I was approached in the Royal Capital. They gave no name. Only that they were acting on behalf of a certain esteemed figure."
"What was the job?"
"I was told to guard a private estate in the mountains. When I arrived, it was this disaster. This isn't what I was promised. I know nothing. Nothing—"
I let go of him. Next, I turned to the foot soldier.
"Whose troops are you?"
The man's lip curled into a sneer.
"Seltheim."
He probably figured he was dead either way.
"Who was that giant bringing up the rear?"
"Don't know."
"Like hell you don't."
"I really don't. He was just forced onto us from up top. They never even told us what he was here to do....He was an outsider."
My leads dried up faster than I'd hoped. Leaving a disgraced noble of a staff-bearer or an enemy grunt alive would only invite trouble if information leaked.
On the trek back down, our biggest problem was simply keeping our footing on the blood-slicked path.
Looking toward the fortress from below, the flames were finally dying down. We searched the bodies of the enemies we had brought down near the entrance.
As it turned out, any documents or orders had likely been reduced to ash, as none of them were carrying a thing.
That giant had likely held a fairly high status—someone serving a noble house as a member of the Royal Guard or a similar post.
"That guy's sword was far better than mine, and he had anti-toxin pills on him."
"Anti-toxin? Why would he carry something like that?"
"Probably precautions against assassination. Butlers, maids, and Royal Guards carry them sometimes. A hired recovery mage can patch up physical wounds, but finding someone who can purge poison is rare. A victim could easily die while people are scrambling to find an antidote, so they keep antitoxins on hand just in case. Though that still doesn't tell us who was pulling the strings."
Letting out a heavy sigh, I pushed myself to my feet.
Milady was staring down toward where the gate had been. The fire in the area had burned out enough that we could likely pass through shortly.
"...Hey, Lutz."
"Yeah?"
"Let's hurry back to Rein."
"Yeah, let's."
Having wrapped up the immediate problem, yet left with a bitter, lingering uncertainty, I started walking.