'The location is at the harbor headquarters...'
Listening to my comrade's request for support, I stood at the highest point of a Balkanian battleship.
Whoooooosh...
I sensed the direction and strength of the wind coming from every side.
This was enough.
I could take to the skies as a knight once more.
Bang! Rat-tat-tat!
Enemy gunfire poured in from behind me. Every bullet struck the Spherical Aura Guard and scattered.
I threw my longsword at them.
Whoooosh!
The spinning blade tore through the Balkanian troops. The gunfire stopped, and I heard footsteps fleeing.
"..."
Breathing quietly at the railing, I formed a step out of mana.
Tap.
I stepped into empty air. With a crunch, I stamped down on it and leaped high.
...
The wind lifted my body just as it seemed about to plunge into the water. I converted mana into lift and settled into my flight path.
Wrapped in moonlight, I took flight.
Whoooooosh!
The sea churned beneath my flight, and I briefly opened my helmet's visor.
"..."
Right beside me, the moon filled the sky, clear of the clouds. Silver light scattered across the water. Between the rolling waves, burning warships drifted slowly like lanterns. The boundary between sky and sea seemed to have vanished, leaving the world as still as a single frame of film.
But I had no time to enjoy the view.
"Hold out as long as you can."
That was all I could say.
Knights were certainly powerful strategic weapons, but they weren't invincible.
On this continent, the term "superhuman" referred to anyone who wielded mana as their own physical strength. Naturally, there were superhumans other than knights.
The eastern Adversaries, Hailand's agents, and the Izenheim who hid strange abilities... No, that wasn't right.
Izenheim weren't even human to begin with, were they?
Anyway.
Knights were merely one form of superhuman raised to be weapons. Weapons of the battlefield whose very sense of self had been shaped through education, training, and repetition bordering on brainwashing.
The Empire's sword.
Whoooooosh!
Then was this opponent an Izenheim? Or a Balkanian superhuman?
Either way, I couldn't lose a member of Sentinel.
Of course, I couldn't prevent knights from dying forever. But I would always do everything I could to save even a single member of Sentinel.
Because Sentinel was my "foundation."
Because I had to become their faith.
Only then.
Only then...
* * *
...At the headquarters of Balkania's naval base.
To the soldiers, the knight appeared as little more than an afterimage.
A monster had dropped out of the darkness and cut down dozens of their comrades in an instant.
Swish! Crunch!
Soldiers were ground into chunks of meat. Hidden in the darkness, even the knight's outline was blurred. They couldn't tell where to aim.
"Shoot! Shoot! Shoot him!"
At the frantic shouts, everyone fired wildly, but the bullets bounced off a spherical barrier of mana. Soldiers fell with their fingers still on their triggers.
"Stop him!"
Their comrades were cut to pieces. Daggers struck officers between the eyes, killing them instantly.
"Stop him!"
Even so, the Balkanian soldiers fought desperately. One charged with an axe, while another tore an entire machine gun from its mount and fired wildly.
They all met the same end.
"Shoot! Shoot!"
A platoon was spraying him with machine-gun fire when their eyes met his.
"...H-he's coming."
The knight charged at them and swung his sword.
Clack!
Someone stopped his sword with a bare hand.
Scrrrunch!
The hand gripped the blade. Blood flowed, but the hand held firm.
Glaring at the knight's helmet, the man growled.
"Filthy imperial dogs!"
"..."
Had they imagined it? The knight's shoulders twitched faintly, as though he, too, was surprised.
"Major!"
The soldiers called out to him. He was a Balkanian major, newly recruited through the special intake for superhumans.
"Get out of here!"
The battle began at once. The knight stepped back and threw a dagger. It struck the major's shoulder, but he charged anyway.
Whoosh!
The knight swung again and again, but the major caught his blade every time.
"..."
His body was tough. Now his bare hands didn't bleed, and he moved as though he felt no pain.
Swiiiish!
The knight switched to thrusts. His slashes would only be caught.
Clang!
The mana-infused tip stopped against the man's forearm. It sounded as though it had struck steel.
Swish!
He was a strange creature.
He was clearly unarmed and unarmored, yet he seemed to block mana, or perhaps draw it into himself. The more the knight thrust at him, the faster he became rather than slowing down.
As though he were "eating" mana...
Clang! Clang!
An even fight. It certainly looked even. A Balkanian was holding back an imperial monster.
For us.
For our homeland!
"..."
One by one, the Balkanian soldiers rose to their feet.
Watching the major face the knight, watching their ally, they shouted.
"Kill him!"
They cried out in their homeland's language, their voices filled with bitterness, rage, and fear.
"Cut his head off! Cut it off!"
"That bastard killed Marco!"
There was no way they could help. They would probably only get in the way.
"Major!"
"Kill him!"
Covered in dust and blood, they cursed the Empire. Imperial dogs. Imperial butchers. Bastards who deserved to die.
Clang! Clang!
Amid them, one soldier looked down at his waist.
"..."
His face showed deep thought. Then he strapped a bag of explosives from the supply dump around his waist like a belt.
"Here."
He handed something to a fellow soldier. They took it without thinking, then flinched.
It was a detonator.
"H-hey! What are you doing?"
"We have to help. Are you going to let the major fight alone?"
Clang! Clang!
The knight wasn't a fool. Sooner or later, he would find a way to deal with his opponent. These were weapons raised for battle, after all.
"...What are you going to do with this?"
"Bullets get blocked anyway."
Mana stopped bullets. But if he clung to the knight and exploded, even if he was cut down just before reaching him, the explosives could still be detonated where he fell.
"No! Are you crazy?!"
"Why?"
He asked with a smile.
Somehow, he looked as though he had already accepted death.
"...Hey, Jacob."
The soldier called his name.
"Are you serious?"
Jacob frowned instead. He shrugged, as though embarrassed.
"Of course I'm serious. There's no time. Don't look at me like that. Weren't you the one who said I made you uneasy because I'm Izenheim?"
"..."
He really knew how to leave someone speechless.
"Lugani. Take it."
Jacob pressed the detonator into Lugani's hand.
The other soldiers, all the Balkanians there, watched him.
"In return..."
With a broad smile on his face, Jacob spoke one last time.
"...Stay alive. And don't forget."
His final request.
"What they're doing to our people..."
Then Jacob charged. He threw himself at the knight, who was still fighting the major.
The knight turned, and his swinging blade cut through Jacob's body, but...
"..."
Lugani gritted their teeth.
They pressed the detonation button.
Kabooooom!
The explosion engulfed the knight, and the major stepped back. The road cracked, and dust rose in a cloud.
Fssssss...!
When the blast of hot air pushed aside the thick haze, the knight was nowhere to be seen.
"There!"
Lugani pointed. The knight had been thrown far away. Very far away. He had crashed into the base of a tree on the hill behind the headquarters.
"...Move!"
The soldiers approached him. Half his helmet was broken. Blood flowed through the gap, and beneath it was a face.
A youthful face. Was he even past twenty?
"...How old are you?"
One soldier asked. The knight didn't answer.
He probably couldn't understand the Balkanian language.
"Why bother asking? You fucking bastard!"
Lugani raised their gun and aimed. Entrusted with a final request by the Izenheim, Jacob, they pulled the trigger instead of pressing a detonator.
"Die!"
Click.
The bolt jerked violently.
A jam.
The faulty guns so typical of the Balkanian military.
"...Ah, fuck, not again..."
At that moment, the knight rose and swung his sword.
Whoosh!
Lugani's head fell.
The other soldiers immediately opened fire together, but the Spherical Aura Guard deflected every bullet.
"No, how the hell...?"
The Spherical Aura Guard operated through the "core," not the knight. As long as mana remained in the core, it could deploy at any time.
To ordinary soldiers who didn't know that, he simply looked like a real monster.
"..."
But the knight was in poor condition. He was standing, yet he couldn't move.
His knee had given way.
"Stand back."
The major appeared behind them again. He walked forward with a half-scorched arm hanging at his side.
"I'll break his neck."
The knight raised his sword. The major charged him.
It could hardly be called a fight.
He easily blocked the knight's swing, then reached out and gripped his neck.
...
The major's head fell first.
There had been no mana. No warning.
Only the ring of steel passing through steel.
The mana-absorbing major's neck had been cut by the blade alone.
Rrrrrroll...
His head rolled across the ground and reached the Balkanian soldiers.
Whoooooosh!
Only then did the wind rage through. Brush, earth, and sky blurred together in its wake.
Whooooo...
Before long, the swirl of green and dust cleared, revealing another knight.
Moonlight washed over him amid the curling wind.
"..."
The soldiers stared blankly.
His helmet and suit were the same shape, but brilliant white mana shone from his longsword.
To them, he seemed like an entirely different creature.
Unlike anyone else, distinct from everyone, the noblest and most evil of beings.
Step.
He took one step toward the fallen knight.
The Balkanian soldiers took one step back.
Without a word, they all fled at once.
Maximilian glared at their retreating backs...
* * *
Shhhhhh...
Something swayed. My body moved with it, as though I were lying on something afloat.
Shhhhhhh...
Memories of long ago, of childhood, returned. The days when I shouted that I wanted to become a knight.
A mere commoner like you? How dare you?
Voices like those.
Rustle...
But at some point, their envy and jealousy had vanished. In their place, my belief that I could succeed through my own effort had grown.
All the changes of this age had begun with "him."
"..."
Ruin opened his eyes.
He felt peaceful. His mind was calm.
But his body hurt a little, and a groan escaped him before he could stop it.
"Ugh...?"
He was lying on an unfamiliar fishing boat. Someone sat leaning back on the deck.
"Ah...!"
Moonlight washed over the profile of the man gazing at the water.
Maximilian Ebenholtz.
Ruin hurriedly gathered his senses.
"...I'm sorry."
First, he blamed himself. He had ruined things through his own lack of ability. And despite that, he had called for support to save his life. I had dared to make someone else bear the burden of my own failure.
'So you wanted to live after all?'
Ruin waited for words like those.
But Maximilian merely asked a question, still gazing at the same sea.
"Are you all right?"
"...Yes."
It was a lie.
His knee still didn't feel like his own, but he couldn't say he was hurting in front of this man.
"...There was a problem with my drop."
It would have been easy if he had landed on the roof of the harbor headquarters as planned.
But the air currents had swept him off course, and he had landed on the ground, where he ended up fighting hundreds of soldiers.
"Don't make excuses."
Maximilian's words made Ruin shrink back a little.
"You don't have to."
But his voice had softened slightly. Did he truly mean that no excuse was needed?
Filled with shame, Ruin lowered his head.
"But if the operation went wrong because of me..."
"It doesn't matter."
Thump.
A wave struck the side of the boat. Swaying with the water, Ruin carefully raised his head.
A name he had heard long before joining Sentinel. A face he had always admired.
"...It doesn't matter at all."
The man nodded as though he truly meant it.
Looking at Ruin, he gave a faint smile.
"Even if it means we can't destroy the battleship we were sent after."
Moonlight suddenly settled over him.
"Even if the operation goes wrong."
His blond hair turned silver, and the outline of his profile stood out like a blade.
"We save our comrades."
At that moment, Ruin's eyes suddenly widened.
Maximilian.
Someone a knight could aspire to be. An example to follow.
His brilliant figure filled Ruin's eyes.
"That's what Sentinel is."
Maximilian spoke as he gazed out at the distant sea.
Perhaps he was reciting a belief he had long held.
"And that's who I am."
...At that moment, Ruin was certain. A realization bloomed like a flower.
"I see."
Maximilian.
I had become a knight looking up to him, and today, he had saved me.
His very existence was the reason for my admiration, the foundation of my life as a knight, and the meaning of the name Sentinel.
"..."
Ruin closed his eyes for a moment and clenched his fist.
A fire hotter than on any other day, at any other moment, rose within him.
Conviction and faith took shape.
He didn't know why.
Only one thing was clear.
For this man, I could stake my life.
That resolve alone welled up from the deepest part of his heart.