Bonus chapter thanks to @raysid25 and @betterdays from Ko-fi!
Black monsters.
Sylvain had never fought them before, but just coming into contact with them made the monsters outside significantly stronger.
It’s easy to imagine how strong their main body would be. Would they continue to multiply and follow the monsters outside?
If that information turned out to be true.
“Then what do you suggest we do?”
Would it be possible to block all those enemies at once?
If flying monsters and black monsters entered the battle, and on top of that, if more than five times their current forces attacked, tactics would be meaningless against such overwhelming numbers.
However, the face of Frondier, who had delivered such shocking news, remained calm. No, there was even a hint of concern on that face.
He was worried about how Sylvain would take this news.
Sylvain, since when did you become so weak that you needed to be worried about by a boy like this?
“Frondier, do you have an idea? A solution to get us out of this situation?”
Frondier nodded slightly at the question. Sylvain couldn’t understand that natural movement at all.
“…You have a solution? How?”
“What I want to do isn’t that different from what you’ve been doing up until now, Commander.”
“What I’ve been doing?”
“Yes, taking down the enemy commander.”
At those words, a thin thread of hope appeared in Sylvain’s eyes.
That’s right. Initially when he saw those large numbers gathering, he predicted that the enemy had a commander. Then, as he moved upstream along the path the enemies were taking, he came across the message ‘Beware of ambush’ that Frondier had sent.
Such a large number of enemies couldn’t change locations easily. They would still be at the gathering spot.
“The reason those monsters are gathering is because they have a commander. No matter what means they’re using, something is pulling the strings to make those monsters outside move as one. Then we need to get rid of that cause.”
“…If one could destroy it.”
“They won’t be gathering, and even if a large number of monsters attack the barrier, we should be able to fend them off. It will take longer than last winter, though.”
Indeed. The monsters, not having organized themselves into a strategy, can be dealt with by the Roach Knight Order and the soldiers. If all the monsters don’t hit the barrier at once, there’s a chance for victory.
“Do you know their gathering place? The reason why they’re gathering?”
“Yes.”
“Good! Then I and the Roach Knight Order will head there straight away tomorrow.”
Sylvain’s face lit up. Until a moment ago, the situation seemed quite desperate, but now, with Frondier holding significant information, things might be resolved more easily than anticipated.
However, Frondier shook his head this time.
“The commander cannot go there. Neither can the entire Knight Order.”
“Why can’t we go?”
“The enemy would have noticed by now. Didn’t the commander and the Knight Order return without reaching the gathering place?”
Ah, Sylvain recalled that time. When they were cutting off the tails of the enemy and retracing their route.
“I don’t know if you’ll believe me, but there really was an ambush waiting there.”
“…I see. So, we didn’t fall into the ambush, but our movements were already anticipated.”
“Yes. So, from the next day, they will launch a total offensive. Making it impossible for the commander or the Knight Order to act separately.”
Sylvain couldn’t deny it.
The reason Sylvain and the Knight Order could move separately at that time was because they could gauge the enemy’s strength and the number of monsters based on the power of Enfer.
If the next wave of enemy troops is as massive as Frondier says, the Roach Knight Order too must exert all their strength to defend the barrier. If the barrier is breached, the enemy’s gathering place and everything else will become meaningless.
“If the commander and the Knight Order specialized in stealth or were an assassination squad, it might be a different story. But that’s not the case. You are the pillars of this barrier, an impenetrable iron wall that must never be breached.”
“…That’s true.”
“This is it,” he said decisively, “if we succeed we can save so many more lives.”
They were the elite personnel that would be crucial to the bulwark if they managed to reach the rallying point, but there was no way they’d make it while pretending to be regular folk.
It was then that Sylvain finally understood what Frondier was trying to say. Why he had come to him in this no-man’s-land of a place and brought this up.
“I’ll go.”
“Hmph!”
He knew Frondier would say this, but the reality of it all seemed to weigh heavily on him as he heard it come out of his mouth.
As some sort of good-for-nothing slacker, it seemed Frondier’s slacking off was something that, like Enfer had guessed, had been some sort of preparation. There was no way the Frondier he had heard rumors of would say something like this otherwise.
“You want me to help you get outside the barrier?”
“If you could just help me slip past the guards at the inn, that would be enough.”
Sylvain covered his eyes with his hand. He was overcome with darkness. Both physically, and mentally.
“…No can do.”
Sylvain had thought about it long and hard, but his answer was the same regardless.
Sylvain didn’t know a thing about Frondier. He was the only one who could fight without being a soldier or a knight, who didn’t participate in the battles. That’s about all he knew about him.
He thought Frondier’s suggestion had come from his position.
Frondier alone wouldn’t stand a chance against the countless enemies who had already gathered at their rally point.
Even if he could easily take care of the cause of the gathering, there’s no way the enemies would let him do so without a fight.
Plus, Frondier was the lord’s son.
Enfer had already told him in no uncertain terms that he wasn’t to participate in the battles, and while Sylvain could see that Frondier had some talent for combat, he was still too green. He wasn’t ready to go out there and fight those monstrosities.
It would be madness to send him out to go and challenge such a large group of monstrosities all by himself.
However, even aside from these petty details, the biggest reason was…
“You’re too young.”
“…”
No matter how strong Frondier was, no matter that he was the lord’s son.
In Sylvain’s eyes, Frondier was simply too young.
Sending a child who wasn’t even an adult out into the field just on some flimsy hope? No knight in their right mind would ever do that.
“If we succeed, we can save many more lives.”
“What’s your point?”
Sylvain’s voice deepened. He couldn’t just ignore what Frondier had said.
“To save many by sacrificing one. Such decisions are made by emperors. I didn’t become a knight to make such calculations. I didn’t become the leader of the knights to let a child die, to carry their lives on my shoulders.”
To sacrifice the few for the many. If Sylvain could have accepted that, he wouldn’t have become a knight.
“I became a knight to save children like you. That’s why I can’t send you.”