15. Forbidden and articles (1)

The reason why the no-man’s-land is called a no-man’s-land is very simple and clear.

Because it is a place where there are no people. To be more precise, it is because it is a place where no one can be.

Among the many demonic realms that exist in the world, the no-man’s land located in the eastern part of the kingdom of Liant receives special treatment. A zone of death where one cannot and should not step into. A place where monsters, a legacy of the past, invade human territory.

The front line in Liant is not only the border.

“It’s strange.”

“It is a strange place.”

The clank of horses’ hooves echoed across the wasteland. The horses leading the cart shook their heads and purred. Maxim agreed with Christine’s words and looked around once more. The border of the no-man’s land seen from the horseback was as desolate as looking at a mountain after a forest fire.

A sky filled with only twilight, not knowing whether the sun has risen or set. The clouds were layer after layer, adding to the ominousness. The heated ground and the bright sunlight suddenly disappeared at some point, and a bleak chill, unbelievable that it was early summer, lingered.

A wide plain stretched out. New-looking stones were rolling along the roadside, and strange rocks were placed all over the plain like statues. Weeds were growing sparsely, but they were sleeping peacefully, covered with grayish-brown dye that had lost its blue color. Not a single crow could be seen in a landscape like this.

Although there was still a long way to go to the no-man’s land, there was nothing alive in the borderland except for the procession of the Knights of the Ravens. The wilderness leading to no man’s land was quiet and eerie.

“Everyone who comes here for the first time says that.”

Paola rode up beside Maxime and Christine. That rough and formidable impression suited this wilderness well.

“Have you ever been to a no-man’s land?”

When Maxim asked, Paola’s lips twitched. It was like a person who couldn’t speak. Maxim, realizing what mistake he had inadvertently made, tried to pick up the words he had hurriedly spit out.

“Ah… if you don’t have…”

“Why not? I came to this no-man’s land when I was in the middle of rolling my body as a soldier.”

Paola began to tell her story with enthusiasm, like a hot furnace.

“When I’m in no man’s land, I have to go back some time. At that time, I was just a soldier who hadn’t even been knighted yet. I was young.”

Paola began her saga before Maxim could say anything. Roberto, who happened to be following them slightly behind them, began to show interest in Paola’s words.

“What is it, Uncle Paola? It’s something I’ve never heard before.”

Paola smirked when anyone showed interest in her story. It was as if a bellows had been applied to Paola’s speech.

“Yeah, I never told you either. Would you like to hear it now?”

Even if the story is overly long, basically Paola was a good storyteller. Fun was guaranteed. Maxim gave up and decided to pay close attention to Paola’s story. Christine had been listening to Paola’s story as if she had been interested from the beginning, and when Maxim turned her attention to herself, Paola took out the material like a hot iron from a furnace and began hammering it tastefully.

“I still have two days to go to my destination, so if you listen to my story, you won’t be bored.”

It sounded in Maxim’s ears with confidence that he could continue talking about the same subject for two days. It was a great ability.

“…Where to start, yes. It happened about two years before I became a knight, that is, at the end of my military career.”

Paola’s eyebrows furrowed, and the corners of her mouth drew an arc. Those eyes with a look of dazed look seemed to be looking at the horizon in the distance. Paola’s mouth opened again as she recalled the distant past.

“At that time, I was not part of the Royal Army. He was an infantryman under the command of the Marquis of Bentham, but his skills were recognized and he was promoted quite a bit, and he had plenty of time to accumulate… It seemed that if he fought with his confidence piercing the sky, anyone would be able to kneel.”

Paola let out a wide laugh.

“Well, that’s not what matters. At the request of the royal family, I left the Marquis’s estate for a while, and followed the large boat through the city and across the mountains without knowing anything. There was an order to send the best soldiers and knights.”

Paola, who subtly inserted her boasting, shamelessly scratched the back of her head when no one responded.

“Not a trivial procession of 30 like now, but hundreds, maybe thousands of talented people, with knights joining in the middle. Then we received only one order.”

Paola raised her hand to indicate where the Jackdaw Knights were advancing.

“Hey, subdue the monsters who invade the territory of the kingdom without knowing the subject.”

As if drawing a group of monsters over the horizon, Paola wiggled her fingers up and down.

“How wonderful and full of romance that is. The young knights dropped their armor thinking of raising their majors, and the soldiers followed and admired the knights full of fighting spirit.”

Roberto chuckled at Paola’s words.

“No, did you say that the old man admired the knight?”

“Man, I was an exception. Even though I respected the knights and regarded them as superiors, I never thought that their martial arts were superior to mine.”

It’s a lot more harmful now.

Maxim humbled himself and reflected on the image of Paola who had been talking to him. Certainly, it looked much better now than when arrogance pierced the sky.

“Anyway, with close to a thousand people like that, how high the morale must have been. We were able to arrive a day earlier than our scheduled arrival.”

Paola pulled the reins weakly and slightly slowed the horse ahead.

“We received a great welcome from the soldiers stationed there… But apart from the welcome, we were immediately put into the field without even having time to relax. From then on, somehow I didn’t feel good.”

Paola boasted that of all her colleagues, she was the only one who felt uneasy.

“We should have thought at least once that it was strange, but why the kingdom’s proud eastern border knights needed support. They never said they needed support.”

Paola’s voice lowered, as if a nanny was telling a frightening story to a child.

“The knights rode horses, and the foot soldiers walked. As we approached the no-man’s land from the frontier garrison, I smelled a smell I had never smelled in my life, and began to hear sounds I had never heard in my life.”

Paola raised an eyebrow.

“How long do you think it took for the spirited knights and soldiers, including me, to shut their mouths and lose momentum? Even before reaching the battlefield, some soldiers were already completely depressed. I bet you’ve never heard armor clank so differently.”

The twilight lasted a strangely long time. Maxim looked down at the unchanging length of the shadow and listened to Paola’s words.

“Walking, walking, we have arrived. The cliff at the end, the land mass at the end, that divides the no-man’s land and Liant. And the sights I saw there… I can’t even call it shocking. Can you understand what I have to say?”

“Anyway, isn’t it a group of monsters, mister?”

When Roberto snorted, Paola shook her head.

“It’s different from the monsters we used to fight as a pastime when we worked together, Roberto. Aren’t they just seawater that contains mana and can harm people?”

Roberto frowned. However, the look on Paola’s face that Maxim saw was not pretentious.

“The cliff at the end is literally the end. As if the world is warning you that that is the limit you can go to, the land is just cut off. I snapped firmly enough to wonder who really cut it with a knife. I mean.”

Paola drew the cliff landscape with her fingers facing each other, one hand raised and the other lowered.

“I couldn’t see right down the cliff. Even back then, monsters were climbing up the cliff and climbing over. Ogre, Troll, Fenrir, Basilisk, Mantis, Hellhound…”

The names of monsters that should have different habitats were mixed up. Maxim could not easily imagine the strange sight.

“It was normal for everything to have had a piece of flesh ripped off, bleed profusely, and missing a limb. As soon as I got there, I saw Mantis, even though his head had been torn off, he was struggling with his legs and trying to come forward. No, it was moving much faster than other monsters. Even waving those menacing paws. While scattering transparent blood.”

Paola shuddered as she remembered the sight.

“You guys don’t know how shocking it is to see a monster that’s twice as tall as a human being, walking aimlessly forward with its head cut off. The problem now is that dozens of such monsters were coming.”

Maxim quietly listened to Paola’s words. Roberto stopped interfering and focused on Paola.

“We didn’t even come to our senses and swung our weapons to drive out and kill those monsters. However, the desire for survival of the monsters who were able to climb the cliff at the end to survive was… very terrible.”

Paola said bitterly that she could never have imagined that someone would be attacked by a monster as soon as she arrived.

“When we arrived, the sun was in mid-heaven, but when we drove out the monsters, it was already completely night. We removed the bodies, gathered them together, and transported them for burning. At that time, I could see the bottom of the cliff. One of the soldiers there threw a torch down the cliff, illuminating the view.”

Paola pretended to throw a torch.

“I saw it briefly, but I still cannot forget the sight.”

“What did you see?”

Maxim asked Paola, who was clenching her fists.

“The monster trying to climb the cliff was eaten by another monster, and that monster was being eaten by another monster.”

After Paola’s words, a silent march continued for a while. Roberto took a sneaky look and asked Paola a question.

“So, in the end, why did so many knights and soldiers go to the no-man’s-land to support?”

“It’s usually infested with monsters, but that day was particularly bad. It was as if all of them were running from something.”

Paola’s eyebrows furrowed again.

“Something?”

“Behemoth.”

Behemoth, a mythological monster born destined to devour all life in existence. Maxim doubted his ears at the name that sounded like a joke. But Paola’s hardened face did not dare to ask if it was true.

“The group of monsters running away from that monster made the messenger at that time.”

“…what happened to that Behemoth?”

Roberto asked.

“It was looming in the distance. And then, not long after, it disappeared again. It may seem like an empty ending, but for us at that time, it was as if Heaven saved our lives once…”

Paola finished the story with a muttering as if talking to herself.

“I’ve never felt afraid in my life, and I’m sure that counts for that.”

—

It smelled of burning firewood. Clouds of smoke were rising into the sky. Unlike the night sky last seen in the royal capital, no stars were visible. Clouds covered the sky.

On the last night before arriving in the no-man’s-land, Maxim was keeping watch over a blazing fire.

“You talk really well.”

Maxim thought back to the story of the No Man’s Land that Paola had told him. No man’s land wouldn’t have faced such a situation right away, but just imagining it was enough to send chills down the knight’s spine. Mantis running without a head, Hellhound with severed legs, and Behemoth. The raw story without any romance made everyone who was listening to Paola feel at ease.

Maxim held up a long stick and shoved the sticking stick back into the fire. smell of burning wood. Maxim did not call it incense. The word fragrance was too irritating to describe it.

Tatak, Tadak.

The smell of firewood gets better the longer it burns. The tree, embracing the red flames, lost its initial stiffness and became generous. A rich, fresh scent with hot smoke. Maxim loved that burning flame. It was because seeing sparks splashing like water droplets on pebbles could erase many thoughts.

rustle.

The rustling noise brought Maxim back to reality. I turned my head in the direction of the sound and saw someone standing up and approaching me.

Is it shift time already?

Maxim put down the firewood stick and saw the shift attendant approaching.

oh

“…”

“…”

The shift attendant, who was rubbing his eyes as if sleepy, shuddered when he saw Maxim.

Maxim’s eyes met those of the shift attendant, Theodora.