Inside the command tent at the main camp, Alan, who held overall command of the monster-subjugation army, felt a peculiar irritation.
He had been informed that Diana, who commanded the Gazard Knights, had withdrawn from the front lines without saying a word to him.
Could such a thing truly have happened?
Escorting and transporting the wounded was certainly an important duty.
However, assigning five hundred elite knights to the task was utterly absurd.
Diana was not so foolish that she would fail to understand that.
What in the world had happened?
Alan felt an inexplicable sense of foreboding, as though an invisible net were slowly closing around them.
The deputy commander had laughed and claimed that Diana had lost her nerve, but Alan knew better than anyone that she was not that kind of person.
If she were going to lose her courage now, she would never have volunteered to fight on the front lines in the first place.
Although he could not shake the strange sense that something was amiss, he hesitated to voice his suspicions aloud.
Unlike the knights of the Third Knight Order to which Alan belonged, the Royal Guard, commanded by Ulysses, Earl of Joseph and deputy commander of the expedition, was a unit composed exclusively of high-ranking nobles.
Their affiliation and chain of command were entirely different.
Alan had no intention of interfering in their affairs. However, whenever they spoke ill of Diana, even the normally solemn grand prince could not keep the contempt from his face.
Late that night, the crunch of leaves beneath someone’s feet snapped Alan awake.
No—that was not all.
There was a strange presence concealed beneath the sound of the wind.
A tense atmosphere hung in the air, as though someone nearby were holding their breath.
Alan quietly reached for the sword he had placed beside his bedroll.
When he strained his ears, he heard the faint clink of metal against metal.
—He was surrounded.
Realizing this instantly, Alan silently positioned himself beside the entrance to the tent.
An unmistakable tension radiated from those waiting outside.
“—Go!”
At the low, restrained command, the flap covering the entrance was swept violently aside.
Five knights rushed into the tent.
Alan did not recognize a single one of them—which meant they did not belong to the Third Knight Order.
Their gazes were fixed directly upon the place where Alan had been sleeping only moments before.
“He’s gone!”
“Where did he go?!”
Before they could raise their voices and search their surroundings, the point of a sword tore through the air.
“—Gwaah!”
One of the knights collapsed.
Another fell immediately afterward.
“He noticed us!”
“Everyone, move! He may be a former knight commander, but he is nothing to fear if we overwhelm him with numbers!”
A signal horn resounded throughout the command camp.
At the same moment, the clash of blades rang out from every corner of the front-line base.
Alan had no time to assess the situation.
More armed knights were converging upon him than anywhere else in the camp.
The blast of the horn, as though sweeping aside the darkness itself, reached Diana where she lay concealed in the bushes near the command camp.
Ian gave a quiet whistle beside her.
“Well, I’ll be damned. Something really did happen.”
“Now is hardly the time to say that. We’re going to Lord Alan immediately.”
“Understood.”
Diana and Ian had secretly repositioned the main body of the Gazard Knights and hidden near the command camp. The two of them immediately sprang into action.
Throughout the camp, knights of the Third Knight Order were being attacked by members of the Royal Guard.
Every member of the Third Knight Order was a seasoned warrior, but their allies’ sudden betrayal had left them more bewildered than prepared to fight back.
“Ian, support them!”
“Will you be all right, Milady?”
“I’ll be fine. I’m going to find Lord Alan.”
They had no time to consider whose orders the Royal Guard was following.
The members of the Third Knight Order served as Alan’s arms and legs. They were far too valuable to be allowed to die.
In her previous life, Alan had not been the only victim.
Numerous talented knights had also lost their lives.
If all of those men had been members of the Third Knight Order, a fierce anger welled within Diana toward whoever had devised this plot.
Those knights were important, but right now, there was someone she wanted to protect above all else.
The place where the greatest number of Royal Guards had gathered.
The very center of the ringing clash of steel.
There, she found him.
“—Lord Alan!”
The moment Diana spotted Alan, she thrust both hands forward and released her magic.
“What the—?!”
“Magic?!”
The blades wielded by the Royal Guards were stopped by a thick wall of ice that appeared before they could tear into Alan’s flesh.
Still holding his sword at the ready, Alan blinked at the shield of ice that had materialized to protect him.
“This is…”
Even in a kingdom as vast as Rutledge, only a handful of people could wield magic powerful enough to be useful in actual combat.
One woman’s magical abilities were so exceptional that she had been permitted to participate in the subjugation force despite her gender.
Among everyone taking part in the expedition, only Diana, commander of the Gazard Knights, could unleash ice magic on such a scale.
“Are you all right, Lord Alan?”
“Lady Diana…”
Diana restrained the attacking knights with blades of ice and ran toward Alan.
He had suffered several wounds, but his complexion remained healthy, and he still stood firmly upon his own two feet.
A relieved smile spread across Diana’s face.
“Thank goodness…”
“Lady Diana, why are you here…?”
Diana raised her magic-clad hands high above her head.
Spears of ice rained down around them, and glittering fragments shimmered in the darkness.
Standing at the heart of it all, Diana looked every bit like the goddess of the moon.
“I told you, didn’t I? I would protect you, Lord Alan!”
Diana’s mischievous smile possessed both youthful innocence and mature beauty, overflowing with the charm of a young woman who had only just come of age.
Alan, who should have been accustomed to beautiful noblewomen as a member of the royal family, could not help drawing a sharp breath.
“I knew the order was strange. You are not the sort of person who would have a subordinate deliver such a one-sided command.”
“The order… I see.”
Having finally understood why the Gazard Knights had left the front lines, Alan tightened his grip upon his sword.
“I owe you a considerable debt, Lady Diana.”
“Anything I do for you could never be considered a debt.”
Still wary of Diana’s magic, the Royal Guards continued to surround them.
“If you insist on repaying me, you may invite me on a date sometime.”
“That could hardly be called repayment.”
“Oh? Couldn’t it?”
What had been a one-against-many struggle became a battle in which the two stood back-to-back, guarding each other’s rear.
With his blind spot covered, there was nothing for Alan, a veteran of countless battles, to fear.
“Because I would be the one who wanted to ask you!”
“…I may take you at your word, you know?”
“You are welcome to.”
They carried on their lighthearted conversation as though they were seated together at a tea table.
Meanwhile, blood sprayed around them, and members of the Royal Guard collapsed in heaps.
“Please do take me seriously.”
Amid the battle, their gazes crossed for only an instant.
Yet even in that brief moment, Alan’s eyes looked directly into Diana’s.
Diana’s chest grew hot as her heart began to pound.
It was not merely the exhilaration of battle.
The instant she heard Alan’s words, her body temperature soared, and her heart clamored loudly within her chest.
More than anything, she had managed to reach Alan in his moment of peril.
She had prevented the bravest knight she knew from being lost to a wicked conspiracy.
That joy gradually welled up within her.
“…Let us discuss that after we return safely. For now, please do not lower your guard.”
Those words were also directed at herself.
Diana steadied her breathing to quiet her racing heart and focused upon the enemies before her.
“Understood.”
Alan also fixed his gaze upon the enemy, sword in hand.
After all, Alan was not the sort of man who would fall behind unless his enemies resorted to the cowardly tactic of attacking him in his sleep.
It did not take long for the Royal Guard’s rebellion to be suppressed.
“—Damn it, damn it, damn it!”
A horse and its rider raced through the dark night, fleeing the front-line base where the dust of battle still hung in the air.
The rider was Ulysses, Earl of Joseph—the expedition’s deputy commander and deputy captain of the Royal Guard.
“Why did that Gazard brat appear?! Her knight order was supposed to have withdrawn!”
“Sorry about that. Our Milady has always been rather wild.”
Before Earl Joseph could brace himself at the sound of the unexpected voice, a violent impact struck him.
Someone slashed at his horse, causing it to let out a shrill neigh and lose its balance.
The unfortunate Earl Joseph was thrown from the saddle and sent tumbling across the ground.
“Guh…”
He did not even have time to grimace in pain.
A blade came to rest firmly against his throat.
“Now then, I think we’ll have you confess everything.”
Ian’s cheerful laughter echoed through the darkness.
