LEGEND

Chapter 281

To the adventurers in Gilm, the pair of Rei and Set were considered abnormalities.

Gilm was a city in the Mireana Kingdom, where the most elite of adventurers gathered to venture into the frontier. In such a city, followed by an A rank monster, a Griffon, Rei had been the fastest person to reach C rank after registering with the guild.

He looked like an apprentice mage and had an arrogant attitude. Some of the more skilled adventurers didn’t like that.

But, his strength was overwhelming. His skills had been shown to the adventurers of Gilm so many times that they could no longer doubt it. As a warrior, Rei had the overwhelming strength and skill to handle such an unwieldy weapon like the Death Scythe to its fullest. Those that could feel magic power could sense the immense magic power that Rei had.

Such a person had arrived on the battlefield. Normally, Rei was someone who was difficult to get along with, but because they knew of his skill, all the adventurers from Gilm had their morale rise up without stopping.

Furthermore, the soldiers, knights and adventurers hired by other adventurers also had their morale rise after seeing the morale of the Gilm adventurers go up.

The vanguard of the Bestir Empire had bee gradually weakening and the fire whirl had continued to reduce their forces and morale. The confusion made it even harder for them prepare to intercept the Mireana Kingdom’s forces. No, rather, because the Mireana Kingdom’s army had made a pincer attack during the confusion, the confusion had only worsened instead of subsiding. In other words, Rei, with his overwhelming strength, had arrived at a time where even the Neutrals were at an advantage. There was no way that morale wouldn’t rise under those circumstances.

「Set-chan, Rei!」

Despite being on the battlefield, the soldiers of the Bestir Empire hesitated to do anything when confronted by that series of events. Scorching Wind took advantage of that as they slashed through the enemy while shooting arrows and using wind magic.

「It looks like things are okay here. ……Flying Slash!」

Rei glanced towards Milein’s party of three who were coming over as he threw out a Flying Slash.

That attack, flung out by the swinging blade of the Death Scythe, cut off the right hand of an adventurer thief, who was trying to stab Rei with his dagger, causing blood to spurt out.

「Gaaaahhh-!」

The adventurer screamed in pain as he held his bleeding right arm on the ground. However, in such a battlefield where angry cries and screams were everywhere, no one paid attention to him. ……The next moment, noticing the sound of something slicing through the air, Rei turned aside. At the same time, an arrow flew past where Rei’s head had been a moment before and pierced into the forehead of the adventurer who had been screaming with his right hand cut off, killing him instantly.

(If I didn’t avoid that, that arrow would have hit me……was that just a stray arrow?)

Had that arrow just been a stray arrow or had someone aimed and shot it at him? Rei wondered about it for a moment, but he didn’t have the time to worry about such things on the battlefield.

Keeping an eye on his surroundings……to be exact, with Set, the Griffon, using King’s Awe to hold back the soldiers, knights and adventurers from the Bestir Empire who tried to approach them, Rei called out to Milein.

「Did the messenger reach you?」

「Yes. We’ll take advantage of their confusion and destroy the enemy at once! With that, we’ll bring an end to this war.」

「That’s right. All we have to do now is to defeat the enemy and crush them further. That way, we’ll engrave fear into the Bestir Empire’s army as we destroy them.」

Rei swung the Death Scythe and cut a spear, belonging to a knight who made a sharp thrust at him, in half. The knight must have been too confident. He looked at his broken spear with stunned eyes as Rei grabbed the spear tip in the air and threw it back at him.

Although he was wearing a helmet designed for knights, it still couldn’t completely cover his face to allow him to breathe and see. That attack aimed for that gap.

「Won’t they lose anyway at this rate? Rei’s fire tornado is still going.」

Rei’s fire whirl. Those who were watching Rei, Set and Milein for an opening all reacted at those words. Their eyes widened on reflex when they gathered from the context that the kid in a robe who had fallen from the sky with a Griffon had been the one to create that hellish landscape.

Considering the damage the Bestir Empire’s army had taken from the fire whirl, that reaction was unavoidable. However, that was too big an opening to show in a battle.

Hyu-, hyu-, hyu-. The sound of multiple objects cutting through the air was heard. But unlike the previous time, Rei wasn’t particularly worried because he knew who was shooting the arrows as he poured magic power into the Shoes of Sleipnir.

「Shoes of Sleipnir, activate.」

At the same time, he dashed forward and jumped into the sky, passing over the heads of the Bestir Empire soldiers who had been facing him. Stepping through the air for several more steps, he leapt to the back of the enemy’s vanguard forces. As he confirmed that the people Ecryll’s arrows had hit had stopped moving, Rei swung out with his Death Scythe, creating a rain of blood as descended into the space where the people he had just killed once stood.

「Gurururu-!」

Seeing Rei go in, Set stayed back to support his allies.

「Eh? Wait, Set-chan!? Will Rei be okay by himself?」

「Gururu~」

Set gave a short cry in reply to Milein as he jupmed into the battlefield to do what he had to do.

Milein was dazed for a moment before immediately deciding that it must have been fine as she, Ecryll and Sulunin rushed into the battlefield.

The appearance of Rei……no, the Griffon, normally would have caused more confusion, but in this case, it actually calmed the enemy down. Those from the Bestir Empire’s army that saw Set gradually started to group up and resist.

It wasn’t all Set’s fault, but after this point, the Bestir Empire’s army, which had been suppressed up to this point, gradually consolidated themselves as they joined the battle.

Although the Bestir Empire’s army had started to put up organised resistance for unexpected reasons on the front lines, it was only limited to those who could see Set directly with their eyes. Closer to the centre of the vanguard, in other words, closer to the fire whirl, desperate commanders tried to control their soldiers as their soldiers tried to escape from the fire whirl.

And……it was in this confusion that Rei, who had been leaping through the air, came down upon.

Slash-!

The moment he landed, Rei struck out to the side. With just that attack, three knights lost their lives as they were bisected.

From that posture, Rei rotated the shaft in his hand and changed the direction of his scythe’s blade. Pulling his right foot back, he forcibly moved his body to make a full rotation. The adventurer that had been about to swing his sword at Rei met the same ending as the knights several seconds ago.

And since everyone in the surroundings were his enemies, Rei swung his Death Scythe without hesitation. The reason he had split with Set was so that he could make this situation possible. To Rei, the people in front of him were no longer humans, but enemies that had to be defeated.

The 2m blade of the Death Scythe was swung freely as it cut through blades. The shaft crushed bones as bodies were pierced by the butt of the shaft.

Dancing, dancing, dancing. Red flowers were scattered everywhere with 1 strike, 2 strikes, 3 strikes. Crimson flowers bloomed every time his blade struck.

He was a symbol of death, a dance of death leading to the underworld.

Crimson, Rei’s eventual title, was later sung of by a bard because of his penchant for using fire magic and his appearance after staining the surroundings with blood. There was no doubt that part of that title originated from the events here.

「Damn it, you monster! Great shield soldiers forward! Give us time to cast magic! Archers don’t stop firing arrows, restrain his movements as much as possible!」

「Captain, it’s dangerous! Our allies are behind him! If he avoids our attacks, they will hit our allies!」

Watching his allies cut down by Rei one after another, the man in charge of the unit shouted out. But, his lieutenant immediately opposed him.

However, the captain forcibly pulled his liuetenant over as he shouted.

「I know that! But there’s no way to stop that monster without going to such extremes, you understand!? If you think my plan is crazy, then you come up with a better one.」

But before he could finish his words, a strike from the Death Scythe cut through the captain’s neck, sending his head into the air.

「Captain……damn it, kill him, destroy that monster whatever the mea……ns……?」

As the lieutenant tried to give orders to his surroundings, he realised that there was no sound around him.

He looked around hastily, but all that he could see was red. Everyone around him had already been killed. Body parts, limbs and torsos were cut, crushed, destroyed and scattered across the ground. In addition to the red blood, a wide range of colours including the pink of flesh, the white of bones and bodily fluids from internal organs covered the ground. However, it was still the colour of the crimson liquid that had the biggest impact on the lieutenant.

「Ha, hahahaha……this is a lie right? You’re telling me all these people were killed in under a minute? This is just a nightmare, it’s just a nightmare……right? Tell me that!」

He couldn’t believe what he saw. He turned to look at Rei with empty eyes as he swung his sword towards him at what could only be called a dull speed.

There was no way such an attack could touch Rei and he simply leaned backwards to avoid it. The blade of the Death Scythe swung from below as it went towards the lieutenant’s waist.

「-!?」

Just as he was about to slash the lieutenant, Rei heard the sound of objects flying towards him as he reflexively brought the Death Scythe back with a large swing.

Kin-, kin-, kin- kin-, several metallic noises were heard in quick succession as four daggers were knocked to the ground.

「This is impossible!? You’re going to block every dagger thrown at this distance!?」

The man who had suddenly thrown four daggers at Rei from behind the lieutenant spoke in a stunned tone.

Next to him was a giant man, 2m tall, ready to swing his halberd at any time.

「……You’re adventurers?」

Their equipment was too good for volunteer soldiers. However, it was also not consistent from the perspective of a professional soldier or knight. Because of that, Rei guessed that they were adventurers who were active in the Bestir Empire.

「That’s correct. You might have fought one hell of a fight, but as long as we’re paid in this war, we can’t just keep getting beaten up. We might not win, but we’ll still resist.」

「……All we have to do is to buy some time. Fortunately, that fire tornado has already disappeared. If we can continue to hold out here, those who were thrown into confusion will be able to calm down and fight back. But first, we have to deal with this monster.」

As the giant man said, the fire whirl that had been raging until a little earlier had finally disappeared. It could be said that the damage it had caused to the Bestir Empire’s army was tremendous, but since the fire whirl that had dealt most of the damage had finally gone, the confusion had started to dissipate as the chain of command was restored and they were no longer suppressed by the Mireana Kingdom’s forces.

The man with the daggers replied with a sigh as he waited for Rei to reveal an opening.

「That’s true, but considering our current damage, there’s nothing more our vanguard can do. There’s a possibility of winning this battle if we can rejoin the main army and regroup, but do you he will let us do that? If we turn your back to such a monster, you can guess what will happen to us, right? I’ve noticed that all the vanguard soldiers who were running back to the main army were killed from behind, so I wouldn’t be surprised if something happened.」

「……But, he doesn’t seem to want to do that right now?」

「What?」

The man with the daggers finally noticed at his partner’s words. While they had been talking, they could have been attacked once or twice. As they were fighting a war, there was no need to wait for the other to stop talking. However, the monster standing before them hadn’t chased after them. Instead, he was looking at the sky with a frown. In the direction of the sky he was looking at, a Dragon Knight was heading straight for him.

If the Dragon Knight had been from the Bestir Empire, Rei would have struck first by throwing a spear. However, the Dragon Knight had come from the direction of headquarters where Daska and the other leaders were. In other words, the Dragon Knight was an ally.

Although his superior had told him to look for Rei by looking for his Griffon, it was truly a coincident that he had managed to find Rei, who was not fighting together with Set. Thankfully, the prominent space in the battlefield where Rei was standing was conspicuous enough to identify him.

Rei seemed like he was facing off against two enemies, but because his superior had said to contact Rei urgently, he landed his Wyvern behind Rei as he called out.

「The main camp seems to have been ambushed by the enemy. Rei-dono, you have to rescue the main army as soon as possible! Several other people are being sent to assist you, but you need to get there as fast as possible.」

Like that, another turning point appeared in the battle as Mireana Kingdom was pushing their one sided advance.