“This side’s easier to deal with.”

The man muttered calmly.

At those words—

‘Easier...?’

‘Compared to what?’

A few of the knights had that question, but...

“An opening!”

...No one asked it.

A man who had butchered three knights in an instant.

He was clearly strong, of course.

And in those strange movements, there seemed to be a depth they couldn’t even imagine.

But even so—

‘An opening made by our brothers’ sacrifice...!’

Two knights attacked at the same time.

Forced to respond to that attack, the man’s body had a gap.

Three knights threw themselves in for that gap.

No matter how strong he was, no matter how uncanny his movements were, it was an attack that came at a timing that was physically impossible to answer.

A judgment befitting a noble’s knights who had lived through countless battles.

A desperate strike delivered in the best possible moment—

a moment they could be certain could not be improved upon, but...

Kang!!!

“What... is this...!?”

Unfortunately, that attack didn’t succeed.

It wasn’t that the knights’ judgment was wrong, or that the enemy had succeeded by ignoring even physical laws...

That wasn’t the reason.

[Assistant Chef]

“Our weapons...”

“Are flying through the air?”

Countless blades flying through the air blocked the knights’ attack.

Kang, kang!

“How annoying...!”

The knights swung their weapons, batting away the daggers that flew in through the air and surged toward him.

It was grotesque, the way the weapons moved as if they had wills of their own, but each individual strike wasn’t that strong.

The knights succeeded in intercepting most of the attacks.

But...

Pssht!

Just once, a blade cut into a body.

‘So what? It’s a light wound!’

To begin with, the blades flying through the air weren’t that large.

For knights who recovered from most wounds in an instant, a cut from a dagger like that wasn’t even treated as a wound.

Knights were beings with overwhelming regenerative power.

Those who had grown accustomed to fighting as knights often allowed light wounds ✧ NоvеIight ✧ (Original source) on purpose.

Trusting that regeneration, they gave up minor injuries and used the opening to counterattack and aim for a fatal blow.

“Die!!!”

This attack, too, was based on that judgment—give up a small hit, then aim for the enemy’s main body, that man.

A knight’s hand, gripping a weapon, swung toward the man, but...

Kang.

“...Huh?”

What the knight saw wasn’t the man being cut by the sword.

Thud—roll.

The weapon in the knight’s hand fell to the ground and rolled.

And only then did the knight realize it.

Shhhaaaak....

“N-no. No...!”

The small wound it had taken was on the forearm.

The cut from the blade was clearly shallow, but—

“M-my hand...!”

The poisonous energy that began spreading from that wound was melting the arm.

With the entire forearm melted away, the knight’s hand that had been gripping the weapon dropped to the ground.

Knights who inherited the blood of the nobles of night.

Their regenerative power was so strong that even if their neck was cut off, if it was quickly reattached, it would rejoin.

But despite that tremendous vitality—

Sssaaaak....

[Soul-Melting Poison - Nepenthes]

A wound from being lightly nicked by a dagger.

The decay that started from that tiny wound was overwhelming even that tremendous regenerative power.

“...Brothers!”

One of the knights who saw it shouted, face set as if a decision had been made.

“I’ll sacrifice myself and hold that one down, so you must finish it!!!”

Among the knights, one warrior stood out—

leather that looked especially tough, armor that looked absurdly thick, a huge brute.

With even its own death in mind, it threw itself in.

“Glory to our great master, Lord Rashir!!!”

No matter how powerful the enemy was, it was a knight with already-high defense, and regeneration on top of it.

If it accepted the attack and bound the enemy’s movement, then no matter how strong that one looked, the others would bring it down—

that was the judgment, but...

“Hm.”

The man who saw it slid a hand to the waist and drew a different blade, not the one he’d been using.

[Black Iron Chinese Knife]

A shape closer to an axe than a sword.

When that heavy blade swung from the man’s hand—

Crunch!!!

“Ghk...!”

It shattered thick armor and tough leather alike, splitting the monster’s body in half.

The knight, split in half, barely clung to life as it crawled across the ground.

“...An enemy you can’t answer by fighting one-on-one.”

When they witnessed that scene, there wasn’t a single knight left who looked down on that man. 𝓯𝓻𝓮𝙚𝙬𝓮𝙗𝒏𝙤𝒗𝙚𝙡.𝒄𝒐𝓶

The knights guarding the noble’s procession.

They acknowledged that man as stronger than themselves.

“Spread out and surround him!”

“Go at the same time!”

The knights scattered in all directions, formed a circular formation around the man, and swung their weapons simultaneously.

Then, the man who saw it slipped a hand into his clothes and pulled something out.

What was gripped in that hand was a small brown stick-like object.

[Elemental Cooking - Water]

The stick suddenly turned into liquid, and the man swung his hand, scattering it over the knights on one side.

“What...!?”

The knights who were about to swing their weapons couldn’t avoid that liquid.

Watching it fly toward them, the knights steeled themselves.

If it was something like the unknown poison that had been melting their comrades’ bodies—

even if their bodies melted away, they would not let go of the strength in the hands that swung their weapons...

A fierce will to endure even pain and death covered their minds, but—

[Force-Feeding]

[Combat rations steeped in a hero-grade chef’s devotion and thick defeat]

That will didn’t last long.

The moment the liquid touched the knights’ bodies and penetrated through the armor into the inside.

Thud....

“Ah, ahh....”

“We... can’t win....”

As if they’d been seized by deep despair, the knights suddenly lost all momentum.

Stomp!

The man stepped on the shoulders of the knights who had lost momentum and slipped out of the circular encirclement.

Then—

Crunch!

Crack...!

The attacks that had been swung toward the man at the center—

the knights couldn’t pull them back in time.

“...Brothers!”

“My god, what is this...!”

The blows they swung tore into bodies that were collapsing in the man’s place...

...into the bodies of knights collapsing under defeat.

And then.

An opening created by those large attacks.

The shock of having struck their own brothers with their own hands.

The opening created by that shock—

[Assistant Chef]

the weapons flying through the air, and the two blades in the man’s hands swept through them in crisscrossing arcs.

And then...

“...Strong.”

Those watching from afar muttered blankly.

***

“If what we’re feeling isn’t an illusion... those must be nobles’ knights too.”

“Was our Sir Knight... always that strong?”

Only a few minutes ago, the ghouls of this city had been getting massacred by those knights.

The unreal martial force their knight, the one who gave them orders, had shown—

the way it fought alone against knights who had been massacring them without a care—

left them overwhelmed.

...And then.

Even if the numbers were small—

“...You bastards!”

There were those who, though overwhelmed by the sight, didn’t stop at being overwhelmed.

“Our Sir Knight is fighting for us—are you going to just stand here and watch?!”

Only a few minutes ago, the ghoul that had nearly lost its life to the noble’s knight fighting over there—

Gwangil, the Viper Faction action leader.

It wiped away the tears it had shed in fear of death.

Even so, its eyes were still full of moisture.

Not from fear.

‘They’re just ghouls about to die... and yet it charges in against that many knights.’

The blood of ghouls had the habits of slavery engraved into it.

But that didn’t mean they had no emotions.

‘And... power that overwhelms even dozens of other knights.’

Because they were reborn as tools, they desperately wanted a master who would rule over them.

‘That person is the knight who rules us.’

And the greater that master was—

‘Our master...!’

the more joy they felt in being used...

and the more deeply they were moved by their master’s greatness.

“We’re joining too!”

Even if that master wasn’t their blood lord, their loyalty deepened.

“For our master of souls... Countess Ariella!!!”

And sometimes, they chose without hesitation even a choice that offered up their own lives.

Boom!

“...!?”

“Vermin...!”

Into the fight between a single man and many knights, the city’s ghouls joined in.

“Ghk...!”

Normally, ghouls were nothing to knights.

But with most of the knights focused on fighting that unknown man, when the ghouls joined in and aimed for those openings—

“Khk...!”

“Brother!”

Rashir’s knights fell behind.

The ghouls on the outskirts of the procession had long since been wiped out.

Even the knights who had been carrying out the massacre looked like they might be wiped out in vain—

and at that very moment.

Clap!

“I thought you looked a little interesting, so I’ve been watching.”

At the soft sound of applause, the fierce battle stopped.

Everyone on the battlefield looked toward where the clapping had come from.

Where their gazes landed was a blond man wearing a relaxed smile.

“You’d better stop there.”

From that man’s body, red mana was blooming up.

The ghouls who sensed the scent carried in that mana stopped their attacks on the knights.

‘A noble...!’

That mana—

was clear proof of a being with the authority to rule them, born as slaves.

A noble.

‘N-no.’

And

Gwangil, the Viper Faction action leader, looked to the side with trembling eyes.

‘No matter how strong our Sir Knight is...!’

There was no guarantee it could win against all those knights.

That was why it had joined the fight with other ghouls, even risking death.

No—maybe it might be possible to bring down all the knights that had been massacring them, alone.

But—

‘Over there....’

Gwangil had been a fairly strong awakened when it was alive.

Even if it had become a ghoul now, the senses it had as an awakened hadn’t vanished.

It looked toward the center of the procession.

Many knights had come out for this battle, but there were those who stood by the noble and did not join the fight.

The noble who clapped with a relaxed smile.

And beside that noble, those who stood firm, watching this place impassively.

The information engraved into a ghoul’s blood instinctively told it what they were.

‘Elite.’

Among the knights ruled by nobles, the best of the best.

Outstanding from the start, receiving a noble’s favor and being granted powerful strength...

beings that could be called a noble’s true fighting force.

It was said elite knights of high nobles sometimes received the title of a junior baron depending on their achievements.

Powerhouses standing on the border between noble and knight.

‘If they join... then even Sir Knight...’

With that thought, Gwangil tried to move its body, frozen stiff, somehow.

‘Damn it...!’

But no matter how much it ordered itself to move, the body had no intention of moving.

As it ground its teeth at its own powerlessness—

“You’d better stop. Who decided that?”

With that voice, the body that had been frozen stiff suddenly began moving again.

Only after hearing that voice could it realize one fact.

A being with the authority to rule them.

The noble wasn’t only that man.

***

“You’d better stop. Who decided that?”

A battlefield that had briefly calmed.

What appeared there was a woman with beautiful blond hair fluttering.

The noble who had just clapped and stopped the battle, a being like Rashir... one that radiated red mana.

“A noble barges into my territory, then decides to stop because it looks like the damage will grow? How shameless.”

Ariella.

Like one of the two people who ruled this space, she shouted boldly at the noble before her.

‘Ah.’

...Of course.

‘Why is a noble even in a place like this... after leaving the ghouls like that!’

Unlike the bold attitude she showed, inside, she was burning up.

The moment she realized another noble was approaching the city, she had immediately been preparing to leave the city in secrecy.

The ghouls in the city were nothing but tools.

Whether they were massacred or not didn’t matter to her at all.

‘Why did my master have to step in here...!’

...Until her master moved to stop that massacre.

‘It’s not like my master wouldn’t understand the situation.’

If that one noble was the enemy’s full force, it would be fine.

But the problem was that it wasn’t.

The noble in front of her was a noble of the Melchiorn Bloodline.

The moment it was discovered that a noble of Karshtein—hostile to that bloodline—was here, nobles of the same bloodline as that noble, nearby, would come swarming in with armies.

‘We can’t win. Absolutely not.’

No matter how impressive the forces Ariella possessed were, she had no confidence she could win against those nobles.

‘I don’t know why my master stepped in all of a sudden, but at this point....’

She wracked her brain as hard as she could over how to escape this place—

and if escape was impossible, whether there was any way to at least save her master’s life.

“You’re... a noble.”

“Hmph. Can’t you tell?”

Since she’d already been exposed.

Kill the noble in front of her as quickly as possible, then flee as far as she could before word of that one’s death spread, and hide.

After that...

even if she had to offer herself as a sacrifice, she would activate that transfer gate and let her master escape—

that was what she was desperately thinking when—

“What is your name?”

“...Hm?”

“I asked what your name is, lady.”

The noble in front of her spoke to her.

And at that voice, Ariella couldn’t help furrowing her brow.

“Ah, how rude of me. Asking another’s name without giving my own first.... I am Rashir.”

Unlike Ariella, who had been agonizing over how to kill him, the words coming from that noble’s mouth were—

“I’ve given my name, so may I ask yours?”

“......”

far too gentle, to the point it was almost absurd.