Graveyard of Knights.

It is a place without people, or, to be more precise, a place where people cannot exist.

Among the numerous monster realms in the world, the uninhabited zone located in the east of the Riant Kingdom receives special treatment. A zone of death that one cannot and should not set foot in. A place where monsters from bygone eras encroach upon human territory.

In Riant, the front lines are not limited to the borders.

“It’s strange…”
“It really is.”

The clopping sound of hooves echoed in the wasteland. The horses pulling the wagons shook their heads and snorted. Maxim agreed with Christine’s words and looked around the surroundings once more. The border of the uninhabited zone, as seen from horseback, was as desolate as a mountain after a wildfire.

The sky was filled with twilight, whether the sun had risen or set. The clouds were layered densely, adding to the ominousness. At some point, the scorched earth and the blazing sunlight disappeared, and an eerie chill that was hard to believe in early summer lingered.

A vast plain stretched out. Unfamiliar-shaped pebbles were scattered along the roadside, and bizarre rocks were arranged like statues throughout the plains. Weeds grew sporadically, but they silently withered, losing their green hue and donning a dull grayish-brown dye. Even the crows that would ordinarily be seen in such a landscape were nowhere to be found.

Despite still having a long way to go to reach the uninhabited zone, no living creature was seen on the land of this border region except for the procession of the Raven Knight Order. The wilderness leading to the uninhabited zone was quiet and eerie.

“Anyone coming here for the first time would say the same thing.”

Paola approached Maxim and Christine, riding his horse beside them. His rough and rugged appearance suited this wilderness quite well.

“Have you been to the uninhabited zone before, Senior?”

When Maxim asked, the corners of Paola’s mouth twitched. He looked like someone who couldn’t wait to speak. Realizing that he had unintentionally made a mistake, Maxim hurriedly tried to take back the words he had blurted out.

“Ah…if you haven’t…”
“Haven’t? Why wouldn’t I have been there? While actively serving as a soldier, I had been to this uninhabited zone.”

Paola began to unravel his story with the enthusiasm of a newly heated furnace.

“My visit dates back quite a while. I was still a mere foot soldier who hadn’t even received a knighthood at that time. It was during my youth.”

Paola started his heroic tale before Maxim could utter a word. Just then, Roberto, following a little behind them, began to show interest in Paola’s story.

“What is it, Uncle Paola? I’ve never heard this story before.”

When someone showed interest in his story, Paola grinned, revealing his teeth. Hot coals were thrown into the flame.

“That’s right, I’ve never told you this story before. Why don’t you listen to it now?”

Although his stories were excessively long, Paola was fundamentally a skilled storyteller. It meant that entertainment was guaranteed. Maxim resigned himself and decided to listen attentively to his story. Christine had been listening to Paola’s story from the beginning as if she had been interested from the start. When even Maxim turned his attention to him, Paola began skillfully hammering out the material, like pulling out a heated lump of metal from a furnace.

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

To Maxim’s ears, it sounded like Paola was confident that he could continue the story for two whole days with a single topic. It was an impressive ability.

“…Where should I start? Ah, yes. It was about two years before I became a knight, so it was near the end of my soldier life.”

Paola’s brow furrowed, and the corners of his mouth formed an arc. His eyes, filled with a vacant look, seemed to be gazing far into the horizon. His mouth opened again, his memory reaching back to the distant past.

“At that time, I wasn’t part of the royal army. I was an infantryman under Viscount Bendam. I had been recognized for my skills and had been promoted quite a bit, with a considerable amount of experience… I was brimming with confidence, feeling like I could make anyone kneel if I fought them.”

Paola let out a hearty laugh.

“Well, that’s not the important part. Following a requisition request from the royal family, I temporarily left the viscount’s territory. I embarked on a grand journey, crossing cities and mountain ranges without knowing anything. It was an order to gather the most outstanding soldiers and knights.”

Paola subtly inserted a bit of self-praise, but when no one reacted, he awkwardly scratched the back of his head.

“It wasn’t a simple procession of thirty people like now, but hundreds, perhaps even close to a thousand skilled individuals and knights joined along the way. At that time, we received a single order.”

Paola raised his hand and pointed to where the Raven Knight Order was heading.

“To subjugate the monsters encroaching upon the kingdom’s territory.”

Paola flicked his fingers up and down as if illustrating the horde of monsters beyond the horizon.

“How magnificent and romantic those words were. Young knights clattered their armor in anticipation of earning merits, and soldiers followed the knights filled with fighting spirit, admiring them.”

Roberto chuckled at Paola’s words.

“What? You admired the knights, Uncle?”
“You, lad, I was an exception. As a mere soldier, I had overflowing confidence and arrogance in my martial arts, so while I respected the knights and considered them my superiors, I never once thought their martial arts surpassed mine.”

He’s become much more humble now.

Maxim recalled Paola’s demeanor as he approached and spoke to him self-deprecatingly. Indeed, his current appearance seemed much more pleasant than an arrogant one piercing the sky.

“Anyway, the morale was sky-high with nearly a thousand such people gathered. We were able to reach our destination a day earlier than scheduled.”

Paola gently pulled the reins, slowing down the horse that was slightly ahead.

“We received a grand welcome from the stationed soldiers… But regardless of the welcome, we were immediately deployed to the field without even having time to recover from our fatigue. From that moment, I had a bad feeling.”

Paola boasted that he was the only one among his comrades who felt uneasy.

“We should have found it strange at least once why the knights guarding the eastern frontier, the kingdom’s pride, needed support. They had never requested support before.”

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

“The knights rode their horses, and the infantry walked. As we approached the uninhabited zone, the battlefield, from the frontier outpost, a smell we had never encountered began to waft, and a sound we had never heard before started to reach our ears.”

Paola raised the corners of his mouth.

“How long do you think it took for those high-spirited knights and soldiers, including myself, to shut their mouths and have their morale deflated? Even before reaching the battlefield, some soldiers were already completely overwhelmed. The clanking sound of armor had never sounded so different.”

The twilight was strangely prolonged. Maxim listened to Paola’s words while blankly staring at the unchanging length of his shadow.

“We walked and walked until we arrived. The cliff’s edge is the last piece of land that separates the uninhabited zone from Riant. And the sight we witnessed there… I can’t even call it shocking. How can I describe it so that you can understand…”
“It’s just a horde of monsters, isn’t it, Uncle?”

When Roberto spoke with a snort, Paola shook his head.

“It’s different from the monsters we used to exterminate as a pastime when we worked together, Roberto. Those were just pests that possessed mana and could harm people.”

Roberto frowned. But from Maxim’s perspective, Paola’s expression didn’t seem like he was putting on airs.

“The edge of the cliff is literally the end. As if the world is warning you that it’s the limit of how far you can go, the land just abruptly cuts off. So decisively, as if someone had sliced it with a sword.”

Paola brought his fingers together, then raised one hand and lowered the other, depicting the scenery of the cliff.

“We couldn’t directly see the bottom of the cliff. At that time, monsters were still crawling up the cliff and crossing over. Ogres, trolls, fenrirs, basilisks, mantises, hellhounds…”

The names of monsters that should have had different habitats were mixed together. Maxim couldn’t easily imagine that bizarre sight.

“Every single one of them had a chunk of flesh torn off somewhere, bleeding profusely, and missing a limb or two was common. The mantis I saw as soon as I arrived had its head ripped off, but it was still trying to approach, flailing its legs. No, it was moving much faster than the other monsters. Even while staggering and splattering transparent blood everywhere, it still brandished its menacing forelegs.”

Paola shuddered as he recalled that scene.

“Can you imagine how shocking it is to see a monster twice the height of a human walking towards you with its head severed, where it should have been attached? Now, the problem was that dozens of such monsters were swarming towards us.”

Maxim quietly listened to Paola’s words. Roberto also focused on Paola, unable to interject anymore.

“We wielded our weapons and drove away those monsters, killed them, without even having time to gather our senses. But the monsters’ desperation for survival, which enabled them to climb up that edge of the cliff to live… was truly terrible.”

Paola bitterly said that he never imagined someone would fall victim to a monster as soon as they arrived.

“When we arrived, the sun was high in the sky, but by the time we had driven away the monsters, it was already completely night. We cleared the corpses and gathered them together to burn them. One of the soldiers threw a torch down the cliff to illuminate the view. That’s when I could see the bottom of the cliff.”

Paola mimicked the action of throwing a torch.

“I only saw it briefly, but I still can’t forget that sight.”
“What did you see?”

Maxim asked Paola, who was clenching his fists tightly.

“The monsters trying to climb up the cliff were being eaten by other monsters, and those monsters were being eaten by yet other monsters.”

After Paola finished speaking, a period of silent marching followed. Roberto glanced around furtively and threw a question at Paola.

“So, in the end, what was the reason for sending so many knights and soldiers to support the uninhabited zone?”
“It’s usually crawling with monsters, but that day was particularly severe. It was as if all of them were running away from something.”

Paola’s eyebrows furrowed again.

“Something?”
“Behemoth.”

Behemoth, the mythical beast born with the fate to devour all existing life. Maxim doubted his ears at that name, which sounded like a joke. But Paola’s hardened face made it impossible to dare ask if his words were true.

“The horde of monsters fleeing from that monster caused the incident.”
“…What happened to that Behemoth?”

Roberto asked.

“It vaguely revealed itself from afar. And then disappeared again not long after. It may seem like an anticlimactic ending, but for us at that time, it was no different than the heavens sparing our lives once…”

Paola said that and muttered to himself, concluding the story.

“There have been a few times in my life when I have felt fear, and that was one of them.”

==

The smell of burning firewood wafted. Hazy smoke was rising into the sky in clumps. Unlike the night sky last seen in the Royal Capital, no stars were visible. Clouds had obscured the sky.

On the last night before arriving at the uninhabited zone, Maxim was keeping watch by the burning fire.

“He’s a really good storyteller.”

Maxim reflected on the story of the uninhabited zone that Paola had shared. Although the uninhabited zone might not be facing such a situation, it was a story sufficient to send shivers down a knight’s spine just by imagining it. A mantis charging without a head, a hellhound with severed legs, and the Behemoth. The story, devoid of any romanticism and presented in its raw form, left everyone who had listened to Paola unsettled.

Maxim held a long stick and pushed the protruding firewood back into the flames. The smell of burning wood. He didn’t call it a fragrance. The word was too stimulating to describe it as such.

Crackle, crackle.

The smell of firewood becomes better the longer it burns. The wood embracing the glowing flames lost its initial stiffness and fell. A rich and refreshing scent infused with hot smoke. Maxim loved those burning flames. Because watching the sparks fly like water droplets on gravel allowed him to erase many thoughts.

Rustle.

Maxim brought his dazed mind back to reality at the rustling sound. When he turned his head in the direction of the sound, he saw someone getting up from their spot and approaching.

Is it already time for the shift change?

Maxim put down the stick he was poking the firewood with and looked at the approaching replacement.

Ah.

“…”
“…”

The drowsy-looking replacement flinched upon seeing Maxim.

Maxim’s eyes met the eyes of the replacement, Theodora.