part0024

The Kalavinka Navy, the so-called key to the golden age of sea exploration for the kingdom, was helpless against the demon horde.

Tens of thousands of demons continued attacking the port.

The moment the sky demons started swooping toward them from the sky, the hussars under Zaask Kelvin vanquished all thoughts of holding the front line. They knew that their spears would be useless against flying enemies. All that they could do right now was retreat.

“Fall back!” roared Zaask Kelvin. “We’re retreating!”

With trained movements, the hussars maneuvered their horses and skillfully evaded the attacks coming from the sky. They spurred their mounts forward, and under the leadership of Zaask, retreated toward the duchy.

“Wait, brother!” shouted Kalavinka, his arms wrapped around his brother’s back as he rode the same mount. He looked back at the commodore’s fleet that had been desperately fighting against the parasitic demons until now. “We can’t just leave like this! The port! What will happen to the port!”

The boy sounded so desperate. Zaask Kelvin had not expected his little brother to be this adamantly against their retreat.

“Kalavinka,” said Zaask. “In situations like these, it’s fine to be a coward. You read the message delivered by the commodore, didn’t you?”

“But, brother! We still have several hundred hussars under your command! If we escape—”

“Stop being stubborn!” snarled Zaask. As he’d thought, despite his skills in naval warfare, his little brother was still a kid. A naïve one at that. Zaask said firmly, “We can’t turn back now. If we do, we’ll be wasting those men’s sacrifice.”

Kalavinka couldn’t find the words to refute that statement. Deep inside, he knew that his brother was right. Those men—they stalled for time despite knowing the fate awaiting them. The very thought squeezed Kalavinka’s heart.

“Luckily, the Lancaster Army is currently stationed in the Kelvin Duchy, thanks to the previous decree of His Majesty to support the navy. The other nobles will send their soldiers soon, all we need to do is wait. We should be safe there,” said Zaask. “Hold on tight. Never let go, no matter what.”

Kalavinka tightened his embrace on his brother’s back. The horses galloped in the direction of the duchy. Behind them, the parasitic demons desperately chased after the retreating hussars. Although the humanoid tentacled monsters were surprisingly fast, their speed was still not enough to catch up to the hussars’ mounts. The only real threat was the demons flying in the sky.

Dozens of sky demons swooped toward the retreating army, one after another. Like a hawk hunting its prey, they grabbed the hussars using their talons and lifted them toward the sky, never to be seen again.

“Aaah! H-Help me!”

“Shit! There’s too many of them!”

“Commander, your orders, please!”

Despite their skills as horsemen, the hussars were unable to evade all of the sky demon attacks . Although the hussars were feared on land, they’d never been trained on how to deal with attacks from the sky.

Zaask gnashed his teeth. He knew that at this rate, their army would be annihilated before they could even reach the duchy.

Should they make a small detachment to serve as a rear guard for their retreating army?

No, that would be suicide. It would be impossible for them to attract the attention of the whole flock.

As he was contemplating on his next move, the boy tightly embracing his back spoke.

“Brother, we should take a detour,” said Kalavinka. He almost bit his tongue while talking. Their mount continued to gallop on uneven ground.

“A detour?” said Zaask. He removed one hand from the rein, unsheathed his sword, and stabbed the sky demon that tried grabbing him from above. The sky demon shrieked, flapped its wings, and retreated to the sky.

“Yes!” said Kalavinka. “Instead of heading straight to the duchy, it’d be better to go north, toward the Leonard School instead.”

Unlike Lancaster Kelvin, who treated Kalavinka as a puppet, Zaask believed in the abilities of his little brother. He asked, “Leonard School? The territory of that grumpy old man?”

Leonard School was a martial arts school located in the territory of the former Baron Zacharia. Along with the Military Academy and the Magic Academy, it was one of the three most popular schools of the kingdom.

“There’s nothing but grassland from here all the way to the duchy,” pointed out Kalavinka. “But it’s different if we head a bit north, toward Viscount Zacharia’s territory. Now that we’ve outrun the land monsters, the only threat to our survival are those monsters in the sky. A forest—we need to enter one.”

Zaask finally understood what Kalavinka was trying to achieve from this detour. Indeed, they were extremely disadvantaged when dealing with the sky demons while running on grassland. They would be nothing but easy, moving targets until they arrived at the duchy. But things would be different if they entered a forest. Although the hussars would lose a lot of mobility if they entered the forest, the same could be said for the sky demons. This was definitely their best shot at survival.

Who would have known that this boy was also well-versed in battle on land?

“Hussars! We’ll shake off these damn monsters!” roared Zaask. “To the north! We’ll be entering the nearest forest!”

“Yes, Commander!”

For two hours, the small army continued moving north. During that time, more than a hundred hussars were killed by the sky demons. Despite their desperate struggle to fend off the attacks from the sky, the Zaask Army still suffered terrible losses.

Finally, they arrived at the nearest forest. A sea of pine trees located a couple of days away from Viscount Zacharia’s territory.

The sky demons flew past them, circled the forest for quite some time, and eventually stopped their chase. They screeched then flew back in the direction of the port.

The soldiers sighed in relief.

“White,” said Zaask. “Report.”

The vice commander of the army said in a dispirited voice, “A hundred and seventy-four men, Commander. We lost almost half of our hussars to the flying monsters.”

Zaask looked up at the sky, as though asking the heavens why this had happened now, of all times. Although their army was a lot smaller than Lancaster Kelvin’s, each of their members were handpicked elites. Losing almost half their soldiers was a terrible blow to their army.

Kalavinka lowered his head. He was the one who requested for the Zaask Army to be called all the way here from the duchy. “Big brother, I… I’m sorry. This happened because of me. If you didn’t call the hussars here…”

“What are you talking about?” Zaask placed his hand on top of Kalavinka’s head. “We would probably have been annihilated if you hadn’t suggested this detour to the forest. We should be thanking you instead, Kalavinka.”

“But I was the one who asked you to call all of these soldiers here…”

Zaask sighed. “Do we look like kids to you, Kalavinka? All of these men are veteran soldiers. None of them will blame you for what happened.”

Kalavinka looked at the soldiers. Indeed, he could not see hatred within the eyes of the hussars. Some of them were even looking at him with gratitude, for his suggestion to enter the forest.

“Although it appears that the sky monsters have retreated, it’ll do us no good to be complacent,” said Zaask. “Install several traps, just in case.”

Vice Commander White saluted. “Right away, Commander.”

“Gather the scouts. Split into two groups. I need you to send a message to the duchy and to His Majesty.”

“To His Majesty?” said the leader of the scouts. He knew that if word got out that they’d suffered such a terrible defeat against those monsters, the name of the House Kelvin would be smeared with mud. It was something Duke Kelvin would never allow, no matter what.

“The competition for the throne, the reputation of the House Kelvin. None of that matters right now,” said Zaask. His older brother, Lancaster Kelvin, would probably beat him up for this. “Your priority will be to inform the kingdom and the duchy of what transpired here today. Leave no details out. Do you understand?”

The leader of the scouts nodded. “I’ll make sure it reaches the king and the duchy. Please leave it to me, Commander!”

Zaask patted Mauro’s shoulder.

“Kalavinka, you’re going with the scouts to the capital. Get ready. You will be leaving in an hour.”

Zaask’s intuition was telling him this was the best course of action to take right now. For some strange reason, he wanted his little brother far away from here, no matter what.

The boy slowly nodded and no longer complained.

Zaask looked up at the sky. It was only a couple of hours before dusk. He decided to camp here tonight.

The next day, the Zaask Army left the forest and made their way to the duchy. They did not take the shortest route, in fear of being found by the monsters. A decision they regretted two days later, upon arriving at their city.

“W-What is this! What happened here?” Zaask shouted in utter fury. His eyes were wide as his body quivered from rage.

Dead bodies of residents littered the streets and almost half the city was burning. Slabs of stone, splintered wood, and dismembered human bodies were seen in all directions.

He could not believe it. In just a couple of days, the duchy had been overrun by monsters.

Zaask and his men despaired at this sight.

Their beloved city. Their home. Their families. Everything had been ravaged to the ground.

Zaask’s eyes swiveled left and right. Judging by the state of the corpses on the street and the direction they were facing, most of the residents were eaten alive on their way out of the city, probably by the sky monsters they’d encountered back then.

Men. Women. Children. Elderly. None of them had been spared by the monsters.

“C-Commander,” said White. “Over there!”

Looking in the direction the vice commander was pointing, Zaask saw several walking corpses heading toward them. Tentacles were squirming inside their mouths, their flesh rotting, their eyes hollowed. The same monsters they fought back at the port.

“How…” Zaask still couldn’t believe the tragedy that had befallen the duchy.

The Lancaster Army was supposedly stationed here. How had the city fallen in just days?

The parasitized humans roared. As though on cue, over a thousand tentacled humanoid monsters started unburrowing themselves from the ground. Hundreds of sky demons also started appearing in the sky, their screeches reverberating throughout the city.

“We’re surrounded,” muttered Zaask.

“Every path’s been blocked, Commander,” said White.

“Damn it. I thought we’d be safe as long as we reached the duchy!” snarled Zaask. “But, what’s this?”

As Zaask was scanning the battlefield for a way out, he noticed a familiar face among the parasitized humans. A muscular, middle-aged man wearing bloodstained armor. Half his face was scorched, and his left arm was missing.

“B-Brother?” breathed Zaask.

It was Lancaster Kelvin, without a doubt.

It seemed that Lancaster Kelvin had struggled until his last breath against these monsters. His expensive armor had been cut and dented, and a large portion of his body had been scorched by flames. A testament to how much fight he’d put up against these monsters.

And it was not just Lancaster.

Zaask’s former sword instructor. The head butler. The vice leader of the Lancaster Army. The leader of the city guards. The duke’s fifth son, Amphus Kelvin. The duke’s eleventh son, Sven Kelvin. Even Zaask’s daughter was among the parasitized humans.

“A-Amelia,” he called out to his daughter. The four-year-old girl looked alive, save for the tentacles squirming out of her mouth.

Zaask lost all will to fight back. He could not bring himself to raise his sword against these parasitized humans. Even if they’d been turned into monsters, they were still his family.

There must be a way to save them. A spell. A potion. The method did not matter.

The parasitized humans roared. The sky demons screeched. They charged toward the hussars.

Plagas, the Lord of Parasitic Demons, leisurely sat on the throne, at a room in the royal palace. It originally belonged to the King of Pirates. A man that had now become a high-ranking parasitic nest. A servant that would unquestioningly carry out all of the Lord of Parasitic Demon’s commands.

“I was hoping that there would be more exceptional humans like this one,” said Plagas as he fondly stroked the tentacles of the high-ranking nest next to him. Using the link binding him and a few handpicked parasitic demons, Plagas watched the battle in the Kelvin Duchy unfold.

“How boring.” Plagas rested his head on one of his tentacles.

The Immortal Demon had sent him and his tribe of parasitic demons to this realm for reconnaissance. According to the Demon Lord Barkuvara, during the Age of Magic, there existed humans capable of killing High Demons. Plagas’ task was to scout the Human Realm for such potential foe.

“If all of the humans are this weak, my tribe should be enough to conquer all of the human kingdoms,” said Plagas.

The strongest human he’d encountered so far was the King of Pirates. But even he couldn’t cut through the body of Plagas.

Plagas planned on going back to the Demon Realm later to report his findings to the Demon Lord.

“Oho! What’s this!”

Plagas stood up in excitement upon receiving the visual transmission from the parasitic demon he’d sent to the Empire.

“Another one! Another one!” squeaked Plagas.

A potential host for a high-ranking nest had appeared among the humans.

Unlike the kingdom, the Empire had been putting up a great fight against the demon horde. They’d even managed to shoot down a third of the sky demons sent to their nation.

Plagas strengthened the link connecting him to the parasitic demon currently located at the Empire’s soil. He shared its hearing, its vision.

“Prince Quinn! Please stop charging recklessly to the front lines!” A human, who seemed to be a military officer, shouted at the potential human host. The officer clicked his tongue. He said to his men, “Follow the prince! Guard him with your lives!”

The prince, along with his men, valiantly defended the city of the Empire. Thousands of imperial soldiers and magicians clashed against the parasitic demon horde.

Plagas squirmed excitedly as he watched.

This so-called prince was incredibly strong for a human. Even the general following behind him was also exceptional.

“Oho, I see… I see!” said Plagas.

He realized that the glaive currently used by the prince was a magic artifact. It seemed to be capable of nullifying magic at a certain radius. If used correctly, Plagas knew that weapon was capable of cutting even the body of a high demon.

“A maginus? How interesting. So, the knowledge of the Magic Empire still exists in this era. I need to report this to the Demon Lord Barkuvara.”

Bearing the strength and the weapon of the prince in mind, Plagas issued out a command to the parasitic demons and the sky demons currently attacking the Empire.

“Focus all of your attacks on that human,” he ordered. “No matter how strong he is, at the end of the day, he’s still a mere mortal.” Plagas grinned. “The so-called prince and his general. Bring their bodies to me, no matter what.”