Through the bio-radar, the white outlines appeared humanoid—similar in size to goblins or orcs—but with longer snouts and tails.

Strange creatures.

Unlike green-skins, they gave no battle cry.

Ratatatatat!

They simply crept forward in silence, bodies low to the ground.

“Approaching from the left! Roughly two hundred of them—distance four hundred!”

“Two hundred enemies, four hundred distance!”
Jo repeated my words.

“Armor up!”

The soldiers scrambled to pull on the armor they’d shed and raised their spears and shields.

“Well, not too late, at least. Of course, it would’ve been better not to take it off at all.”

Even Gaven had to admit their speed was impressive.

“Distance three hundred!”

Crackle!

I activated Neural Acceleration and Physical Reinforcement, finishing my own preparations.

“Sir.”

“Thank you.”

Jo had a soldier bring me a bundle of javelins.

“Distance two hundred!”

The tremors in the ground grew stronger.

They must’ve realized from our noise that we were ready for battle.

“Distance one-fifty!”

That was the beauty of the bio-radar—
it let me prepare before the enemy broke cover.

No chance of being ambushed.

Just before the unknown attackers burst from the brush—

Thudududududu!

“Ha…”

I raised a javelin.

Left foot forward, right back; twist the right foot as I throw, torque from waist to shoulder—

Thwack!

The javelin tore through the undergrowth and brush like a gunshot.

Leaves shredded into the air.

“Ghak!”

A creature the size of an orc fell with a hole the size of a fist through its chest.

“Distance one hundred! Prepare for melee!”

I kept throwing javelins, cutting down the orc-sized shapes one after another.

Thwack! Thwack! Thwack!

They couldn’t even see where the spears came from;
I, on the other hand, saw them clearly, guided by targeting corrections.

“Khak!?”

“Shk!”

“Kiiik!”

Before the vanguard could even show themselves, most were down.

“Kieeeh…!”

“Shhkk, shhkk…”

And the ones that finally burst out—
I didn’t need to see to know what they looked like.

Creatures with scales of various hues swung iron weapons, long tongues flicking between serrated teeth.

Vertical pupils darted ceaselessly, tails rigid with tension.

“Kobolds?”

“Kobolds and lizardmen!”

The smaller ones—kobolds, lizard-like humanoids.
The larger—lizardmen, built like upright alligators.

Unlike the spore-spawned green-skins, these reproduced by eggs.

But they shared the same taste for human flesh.

“Teams of three! Stab and kill!”

“They don’t die easily—target limbs, disable them!”

Jo and the senior soldiers shouted, forming the battle line.

Shields locked, they blocked the kobolds’ hand-axes.

Gaven stood idly watching me, the soldiers, and the scaled attackers alike.

Wham!

I kicked him forward into the middle of the formation.

“Kh—! S-sir!?”

“Endangering an evaluator is grounds for a penalty, isn’t it? Or am I wrong?”

“That… is correct.”

“Then I’m keeping you safe. No complaints, right? You won’t need a sword—just sit there and observe.”

“…?”

“Watch closely the strength of the men you’ve been mocking.”

If possible, I wanted to crush him here and now, silence him for good.

Can’t make him disappear outright—but I can earn enough merit that I can move freely, regardless of his reports.

I drew the Thunderclap Sword.

And invoked Endowment.

Wummmm—

The white blade glowed softly, black etchings sparking erratically.

Definitely better than my old weapon.

It drank current with no loss.

“Grrraaa!”

The massive lizardmen swung twin hammers and axes, trying to smash through the line.

“Raise shields! Brace for impact!”

Jo shouted, spears leveled.

The distance between me and the lizardmen: over thirty meters.

Thunderstep.

Rumble!

One leap erased it.

That rush—the way distant enemies grew huge in an instant—was always exhilarating.

“Ha!”

I brought the Thunderclap Sword down.

The white-hot blade split their scales open.

Shrrrkk!

“Kirrik!?”

Lizardman heads and limbs spun into the air.

Jo swallowed hard as he watched Kyrie fight.

A Blue Knight indeed.

It might not sound like proper reverence for a superior, but to ordinary men, watching a Blue Knight in combat, “rampaging” was the only word that fit.

Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!

With currents surging through Neural Acceleration and Physical Reinforcement, his movements reached the threshold of superhuman—
even Jo, trained as a soldier, could barely follow them.

Each thunderclap marked his movement, his body gliding across the ground—
sometimes leaping straight upward to butcher a lizardman midair.

“Graaa!”

One lizardman was speared under the chin; Kyrie rose seven meters with him before the upper and lower jaws split apart and the body fell.

Rumble!

Sometimes he dashed horizontally, spinning like a top.

The pure-white sword whirled, tracing a blinding disc nearly three meters wide,
and that disc shot forward over fifteen meters.

Shkkaaaak!

Everything in its path—kobolds, debris—was reduced to meat pulp.

Rumble!

“Take my spear!”

It didn’t matter how big or tough a lizardman was.

Crackle—crackle!

Through the eyes of a Blue Knight in Neural Acceleration, the enemy’s thrust looked deliberately slow.

Kyrie had strength enough to parry it lightly and cleave the wielder in half.

Even before the lizardman could complete its strike, Kyrie was already moving.

“Too slow!”

Slash!

He cut the creature’s throat and rushed ahead.

The lizardman collapsed only after Kyrie had already taken the heads of the next two.

Slash! Slash! Slash!

He carved through the kobold ranks, white lightning bursting from every step.

Even the soldiers could track him only by that flickering trail.

His zigzagging path cut across the entire enemy swarm, tearing it apart.

No army could stay composed when a single butcher rampaged through its heart.

“Hold formation—advance!”

“Advance!”

The Seventh Centuria moved in,
spears thrusting between shield gaps, pushing forward.

“Kieeeek!”

“Shhhk! Shhhhk!”

They slaughtered severed-wristed lizardmen and terrified kobolds with clean precision.

As a career soldier, Jo carried out the work flawlessly.

Within ten minutes, the once-fierce assault had been cut to a quarter, the rest fleeing.

“Looks about done.”

Kyrie steadied his breath at the front.

With his neat dark-blue hair and the patch over one eye, the Blue Knight looked almost classical—
especially with the massive lizardman corpse crushed beneath his boot.

Judging from the thickness of its scales, had it reached the line, the soldiers would’ve struggled to prevail.

Jo understood now—Kyrie was no ordinary Blue Knight.

A man whose blazing ambition met a storming heart, walking a path forever as bright as lightning.

So even witnessing that overwhelming dominance—
there was no sense of defeat in Jo, only admiration.

He would never be a Blue Knight—he had no Astreios blood, no innate lightning art.

Someday…

But if he kept training, perhaps he could become a squire, then a knight.
Then he might stand, at least at the edge of that superhuman world.

Status beyond gender, age, or birth.

Kyrie differed from all other Blue Knights—
merciless to enemies like a falling bolt, gentle to his men like a cloud.

Once he decided, he moved faster than anyone;
but he always took his time deciding.

Whether that calm made him strong, or his strength allowed such calm, no one could tell.

What was certain—he was strong.

Jo’s respect deepened even further.

“Sir.”

“Casualties?”

“None.”

“Dump the bodies along the patrol route. We don’t have time to bury them—just dispose of them properly.”

Kyrie sheathed the Thunderclap Sword and turned back.

“Rest for thirty minutes. Rotate scouts so each gets at least twenty minutes off. Jo, take off that quilted armor before you drop from heatstroke.”

Jo bowed gladly.

I watched as the soldiers hauled the kobold and lizardman corpses away, and sighed inwardly.

Not worth a single coin.

Alligator hide was expensive, yet lizardman scales fetched nothing. Why?

In this hot, damp place, morale would sour fast if I didn’t find something to reward them with.

A commander should show mercy to his men and courtesy to his superiors—
both required money.

During the greenskin subjugation, we’d stormed their lair and taken plenty of loot.
This time, we’d been ambushed; nothing to plunder.

Their weapons won’t even sell for pocket change.

As I pondered how to salvage spoils, Gaven approached.

“Your personal combat skills leave nothing to be criticized.”

“Nothing to be criticized, you say?”

“The fact that you made the troops form a square on open ground,
that you abandoned command mid-battle to fight yourself,
that you ordered rest in place afterward—all demerits.”

I doubted he spoke that way only to provoke me on Trisan’s orders.

No normal man could watch me cut down seventy beasts and still talk like this. He actually believes it.

I checked.

“Ever trained in electro-arts as a child?”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Never mind. Thought maybe you’d fried a few brain cells.”

“I hold the rank of Squire under Starseat Terminus. Questioning my cognition is equivalent to questioning his authority, is it not?”

“Believe whatever you want. Now—what’s this nonsense about the square formation being a demerit?”

“When forming ranks on open ground, you must first confirm whether the enemy group includes a shaman. One curse could wipe out the entire unit. That’s a basic rule.”

Apparently, his brain really was damaged.

“Then tell me—when twice our number charges out of nowhere, what should I have done instead?”

“That’s for you to figure out, sir. I’m only the evaluator.”

A critic without solutions.

I reminded myself that killing him would only please Trisan.

I’ll endure until I earn the Meteor Seat. Once I gain authority to move beyond the border, Terminus’s evaluations won’t matter.

After thirty minutes’ rest, we resumed our patrol.

“Hold.”

“Hold!”

Once again, shapes appeared on the bio-radar ahead.

“What is it, sir?”

“Shall we engage?”

“No. Wait.”

The outlines this time had neither snouts nor tails.

“I am Kyrie of House Astreios, Blue Knight of the Border Patrol Seventh Centuria! Identify yourself!”

I spurred my horse forward, shouting.

“Sir Knight?”

From the brush ahead, a figure crawled out—a woman.

“Please… help me! I beg you!”

Even at this distance, her body was covered in wounds both deep and shallow.

Chapter 22

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