A Knight Who Eternally Regresses

The border city guarding the edge of the Demon Realm was called Thousand Brick.

A city whose walls were stacked with countless bricks.

It meant that Naurillia had constructed it with thousands of bricks to keep out the invasion of the Demon Realm.

Even for a place bordering the Demon Realm, what was happening right now inside the cradle of those bricks didn’t seem like something common.

“Hold the line!”

It was right in front of the outer wall. Soldiers were locked in fierce battle.

Above their heads flew harpies, while below, pitch-black hunting dog beasts rampaged.

Enkrid saw that the gate to the city known as Thousand Brick had been half-destroyed.

And this wasn’t even the gate facing the Demon Realm.

Among those holding the front lines, he spotted a familiar face.

Aisia.

She was smashing a lunging beast-dog’s skull with the flat of her blade.

It looked like a light swing, but the power behind it was that of a knight-candidate.

Thud, crack!

The beast's head shattered and rolled away. There were quite a few of them, but did it matter?

Aisia was a knight-candidate too. She calmly beat down and stabbed each black-furred beast-dog, occasionally glancing upward.

Above her, five harpies circled.

It wasn’t dangerous. They were holding proper formation, and if a knight-candidate could die from something like that, they didn’t deserve the title.

Still, just standing and watching felt foolish.

Enkrid stepped forward—he couldn’t just spectate.

It was only a matter of time before they finished off the monsters; speeding that up could only help.

“Rem. Dunbakel.”

“We warming up, are we?”

Even before being called, Rem dashed ahead. Dunbakel followed right after.

Enkrid called to them and sprinted forward as well. He dropped his backpack—burdensome with the beast threat—and only brought a throwing spear.

He pushed off with even pressure across the soles of his feet, using the movement technique he’d learned from Lua Gharne.

It was about strengthening the fundamentals so his center of gravity could shift in any direction at any time.

He felt the wind whip against his face as he ran, and looked up.

Above Aisia’s head, a harpy flapped its wings forward like arms. The way they stirred the air sent a jolt of warning through his senses.

Something unseen—but unmistakable.

Compressed air came slicing down like blades.

Aisia raised her shield to block it.

Clatterclangclack!

The wind blades shattered against her shield in a sharp burst.

A harpy casting spells? Enkrid thought as he kept running.

The harpy ascended higher. Out of blade range, and barely within the edge of a crossbow’s reach.

Unless you were a master archer, a clean hit would be near impossible.

There were five harpies in total.