Return of the Apocalypse Knight

Chapter 10: Party Annihilation

Everything was fine until we crossed what looked like a military demarcation line.

Even after crossing the line, there was no indication that it was a minefield.

Of course, most of the minefields in the DMZ (demilitarized zone) were unmarked and unconfirmed minefields.

In any case, none of them expected there to be mines there until the moment the mine went off.

Even I, let alone the rest of the party, barely noticed the mine until just before it went off.

Neither the wizard’s magic nor the knight’s senses could find the mine, which had been buried for a long time.

And it wasn’t just one mine.

As time passed, did the landmines that had been spread in the past gather in one place?

-Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

The explosions began in the center of the group and reached the feet of the elf in the front, as well as the Glitter Knight and the Wizard.

The four explosions, like dozens of fireballs, reached Hoffman and I, who were chasing the group from behind.

“Shit!”

I curled myself into a ball, pulling Hoffman down with me.

At the same time, I desperately raised my mana.

-Thud, thud, thud.

With a bang, flame and shock slammed into my armor and the mana wrapped around me.

I’d been careful, and I’d wrapped as much mana as I could around myself as the explosion hit, but the impact was no small one.

The pressure of the blast and the shrapnel that followed dented my armor and my mana was rumbling.

-WOOOOOOOOO

My ears were deafening and the world was shaking.

Even if several mines had exploded simultaneously, the blast was too powerful.

As I fought off the shrapnel, I felt pain in various parts of my body. I had multiple wounds.

At least I stayed awake until the explosion was over.

-Kukkukkuk.

The dust that rose with the explosion settled quickly.

When the dust settled, a shiny knight stood alone where the explosion had occurred.

Perhaps he was a better knight than I thought.

I hadn’t expected him to survive the explosion.

I admired his determination, but I could only feel sorry for him.

The Shiny Knight was standing on one foot.

Compared to the others caught in the explosion, however, he was one of the few remaining intact.

The armorless elf mangled upper body lay on the ground, and our battle mage lay on the ground with holes all over his body.

Fortunately, Hoffman, whom I pulled to his feet, looked like he could be cured with a potion.

“Somehow, I knew it was time for a potion.”

Hoffman was bleeding profusely but happy to see me, so I reached into my bag and pulled out a potion and drank it.

It took a while for the potion to take effect, but Hoffman’s expression immediately softened, so much for the war-weary potion addict.

He was a common warrior, marinated in the pleasure of numbing pain.

At least potions, unlike drugs, don’t have the same withdrawal symptoms.

I left the addict behind and headed for the mine.

There was no danger of stepping on a mine since it had already been detonated, but I still approached the explosive core with caution.

As I approached, I realized that all three of them were still alive.

Leopold, with one of his legs blown off and his entire armor shattered, the wizard, with a gaping hole in his body, and the elf, with only his upper body left.

Of course, everyone was just alive.

“Kuluk, that looks like alchemical gunpowder…….How can gunpowder used in fireworks be so powerful?”

The wizard was spitting blood from his mouth, still searching for the cause of the explosion.

He was being himself to the end.

I clicked my tongue and pulled several potions out of my pocket.

“Before you try to find the cause of the explosion, try these.”

I poured the potions into the lying wizard’s mouth.

But the wizard shook his head, blocking my touch.

“…….It’s useless. My core is already shattered…true wizards survive shattered cores…….There are ways to survive, but for street wizards like me, once the core is shattered, it’s over.”

I could tell at a glance that the wizard in front of me had a shattered core but I tried to give him the potion, hoping to ease his pain.

However he said he didn’t need it so I withdrew my outstretched hand.

“I’ve never been wrong about my choices before…….I guess I was wrong this time, but I can’t help it. I’ll just have to be happy with my luck so far…….Kuluk.”

He gestured to his waist as the rush of blood interrupted his musings.

“Kuck, kuck…….Go, take my bag, and I’ll tell you how to open it. You can use everything else, I just want you to bring two things to my apprentice.”

He coughed up blood but managed to tell me how to break the security spell on the bag, where the apprentice was, and the apprentice’s name.

“I don’t have everything, but these should be enough for my apprentice to grow without being shunned from the tower…….”

This is the power of magic. The wizard was able to finish what he wanted to say before he died.

I did as he asked, untied the bag from around his waist and slipped it around my own.

It was the second magic bag in my hands, a magic bag with the space of a wheelbarrow.

I didn’t feel particularly thrilled with the new bag because I already had one, I just felt like I was one step closer to owning a manor.

I was going to do whatever the wizard asked me to do.

I wasn’t going to just wipe my mouth with this gift.

Besides, it wasn’t the first time I’d heard such a request, and my space expansion bag was filled with items from colleagues who had made similar requests.

After all, once the war was over, I was going to travel across the continent to hand over the belongings of my dead comrades.

I could give the wizard’s things in the meantime.

I closed the wizard’s eyes and got up.

In front of the dead wizard, in the center of the sunken crater, Leopold was standing, drinking a potion.

No more blood flowed from his severed leg since mana seemed to have sealed it shut.

“Do you need help?”

“No, thank you.”

Leopold shook his head at my words. He was a tougher knight than I thought.

So I pushed past the potion-drinking knight and approached the elf, who had only his upper body left.

As I straightened his prone body, he screamed in a voice I’d never heard before.

“Oh, no, it can’t be, I can’t recover, is it because it’s a different world, I can’t feel mother’s power, no, it can’t be, I should be able to feel her power in any world!”

The person whose lower body had disappeared shouted in a normal voice.

Furthermore, his screams weren’t out of pain.

He’s still alive, and he’s screaming about how he can’t recover.

I’ve heard they’re much more resilient than humans…….

I wonder if he was even able to recover from that?

Anyway, now he couldn’t seem to use that healing ability so I decided to give him the potion that the wizard had refused.

“Then why don’t you take this potion…….”

“Do you think I can recover with such trash? Right now, I have to go to the first of the sacred trees, no, to the hero party. If I just get there, I might be able to recover. No, if I go to her, I can definitely recover!”

My words were cut off mid-sentence, and this time I failed to hand him the potion.

There was nothing I could do to help him now.

Rejecting the potion, he moved what was left of his upper body and tried to move north.

He flipped over and moved his arms but his struggles didn’t last long.

After dragging his upper body forward a little, he stopped moving as his breathing had stopped.

Blood poured out of the only part of his body that remained, which had been protected by mana, and his body turned white like a dried up old tree.

I gazed bitterly at the half-dead body.

He was not a favorite, but he had been my comrade for a time.

I’d seen many deaths in my time fighting demons, but even now, the death of a comrade was disturbing, whether it was a majestic death or a futile one like this one.

In truth, most deaths in war were as futile as this one.

A great swordsman might die in a swarm of skeletons, or a wizard who burned legions of the undead might succumb to pneumonia.

It was not as uncommon to be blown to bits by enemy traps as it is now.

Of course, in those days, it was a demon’s trick or a magic trap instead of a mine.

I tucked the sword the corpse had been holding into my bag.

Since I couldn’t find any other mementos, I figured I’d pass it on to another elf.

I turned to see the second dead, and Leopold the One-legged Knight was looking around. He stood on one leg, holding his sword like a staff.

“A weapon that creates explosions without mana?” he said. “Perhaps I was overconfident, coming from another world.”

He spoke to me, his voice calm, unlike a moment ago.

“I guess my father wasn’t wrong when he said ‘real life is different’.”

The young knight, looking somewhat liberated, continued, looking toward the distant eastern ridge.

“And my father wasn’t wrong about watching you and learning from you, either, though I’m afraid I’ll have a hard time following that advice…….”

I looked toward the ridge he was looking at.

Through the trees, which were shedding their leaves, dried bushes were rustling as if a great wind were shaking them but there was no wind blowing here.

Then, it wasn’t the wind that was shaking the bushes, but something else.

Something like countless undead.

Gray bones began to show through the bushes.

Skeletons, some skeletal, some not long dead, legions of corpses were coming.

There were more undead than I had expected. A lot of people must have died here.

The young knight looked at the rushing mass of corpses and spoke.

“You go first. I’ll cover your back.”

For now, it was necessary to join the hero party as quickly as possible.

His shiny leg was cut off and he couldn’t move with us, so he’d hold off the enemy from this spot.

It makes perfect sense but who wants a reasonable story if it means their death?

‘You’re a better knight than I thought.’

I reflected on my cursing.

Despite his lack of real-world experience, the young knight was a good one, especially for dying in my place.

There was no way I was going to turn down such a fine fellow after all the times I’d abandoned him.

“Thank you.”

In response to my heartfelt thanks, he handed me a ring engraved with his family crest.

“I have a favor to ask. I want you to return this ring to my family.”

Like everyone else, he was entrusting me with a keepsake.

I accepted the ring and politely replied.

“When I return, I will hand it to Knight Leopold’s father in person.”

Like any knight who dies, the survivor has a job to do.

The young knight smiled at my words.

“That’s a shame,” he said, “I think I could have really learned a lot from you…….”

He was wrong.

There was nothing a proper knight could learn from a free knight struggling to survive.

With those words, we parted ways.

I headed north with Hoffman, who had been given a quick potion fix, while he held back the onrushing undead.

“Come on!”

I heard a young knight shout from behind me as I ran hard.

-Kaaaaaang!

And then the shout was drowned out by the screams of the undead.