Hyakuren no Haou to Seiyaku no Valkyria - Volume 19 - Chapter 3

ACT 3

Sigrún somehow managed to get to her feet, using her beloved sword to brace herself. The world wobbled around her. More accurately, it wasn’t the world that was wobbling, it was her own body. She was so exhausted that she was finding it difficult to even manage as much as standing upright. Her beloved sword that had previously felt as light as a feather now felt heavier than a war ax. It took all her strength just to lift it.

“Even despite your exhaustion, you still haven’t given up. I’m impressed,” Shiba said with a tone of admiration as he readied his own blade.

He was absolutely right; her spirit hadn’t broken. Rationally, she knew she had no chance of winning, or rather, she would have been more aware of that if she wasn’t utterly spent both physically and mentally. Sigrún was so run-down that a white fog had descended upon her mind, and she struggled to put together coherent thoughts. The only thing that kept her standing at this point was her determination to return to Yuuto alive.

“If you had been born a year earlier, you might have won today. You are quite the warrior, Sigrún! I will never forget you! Farewell!” Shiba announced confidently.

Sigrún could no longer even understand what he was saying. The only thing that she felt through her fading consciousness—the thing that shook her despite her mental fog—was the powerful and threatening aura that was radiating out from him. Sigrún felt her rune warning her of imminent mortal danger as a flash of light filled her vision. Sigrún quickly stepped back to avoid it. A heartbeat later, Shiba’s sword flew past, the wind from the swing ruffling her bangs. It seemed he hadn’t expected her to avoid the attack, and a faint tone of surprise was noticeable in his voice.

Once again, his threatening aura swelled, and she felt her brain fog ripple. At that same moment, she saw a flash of light dart across her vision. She wasn’t able to fully avoid Shiba’s oncoming swing, though she did somehow manage to lift her blade, placing it in the way of the line. The high-pitched clang of metal hitting metal rang through the air, and Sigrún was thrown backward—or so it would have appeared to anyone watching the exchange. However, the actual combatants understood things differently. Sigrún had jumped. With her current arm and leg strength, she wouldn’t have been able to block the attack. For that reason, she had decided to jump backward, following the flow of Shiba’s incoming attack. This action allowed her to negate much of the power behind the swing. It wasn’t a conscious action, but rather a reflexive one triggered by her instincts and years of training.

“Whoops.” She somehow managed to land a slight distance away, but she stuttered in her step as her legs wobbled beneath her. Her body, completely exhausted, was refusing to obey her.

“Blast! You still had a trick up your sleeve?!”

Having seen her defend against two of his blows, Shiba looked on warily, concluding that it wasn’t sheer luck that had allowed her to survive. Perhaps to Shiba’s chagrin, however, Sigrún hadn’t consciously used any techniques. She had felt the attacks approaching and had instinctively taken defensive action. That was all she had done.

“How entertaining! Block me if you can!” Shiba yelled gleefully. As he did so, silver light streaked in toward Sigrún from all directions. Not only were Shiba’s blows fast, but they were well-coordinated, each one cleanly tying into the one before it. Though she may have been his enemy, Sigrún couldn’t help but admire the artistry behind the attacks. Even so, Sigrún still managed to dodge the powerful flurry of strikes by a hair’s breadth. As for the ones she couldn’t fully avoid, she lightly placed her sword in the way. This offered the minimum necessary amount of protection for her to survive as she jumped in line with the blows.

“Huh? What is this? What’s going on?”

With her attention focused solely on defense, Sigrún had slowly managed to catch her breath. The fog that enveloped her mind had started to clear. This only served to add to her confusion. She saw the trigger for each of Shiba’s attacks, and so moved in response to it. That was the simplest way to describe what she had been doing, but thinking about it revealed just how odd it was. The aforementioned trigger was the preparatory movement that happened before each attack was unleashed.

Past a certain level of mastery, it was too late to respond to an attack once the sword was in motion. For this reason, master swordsmen would instead use their accumulated experience to read an opponent’s movements by watching their opponent’s eyes, shoulders, and even their breathing. Sigrún, of course, was also doing exactly that. However, Shiba’s movements were extremely refined and gave very little away.

Even with her skill, she had struggled to read his motions—he was just that good. While Shiba had easily read Sigrún’s motions, Sigrún hadn’t been able to reliably do the same to Shiba. The difference in their ability to read the others’ movements had been the most significant factor in this battle. This was why, despite the fact that Sigrún was much faster than Shiba, she had been unable to best him in their exchanges. So why was she suddenly able to read his movements so clearly? It made no sense.

“Why?! Why can’t I hit you?!” Shiba seemed to be at a loss as well. His confusion was understandable. Shiba, who was still in the Realm of Godspeed, currently held an overwhelming advantage in terms of speed. The fact that Sigrún was avoiding or blocking all of his attacks despite that made no sense to him.

“How strange... It’s as though I’m trying to cut a fluttering leaf,” Shiba grunted out, furrowing his brow. Doing such a thing was incredibly difficult, even for a skilled swordsman, because the air moved by their weapon would push the object out of the way of the oncoming blade. Because the object was so light, if the blade did manage to make contact with it, it would only end up being pushed away before it could be cut. Sigrún’s current movements reminded him of something like that—of trying to cut at a leaf floating in the wind.

“I see. So this is what Brother Ská meant when he said to be as water.”

Sigrún, too, had started to understand what had changed for her. She had melted the ice within her heart. That is, she had claimed back the emotions she had discarded as unnecessary, and that allowed her to better see herself and those around her. Actually, it was probably not quite right to describe it as being able to “see.” It was more accurate to say that she was now able to “feel” the changes around her. She could feel the emotions of others flowing into her. It wasn’t a sensation that would make any sense to ordinary people, and no doubt there were many who would laugh it away as some kind of delusion. However, for those with a strong sense of empathy, and the particularly insightful, it was likely a rather familiar sensation. It was a type of empathic connection, one that she now shared with Shiba, her enemy. By essentially making her own mind into a mirror of water, she could reflect her opponent’s mind upon it. Taking inspiration from her other state of elevated consciousness, she decided to refer to this new mental space as the Realm of the Water Mirror.

“This is pointless. Very well, then. In appreciation for the enjoyment you’ve given me, I’ll show you my ultimate technique.” Shiba then returned to his standard stance. He appeared to accept that breaching Sigrún’s defenses would be difficult. Sigrún could tell quite clearly that he was focusing his mind. There was no mistaking it. He was about to unleash an attack much more powerful than anything he had wielded against her before now.

“Can I even stop it...?” Sigrún thought to herself as she swallowed the lump that had formed in her throat. She had probably been able to reach the Realm of the Water Mirror because her mind had been clouded by a lack of oxygen. The fact that her consciousness and thoughts had faded into the background enabled her to pick up on her opponent’s intent. However, Sigrún’s mind was now clear, and she was fully aware of her surroundings. Unnecessary thoughts started to clutter her mind. Would she be able to return to the right state of mind?

“I can make it back there. Melt the ice and become as water...”

She began to set aside every emotion that could destabilize her mental state. It was an extremely difficult task for most people to pull off in the middle of a deadly situation like this one, but it was actually rather simple for Sigrún. After all, she had survived the horrors of countless battlefields and engaged in numerous life-or-death struggles with powerful opponents. However, the one emotion that remained was fear. It was an emotion that helped sharpen all five of her senses. It was also a double-edged sword that could cause her body to tremble or tense.

“I’m scared... He’s clearly much stronger than I am. I’m afraid of losing; afraid of dying. More than anything though, I’m terrified that I’ll never get to see him again...”

She calmly accepted each of the fears she was currently feeling. When her heart had still been frozen, Sigrún had steadfastly refused to admit that she was afraid of anything. She believed it made her weak—that it would make her unable to fight. She now understood that wasn’t the answer. If she simply tried to put a lid on her emotions and hide them away, it would do nothing to change the fact that they were still lingering deep inside her. Even if she denied that they existed, there was a very real possibility that they would bubble up to the surface eventually. That had made Sigrún’s body tenser than it needed to be and robbed her of her potential. This time, however, she had faced her fears and admitted her weakness. She trembled in fear of all the things she stood to lose, then brought them to heel through the sheer strength of her will.

“I’m going to return home alive. I absolutely will make it back to him!”

Sigrún exhaled deeply and let the tension drain from her body. She kept her two swords held downward at her side. She wasn’t doing so because she was out of strength, but because this was the ideal form for her—the stance in which she could best fight in her relaxed state. While she had no way of knowing it, she was in the exact same stance that the great Miyamoto Musashi had taken in his self-portrait.

“Heh. This is reminding me of that battle,” Shiba said as he slowly closed the distance between the pair. He was probably referring to the showdown at the end of their encounter at the Flame Clan capital. Sigrún had waited in an iai stance while Shiba had slowly approached her to shatter her defense. While the pair were using different techniques this time around, the situation was similar.

“These will probably be the last words we’ll exchange in this life. Have you anything to say? I’ll pass your message on to the Steel Clan patriarch.”

“Certainly not. I’ll be the one to win here today.”

“Absurd. There is no doubt that I’ll win again.”

They finished their final conversation as the pair crossed over into the very edges of their respective ranges. The time for words between the two had passed. All that remained now was for them to speak with their blades. They faced off for several seconds—seconds that felt like an eternity.

“Ah!”

Sigrún suddenly felt a ripple surge across her water mirror, and she quickly jumped backward. This happened to coincide with Shiba’s body twitching ever so slightly as he began to move for his attack. The very next moment, four silver flashes pierced the place that Sigrún had been standing but a fraction of a second earlier.

“Wha?!” Shiba’s eyes went wide with surprise, as though he couldn’t believe what he had just witnessed. His attack had unleashed thrusts almost simultaneously in four places: his opponent’s forehead, both shoulders, and their chest. It was an attack worthy of being called an ultimate technique, one that was only possible with full mastery of the Realm of Godspeed. However, no matter how fast and skilled the attack, if the target knew when and where it was coming, even an unskilled opponent could avoid it. Sigrún had timed her leap backward perfectly, creating just enough distance to avoid the terrifying barrage of sword slashes. Had she moved even a moment sooner, Shiba would have picked up on her movements and stepped further into her range. It went without saying that an advancing fighter held an advantage over one who was in retreat. Had Shiba had any additional momentum behind him, Sigrún wouldn’t have been able to avoid his blows.

“Now’s my chance!”

Seeing an opportunity to claim victory, Sigrún stepped forward firmly and brought down her beloved sword at an angle. Even a swordsman of Shiba’s skill couldn’t help but create an opening in his defenses after unleashing four simultaneous thrusts. His response was slow, as though his body wasn’t listening to him.

As a fighter, Shiba was extremely skilled at adapting to his opponent. There was a good chance he’d quickly learn to account for Sigrún’s Realm of the Water Mirror. If she didn’t finish things now, she would stand no chance.

The blow Sigrún had placed all of her strength behind was deflected as Shiba slammed his elbow against the middle of her blade. While he had probably only done so because it was the only possible way he could have stopped the blow given his position, to try to deflect a sword blade with a bare limb was madness. It was a feat that was only possible through the combination of the benefits of the Realm of Godspeed, Shiba’s vast combat experience, and an incredibly sharp fighting instinct. However, Sigrún had already accounted for Shiba trying something like this. Though she hadn’t expected him to use his elbow to deflect the blow, she had been certain that Shiba was going to block her attack.

What Shiba hadn’t expected, however, was that this first blow was meant as an opener. With a beastly roar, Sigrún attacked with her left blade—at Godspeed. When they had been staring each other down earlier, she had recovered some of her strength. This attack was her own ultimate technique—a strike that carried her full strength behind it. Despite that, Shiba was able to respond just well enough to attempt to block the attack with the superhuman reflexes granted to him by the Realm of Godspeed. However, Sigrún’s sword passed straight through Shiba’s defense and slashed open his body.

“Guh!”

With a dying scream, Shiba’s body wavered as he staggered backward several steps, eventually collapsing to the ground. Sigrún, who had all but exhausted her strength, almost fell to her knees, but she stabbed her blade into the ground to keep herself upright.

“I need to follow through,” she told herself. Sigrún’s blade had cut open Shiba’s right flank and landed a lethal blow, but it was entirely possible that he still had enough strength left for one final blow. The determination of a dying person to try to take down their opponent with them often defied explanation. She couldn’t afford to let down her guard for even a moment until she had confirmed his death.

“Heheh...”

As she had feared, laughter spilled from the fallen Shiba’s lips. Hearing the sound, Sigrún raised her guard even further, but he made no effort to stand, eventually letting go of the sword in his grasp. It seemed he no longer had any will to fight.

“W-Well done to you, Sigrún. I couldn’t...follow your attack. Heh... I-I never imagined...there’d be something beyond Godspeed.”

“There isn’t. I just made it seem that way,” Sigrún replied bluntly.

“I see... A change of pace, huh...?” Shiba seemed to immediately grasp the mechanics behind her final technique. She had shown him a slow blow—at least by the standards of someone in the Realm of Godspeed—before unleashing a blow at Godspeed. Even Shiba’s sharp eye and superhuman awareness couldn’t keep up with the rapid change of pace. This kind of technique was common in professional baseball. A fastball thrown after a slower pitch often appeared anywhere from five to ten miles per hour faster than it actually was. Sigrún had taken advantage of that same mechanic.

“Regardless, you win this battle. It would seem that I’m done for. At least I lived my life as I had wanted. I was able to fight at full strength. I leave this world with no regrets.”

“I see...”

“Actually, that’s not quite true. I do have one regret. Can you tell me something before I head off to Valhalla?” Shiba asked, as though the question had suddenly come to mind.

“What is it?” Although they had fought a life-or-death duel, Sigrún didn’t actually dislike Shiba. If anything, Sigrún admired him for his strength—the very epitome of mastery achieved through training. She wanted to do what she could to let him depart from this plane at peace.

“My last move... I-I never showed it to you before. I had used the mirror the Great Lord had given me to erase any traces of its existence in my skill set.”

“It was quite remarkable. If I had been even the tiniest amount slower in dodging, I would have been the one lying on the ground dying.”

“H-How were you able to read that attack...? What tells did I let slip? I can’t die in peace unless I find out what I did wrong.” Although he would never be able to use the information, his last question was still about furthering his skill in combat. Even on his deathbed, Shiba was still the same man—a warrior who wanted to do all he could to become the ultimate fighter.

“It was less that I saw it and more that I felt it.”

“You felt it? What exactly did you feel?” Shiba asked, sounding rather confused.

“I could vaguely feel that you were about to attack. I felt your intent.”

“Vaguely, eh? Hahah... I suppose that’s very much the kind of world we warriors live in.” Shiba laughed dryly, a faint note of frustration in his voice. Sigrún’s answer must have been painfully frustrating to him, given that it was so vague.

“Even so...” Sigrún interjected.

“Mm?”

“I think the reason I actually managed to pull that off was that I finally opened my heart and confronted my weaknesses head-on.”

“Hah... Hahahahah! E-Even now, I’m haunted by that blasted concept! Bahahahaha!” Shiba suddenly burst out into laughter. He couldn’t contain his amusement. Of course, such a strenuous act caused the wound in his torso to open further, and blood spurted from the gash, but he continued laughing nonetheless. Sigrún stared at him in astonishment, prompting Shiba to gesture for her to continue with his chin. “Heheh. K-Keep talking. I don’t have much time.”

“Very well. I had always been discarding my negative emotions. I felt my judgment would be impaired by them. As a warrior, I felt that I didn’t need such things.”

“I’m the same way.”

“But now I realize that bottling those emotions up had only served to dull my senses.”

“They dulled them?”

“Exactly. If you indiscriminately shut away your emotions, you’ll of course be less influenced by them, which makes it easier to make the right decisions. At the same time, however, I believe that doing such a thing robs you of your ability to feel things.”

Even Sigrún had felt anxiety and fear in her first battle. At some point, though, she had stopped feeling such emotions. She felt no fear even when fighting Steinþórr, or when fighting the great wolf Garmr, nor did she when she first faced off against Shiba. Despite fighting against opponents substantially more powerful than she was, while Sigrún had felt a sense of danger, she hadn’t felt any fear.

Though pain and anxiety were bothersome to deal with, they were also necessary for living creatures to survive. They needed those feelings to allow them to comprehend danger. Sigrún’s rune Hati was extremely effective at detecting danger, providing insights such as identifying poisoned food. By bottling up her negative emotions until now, Sigrún had only ended up weakening herself.

“I see... So you were able to read my movements because you had allowed yourself to feel those things?”

“I think so.”

“I-I see. It seems that I might have...lost my sense of various...things...” His voice had grown so faint that his final words were incomprehensible. His wound had bled profusely. It was more surprising that he had been able to converse so lucidly for so long. That was probably made possible by his strong will—the same will that had allowed him to master the use of the Realm of Godspeed. However, as it seemed that he had received an acceptable answer to his question, he was now reaching the limit of his willpower.

“What a pity... To die...just as I found a way...to become even stronger...” Shiba reached his hand out toward the sun as though he were trying to grasp it. Of course, there was no way he could do so. His arm fell limply to the ground. It was over now—his life had ended. The expression upon his face was far from serene, and as if to epitomize the driving ambition that had controlled his life, he looked as though he was seeking some greater power even in death. However, it was precisely because he was that sort of man that he had reached the heights he had.

On Yggdrasil, it was typical to close a dead man’s eyes so that they might rest in peace, but Sigrún chose not to do so. This man wasn’t looking for rest. Having spent plenty of time communicating through their blades, Sigrún understood that much about Shiba.

“Steinþórr awaits you in Valhalla. I’m sure you’ll enjoy yourself there.”

As a warrior, she wanted to witness the battle between those titans, but that wasn’t an event she would bear witness to any time soon. Having survived the duel, she still had much to do.

The Steel Clan was prioritizing speed over all else, retreating as quickly as their legs would carry them. They were headed for the Holy Capital of Glaðsheimr.

“Hurry along! The Flame Clan’s not going to wait for us to clear out! Let’s get as far from here as possible while Hveðrungr buys us time!” Yuuto shouted in encouragement to his soldiers as he ran alongside them, having recently dismounted from his chariot.

He didn’t get off his chariot because he believed that it would do anything to lessen the burden on the retreating soldiers—he had done so because he understood that seeing him atop it as they ran on foot would only serve to breed resentment. After all, they had just recently lost a major engagement. If nothing changed, their morale would hit rock bottom in their next fight. For that reason, he couldn’t afford the luxury of remaining mounted, lest he risk upsetting his men to the point of no return. No matter what kind of leader one was, their people were more likely to admire and entrust their lives to them if they could show that they were willing to share in their subjects’ misery.

“I know I...huff, huff...decided to do this...huff, huff... But it’s still tough...as all hell!”

Running long distances was challenging enough as is, but Yuuto was doing it while also yelling at the top of his lungs. He felt the fatigue building in his oxygen-starved body. If he hadn’t spent every day since his arrival on Yggdrasil training, he might have been in a great deal of trouble.

“Are you okay?” asked Felicia, who had been running beside him. “Perhaps you should rest a little...” Unlike Yuuto, she didn’t appear to be struggling—though she was sweating, her breathing was steady. Of course, this was unsurprising; she was an Einherjar, after all. Noticing this, Yuuto couldn’t help but feel a tad envious of her.

Yuuto had inherited Rífa’s runes following her death, and as such, he was supposed to be an Einherjar now himself. However, most of his ásmegin was still sealed away by the Gleipnir seiðr that had been used to summon him back to Yggdrasil. As a result, although he possessed twin runes, his physical abilities weren’t much better than the average person’s.

“Huff, huff... I’m...fine. I can’t...stop people...from talking... huff, huff... If they saw me...resting...that would...defeat...the whole point...of this,” Yuuto replied between gasps. Frankly speaking, he desperately wanted to get back on his chariot. However, this wasn’t something he could compromise on.

“Very well. Just don’t push yourself too hard,” Felicia chided.

“Huff, huff... On the contrary... This is...the perfect time...to push...myself...” Yuuto said, smiling confidently even as he massaged his cramping flank. He had lost against Nobunaga in two consecutive engagements. He could easily surmise that his soldiers’ faith in him was wavering. Though running like this was agonizing, and his lungs burned for air, if this was all it took to boost morale a bit, then it was but a small price to pay. After all, the next battle wasn’t one he could afford to lose.

“Besides... huff, huff... Big Brother is...handling the rear guard... huff, huff... At the very least, we don’t...have to worry about them...catching...up... huff, huff... That makes things...much easier.”

“You trust him quite a bit, don’t you?”

“Well, yeah,” Yuuto responded flatly.

It was true that, when examined objectively, Hveðrungr had been on a losing streak as of late, and he had looked rather off his game. However, from Yuuto’s perspective, those losses had only occurred because Hveðrungr had been up against monstrously powerful opponents, and when accounting for that, Hveðrungr had done pretty well on the whole. Had anyone other than Hveðrungr been in command during those battles, there was no doubt that the Independent Cavalry Regiment would have been wiped out. This stood true even if that person had been Yuuto. It was precisely because of Hveðrungr’s excellent observational skills and strategic flexibility that he had managed to pull through and get his men out alive.

“Huff huff... I know...better than anyone...what he is...capable of.”

Yuuto had developed numerous weapons and implemented tactics that had originally only existed thousands of years in the future. In the face of Yuuto’s innovations, a whole host of enemies had found themselves being swept aside without managing to put up much of a resistance: the Hoof Clan’s great warlord Yngvi; the Anti-Steel Clan Alliance Army, led by the Sword Clan’s Fagrahvél, who herself had been aided by Bára, one of the continent’s three greatest strategists; the powerful tyrant of the Silk Clan, Utgarda. Every one of them had yielded to him in the end.

One of the few exceptions to Yuuto’s overwhelming superiority had been the bundle of absurdity that was able to brute force his way through Yuuto’s stratagems—the monster that was the Dólgþrasir Steinþórr. However, the only person from this era who had truly understood the strengths and weaknesses of Yuuto’s various tools and tricks and had outmaneuvered him through sheer cunning was Hveðrungr. That was a remarkable feat. Even Nobunaga may not have been capable of such a thing had he been born on Yggdrasil. Hveðrungr, a tactician so brilliant that the world might see the likes of him once every century, had outright stated that he would buy them time. There was no doubt in Yuuto’s mind that he would accomplish what he set out to do.

“You make a fair point. There are few people more troublesome to make an enemy of,” Felicia agreed.

“Indeed.”

“What exactly is he planning though? I’m sure it’s something awful.”

“Perhaps,” Yuuto replied, following his answer to Felicia’s question with a dry laugh.

“Impressive, Big Brother. You know what he’s planning?”

“Huff, huff... I can’t say...for sure... However, the things he asked me...to prepare for him... Arquebuses and tetsuhau...huff, huff...to equip the suicide squad...Skáviðr had left to him... When you take all that...and use them in a rear guard, there’s only...huff, huff...one tactic...that he could possibly...be meaning to use...”

The tactic Yuuto was referring to had once allowed a general to hold off tens of thousands of enemy soldiers using less than one hundred soldiers of their own. It had been such a remarkable strategy that it had allowed the general’s men to shoot a horse out from under a great warrior who had never been injured in battle to that point, and on top of that, it had also resulted in the fatal wounding of a great general known as a master of offensive warfare. During that retreat, the rear guard had managed to wound and kill several other notable commanders of the pursuing army. All this despite the fact that the pursuing army had outnumbered the rear guard by a vast margin. Even the victorious general had felt dread at the prospect of facing those enemy forces again and had subsequently decided to abandon the idea of any further campaigns against that province.

“You believe he’s going to do it?”

“I think...it’s pretty likely, yeah...”

Hveðrungr had come up with a strategy that had originally been devised thousands of years in the future. Such a feat should have been impossible, even for him. However, he had done exactly that countless times already.

“Huff, huff... I did...think about doing it...but I couldn’t...bring myself to... huff, huff... He’s...a frightening man... I sometimes...wonder how I...beat him.”

“Right. Let me be blunt: you’re going to die today. Actually, allow me to be more specific: go and get yourselves killed,” Hveðrungr said coldly as he looked over the men assembled before him. There were maybe one hundred at most. None of them so much as raised an eyebrow at Hveðrungr’s remark.

“Oh? I thought at least one or two of you would show some fear.” Hveðrungr’s eyes went wide behind his mask. Despite having just been ordered to march out to their deaths, there was no trace of fear on the men’s faces—in fact, several of them even wore faint smiles, as though they welcomed the order. It was a strange sight, but that was par for the course. After all, they were the survivors of the rear guard that had expected to die alongside Skáviðr at the Battle of Glaðsheimr.

The men who made up this so-called suicide squad hailed from many walks of life. Some had lost their families and were simply looking for a place to die, others had volunteered in order to secure a widow’s pension for their family, and there were even warriors who wished to go out in a blaze of glory knowing that their days were numbered. Each of them had their own reasons for being here, but one fact was true of all of them: they had already accepted death.

“Wonderful. It would appear that you’re all perfect for my scheme,” Hveðrungr said, chuckling coldly. Once he had learned of the existence of gunpowder, he had been convinced that it had the potential to dramatically alter the face of battle. For that reason, he had been putting a lot of effort into developing tactics that made use of gunpowder weaponry, and he had one that was perfectly suited for the current situation.

“We hold no reservations about dying. However, our deaths need to mean something. Will your scheme slow the Flame Clan’s advance?” the commander of the suicide squad asked, putting words to what the unit had been thinking. They may have been fearless warriors who were wholly unafraid of death, but there were only a hundred of them. They were facing off against an army that was over a thousand times larger. Under the circumstances, most units of their size would struggle to even buy a few minutes.

“That’s all on you. If you really are willing to die on this day, then you’ll be able to stop the enemy’s pursuit. So long as you don’t turn tail and run at the last moment, that is.”

There actually existed multiple companies that Skáviðr had created for covert operations, and if they all were to be combined, their ranks would number closer to three hundred. However, what Hveðrungr needed today wasn’t numbers. He needed unwavering commitment. Any who were even the slightest bit afraid of death would only serve as a hindrance. In that sense, the men gathered before him were perfect for the role he required of them.

“I see. Then all is fine. Our lives are yours to spend,” the company commander said calmly, ignoring the taunting edge in Hveðrungr’s remark.

Often when someone had struck close to home with a critique or when someone was threatening something that they wanted to protect, a person would find themselves becoming angry before they even knew it. The calmness of the commander’s response showed that he had no fear of death whatsoever.

“This may seem odd for me to say given the circumstances, but I’m surprised you’re so willing to trust me, considering I’m pretty much a stranger.”

“It’s not that we’re trusting you in particular. Father Skáviðr told us a great deal about you. He always said you were better suited to this sort of work than he was. We’re just trusting in his words.”

“Hrmph. So very kind of him.” In contrast to the words he spoke, Hveðrungr’s voice had a note of displeasure as he snorted. He did appreciate the presence of these men, given that his reputation had been tarnished from his recent string of failures. However, as a man who had once been the patriarch of a great clan, owing so great a debt to his late mentor still left a sour taste in his mouth. “Fine. Here’s the plan,” Hveðrungr said, then began to explain the strategy he had put together.

The expressions of the men who had so coolly accepted his order to die for him started to darken. The commander furrowed his brow and spoke plainly. “You’re one underhanded son of a devil, you know that? This isn’t something a human would come up with.”

“Heh, I’ll take that as a compliment.” Hveðrungr felt a surge of satisfaction and curled his lips up into a wily grin. He was hoping he’d be able to get some sort of emotional reaction from the stone-faced commander from the moment they had met. The fact that it had been able to surprise a man who was used to the darkest sides of war was a good indication of how likely it would be to succeed—it might even be outlandish enough to catch even the great Oda Nobunaga off guard.

“So, what will you do? Now that you know the details of my scheme, do you find yourselves afraid? If any of you wish to leave, do so now. Having you flee at the last minute would be a huge hassle,” Hveðrungr proclaimed with a smirk.

The commander shivered at the sight of Hveðrungr’s expression and swallowed. “We have no qualms about executing your plan. We shall do as you ask. By all accounts, it sounds like it’ll be very effective.”

“Good. Then go. Off to Valhalla with you.”

“Though we may end up there, you will not. You’re headed straight to the underworld,” the commander said sarcastically. Hveðrungr, however, was wholly unbothered by the comment. Instead, he chuckled.

“I’m looking forward to it.”