“…….”

Willian slowly opened his eyes. As if he was certifying himself of his own existence, he swept his hand at his face. He could feel the roughness and the inorganic coldness of the mask at the tip of his fingers.

Willian checked his current situation. The s.h.i.+ne of the candle had been gone long ago and the sounds of the banquet that was supposed to be happening outside the tent had vanished. In fact, most of the sounds had been gone and all he could hear was the sound of the trees.

“…Midnight, is it?”

Willian left the tent.

It was the usual darkness of the night you couldn´t see pretty much anything. The s.h.i.+ne of the stars were distant and small to be of help.

“…I can see.”

Willian slowly walked outside. He sneaked away from the encampment that was built in the middle of the mountains and he walked by himself at the deep night that even beasts would be sleeping at the time. His steps were as if he wasn´t actually walking deep at the night. His steps that lacked any hesitation would properly find their way to the ground. The uneven ground felt as if it was flat.

“…I can hear.”

As if he was dancing, Willian´s heart was beating faster. The music was the orchestra of the night wind and the sound of the trees. (TL note: I´m not sure about this part here ->　踊るようにウィリアムは弾む弾む

“It smells.”

The mountain was filled with smells. The smell of earth, the aroma of the trees, and from the distance, the smell of humans and iron, and some traces of the fragrance of blood. It was filled with scents; the world was filled with smells.

“Was it this much? Was it really to this extent!?”

Everything he was seeing was new. Everything he heard was fresh to him. Everything he smelled was vivid. The things he would touch, and the things he would taste were probably going to be new to him as well. The world had changed to these extents. Simple sceneries were enough to the point of making his eyes s.h.i.+ne, simple sounds were to the point of making him want to dance, simple scents were to the point of making him “erect”; he was sharply feeling everything. (TL note: ->エレクト

“Ku, kuhaha. Aren´t you mean, Kail! You´ve been seeing this kind of view all along, weren´t you? You were feeling this world. This is not fair, you guys!”

The world was this much beautiful.

“Ahahahahahahaha!”

The world was this much fragrant.

“Is this the world you guys see?  ………..It is beautiful, and also….”

The masked man was pouring out a great number of corpses from him. A crowd of dead bodies. He was the king of the dead, who was surrounded by them and reigned over them.

“…and also, it is such a cruel and s.h.i.+tty world! It is cruel, noisy, and it stinks! But it is good. This is good. It is fine like that! I will paint this beautiful world with harshness. I will get my hands over everything that beautifully s.h.i.+nes, and also that which horridly rots, and I will not leave anything for any of you. Everything, will be mine!”

Willian Rivius ruled over. (TL note: He will lose again, won´t he? -.-)

“Now then, world. Let´s begin! Will I eat you, or will I be eaten. Let´s face each other!”

The being that would usurp everything has been born.

“…Eh? What is it now?”

“We are changing plans. We are in a good form today.”

Willian patted Karl, who was making a reluctant face, on his head.

“Believe in me.”

Karl was feeling anxious about how Willian´s aura was different from how it was until yesterday. But even so, Karl could only believe in Willian. He could only nod to him.

“Thank you. I will put my trust on you.”

What results would this change that Karl was anxious about bring?

“…Tha-that´s a joke, right?”

An unimaginable view unfolded in front of Ignahts eyes.

The banner of the Arcadian army was hovering over the summit. By the maps, that location would be considered part of the Tayar region; a land which Arcadia had never committed to. Perhaps this would be only temporary for now, but in either case, it had fallen to Arcadia´s hands.

This had been any better than they having taken over a single base, and looking at it in a good way, at most, they had taken control of one mountain. However, if the ones that had captured it were only a ten-man squad, this would become a different story.

“Sure, we didn´t go that much further, but even so, is it fine for nothing more than a ten-man squad to have come all the way here?

The enemy was splitting their army in groups, so all of them knew that they couldn´t leave it up to raw fighting strength. But even so, n.o.body thought that their base would fall. If it was the fighting strength of a hundred-man squad, it might not be impossible. However, the risk for doing that would be high.

“Don´t worry. We are doing war. There is no such thing as winning being bad.”

They were at the front lines at the borders of the enemy country. It wasn´t possible for one to know what was happening inside the country. It wasn´t known exactly how many soldiers they had. That was why usually people wouldn´t take the risk. Even for a hundred-man squad, it was difficult. To a ten-man squad, doing this wasn´t being sane.

“If we see the number of soldiers from the deployment of troops of the next few days from now, we will be able to more or less know how many soldiers they will commit to this war. Despite how much badly they had been cornered into a position of disadvantage, they didn´t reinforce their defences. They couldn´t. This was because they didn´t have spare soldiers for that.”

There was a body fallen by Willian´s feet.

“This guy made a mistake in his plans. He needed to throw away his pride and reputation and focus all the strength on their base. If he had done that, we wouldn´t have been able to take it down. The reason why they didn´t do that was because of their pride, and also because of his mistaken self-conceit.”

Willian looked at the lined up heads. One of the heads was the head of the centurion Willian had ran away from on the day before. The rest were the ten-man squad captains that were protecting the base.

“Because they believed that they would win against me, they had faced us right in the middle of the battlefield with the same square formation from the day before. They had misread me; misread us.”

Willian turned his eyes away from the heads as if he held no interest on them. Willian´s interest wasn´t being directed at them anymore.

“That´s why they lost.”

It was just like Willian said. Yesterday, they were in the same place they were previously, and they were organized in the same formation they were before, and they received an unexpected surprise attack from Willian and his squad. Because of that, they lost.

“”It was in an instant. It was only an instant until Willian-san´s sword cut through that centurion´s head. Somehow he feels like he is in another whole level. I can´t say anything but that. To be fair, the Willian of today is as much strong as he is being scary. He is sharp like a blade.”

Was it because today in particular he was in a good condition? Or will he continue being like that? This was something n.o.body knew. All Karl knew was a single thing…

“Karl-sama. We shall win. For the sake of the Teirah house. I will also do to my utmost.”

“Ye-yes.”

Willian raised his hand to the sky.”

“Let´s keep winning.”

One of the bases of Taiyar had fallen by just a ten-man squad. They had taken down a centurion. It had been a victory for Arcadia.

Since then, all the scorn Karl´s undefeated ten-men squad would receive vanished, and they started being known as the strongest ten-man squad of Arcadia in the true meaning of those words. The battles Karl´s ten-man squad was deployed would be won. They were strong to the point of that being spoken of them…