After replenishing our strength by chewing on hardtack softened by river water, we crossed the broken bridge and collapsed walls to enter Banaditsa.
Crunch.
Weeds frozen by the cold were crushed underfoot, and tiny pebbles or ice fragments caught on our toes and bounced away.
The flying pebbles struck the remains of rusty and broken armor, making small metallic sounds, and the cold wind whirled through the debris, spreading a sound like wailing ghosts.
Should we say it lives up to its name as ruins?
The scenery of Banaditsa encountered up close had a stronger feeling of eeriness and desolation instead of the grandeur seen from afar.
To be honest, it seemed like the perfect atmosphere for ghosts to appear. If we had brought a camera, it could have been used as a set for a horror movie.
Of course, if we really brought a camera and filming crew, it would become the scene of a terrible disaster rather than a horror movie set.
“…”
Friede was on high alert with her holy sword drawn as per my advice, and I took out a bottle of holy oil from the pouch at my waist and spread it on my sword blade.
Like holy water, it was a consumable item containing the goddess’s blessing, exerting great power against evil things.
While holy water was overwhelmingly more effective for resisting curses or as a thrown weapon, holy oil had to be used instead of holy water if you intended to apply it to weapons.
Well, it’s obvious. Like the difference in use between water and oil.
Inexperienced novice adventurers often pour holy water on their blades, but I’ve never seen one of those guys live long.
Logically, if you swing a sword coated with water, would that water remain? Of course, it would all be shaken off and scattered everywhere.
What should be applied to a sword is oil, not water.
Of course, oil also has the drawback of slightly dulling the blade, but if you’re in a situation where you need to apply holy oil to your sword, it’s not the time to worry about sharpness.
Anyway, for that reason, after carefully spreading holy oil on my sword blade, we walked along the desolate road for about five minutes.
“Ah…! Miss Hilde!”
Friede, who flinched violently like a rabbit encountering a natural predator, quickly turned to me and leaped up, swinging her greatsword.
An amber-colored arc diagonally crossing the empty space behind my head.
Clang!
The next moment, the blade of the greatsword, which should have only cut through empty air, collided with something and emitted a clear echo.
“Kuh…?! What, strength…!”
Surprised by the opponent’s strength, Friede groaned as she was pushed back. I quickly turned to catch Friede while raising my head to glare at the empty space.
“lifandi…manneskju….”
In the empty space that had been nothing until just now. Something black and blue was floating in the middle, looking down at us.
A woman in armor with long, translucent hair flowing. No, should I say a being that was once a woman?
She might have been quite beautiful in life, but no one would call that a person now, looking at her current appearance.
Just looking at the lower jaw exposed below the eyes covered by metal plates inside the helmet with elaborate wing decorations on both sides.
“Huuuuu….”
It opened its mouth and exhaled a faint breath.
Grayish breath leaked out like mist. From inside the clearly visible skull within the semi-transparent ice lower jaw.
Yes. The enemy before our eyes had a form like ice flesh overlaid on a human skeleton.
With such an appearance, even if the ice parts had the appearance of a beautiful woman, how could it look human? The ice was so transparent that the inner flesh – no, inner bones – were clearly visible.
Unless you were a bone enthusiast, you wouldn’t feel any attraction or excitement looking at such a thing.
Ah, you might feel excitement. Not sexual excitement, but from fighting spirit or a sense of crisis.
“…As expected, it was here.”
I straightened Friede up without taking my eyes off the creature.
“Oh, um, thanks for catching me, Miss Hilde.”
“No, I should thank you. I didn’t notice at all.”
I meant it sincerely.
If it weren’t for Friede’s <Battle Instinct> that grants near-precognitive intuition limited to combat situations, I would have had my head pierced through without noticing anything.
By the long spear that ice-fleshed female knight was holding.
“Endalaus…kuldi….”
The undead ice-cream female knight floating in the air muttered something while pointing her spear at us.
Perhaps because I was using Brunhilde’s brain, I could roughly understand what it meant even though it wasn’t the kingdom’s common language.
At first, it clearly said ‘living ones-‘. And now it muttered “‘endless cold’.
Given the lack of context in its speech and inability to pronounce more than two words, I thought its vocabulary was quite miserable, befitting an undead. I wonder if there’s even a brain left inside that helmet.
No, since it’s closer to a wraith than a being with a physical body in the first place, it probably doesn’t even have a brain left.
“Miss Hilde, is that…?”
Friede asked quietly while gripping her holy sword.
“Yes, it’s what I mentioned earlier. The sentinel guarding this fortress… no, sentinels.”
I nodded and raised my sword coated with holy oil. Without taking my eyes off the undead female knight who was slightly tilting her head while grasping the long spear.
The winged helmet covering above the nose and the plate armor engraved with elaborate craftsmanship.
The full-body armor with chains added to the plate connections was excessively ornate, as if made for women from the start, and also elegant.
The breastplate blatantly emphasizing the curves of the waist and chest, and the two-pronged cloak fluttering like wings behind the back.
In the middle of the protruding chest area was a triangular metal plate humming with a strange pattern engraved on it.
A red light metal plate spewing magic power mixed with bitterly cold air.
That, so… what was it, a rune engraving integrated circuit board?
In terms of setting, it was probably a magic circuit that emits magic power on its own like a magician’s grimoire, and the power source of that armor.
Yes, that was certainly its purpose in life. Now, it’s probably just a shackle binding their souls to these ruins.
“To control the souls of the dead as wraiths… that’s terribly vicious.”
Friede frowned, showing contempt. With a face saying this is something only an Abyss Priest would do.
“Ah, that! I don’t mean to insult Miss Hilde’s family, so…!”
Of course, realizing that those words ended up criticizing my ancestors altogether, she hurriedly tried to make excuses, a bit flustered.
“No need to take it back. I think the same. That’s why they fell, right? They were truly vicious.”
I shook my head slightly and answered that there was no need to apologize. In my view too, the old Eisensteins were indeed the worst of the worst.
The fact that they were destroyed by the hero of their time shows they were no different from Abyss Priests or demons.
While heroes these days are all subpar, being trash humans or madmen in terms of personality except for Friede, the heroes of ancient times were true heroes in both deeds and character.
“Anyway, we just need to defeat that, right?”
“More precisely, those. That undead probably won’t end with just one.”
My memory is a bit hazy, but there should be about ten in total. No, was it twenty?
The original work itself often omitted detailed parts, so I was a bit unsure.
Well, it doesn’t matter whether it’s ten or twenty. Anyway, they’re enemies we’ll have to subjugate completely as we thoroughly search and roam the interior of this fortress.
Ignoring Valfreyja, whom we can’t even touch let alone defeat, just subjugating all of those and collecting the spoils before escaping.
That was the proper way to use this hidden piece.
Unlike Valfreyja above the inner castle, they were not sealed but fallen into wraiths after death, so they were greatly weakened compared to when they were alive.
Except for Valfreyja, the rest were beings that could be subjugated by just me and Friede as we are now.
According to the possessor in the original novel, it was a dungeon created with that intention from the start.
A trap dungeon that mixes mediocre enemies with an absurd monster boss, designed to lure players who misjudge the dungeon’s difficulty into awakening the boss and getting annihilated?
Whoever designed it had a truly vicious structure. Maybe it was someone who excessively worshipped the saying ‘if you don’t know, you should die’?
“So, what was its name again? Valky? You said Val something…”
“Valkyria. No, should I say the wraith of a Valkyria? They were knights of my family. Like me.”
The reapers of the battlefield led by Valfreyja, Eisenstein’s Valkyrias.
Knights of the Ice Heart.
“Hatursfull hetja, Kvenhetja (hateful, hero)…!”
The Valkyria, who had been silently looking down at us for a while, seemed to finally make up her mind upon seeing Friede, revealing intense hatred as she raised her long spear above her shoulder.
Like the Eisenstein family’s spear technique, filling the grasped long spear with the power of Iron Arm.
Saying they were like me wasn’t a metaphor but a calm truth. The Valkyrias, like Brunhilde, were knights possessing Ice Heart and Iron Arm.
No, to be precise, they should be called the originals. Brunhilde inherited their traits through something like atavism.
“Be careful! Here it comes!”
The next moment, the ice spear that flew in like a flash of light tore through the ground and exploded.
With a bursting roar, the shattered ice fragments swept through the surroundings, completely plowing it up. Literally with the power of a shell – no, it was a shell itself.