Damuel’s Growth

Damuel’s Growth

Damuel’s Growth

As I waited in my highbeast for the ruelle to finish growing, I watched everyone fighting below. The knights were stationed around the ruelle tree in a circle, with Damuel positioned between Ferdinand and Karstedt so that they could follow up on any feybeasts that slipped past him. He had the smallest area to protect out of anyone, but that much made sense—it was too risky to give him more than he could handle.

Tiny feybeasts rushed forward from all directions.

After having traveled all over the duchy and having fought all sorts of feybeasts while gathering my seasonal ingredients, I was better able to judge their relative strengths. With this knowledge, I could confidently say that the zantzes, fetzes (which were slightly larger than zantzes), and eifintes racing toward us weren’t much of a threat at all. Their strength came only from their numbers, and while this had proven dangerous last year when we had only a few knights, we now had the mana-rich Ferdinand and Karstedt on our side. It seemed like this would be a piece of cake.

“Here I go!”

The first to strike was Eckhart. He rushed a few steps forward, lowering his hips a little before thrusting his spear out with tremendous force. A sharp whistling noise tore through the air, the weapon’s tip gleaming beneath the purple moon. His blow had pierced the feystones of several feybeasts, all of which melted away into nothingness.

A single strike—that was all it took for him to kill multiple feybeasts.

“Haah!”

Eckhart pivoted, turning his thrust into a wide swing that swept down all the feybeasts nearby. Some were knocked to the ground by the blunt force of the shaft, while others weakly collapsed after the spear tip sliced through them. Nearby feybeasts moved to attack not Eckhart, but those weakened feybeasts, promptly devouring them. They were trying to eat the feystones to gain even a little bit of strength.

His blue eyes fiercely fixed on the horde, Eckhart next adjusted his grip on his spear, stabbing into the group over and over again. The rapid thrusts sliced through the air, killing feybeast after feybeast.

Wowee... Eckhart sure is cool. He’s, like, half as cool as Dad is. Well, maybe more like a quarter as cool. Or an eighth.

As I continued to watch Eckhart fight, I let out a whistle of admiration. I had mostly just seen him helping Ferdinand with paperwork, but when he fought like a knight, he was honestly a sight to behold.

While I was internally praising Eckhart’s heroic visage, I heard Brigitte let out a ferocious battle cry. I adjusted the position of my highbeast slightly to look at her.

“Graaah!”

She roared again, stamping one foot down before swinging her halberd in a wide arc. It audibly cut through the air, then through the surrounding feybeasts, all of which immediately began to melt.

“Next!”

Brigitte’s amethyst eyes locked onto her next targets without even pausing to watch the already slain feybeasts fully disappear. She lowered her hips into a battle stance, then spun and twisted to swing her halberd from side to side, her skirt flapping about as she moved.

Her weapon followed her movements exactly, never lagging behind no matter how much she twisted her hips. And each time it flashed, its long, slightly curved blade swept through and tore apart several of the feybeasts rushing this way. Brigitte looked so alive as she ceaselessly swung her weapon, exuding beauty and heroic grace in equal parts.

Aaah... So wonderful. I wanna be strong like that too one day...

While I knew that I wouldn’t ever be exactly like Brigitte, I wanted to be all cool and knightly too. My dream was to be a wonderful older sister who everybody could count on.

Incidentally... I wonder how Father fights?

I had technically been there to see Karstedt fight during both the Spring Prayer raid and the schnesturm hunt, but he had always been too far away. The former event had also ended after a single major attack, while there were so many knights present for the latter that I couldn’t get much of a grasp on his particular fighting style.

And so, I scanned the area for where he was positioned, feeling a small wave of excitement wash over me.

Soon enough, I spotted him. In my eyes, it looked like he was just lazily swinging around a scythe larger than his own body. It didn’t even seem like he was putting that much strength behind his attacks; he was cutting down the horde of oncoming feybeasts with casual swipes, much like one would leisurely cut grass.

Aaah! Father! You’re so strong! That’s the knight commander for you!

Even with how nonchalant he seemed, each swing of the massive scythe resulted in a powerful slashing sound, loud enough that I could hear it clearly from all the way up by the ruelle. It was like the very air was being torn apart, and the number of feybeasts reduced to mist with each attack was simply incomparable to Eckhart’s and Brigitte’s efforts: at least a dozen were killed with each swipe, if not more. It certainly wasn’t my imagination that, despite Karstedt having been given such a large area to protect, he had far fewer feybeasts around him than the others.