Volume 3, Chapter 55 – Are You Willing To Believe Me?

“Lancelot… where is he?”

Although she had already vaguely guessed some things in her heart.

Fisiel still asked once more.

“Tell me, what exactly… happened here?”

“…”

Silence.

Only after a very, very long silence did someone answer Fisiel.

“After the captain left… the Beastmen launched a surprise attack…”

The one speaking was Gawain.

In the words that followed, Gawain then told her everything that had happened after that, in full.

Lancelot died in battle.

Not only that, it was not just Lancelot… out of ten thousand Knights of the Round Table, fewer than one thousand remained, and among one hundred and ninety thousand Kingdom troops, more than half were directly lost in this chaotic battle.

Of course, the vast majority were not killed by Beastmen, but had all become deserters.

One could say that after this battle, Fisiel’s army was already no longer able to hold the Northern Fortress…

“I am sorry… this is my fault.”

Thinking that if she had not suggested leaving, this would not have happened today…

Thinking of this, Fisiel’s heart filled with guilt and regret.

She blamed herself for her impulsiveness.

She regretted why she had not listened to Yeluo’s attempts to stop her back then, and it was exactly because she had insisted on having her own way that things had led to this irreparable situation…

“Right… What about Yeluo?”

Thinking of Yeluo, Fisiel also started to ask.

Speaking of which, up until now she still had not seen the figure of the cat-eared girl in the camp.

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“Captain… we did not see her…”

In response to Fisiel’s question, the knights shook their heads.

“You did not see her?”

Without meaning to, Fisiel thought that in Yeluo’s current state with no combat power at all, she might have died in the chaos of battle just now…

Thinking of Yeluo, of Lancelot, and of the devastating blow to the entire army.

Fisiel felt so miserable that she could not breathe.

Looking around, where did the camp still have the tidy, orderly appearance it had when she left before, the camp now had been destroyed so badly it no longer looked like a camp at all.

“These… were all done by those Beastmen?…”

Fisiel asked, her voice trembling.

“It was them…”

“…”

There was no need to think to know that the scene in front of her was the work of Beastmen, but Fisiel still wanted to confirm it properly once more.

“Then, the Beastmen? Were they driven back by you?”

Although she felt unbearably awful, at this moment Fisiel still kept a bit of reason.

Even though her heart was covered with guilt, regret, and a heavy, suffocating sadness, she still noticed some strange points.

Namely that right now, in the camp, it seemed she could not see even a single Beastman figure.

“Captain… those Beastmen who launched the surprise attack seem to have all been killed…”

Although he himself also found it hard to believe, Gawain still stated the reality before them.

“Hm? Not driven back by you… but all died here?”

Strange.

It was far too strange.

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By rights, no matter what kind of setbacks a raiding force suffered, no matter how tenacious the resistance they met, it should not be possible for them to be wiped out after a successful surprise attack, right?

But why did it seem like this Beastman raiding force… had been annihilated?

“What is going on? Could it be that the Beastmen’s Legendary did not make a move?”

If there had been no Legendary taking action, that could be barely explained.

Of course, if a Legendary had moved, the Kingdom troops without her sitting in command should have long since been wiped out…

“Captain…”

The expressions on the Paladins’ faces were a little strange, and Gawain, who spoke, also had a somewhat odd look.

“We do not really know what happened either. We only know that the Beastmen, who originally held the advantage, suddenly lost the battle, and also… that Beastman Legendary did make a move, but… after he struck at the start, he disappeared…”

“Disappeared?”

Fisiel was completely puzzled.

“What exactly happened? And that Beastman Legendary… really did make a move?”

“Yes…”

When he mentioned Grinrui, Gawain’s voice grew much lower.

“Lancelot and the others… all died at that Beastman’s hands, so I can be sure that the one who moved was a Legendary…”

“Beastman… Legendary…”

Rather than anger, what Fisiel felt more in her heart… were other emotions besides anger.

But even so, what was the use of that?

The dead would not come back… and under her mistaken decisions, the Kingdom army had… practically fallen apart.

“Hey, Gawain…”

No one knew what she was thinking, but Fisiel once again turned her gaze to the young Paladin looking at her.

“Tell me, the Northern Fortress… can we still hold it?”

Can they hold it?

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On the surface, it looked like Fisiel was asking Gawain.

But was this question not also one she was asking herself?

“Captain… I do not know either…”

After thinking for a moment, Gawain answered Fisiel this way.

“I cannot say… whether we can still hold it…”

“Cannot say, you do not know… is that it?”

There was no doubt that Gawain’s answer was actually the same as what Fisiel herself was thinking at this time.

Confused.

At a loss.

That made sense, after all, just yesterday, everything had still been so orderly.

Although there had been some hidden dangers, judging from the situation then, holding the Northern Fortress, they could still have lasted for a while.

But now…

“Can we… really hold it?”

Fisiel softly asked herself.

And for this question, even Fisiel herself did not know how to answer.

The army had lost more than half its numbers, and its fighting spirit was gone.

The Knights of the Round Table were basically only a name now.

Even if they barely managed to pull the army back together, if they wanted to hold the Northern Fortress, with no reinforcements to follow, how were they supposed to defend it?

Daydreaming…

The Beastmen would have reinforcements, but what about them?

After suffering this defeat, could they, completely isolated, really still find the courage to fight the Beastmen?

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What was more… the Beastmen also had a Legendary, and when the battle came, Fisiel would be pinned down and would not be able to help with much at all.

“Fisiel.”

Right then, all of a sudden, a girl’s voice sounded by Fisiel’s ear.

“Fisiel, do not give up.”

“Eh?”

The knight girl, coming back to herself, blinked in surprise, then turned to look in the direction the voice had come from.

There, a cute cat-eared girl was smiling at her.

“Ye… Yeluo?”

“It is me~ Fisiel~”

In response to Fisiel’s instinctive question, the cat-eared girl nodded.

“Fisiel, actually we have not yet reached the point where we have to give up…”

“But… but…”

Fisiel was a little heartsick.

Yet she still did not know what to say.

“I know, Fisiel, but Fisiel, are you not a Paladin? And would a Paladin choose to give up just because she ran into hardship?”

“I… I…”

Fisiel was lost.

“Then what should I do?”

Hearing this, under the astonished gazes of everyone present, the cat-eared girl slowly floated up into the air.

“Hey, Fisiel, are you willing… to believe in me?”