Skeleton Knight in Another World Vol. 5

by Ennki Hakari

  “E-everyone else was killed when the wall fell. I… I’m the only one left.”

  I used my recovery magic to cure the man’s wounds as he responded to Chieftain Houwe’s questions. He clenched his fists as he spoke.

  The man was thin and malnourished, his clothes no more than rags.

  “The nearest human town is Tagent, no? Are many of your kind being held there?”

  The man replied with a firm nod.

  The chieftains debated what their next step would be.

  “What should we do? I have to admit, it’s rather fortuitous to find the wall breached like this.”

  “If the giants are already going to be ravaging Tagent, why not join in the havoc?”

  “We need to decide soon, or we’ll lose whatever advantage we have.”

  “I don’t know how big Tagent is, but if it’s anything near the scale of Fernandes, it’s probably too big for us to free everyone.”

  “So, you’d rather turn a blind eye?”

  While the chieftains deliberated, the warriors chimed in with their own opinions. Then, all eyes focused on Houwe.

  After a moment, Houwe dropped his arms to his side. There was a decisive look in his eye.

  “We will depart at once for the human town of Tagent to liberate the beast people. We must not forget that humans have assaulted our camps and taken our own as slaves. We will slay any giants that get in our way! Warriors, keep an ear open for the call to withdraw!”

  His speech was met with a roar of cheers. The hunting party split into seven platoons to sneak their way into Tagent.

  As for my companions and I, we made our own eighth platoon.

  It was time for the playoffs of the Giants vs. the Tigers.

  I glanced up ahead at Goemon and Chiyome and thought about the troubles they faced. Well, we’d just have to deal with that when the time came.

  ***

  The peninsula jutting out like a finger on the southern continent belonged to the Great West Revlon Empire.

  The port town running along the eastern shore of the peninsula was the major hub for shipments leaving the continent for the empire, though it had grown over the years, and now rivaled some of the biggest cities in the north.

  The Hilk church located at the center of the town was flanked by two massive towers that served as quarters to the priests and the temple knights, as well as the cardinal’s private chambers.

  The contrast of the red bricks and white stones used to construct the buildings gave them a rather elegant appearance. The white stone pillars throughout the vast church grounds also helped it stand out from the sea of brick buildings that made up the rest of the town.

  The cardinal’s private chambers were located on the third floor of one of the buildings. This was where he made all the decisions about the church’s direction.

  A massive, colorful painting adorned one of the walls, a towering presence in the room. Not to be outdone, all of the furniture in the room was also ornate and fit for a king. A woven rug on the floor completed the look.

  At the center sat a large bed, made specifically to order. The bedposts reached nearly to the ceiling. A curtain draped over them covered the bed in an intricately detailed cocoon of splendor.

  Atop the bed lay a large, balding man with a jutting belly, drooping cheeks, and a face reminiscent of a frog. The man’s name was Cardinal Charros Acedia Industria. As he did most days, he was currently stuffing his cheeks with fruits from a basket tucked under his arm.

  “Ahh, what a wonderful day. Those little prats from the homeland haven’t bothered me ever since I sent them off. Gyahaha! They must’ve just given up after they realized that a force of ghostly soldiers was nothing of note. I have to admit, I’m quite the brilliant little thinker. Yes, I am!”

  Charros burst into a fit of laughter at this, his massive belly shaking and legs flailing about.

  His eyes fixed on some of the fruit juice dripping from his hand as he yanked the curtain back.

  “Well, I suppose I can’t just idle my whole day away. There’s work to be done after all. Still, nothing wrong with being a little self-indulgent, is there?”

  He continued speaking to no one in particular as he rolled his rotund body across the bed.

  The sound of someone banging on the door interrupted his reverie.

  “Cardinal Charros, we have an emergency! Please, grant me an audience!”

  The priest would normally wait for permission before entering the room, but he didn’t even bother waiting for Charros to respond before bounding through the door, arms and legs flailing as he tripped over himself, landing face first on the floor.

  This took Charros by surprise. Then, a scowl soured his face.

  The prostrate priest didn’t even bother looking up before he began speaking, the urgency clear in his unsteady voice.

  “I have just received reports that twenty or so monsters have breached the border wall and are descending upon the town. They appear to be giants. The magistrate has requested the services of the church to fend off the attack.”

  After the priest finished his report, Charros gestured for him to bow lower, until his forehead brushed the floor. He hefted himself off the bed, his scowl deepening.

  “But it’s just twenty monsters, no? Why should I have to get my temple knights involved? The magistrate has 2,000 soldiers under his command, while my men number a mere 500!”

  Charros walked over to the window, where he gazed out at the houses and cathedral before him. The towering wall surrounding the church grounds prevented him from seeing out into the town.

  The priest, sensing what the other man was thinking, continued.

  “Cardinal Charros, you can see out into the town from the church’s towers. I believe you can truly understand the peril we face from up there. Please, come with me!”

  “Harrumph. I know I said I should get out of bed today, but I’m really beginning to regret that. I wish you’d just stop pestering me.”

  The plump man’s cheeks puffed out as he muttered to himself. Then he looked down at the prostrate priest and let out a dramatic sigh. With a heavy shrug, he waddled over toward the door, the priest’s gaze following him the whole way. Cardinal Charros waved the man over.

  “Well, come on now, take me to the tower! I rarely have occasion to be up there, you know, so it’s not like I’d know the way!”

  “R-right away!”

  The priest smiled broadly, tripping over himself again as he made his way past the cardinal. He jogged ahead, like a dog leading its master. Charros somehow managed to keep up with him, in spite of his large girth.

  The two made their way to one of the towers connected to the cathedral and began the long climb up the spiral staircase. It wasn’t long before Charros was breathing heavily and wiping sweat from his brow.

  “Wh-who decided to build towers like this? Even if we needed them, I can’t see why we put stairs in here. What purpose do they even serve?”

  His body jiggled as he complained, but he still jogged his way up the stairs at a steady clip. The man wasn’t quite the fat slob people mistook him for.

  The lanky priest leading the way, on the other hand, was heaving for breath, and looked as if he might pass out at any second. He stuck his head out one of the open windows built into the side of the tower to catch his breath, the light of the setting sun shining brightly on his face and causing him to squint.

  As his eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to take in the sights of the town below.

  What he saw took him by surprise. He jerked his head back to look at the cardinal, his voice shrill.

  “Cardinal Ch-Charros! Come here, quickly! You can see the monsters!”

  The tower itself was quite cramped, and his voice resounded off the walls like an echo chamber. Charros glared back at the priest and shoved his fingers into his ears.

  “Fine, fine, I got it! You’ve no need to yell like that.”

  Charros grumbled to himself as he moved his face c
loser to the window.

  The window allowed only a narrow glimpse of the outside. Making matters worse, the overly excited priest was also trying to crowd his face in, further limiting the view.

  Using his rotund body as a battering ram, Charros shoved the priest away from the window and looked outside. The rays from the setting sun caused him to squint as well, but as his eyes adjusted to the light, he was able to make out fires burning near the wall surrounding the town, though far from the church itself.

  He could also make out strange beasts towering above the brick houses off in the distance. With the sun at their backs, these figures appeared as headless shadows against the sky. One black, headless giant smashed the roof of a building in, reached inside, and started shoving something into a large hole at the center of its chest.

  Charros watched wide-eyed as the giant munched away on a person as if it were a mere snack right in front of him.

  From where he stood, Charros could see four of these figures. The screams of the townsfolk came to him faintly on the wind.

  Charros stepped back, indentations from the window still marking his skin, and looked back at the priest.

  “Waaaaaugh!”

  He screamed and stuck his head back out the window.

  “What is that thing? Who would dare attack my town? Just what’s going on here?!”

  He was near hysterical. Charros looked to the priest for answers, but all he could do was shake his head, desperately hoping the cardinal would know how to respond.

  “Ah, yes, the temple knights! Go dispatch them at once!”

  “Right away!”

  The priest bowed. When he looked back up, he saw Charros running down the stairs.

  “Where are you going, cardinal?”

  Charros didn’t even bother to turn around.

  “Reinforcements! I’m calling for reinforcements, so hurry up and—”

  The rotund man slipped on the step and tumbled down the stairs for a ways before slamming into the wall and bouncing off it like a massive rubber ball. The force of the blow took him over the railing and down the center of the tower.

  The priest looked over the edge.

  “Charros! Cardinal Charros!”

  He was surprised to see Charros climb back to his feet and take off again in a hurried waddle. The man must’ve fallen at least four floors.

  The priest’s mind went blank with shock at what he’d just witnessed. Once he came back to his senses, he took off to fulfill his orders and summon the temple knights.

  ***

  Charros went straight to the cathedral’s basement.

  At the bottom of the dimly lit stairs, he could make out the shape of a huge metal door, held fast by a peculiar lock with no keyhole.

  The stone stairs were covered in thick layers of dust, rarely traveled by the church’s inhabitants. The air around him was filled with a unique, almost spicy smell from what lurked on the other side.

  Charros approached the massive door and put his hand on the keyless lock.

  Magic formed around Charros’s palm, and the thick shackle on the lock released with a satisfying thunk.

  Charros placed his hands on the metal door and gave it a push, revealing a large, high-ceilinged room on the other side. Shelves lined the walls of the room, illuminated by the magical lantern Charros held in his hand as he moved deeper and deeper into the darkness.

  Countless box-shaped coffins, all painted black, lined the shelves.

  Charros was in the town’s catacombs.

  His eyes scanned the rows of coffins as he moved down the narrow passage, the echoes of his footsteps the only sound in the silence.

  “Why do bad things always happen to little old me? Tagent is dooooomed!”

  He stopped, as if something had just occurred to him.

  “Did he have all this planned before coming here? But that would mean using them would violate the will of the pontiff. Hmm…”

  He put both hands on his head as he mumbled to himself in the middle of the corpse-lined shelves.

  Charros stood up straight, his mind set. He began moving quickly through the passage before stopping at an altar at the center of the catacombs, where he picked up a black box sitting on a platform.

  “This is all awful, awful, awful! I’ll put an end to them all—those black shadows, and the jerks that started this whole thing!”

  Charros’s right hand began glowing as magic flowed through it, spreading to the black box, which let off an eerie glow of its own.

  Suddenly, the lids of the coffins all opened in unison, skeleton knights in dull armor slowly climbing out and grabbing their weapons as they rose. They moved almost like any live soldier would.

  Charros looked around at the armored warriors and nodded. He held up the box and called out in a loud, clear voice:

  “I order you to kill the dark giants! Don’t leave any survivors!”

  The knights moved in unison. Each of the churches throughout the town were connected to the vast catacombs via an underground passage.

  The skeleton soldiers marched down the passageways, passed through the oft-overlooked doors, and stormed out into the town like a swarm of ants. The small squads of temple knights standing guard at each of the churches were immediately cut or beaten down.

  The skeletons numbered around 10,000, a full third of Tagent’s population. Slowly but surely, the town fell into chaos.

  One man, dressed in the garb of a priest and sent from the Holy Kingdom itself, stood atop one of the town’s brick buildings and watched the skeleton knights flow into the streets, the corners of his lips tugging upward into a grin.

  His smile didn’t last long, however, as he observed the citizens of the town getting pushed ever closer to the giants by the mobs of soldiers. His eyebrows knitted in consternation as he let out a sigh.

  “If he wanted to kill the townsfolk, that would be one thing. But the giants too? This is in clear violation of the pontiff’s wishes. Proof that I am far better suited to serve as cardinal.”

  The man chuckled to himself before pulling a round crystal out of his pocket. It emitted an eerie glow. He held it high in the air and smiled.

  “Kill all of the living! This town will belong to the dead, the servants of the pontiff!”

  The crystal’s glow grew harsher as all of the skeleton soldiers ceased moving…but only for a second. The next moment, they began cutting down any humans who crossed their path.

  It was like the gates of hell had opened up.

  The elderly were the first to die, their bodies lining the streets. Next were the fathers trying to protect their children. Their heads were lopped off, landing in their children’s arms. After that were the mothers, run clean through along with their children.

  “Gyahahaha! That’s it! You will be the vanguard of the pontiff’s forces! Just the thought of marching down the roads with you behind me brings a tear to my… Wha?!”

  The man sensed a presence behind him and turned around.

  A younger man kneeled before him, looking up with bright red eyes under a head of black hair, cat ears sprouting from the top of his scalp.

  “Ah, you’re back. I see that you were successful in killing the giants’ children and leading them here to town. Why don’t you go out and draw in the giants still fussing with the wall over there?”

  A smile broke out on the man’s face as he indicated with his chin.

  The young beast man—Sasuke, one of the six great fighters of the Jinshin clan—nodded before running off, darting from rooftop to rooftop.

  The man watched as Sasuke disappeared into the distance, a smile gracing his face.

  “He’s quite the impressive asset. After I am appointed cardinal, I may ask the pontiff to give him over to me.”

  The man turned his gaze back to the hell unfolding before his eyes.

  ***

  The tiger clan party, accompanied by me and the gang, stormed north on their driftpus toward the human town of Tagent. Every direction
we looked, there were crops as far as the eye could see, almost as if the entire peninsula were one large farm. It was quite a shock.

  Off in the distance lay a small village in the middle of a field. There was no defensive wall at its perimeter—a sight rarely seen in this world.

  This tranquil scene was marred by massive footprints amid the fields. The trail of crushed crops pointed straight ahead. This was almost certainly the route the giants had taken.

  The lone road running through the farmlands was jammed with people, all their worldly possessions on their backs. They stared in amazement at the massive mounts ridden by the tiger clan, some of them even waiting quietly for the hunting party to pass on before running off.

  The humans made little fuss over the army of mountain people. Nor did they show much in the way of fear, suggesting that the town of Tagent was already under attack. They looked like refugees escaping a massive tragedy.

  Chieftain Houwe and the other tiger clan warriors snorted at the humans in disdain before looking toward their objective ahead.

  One of the warriors laughed, and the rest of his cohort was quick to join in.

  “I’m surprised at how pathetic the humans living here are. Without that wall, they’re nothing.”

  “And yet, for generations, that same wall kept us from even getting here.” Houwe looked back over his shoulder and glared at the warriors, putting an end to their banter.

  The sun hung low over the horizon, turning the sky a deep shade of burgundy. I could see the outline of Tagent off in the distance. The whole town was ablaze. Eerie cries of fear and anger filled the air.

  Occasionally, I caught brief glimpses of dark giants popping up above the brick houses that filled the town before disappearing again.

  Though nowhere near the scale of the wall at the entrance to the peninsula, there was a wall surrounding the town of Tagent.

  Standing around the same height as the giants, it had been smashed wide open in several places. Citizens of the town, along with the occasional mountain person among them, poured out of these holes.