Kuro no Maou

Either way, it doesn’t change the fact that they were definitely moving forward. In the first place, there’s no way they can get lost in this one way road. They could spot few others who had made it to the wall like them.

And when they turned back, despite the number of people killed, even more were being pushed forward as if to overrule it.

After a while, even more war slaves are probably going to make it this far. And more of them will lose their lives, either on their way here, or after.

The castle siege plan begins now.

“But even still, what do we even do about this huge wall?”

The only tool given to them was a ladder. A long 15 meter tall ladder to conquer the walls.

However, they had dropped that long ago. The war slaves who had been carrying the ladder were all pierced by arrows and were burnt to crisp.

They didn’t know where the other ladders were at that moment. At the very least, they couldn’t spot any in the surrounding and there were no ladders put up against the wall.

Although, even the goblin had a ladder, he wouldn’t want to climb a 15 meter tall wall. The proud Daidaros knight would probably climb it. And that’s probably why he made it this far silently.

“Hey, hey, mister, what will you—”

“Here.”

The goblin heard his voice for the first time here. However, that voice was different from the time when he showed him the way in Daidaros’ capital.

Is he speaking with an accent? Did his throat get scraped? A low voice?

All of which are correct but none are the core problem.

“Here... wall... climb...”

This isn’t the voice of someone sane.

While saying that, the lizardman looked up towards the top of the wall.

“M-mister...?”

“Ku-cli... enemy.. demon... kill...”

And at that moment, a scream reverberated. The goblin held down his sharp ears and let out a shriek. But his voice died out in front of the lizardman’s roar—no, the thing in front of him... it was “something else”.

“Wh-what is... this...”

The white robe covering the lizardman’s body flew off.

And underneath wasn’t green scales—it was two audacious arms covered with reddish-brown fur. It wasn’t the arm of a lizardman. In the first place, his arm was still there.

Those two beast-like arms grew from his shoulders. In other words, he now had four arms.

However, it didn’t stop there. His massive chest muscles divided and a head came out—someone else’s head.

That head looked that of an orc’s. A dark skinned orc. And his face looked atrocious. And because of that, the white ring inserted on top was standing out.

The eyes opened up and got a hold of its body in a moment. Its hectic eyes didn’t stabilize, as if it was searching for something important.

“O, ooo.... Guuoooooooaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!”

After letting out a scream, the former lizardman clung onto the wall with momentum.

And when he looked closely, he noticed that the creature had long bent claws which were sharp like knives.

And it wasn’t just its hands. The same thing happened with its legs. No, even the strong burly lizardman tail had a claw coming out of the tip.

It precisely pierced into the wall’s unevenness with its claws.

“Gaaa!!”

And with a sharp voice, the strange-looking knight started climbing the wall. He climbed the vertical wall at an unthinkable speed considering its size. Nimble like a monkey—no, this movement is closer to that of a spider.

Without being constrained by gravity, it kept climbing up as if that was land. At that speed, it probably won’t even take 10 seconds to climb only 15 meters.

“Uu, aah... how could this... m-mister has... turned into a monster...”

Why did that strong and burly Daidaros knight turn into something that terrifying? A mere farmer like him couldn’t even imagine.

It was like a nightmare. But, considering how this place is already hell, that monster might just be fitting of it.

Monster. That’s right—a flash of light passed through his mind.

Even though he couldn’t be confident in his memory, he recalled reading it in a picture book in the village chief’s house when he was a kid. He couldn’t remember the difficult explanations. He didn’t even read it, to begin with. But in that page, beside the explanation, was a big illustration.

A lion’s head, a goat’s torso and a serpent’s tail. In that picture book, there were also illustrations of two-headed eagles with bat-like wings.

Monsters with different body parts from different animals.

Those looked exactly like the one he just saw. As if those parts were forcibly put together on top of one another.

Now that he had remembered it once, he was sure that the thing he saw was something out of that book. And that grotesque monster’s name is–

“—Ugguh?!

When he had remembered up to that point, he was thrown away by something and fell on the snow, facing up.

And when he came to his senses, it wasn’t the Galahad castle walls in front of him, it was the perfectly clear blue skies.

After blinking a few times, he understood that he had fallen down.

“Uwah, what was that suddenly... it surprised me..”–he was just about to say, but then, “–gabuhh! Guu, gaaha....”, not a single word came out.

When he opened his mouth, bright red blood came flowing out with intense coughs.

He couldn’t breathe. He felt like that time he had nearly drown in the river when he was young. But now, he was drowning in a sea of blood. That was how he felt.

“Kaa.... ha.....”

And then, without even realizing that his throat had been pierced by an arrow, his short life had abruptly come to an end. Death by a stray arrow, which is very common in the battlefield.