"It's okay. The demons haven't pursued the adventurers. The enemy hasn't chosen to attack, they're just making a strong defense. No problems. They won't attack."
Someone else was repeating these words again. They were meant to mask his anxiety and embodied his wish to return home alive. He repeated his prayer to his god.
There were forty-five men manning the barricade. They carried spears and wore leather armor. Among these was a man in a helmet, Bona Ingray. He was one of the many guard captains mobilized tonight.
Though he had the title of captain, in truth he was no different than the other guards. His physique was nothing special, nor was his mind particularly sharp. The younger guards were stronger and faster than him. He had made it to this position simply because he had served as a guard until he was forty, and because there was nobody else to fill it.
His face turned pale, and his hands gripped his spear so tightly the edges of his fingers turned white. Looking closely, one could see that his legs were trembling. His gaze was fixed forward solely because he did not want to see something horrible. His entirely unreliable posture only increased the guards' unease further.
Then again, it was to be expected, considering this was the first time their lives would actually be on the line in a battle.
The Kingdom fought with the Empire every year, sending troops to Kattse Plain. But the guards were tasked with the protection of the city, and thus they were not dispatched to the frontlines. Because of this, the position of city guard was coveted by those citizens who did not want to fight against the Empire. But now―
They had had ample experience dealing with squabbles between drunken peasants, but there had never been a case where they had to fight to the death. Because of that, their fear grew even further. The only reason they did not break and flee was because they knew running away would be an unforgivable sin.
Even if they were somehow absolved, they would still be guilty of not protecting the city properly. That was the sole reason why they had not been sent to the front. If they failed in doing that, then they would surely be forced into the frontlines during the next war with the Empire.
"I'm going to quit my job as a guard if I make it through this in one piece."
Bona grumbled to himself quietly, and many of the people around him agreed.
"Do you still remember what the adventurers said?"
"Are we talking about what to do if we encounter hellhounds, great hellhounds, gazer devils and demon swarms?"
"That's right. Does anyone know anything about fighting demons? Especially their weak points, what they're bad at, that sort of thing."
Nobody answered; they were too busy looking at each other.
Bona's expression conveyed how useless he thought they were without having to say a word. When he saw dissatisfaction on some of the others' faces, he looked away and slammed the butt of his spear into the ground.
"Damn it! Can't those adventurers explain better?"
The adventurers who had shared their knowledge with the guards had been heavily wounded and were falling back as fast as they could. Just telling them the name of the enemy was all they could do, let alone telling them how they looked like, or how to fight them.
However, it would be too harsh on the adventurers to solely blame them for this situation. There was no proper communication between the guards and the adventurers, and as a result the amount of information being shared was low. In fact, forming the defense line out of guards who didn't know anything could be blamed on the senior guards as well. Also, not all guards were uninformed about the demons. Under different circumstances, some of them might have learned something about the enemy.
One such platoon of guards had sent some of their members to help the adventurers retreating past them, and had learned a lot in the process.
This group, however, had not done so because their leader was frozen with fear and had not even turned to look at the retreating adventurers, and he certainly did not want to decrease the amount of troops guarding the barricade by assisting the adventurers.
"They're paid more than us to do the same job! They should fight harder! Until they die!"
Several men nodded as Bona shouted.
"Our lives are at risk too! Those guys shouldn't be running off and leaving it all to us!"
Bona called out to the nearby guards. Those further away stared coldly at him, while the ones closer to him yelled out their displeasure with the adventurers as well.
"They're here!"
At the sound of the lookouts' voices, Bona looked like he'd been choked.
Everyone's eyes filled with the shapes of the demons loping towards them from the shadowed street.
At their head was a demon that looked like a cross between a man and a frog. Its skin was a jaundiced yellow, gleaming with a sticky, shiny coating. It was covered in huge lumps all over, which looked like human faces pressed out against the skin from the inside.
A mouth that could swallow a man in one gulp gaped open, and an abnormally long tongue began tasting the air.
Around it, the hellhounds followed, as though waiting for their prey.
After that were demons which looked like a human being that had been skinned and its exposed musculature painted with some kind of black, tarry liquid.
There were fifty of the hounds, one swollen-bodied demon covered in faces, and six of the flayed demons.
"There's too many!" Bona cried like the tolling of a bell. "We can't hold them! Run!"
"Dammit!" came the angry retort. "Shut the hell up!"
Ignoring Bona's wails of despair, the guards looked to their comrades, tension knotting up their faces.
"Listen up! All you need to do is stick them with the pointy end! Our job isn't to kill them! It's to buy time! It's not hard! We're all going to make it!"
We're going to make it. Some people repeated it, and then it was taken up by others.
"Hell yeah! Let's go!"
Even the guards with terrified faces grabbed their spears and got into their ranks.
"You come join us too!"
Someone grabbed Bona and dragged him to his place. There was no time for playing around.
The demonic beasts howled, and began tearing down the barricade at an incredible speed. The guards' spears stabbed out at them from between the ever-widening gaps in the barricade.
The pained wails of the hellhounds rose up from all around them. Those demonic beasts that had not been stabbed hastily fled the barricade. They howled mournfully as they paced around the barricade, as though assessing the situation.
Some of the more collected guards thrust their spears through the gaps at the nearer hellhounds, which drove them away.
Slowly, the faces of the guards began to cheer up.
The grins of the demons in the back were disgusting, and the guards were still uneasy because they didn't know what the demons would do. However, letting time pass like this was still good. After all, their job was not to defeat the demons.
"Wh-what the?!" a lone guard cried out as he watched what was happening in front of him.
The enemy had formed into a neat line, beyond the reach of the thrusting spears.
This was completely different from the wild assault just now. The guards began growing uneasy. If they knew what the hellhounds were up to, maybe they could have changed their formation or done something about it. As it was, all they could do was thrust their spears between the gaps.
But just when they thought that was all they would have to do, the demonic beasts opened their maws, so widely that it looked as though they were dislocated. The red within their throats was not flesh, but fire.
Jets of crimson flame shot out in unison at the barricade, engulfing the entire thing in flames. The guards' eyes could see nothing but the fire.