Volume 2, Chapter 3: Great Horse of Nightmare③
The headless Great Horse lowered both of its raised hooves toward Lambert, aiming to stomp him to death.
Lambert dodged and then parried the ramming charge that came next with the body of his greatsword.
Although the Great Horse ran into Lambert’s side with such great momentum, it turned around immediately by striking the ground with its hooves and rushing toward Lambert for the second time.
Maybe because it remembered how easily Lambert parried its rush before, the Great Horse suddenly stopped right in front of Lambert. It raised both of its forelimbs to crush him to death.
Lambert dodged the stomp and readied his sword for another rush.
「D-Don’t do that, Knight-sama!」
Alvana warned Lambert, as if she knew that Lambert was no longer trying to dodge.
Confronting the human, the headless Great Horse had a giant frame.
That’s why she thought that Lambert’s attack was nothing more than a suicide.
Lambert’s greatsword clashed against the Great Horse’s hooves.
Alvana couldn’t believe what she just heard.
It was the sound of a tug-of-war between a horse and a man, who put his entire body weight into stopping its attack.
「S-Such a thing is…」
Even Alvana, who guessed the situation from outside the combat ground, ended up approaching Lambert with slight hesitation.
「Hmm, marvelous. It must’ve been a really fine house when it was still alive.」
Lambert then readied his body and pushed back the horse’s giant frame as he raised a war cry.
In that moment, the Great Horse’s abdomen was exposed to Lambert.
One swing from Lambert’s greatsword would be enough to end the battle.
「Y-YAAY!」
Alvana strained her ears, desperate to not miss the moment when Lambert finished off the Great Horse of Nightmare.
But Lambert didn’t do anything.
「E… Eh?」
Alvana muttered in shock.
The horse also maintained its distance from Lambert, as if to guess the man’s intention.
「You were also killed by your lord, right? It’s fate to meet you in this kind of place.」
The Great Horse tilted its headless neck as it listened to Lambert.
In the next moment, it leaned forward and sprung at him.
Lambert raised his greatsword overhead and swung it down at once.
「HAAAAH!」
Lambert’s miasma leaked out when he put more power into his swing.
「!!」
Alvana stopped moving at once. Her faded eyes opened wide, and she lowered her hips as she became alert.
Lambert’s downward slash smashed the ground, sending a spray of soil and sand flying.
His sword wasn’t aiming at the horse. The place he was aiming for was a spot right next to the horse.
Maybe due to fear, the Great Horse then sat on all fours.
Lambert readied his greatsword again, but then he resheathed it.
Alvana’s stiffened body then loosened.
Closing her eyes, she smiled and touched her lips.
「W-What a surprise… geez, you have such a terrifying spirit. And yet… ahahaha, could it be that you were moved by my story and decided to spare it?」
「Nope, I just think that it’s not a bad horse. It’s troubling that it takes such a long time to move in the forest. On the other hand, a normal horse wouldn’t be able to endure the weight of my armor. All of them would be smashed to death. In addition, I couldn’t find a horse as good as this one in the previous city.」
「… Pardon?」
Alvana frowned, completely out of tune with Lambert.
During the Eight Countries Unification War, Regios Kingdom desperately tried to crossbreed and raise the best warhorses that could withstand the heavy full-plate armor.
They chose the horses with the best physiques, then bred them with equally powerful horses. This resulted in tough and powerful horses, and this process was repeated again from the beginning.
As for Lambert and the other Four Demon Generals, who wore full-plate Organ armor, the best of the best warhorses were given to them.
For Lambert, who used to look at those great warhorses, the horses he saw in Ainsaz City looked malnourished. He could only regard them as useless horses, even the best of the lot.
In contrast, this headless Great Horse was a fine horse, which resembled a warhorse of Regios Kingdom during the Eight Countries Unification War.
Although it still had many shortcomings, Lambert regarded those shortcomings as trivial matters.
In the first place, Lambert was an undead. It was only fitting for him to get an undead warhorse as his mount.
Most of all, even though the headless warhorse was several levels below Lambert’s former beloved warhorse, its fur, atmosphere, and something else had touched Lambert’s heartstrings.
From the very beginning, ever since he heard the sound of its hooves, Lambert had already decided that he would make this fine warhorse his mount.
「No, no… this script is wrong! I’ve never heard of someone being emotionally attached to an undead! They’re just rampaging berserkers who cling onto their former lives! Do you realize that you… just said something really outrageous, Swordsman-sama?」
「…」
Lambert felt slight indignation when Alvana said the sentence that literally rejected him, a real undead.
He ignored Alvana’s warning and brushed the Great Horse’s back with his armor-covered hands.
The horse shivered slightly, but then its body stopped trembling and it became obedient.
「Look, it understands my intention to make it my mount. How’s that? Handling animals has always been one of my prided skills since a long time ago.」
「It’s just… scared of you, right?」
From Alvana’s perspective, that horse was submitting to a stronger animal.
It was something that happened a lot in nature.
Nevertheless, starting from the fact that it hardly felt fear or joy, a situation in which the Great Horse—an undead who should’ve been rampaging in rage—submitted in front of Lambert was nothing but unbelievable.
The deciding factor was because Lambert was also an undead himself, but there was no way Alvana knew about that.
「Swordsman-sama is quite a straight-laced person, huh… I’m a little bit wrong, huh… in a good way.」
After she said her honest impression, Alvana added a follow-up line without pondering too deeply over that mystery.
Even though Lambert tilted his head in confusion upon hearing Alvana’s remark, he kept brushing the headless horse’s back, who seemed to have grown attached to him.
But of course, the headless horse was still trembling in fear.
「Going along with Swordsman-sama is never boring, but… I’m afraid that everyone will call me a liar if I tell them about what really happened right now.」
Alvana spoke while exhaling a deep sigh.
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