30 Years After Reincarnating, It Turns Out This World Was A Rofan?! novel Chapter 293

— A knight is one who can shift the tide of battle single-handedly.

A saying known only in the South.

There were many ways to describe knights. Some called them men with the strength of a thousand, warriors of unparalleled might capable of overwhelming entire armies.

Of course, no knight truly possessed the strength of a thousand men.

But there were those whose presence alone could equal a hundred.

—[Champion].

A knight who had fought and won thirty duels in the name of their territory.

Even among champions, distinguishing the truly exceptional from the rest would be an exhausting debate.

But one thing was certain—

A champion had the power to determine the tide of war.

During territorial battles, a champion’s very presence dictated the morale of the soldiers.

It was the power of renown—the sheer weight of reputation forged through thirty victorious duels.

...And yet, Mordred did not concern itself with champions.

Not because they disrespected knights—far from it.

After all, Ganok, the leader of the Hundred Ghosts, was Mordred’s pride, and he was certainly no ordinary champion.

Yet even so, Mordred’s warriors had long since stopped believing in champions.

Because after enduring over a thousand defensive battles, they had come to a stark realization—

—There is a limit to individual strength.

No matter how strong a knight was, numbers always prevailed.

Against a disciplined army, even the mightiest warrior would be swallowed whole.

Especially in Mordred, where the troops were equipped with the most advanced weaponry—

Where a squad of just five well-coordinated soldiers could take down one or two knights with ease.

And more importantly—

No matter how famous a knight was, monsters did not care about human reputation.

Five years ago, monsters might have flinched at the sight of a renowned champion.

But in the present?

No one in Mordred feared a so-called champion.

—No matter how great a knight may be, if the battlefield is the setting, we will win.

For their fangs had been sharpened to pierce the Archfiend’s throat.

...And yet—

"So something like that actually exists..."

A quiet murmur.

Yet everyone who heard it instinctively understood its meaning.

BOOOOM!

Another boulder crashed into the horde, pulverizing the small-class monsters.

SHUNK!

Arrows and spears skewered the mid-to-large-class ones with uncanny precision.

“Bring more arrows!”

“We need more spears!”

“...Since when were spears this deadly?”

One strike. One kill.

Every time he moved—whether swinging an arm or shifting his foot—dozens of monsters were erased from existence.

Within ten minutes—

One man had slaughtered over 3,000 monsters.

The rest of the horde hesitated.

[[.......]]

A single knight.

A presence so overwhelming that even the monsters—beings that should know no fear—were now hesitating.

Even monsters, at their core, had the instinct to survive.

Just as a mob of dozens would go silent if a gun were pointed at them,

Now, 100,000 monsters found themselves frozen, watching the sheer massacre unfold.

As if to move meant becoming the next target.

At this moment—

"A presence that subdues even ten thousand."

Ten-thousand-man commander.

Not the strength of a thousand.

But the concentrated might of ten thousand.

"I’ve never felt this reassured in my life."

For the first time, they truly understood why a champion could influence the morale of an entire army.

The heat surging in their chests, the sheer exhilaration—

The warriors of Mordred could no longer contain it.

This translation is the intellectual property of Novelight.

"How much longer are we going to just [N O V E L I G H T] stand and watch? Support the champion!!"

[[WAAAAAHH!!]]

With spirits soaring to the heavens, they unleashed hell upon the battlefield.

Gunfire.

Explosions.

Flames.

Fueled by the heat in their hearts—

***

The one fortunate aspect of fighting a monstrous horde was that, at the end of the day, they were nothing but a disorganized mob.

There was a reason they were called "vile breeds."

They lacked coordination, had no proper chain of command, and their entire existence revolved around devouring and being devoured—a brutal hierarchy of survival of the fittest.

The few monster species that possessed any form of cooperation, such as goblins and gnolls, had the intelligence of mere children at best.

If the entire army of 200,000 were composed solely of goblins or gnolls, it might have been a far greater threat.

But as it stood, this was no real army—just an enormous, chaotic mass.

The problem, however—

[Grrrrraaaaah!]

[Bruuurrrk?]

—was that there were just too many of them.

So many that it was enough to trigger a deep, primal disgust.

Frogmen—monstrous humanoid amphibians—crawled out from the swamps, their webbed feet sloshing through the murky water as they advanced toward the fortress.

Undead creatures, ghouls, sprinted mindlessly across poison-filled traps and spiked pits, completely indifferent to their rotting flesh being torn away.

And so—

"Fire!"

"Don't hold back—throw the firebombs!"

BOOM!

BOOOOM!

Explosions rippled across the battlefield, tearing through the enemy ranks.