Ch.296Epilogue – The Empty King (5)

Even in a world where magic exists, there are always knights who have lost their combat abilities for various reasons.

One might argue that knights, being such valuable assets, should be able to receive treatment from priests, but in this world, there are wounds that cannot be healed even by magical powers, so it’s not actually that strange.

Wounds inflicted by weapons imbued with curses that prevent healing are the most typical example, and there are also cases where injuries are affected by something that interferes with priestly magic.

Notably, curses that make one’s blood toxic throughout the body might not kill you thanks to aura, but they leave the body in a crippled state. There are also many cases where knights lose a limb that cannot be restored, forcing them to either use a prosthetic or retire.

Of course, in most cases, the curses are so powerful that healing or purification through conventional methods is impossible, or the cost of breaking the curse is so prohibitively expensive that nothing can be done rashly.

Therefore, knights who have become incapacitated in combat, if they still retain the ability to draw out aura, continue to serve on the front lines. If not, they retire or take on roles such as instructors in the rear.

However, for knights, combat is literally the greatest driving force and foundation of their lives.

In other words, knights are essentially humans who are no different from battle-crazed lunatics—how could such people possibly remove themselves from the battlefield environment?

That’s why they force themselves to wear prosthetic arms and legs to return to battle, or they push their damaged bodies to move despite injuries and return to the front lines.

From a modern perspective, this might be difficult to understand, but for fanatics who can produce supernatural phenomena like aura through sheer belief, perhaps it would be abnormal if they didn’t behave this way.

Thus, in this world, there are far more knights than one might think who desperately want to continue fighting despite practical difficulties, and who ignore those difficulties to remain on the battlefield.

Well, even without injuries, there are also cases where knights are forcibly “made to” retire due to age.

Therefore, for these knights, I have decided to order about 12 units of the new 5-meter class golem armor, ‘KNIGHT-1,’ which needed to be introduced anyway, on the condition that they be modified specifically for disabled knights.

It was a bold choice that required me to completely drain my emergency funds and reserve budget, but this large weapon system is worth the investment.

While continuing the “large monster” military branch that human nations have inevitably lacked, it can also be developed further to function in various environments through the installation of different equipment.

Anyway, these 12 new golem armor units, dubbed ‘KNIGHT-1,’ were immediately customized with the assumption that they would be operated by disabled knights.

The leg section was equipped with hover functionality, applying witch’s broom technology and levitation magic to enable high-speed movement on flat terrain. The internal action response system was modified to be controlled through the head, accommodating those without limbs.

Additionally, the power source was changed from a magic-aura hybrid to pure aura, greatly improving fuel efficiency and operational effectiveness. The chest-mounted magic-laser machine gun, similar to an aircraft’s machine gun, was also modified to use aura as fuel.

They even introduced a system where the operator’s aura covers the surface of the machine for protection, and additional special internal components were added to improve energy-circulation efficiency based on this.

Naturally, the weapons this machine uses are of the highest quality.

There’s a modified version of the previously created powder-propelled large lance for ‘BASILISK,’ a fixed shield that absorbs the user’s aura and deploys it as a barrier at the front, and various specialized compressed cold weapons.

The magical shape-memory alloy injected into small handles through ‘metal compression’ magic can be coated with aura, and being made primarily of mythril alloy (less than 5% content), it’s both durable and quite lightweight.

This machine, modified with the assumption that knights would operate it for close combat, is called ‘CAVALRY.’ While it can be equipped with a backpack that has long-range bombardment capabilities, that’s merely an additional option.

The official name is ‘KNIGHT-1C(AVALRY).’ It’s a special machine that can move like cavalry, serving as a new mount and legs for knights who have lost their strength.

Naturally, the reaction from retired knights who could once again serve on the battlefield through this method was explosive, and some knights even considered this a kind of reward.

Judging from their values, perhaps it feels like an acknowledgment of their efforts despite their disabilities, allowing them to fight once more.

According to knightly sensibilities, this is both faithful to their romantic ideals and simultaneously touches their rigid hearts, deepening their loyalty.

Despite the significant cost of modifications, some even consulted the Metal School to make additional improvements to their machines with their own money, and they were grandly nicknamed ‘Metal Knights.’

※ ※ ※

Anyway, while knights steeped in chivalric romance admired these ‘Metal Knights’ with overflowing loyalty.

“…Sigh, yes. I had to do this eventually.”

Having now completely inherited the regency position and other responsibilities from my father, I wanted to take advantage of the integration of this new military branch (Metal Knights) to make the knight order’s structure more flexible.

Of course, I’m not suggesting abrupt changes to the knight order that has been fulfilling its role all this time. More specifically, I’m talking about making changes to minor aspects like the organization of the knight order.

Currently, there are 143 active knights in the Alzar Knight Order. Excluding the Metal Knights, they typically rotate between different branch offices of the knight order, and when problems arise nearby, they are dispatched.

In normal situations, one knight is accompanied by about 20 to 30 ‘squires’ to assist them, and when a mid-level threat appears, according to protocol, anywhere from 3 to 10 knights participate.

This system itself runs very stably, and in fact, knights show their competence while working as part of a group.

Therefore, the two areas I really want to address are the training of squires and the knight auxiliary forces.

First, squires, who are treated as knight candidates within the order, receive apprenticeship-style education under someone specific, and considering the characteristics of ‘aura awakening,’ this elite apprenticeship approach is actually more efficient.

However, what I’m thinking about are the prerequisites—the liberal arts, basic weapon skills, mounted combat, and even military tactics that must be learned in the process of becoming a knight, all of which are currently taught under a knight.

This clearly has inefficient aspects. These basic theoretical skills would be taught more or less the same by anyone, so why not establish a specialized educational institution instead?

In other words, a Knight Academy. Before formally accepting someone as a squire, they could become accustomed to group life, learn liberal arts, and if it doesn’t suit them, they could leave early and pursue something else.

If necessary, it could even be integrated with the officer school, teaching squires and officer candidates together, with different courses based on individual aspirations and aptitudes for knights or officers.

Not all squires end up following the knight path anyway, so those who find it unsuitable could switch to the officer track from the beginning.

And by linking knight education this way, the existing knight auxiliary forces could also be reorganized, roughly structured like this:

Those with excellent written (theoretical) scores qualify to become officers in the duchy’s army, while those with excellent practical scores are selected as squires to be educated under knights.

Of course, not everyone can be selected, so there will inevitably be dropouts, but since we can’t just throw these elite-trained high-quality soldiers in as common troops—we use them as knight auxiliary forces.

Armed with newly developed cavalry rifles—carbines—they can support knights with ranged firepower, or reinforce the knights’ counter to mass numbers with their own elite methods.

In particular, these soldiers, having once received knight training, have superior education levels, enabling them to use weapons that ordinary soldiers cannot.

And as the knight order system was gradually being reformed according to this plan.

Perhaps because we were leading the way in military expansion, or because someone was instigating it, the balance that had been maintained in the political situation began to gradually tilt.

In the form of war.