Ice Partner and Peaceful Days: A Banished Summoner's Life with a Lone Knight
Glenn, a 30-year-old summoner, is expelled from his B-rank party 'Crimson Fang' for only being able to summon a single Living Armor. Their leader, Zex, dismisses him coldly: 'Your summon can't hold the front line.' Glenn simply says, 'I see,' and leaves without a fight.
However, the Living Armor he poured all his magic into for fifteen years has secretly evolved into a higher being with its own will—a 'Living Knight.' Glenn himself, through relentless training, possesses three times the magic c
Ice Partner and Peaceful Days: A Banished Summoner's Life with a Lone Knight - The will behind the helmet
The air before dawn still held the remnants of last night's rain. On the stone steps of the workshop *Hammer and Seal*, puddles reflected the western sky like thin mirrors. The red glow that had scorched the direction of the royal capital had already faded, swept away by the approach of morning.
Glen stood before his workbench, checking the clasps on his tool case. His traveling gear was already in order. At his waist hung a small pouch of magic stones and a simple catalyst wrapped in leather. His staff, as always, in his right hand.
(*The forest's outer edge, then.*)
The same words had been circling in his head since the night before.
The Ash-Smoke Forest. Forty kilometers south of Heldain. One of the places where magical beasts had swarmed in great numbers during the Ash Flood, and even now, there were depths no human hand had reached. Glen himself had set foot there many times back when he belonged to the Crimson Fang. This time, he would hunt a gray bear that had been ravaging a village on the forest's outskirts.
(*If I were alone, I might have turned this down.*)
Glen's mouth softened, just slightly. But a priest would be accompanying him. A healer arranged by the mutual aid society. If so, then his purpose in going was no longer just the extermination.
At that moment, beyond the wooden door, unhesitating footsteps approached. The sound of rough leather boots striking wet cobblestones.
Glen turned and opened the door.
"Morning, Gald. You're early."
Standing there was a giant of a man, one hundred ninety-five centimeters tall. A shaved head, with a white scar running from his left cheek down to his neck. Small gray eyes, narrowed ever so slightly. Gald the heavy warrior. Formerly the Crimson Fang's shield-bearer, now a man entrusted by the mutual aid society with training new recruits.
"Yeah. Brought the request form."
Gald held out a folded sheet of paper with his rugged fingers. Glen took it and spread it open on the counter. A formal request, stamped with the mutual aid society's crest.
Glen slowly traced the words written there from top to bottom.
*Request for extermination of a variant gray bear at the outer edge of the Ash-Smoke Forest. Client: Lau Village, southern district. Priest Klaus Felden accompanying. Reward: sixty-five silver coins. Required rank: C or above.*
"It's a variant. We had trouble with one before."
Gald's voice echoed low in the morning stillness.
Glen gave a small nod at those words.
A variant. Since the Ash Flood, individuals with magical power different from ordinary species had been sighted rarely across the continent. Gray bears were originally just beasts of massive size, but when it came to variants, they were said to harbor corrosive magic in their claws and fangs. That unpleasant sensation of whatever they touched slowly melting away.
"You have that old scar on your face. That was a gray bear too, wasn't it."
"Yeah. From when I was young. Nearly died."
Gald unconsciously brushed his left cheek. Then he let out a low breath.
"I'd go too. ...That's what I'd like to say, but I've got training with the new recruits today."
"Don't worry about it. We have the priest with us. The way we fight will be different from when I'm alone."
"Knew you'd say that."
Gald's mouth relaxed, just barely. It was the faintest expression of a man who didn't even know how to smile.
"Don't worry about Zex."
At the sudden words, Glen looked up.
Gald was looking straight down at him.
"Whatever that bastard's scheming, your path's already set. Don't waver."
Glen met those gray eyes for a moment.
"...Thank you. I'm not wavering. It's just... something stirring deep in my chest."
"Is that so."
Gald said just that, then turned and walked away. As he left, he lightly struck the workshop pillar once with his left fist. It was his habit. Expressing emotion not with words, but with a rugged fist.
Glen quietly watched his back.
Then he folded the request form and tucked it into his inner breast pocket.
"...Well then."
In the corner of the workshop, the Living General rose, its blue-black heavy armor creaking. In its hands, a great shield and battle axe. Deep within its helm, a blue light pulsed with steady rhythm. Since Gald had arrived, that light had not wavered once.
"Let's go. From the southern highway to the forest's outer edge. Half a day's walk and we'll arrive."
The Living General, in place of an answer, lightly raised its great shield. The metal gave a very low sound. It was always ready.
Glen smiled softly at that wordless response.
━ ━ ━
The highway heading south was soft with post-rain mud, and his soles sank with every step. White light filtered through gaps in the thick clouds. The sun was not yet high. The wind against his skin carried the forest's moisture, strangely lukewarm.
The Living General walked several steps behind Glen. The footsteps of its heavy armor sank into the ground at regular intervals. Listening to that sound, Glen traced fragments of distant memory. The days he had walked this highway with his comrades of the Crimson Fang. Zex's sword walking ahead, and Gald's back holding his shield beside him. From behind, the presence of Mireille's earth magic.
(*It's grown distant.*)
A faint pain flickered deep in his chest. But it was no longer the kind of pain that stopped his feet.
After about three hours of walking, a small farmhouse appeared beside the highway. In the yard, an old man was repairing a wagon wheel. When he noticed Glen and his companion, the old man wiped his muddy hands on his waist and called out amiably.
"Oh my, are you two adventurers? Well now, that's reassuring. Please, do something about that gray bear."
"Leave it to us. Is your family safe?"
"Aye, everyone stays indoors at night now. Yesterday, the fields of neighboring Lau Village were torn up. There was a hole in the barn wall, looked like it had melted."
(*A melted hole...*)
Glen turned over the words *corrosive magic* written on the request form once more in his mind.
He thanked the old man and continued further south. Eventually, the highway reached the forest's entrance. Lau Village clung to the western edge of that forest. A small settlement.
At the village entrance, wooden fences had been stacked in multiple layers, and before them stood a man clad in white vestments.
He appeared to be around Glen's age, or slightly younger. Around thirty. His chestnut-brown hair was trimmed short, and his thin cheeks held calm brown eyes. At his back, he carried not a long wooden staff but a short staff wrapped in white cloth. On his chest hung a silver ornament of a cup entwined with a serpent—the symbol of the healing god.
"Are you Priest Klaus Felden?"
When Glen spoke, the man smiled quietly and nodded.
"Yes. Thank you for coming today. I'm sorry to have made you travel all this way."
Klaus Felden. His voice was astonishingly calm, with a resonance that seemed to slow the breathing of whoever heard it.
"Not at all. Having a priest with us is reassuring. My name is Glen. I run a staff workshop, and occasionally take on requests like today's. This fellow behind me is my partner, the Living General."
"I've heard the rumors. You're quite famous around here. That business at the Klagen mines... I heard many lives were saved."
"You give me too much credit. It was the result of everyone on site doing their part."
Klaus let out a small, soft laugh.
"People like you are rare even among priests—your heart's axis is so firmly set. Well then, let us go. The damaged field is just ahead."
The forest's outer edge was about fifteen minutes on foot from the village. A narrow animal trail continued between the trees. The morning light, blocked by thick branches and leaves, cast mottled shadows at their feet. The air mixed the smells of earth and leaf mold with something almost sweetly grassy.
Glen positioned the Living General to his right front and advanced carefully.
"The variant in question has ravaged the village fields seven times in the past three months. No direct harm to people yet. But since the barn wall melted, the villagers haven't been able to sleep at night."
"Corrosive magic... if it touches you, it'll take the flesh right off. Priest, please do not step forward under any circumstances."
"Yes. I will follow your instructions."
Klaus's voice was as calm as ever. Glen felt a small measure of reassurance in that. A man who knew no fear was unsuited to this work. But a man who could carry fear and still hold himself like a physician—such men were few.
They walked for a while longer.
Just past a rotted log, Glen stopped.
The air had changed.
The smell of leaf mold was now faintly clouded with blood and animal musk.
"It's coming."
The Living General stepped forward, smooth as breath. It raised its great shield and lowered its stance.
It was immediately after that.
Deep in the undergrowth, a dozen meters ahead, a black shadow rose up, slowly.
A massive body over four meters tall. Its gray fur was patchy and falling out, and the skin beneath was red-black, as if burned and festering. Its right foreleg was wreathed in a murky black light, as though cloaked in a rotting swamp.
A gray bear. A variant.
Glen readied his staff.
"Klaus, to the rear."
"...Yes."
Klaus stepped back three, four paces.
The forest air trembled.
The gray bear roared. An ear-splitting howl. Leaves fell like rain.
In the next instant, the massive body kicked off the ground.
Glen formed a seal with his left hand and began his incantation. Moisture in the air condensed, and white mist streamed from the tip of his staff.
"Freeze."
The ground froze with a grinding sound. The mud, still holding the rain that had just fallen, turned in an instant to a hard floor of ice.
The gray bear's feet slipped on the ice.
But it did not fall. Its foreleg, wreathed in corrosive magic, crushed and melted the ice as it pressed forward, ever forward.
"(Fast...!)"
The Living General leaped out from the side. The face of its great shield gleamed dully.
The gray bear's right foreleg struck that shield.
The metal screamed.
Looking closely, the shield's surface was dented in the shape of fingers, slowly sinking, melting. Corrosive magic.
"Partner, strike while disengaging! Don't take it head-on!"
The Living General tilted its shield slightly, deflecting the bear's force to the side. But the blows delivered by that four-meter body were heavy, each and every one. Its swinging claws gouged the earth and rotted the trees.
Glen leaped backward, firing bullets of ice. His aim: the massive body's legs. To stop its movement.
The ice bullets struck the gray bear's hind legs. White frost raced across the fur's surface. But the black magic immediately ate through it, melting it away.
(*Its regeneration is fast. The magical erosion is constantly progressing.*)
Cold sweat ran down Glen's forehead.
This was different in nature from any magical beast he had fought before. Corrosion and regeneration. Those two forces kept the gray bear's body in a constant state of boiling.
"Glen, allow me to support you! I'll heal your wounds!"
Behind them, Klaus raised his short staff. A silver incantation made particles of light float up into the forest air. Preparation for healing magic.
At that instant, the gray bear's movement stopped, perfectly still.
Slowly, its red-black eyes slid away from Glen.
"...Damn."
The gray bear's target had changed.
The priest behind them, mid-healing-incantation. The variant had keenly sensed the rising magic.
The massive body turned.
Before Glen could shout, he drove his staff into the ground. Hurriedly, an ice barrier. He released his magic mid-incantation, forcing a wall of frost into existence.
"Make it in time—"
But the gray bear's charge was far faster than the wall could take form.
Its corrosive foreleg gouged the earth, crushed tree roots, and bore down on Klaus in a straight line.
Klaus's face stiffened with terror. Th
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