Hero
Hero
Our preparations finished quickly, but we couldn't take off right away. The wyverns flew so fast that we had to wait a bit until the mages dispatched with royal support could issue the attack order to the defensive line via magic tools. In the end, since this was a hit-and-run plan, there was no benefit to moving before our allies' attack, so we decided to wait patiently.
Even so, I briefly thought on one side, 'Then couldn't we have departed a bit later?' But the departure signal came not even five minutes later, and we flew toward the front lines.
Gies, suddenly thrown into the front lines, had gone quiet, probably from tension, so the journey was quiet. Given that we couldn't equip other gear because it was a transport wyvern and had to fly at a higher altitude than the wyvern knights while they shielded us with their bodies below, his refusal to take this job lightly was a truly commendable attitude.
When I turned my gaze from that tense Gies to the scene unfolding beneath my feet, battle cries gradually began to mix into the rapidly flowing landscape. We moved so fast that even those passed in an instant. After we flew past the place where forest, humans, and orcs mingled to produce the sound of weapons clashing, a landscape of only forest and orcs spread out, and by the time we reached the spot where trees had clearly still stood in my memory, a new landscape of nothing but empty fields and orcs unfolded.
It was pure chaos and destruction. Seeing an entire area reduced to scorched earth like that in three or four days made me truly realize just how many orcs there were. The horde in the center even seemed as imposing as a Demon King's castle.
"A-are you really sure about this? There are so many of them..."
While I was frowning at the sight, which looked like a place teeming with cockroaches, Gies asked in a horrified voice. Worrying about me even in this situation—what a genuinely kind friend.
"I don't have a hobby of committing suicide."
"Hoo... understood. We'll reach the planned position soon, so get ready. One more thing I should say..."
"I remember. You’ll drop me during inverted flight, so I’m not supposed to jump on my own like last time. Don’t be nervous—I’m counting on you."
No matter what anyone says, isn't he the wyvern pilot I trust most?
Though that was also because I'd never ridden behind any other wyvern pilot.
I felt a tremor that didn't seem to come from just the cold, but Gies was calm. And when we reached the position we'd agreed on beforehand, the wyvern knights flying below hurled fireballs at the orc village.
Unlike magic, shamanism has no constant activation. Something about the sacrificed souls running wild otherwise? Which meant that when the wyvern knights' magic rained down, the shamans below had to respond immediately. If luck was on our side, we might have exploited a moment of carelessness, but since this was supposedly a war, the bastards were on edge too—unidentified shamanism targeting the fireballs shot up into the sky in an instant and formed a massive barrier.
Was "barrier" even the right word for it? The sight of thick, viscous dough opening its maw to gobble up the fireballs wasn't exactly a pleasant one. The bastards' shamanism didn't stop there—they began shooting similarly viscous projectiles at the wyvern knights, though they didn't land any effective hits.
After blocking the enormous javelin-like shamanism about five times, the wyvern knights shot small flames upward diagonally forward instead of downward.
A blue-green light glowed like a signal flare, neither fast nor flashy. Just as it looked, that was the signal.
Even without any separate rehearsal, Gies and the wyvern knights used the flame as a trigger point and went into a steep dive with movements akin to aerobatic flight. The moment they did, the javelin shamanism that had seemed like it would keep coming cut off, and the barrier I had first seen began to spread and dissolve.
This wasn't the skill of amateurs who'd only blocked attacks once or twice. It meant the wyvern knights had kept relentlessly attacking to find openings. But leaving all that aside, what truly surprised me was that these orc shamans had the capability to react so instantly and take literally "wise" countermeasures.
If all orc bastards had been only that smart, the continent's map would have changed.
"Good luck!"
While I was marveling at the shamans, Gies shouted, and the wyvern flipped upside down. At the same moment Gies's wyvern attempted inverted flight, the wyvern knights who had been shielding us with their bodies below split to the left and right. Their gazes turned toward me as if by prior arrangement, and though I couldn't see their expressions because of their helmets, they gave informal salutes toward me as I slowly fell from the wyvern's back.
For them, it was probably a solemn and majestic gesture of respect done with a grave heart, but from my perspective, it looked like a bomber's hatch opening to drop a missile, so it was just absurdly funny.
Of course, I didn't actually have the luxury to laugh. Even if this was something I planned and willingly carried out, the experience of falling head-first from the start was more than a little terrifying.
The height seemed roughly similar to when I had beheaded the Archdemon above the academy sky, but the world being upside down made it feel strangely different. Fortunately, turning my body midair to right my posture wasn't very difficult.
The problem was deceleration.
Going down leisurely like Mary Poppins, as Siegfried had said, meant I had no idea what I'd get hit with, so I had no choice but to keep plummeting like this until the very edge—but no matter how capable I was, I had no way of knowing just where the proper deceleration height was.
However, I didn't have the leisure to agonize over that problem for long. I would have appreciated it if they'd just believed I had fallen by accident, but the endlessly diligent orc shamans hurled their shamanic javelins aimed right at me.
- Skreeeeeeek!
Fuck, it's a genuine spirit, isn't it. The magic is screaming.
Ignoring the revulsion stirred by the javelin flying in, accurately targeting me as I fell hard—it must have had tracking capability—I channeled Magic Power into the gauntlet. The protective barrier was completed in the blink of an eye, but the shamanic javelin hurtling straight at me was also damnably fast, so I managed to block it just barely in the nick of time.
My body staggered heavily from the weighty impact, and as I confirmed that the javelin and the scream that had flowed from it were ground away and vanished against the highly effective barrier, a smile crept onto my face without me realizing it.
Satisfying performance with a manageable Magic Power cost. This prototype gauntlet was an item made for me.
◈
Kakula, having confirmed that the shamanism known as the Spear of Screaming launched at the human falling from the sky was blocked and vanished against something, narrowed his eyes and gestured to the shamans. Five more spells manifested simultaneously and flew at the human once more, but they only made him slightly alter his falling trajectory and vanished without inflicting any real damage.
That thing is dangerous. Kakula, who never took lightly the warnings sent by instincts honed over a lifetime, shot to his feet.
"Keep attacking!"
The thought that the human would just die if he fell might have flickered through the orcs' minds, but there was no objection. If they had, Kakula's double-handed axe would have split their crowns.
Paying no attention to the shamans diligently carrying out his orders, Kakula sprinted toward the spot where the human was falling.
"Ch-chieftain?!"
His guards and all the orcs nearby were shocked by his sudden action, but Kakula paid no mind and adjusted his grip on his double-handed axe. He had clearly seen it. Just before the human fell, the humans riding the wyverns had deliberately moved aside.
Those bastards acted with certainty that 'that thing' was something that would overturn this entire situation.
"Clea-r the way!!"
The orcs, who filled the horde nearly to bursting, frantically cleared a path at his shout as if they were facing flowing lava.
His heart, dormant for decades, pounded fiercely. His army had even toppled human kingdoms. And they believed that this single human, against all those orcs, would accomplish something?
If they were humans, they would have sneered at the enemy's arrogance or watched in bewilderment while the human fell to his death. But instead of believing his opponent was stupid, Kakula prayed that the human was truly that strong.
Because then he could have a proper 'fight'.
"I am!! The Great Chieftain Ka-ku-la!!"
At the resounding roar, every orc now watched him and the human plummeting from the sky. As the human and Kakula closed the distance in an instant, Kakula—at a position where he could drive his axe into the crown of the human's head the moment his body touched the ground—launched himself into a massive leap without the slightest hesitation.
At that very moment, the falling human's speed abruptly dropped as if suddenly caught by something.
So there was something after all. Proud of his instincts, Kakula stared at the human who looked him straight in the eye and released his grip on what seemed like a stick. He was large for a human. Unlike the weaklings who cloaked themselves in strange energy before attacking, this one had a warrior's body. The sword he held was appropriately large for his build, but still, it was nothing compared to his own axe.
He would split him sword and all. The instant he put strength into both arms with that thought, Kakula's axe swung down like lightning.
-Clang!
It was a killing blow, yet astonishingly, the human not only accurately blocked his axe in midair but also deflected it to the side and landed intact. Although he couldn't fully negate the impact, showing a landing far from stable, considering that he had fallen from that high sky and had to block an axe right before landing, it was no exaggeration to call it not just stable but a perfect landing.
"I am!"
The human didn't stop there. The moment his feet touched the earth, he charged at Kakula.
At the sight of movements faster than any orc or human he had ever faced, a deep smile spread across Kakula's lips. And that smile grew even deeper when he heard the shout the human let out as he swung his sword.
"Eldmia Ega!"
Blocking the sword—impossibly sturdy for what he believed to be the humans' flimsy weapons—with the shaft of his axe, Kakula laughed savagely.
Eldmia Ega! The War God the spirits had spoken of! As Great Chieftain, was he to choose death, or to kill the War God?
It was a magnificent day, enough to make the grief and rage over his dead child vanish from his mind!