Defense Against the Orthoptera (3)
I had gathered John, Noel, and Sylvia.
Preparations were complete, and all that remained was to execute the plan just as I had in the past.
Or so I had thought.
I never imagined that things would fall apart this badly in the brief window it took me to get ready. The fact that they had failed to hold back the Orthoptera despite having both Erika and Aris on the field was bizarre in itself, but I had no time to ponder why.
"John, Noel! I'll cover you, so pull out anyone you see first. Stay clear of the open areas or you'll get encircled—wedge yourselves into the corners!"
"Got it!"
"Understood!"
"Sylvia, trail right behind those two and clear the path just like we practiced. I'll watch your flanks and support them."
"Leave it to me."
We charged toward the nearest cluster of stranded students. Their eyes widened in disbelief as we broke through the swarm.
"Y-You guys...?"
"Get moving! Fall in with us!"
"Hurry up and clear out! If you drag your feet, you're making this harder for everyone!"
Working in unison, we managed to drag out the first isolated team. They were panting, battered, and on the verge of collapse. If we had arrived even a few seconds later, their line would have shattered completely. But at least they were alive, which was all that mattered for now. Unfortunately, that also meant the rest of the surviving groups were in the exact same dire straits.
"You two, we're cutting through again. Same routine!"
One of the rescued students stumbled forward. "W-We can help..."
"Don't bother squeezing out strength you don't have," I cut him off. "Stay off the front line and assist the people we pull back. Now isn't the time for you to play hero."
We forged ahead and pulled out a second team—one that had been barely clinging to survival on the far edge of the courtyard. But brute-forcing our way through the remaining clusters would cost too much stamina. That was why I had brought insurance.
"John! Noel! Pull the lines!"
"Hrrraaaagh!"
With a guttural shout, the two of them yanked the ropes, flinging the prepared buckets outward.
"Right flank is clear! Push through the opening just like before!"
"Let's goooo!"
Before I knew it, John and Noel were moving back-to-back without a shred of hesitation. The shouts tearing from their throats were born of newfound confidence rather than reckless madness. That kind of growth was a welcome sight. A very good sign indeed.
The students we were rescuing, however, could hardly maintain their composure.
"Ugh... what in the world is that smell...?"
"Is that... blood? What is all of that?!"
"Wait, look! The beasts aren't coming after us as much!"
Just moments ago, the ravenous demonic beasts had been throwing themselves forward with relentless ferocity. Now, their frenzied attention was diverted toward the two buckets overflowing with gore and entrails. Thanks to that gruesome decoy, the exhausted students caught their breath, but the meager scraps of meat and blood wouldn't keep the Orthoptera occupied for long.
I had to resolve this immediately while the window remained open. We needed to gather every scattered survivor in one place and reorder our lines.
"All units, assume Hasirt 3 Formation! Move, before those bastards turn back on us!"
"Wait, who is that...?"
"Isn't that Junon?"
It was only natural for them to hesitate. Throughout Lebrant Academy, Junon was branded as nothing more than a chronic troublemaker, saddled with a litany of disgraceful rumors and malicious gossip. No one here had any reason to view me favorably. Yet it was also undeniable that an escape route had opened the moment my voice rang across the yard.
"Stop dawdling! If you want to live, listen to what I say!"
A few among the milling students scrambled to adjust their positions at the mention of the Hasirt 3 Formation. But the vast majority merely traded blank, bewildered stares.
"What is Hasirt 3...?"
"I don't know... they never taught us that."
"Wait, isn't that something only the lower-class students learn in basic theory...?"
Telling them there was no time to waste was useless. When students treated their written coursework like a joke, there was no chance they would understand tactical formations. Someone of John or Noel's caliber could grasp my instructions and execute them, but unlike those two, the rest of these kids were completely clueless.
Right then, a sharp, quick-witted student stepped forward and raised his voice. He was someone I recognized—a student who occasionally asked Professor Jake for help working through difficult tactical problems.
"It means redirecting our support casters and buffers to the vanguard instead of bolstering the rear firepower! In plain terms... the buffers are supposed to reinforce the frontline defense!"
"What?! Why should we do that?!"
"Are you insane?! We're midguards and rear casters—why should we be dealing with those monsters up close?!"
"Then what do you propose we do?" a cold voice interjected.
"S-Sylvia..."
"We don't have enough firepower to wipe them out, which means our only option is to hold the line," Sylvia said, stepping in front of the protesting students. Her tone was sharp and unyielding. "We're already critically short on vanguards, so he's telling you to support them so we don't get overrun. What part of that don't you understand?"
Seeing the students balk at an unfamiliar order, Sylvia had stepped up to take control. In moments like this, harsh pressure was far more effective than gentle coaxing.
"If you refuse, you die. Do you really want to stand here arguing until you get torn to pieces and devoured?"
"Even so, why should we listen to some bottom-tier delinquent?! On what authority?!"
"That 'bottom-tier delinquent' just carved out the opening that saved your lives," Sylvia fired back, narrowing her eyes. "Are you going to follow his lead and take the only chance you have at surviving? Or are you going to throw the formation into chaos on a tantrum and drag every last one of us to our deaths?"
"That's..."
"I assume you're smart enough to understand by now. I'm placing my bets on survival. So if you step out of line and jeopardize everyone else, I won't just stand by and watch."
Her words struck home. The students knew full well that the monsters' eyes were glued to the meat buckets for now, but once that food was gone, human flesh would be next on the menu. Shivering under Sylvia's biting reprimand, they finally swallowed their complaints and scrambled to obey.
It was playing out exactly as I had planned.
'How about it, Sylvia? Can you handle it?'
'If that's what needs to be done... I'll talk to them just like you said.'
'Speaking softly won't work. You have to hammer a sense of urgency straight into their skulls. Be firm.'
In a life-or-death crisis, a single defiant individual could easily fracture an entire group. From that moment on, they ceased to be an ally and became dead weight. Anticipating that the higher-ranked students would push back against my commands, I had briefed Sylvia beforehand to take the reins.
Thanks to her intervention, our ranks coalesced into a unified unit without falling apart. Even if the roles were unfamiliar, the students begrudgingly carried them out. With the buffers reinforcing John and Noel, breathing room naturally began to open up on our front.
"W-Wait! You're moving too fast—!"
Panicking people were prone to making reckless mistakes. Under overwhelming pressure, such lapses became even more frequent. Humans were emotional creatures by nature, after all. But as long as our formation held steady, even sudden blunders could be salvaged.
Clang!
"H-Huh?"
A barrier snapped into place, deflecting a scythe-like limb. A Unique Magic optimized for interception was exceptionally suited for screening allies and providing emergency cover.
"Don't stop!" I barked. "I've got your back, so clear the path and pull back!"
"Junon...? Why the hell should I listen to—"
"Get moving instead of gaping at me, you idiot! Make the same mistake twice and everyone behind you dies! Do you want to end up as dog food?!"
"..."
Harsh language and relentless pressure never failed to deliver results. Snapping at their frayed nerves with sharp curses bruised their pride, but it forced their bodies to move. Scowls and dirty looks didn't bother me in the slightest. If I wanted to survive, these students had to stay alive too.
One by one, the stranded groups were pulled into the fold. Even the squads that had been completely encircled by Orthoptera were brought back; battered and bleeding, yes, but alive. It was a more than satisfactory outcome.
By now, the reality of the situation had finally set in. Realizing that survival depended on mutual trust, the students began covering for each other on their own initiative.
—We need support on this side!
—Junon! Should we push in now?!
"Not yet! My flank isn't clear! Hold for one more beat!"
—We've linked up on the right! The perimeter around that other squad is broken!
—Can we advance now?!
"Go! Break through right now! Frontline blocker, trust me and push straight ahead! Don't worry about your flanks!"
From that point forward, the retreat functioned smoothly under my direction. Every scattered pocket of survivors was recovered, drawing the dispersed students back into a single, cohesive force.
Now came the final card.
"John, Noel!"
"On it!!"
I had entrusted them with the bait to buy precious seconds, but there was one more task I had assigned them.
"Vanguards, raise shields! Everyone else, shut your eyes!!"
SKREEEEEECH!
A crude, hand-crafted alchemical flare ignited in the vanguard, detonating in a brilliant cascade of white radiance. A blinding explosion of light engulfed the entire field, searing through the dim courtyard like a miniature sun.
The intense glare passed in a fraction of a second, leaving the swarm of monsters disoriented, thrashing blindly as their compound eyes burned.
"Maintain Hasirt 3! Fall back to Alkaid Hall right now! Carry the wounded! You have ten seconds!"
All that remained was to endure.
Every trick and diversion I had prepared to break the siege had been exhausted. From here on out, we had to hold the line with our own flesh and blood.
"Is everyone inside?!"
—All accounted for! No one left outside!
Good. From here, six teams would form a rotation, holding the threshold in five-minute shifts.
Safely inside the reinforced walls of Alkaid Hall, the students concentrated all their efforts on repelling the Orthoptera at the narrow entrance.
"Our only job is to buy time! Rotate out and hold until reinforcements arrive! Six teams to a cycle, swapping every five minutes!"
No one dared talk back to me anymore. Even the stubborn nobles understood that our current position was far more manageable than fighting in the open. Bottling the monsters up at the doorway severely restricted their attack angles, removing the threat of leaping pounces and aerial dives that had plagued us in the courtyard.
Knowing that our survival depended entirely on stalling until the instructors arrived, I repeated the order once more. The remaining students nodded grimly, maintaining their focus without question.
'Now, I need a report.'
In a prolonged siege, the most crucial factor was accurately assessing the current state of affairs and anticipating what would come next. But looking around the hall, our numbers were alarmingly thin. At a glance, there were barely two-thirds of the survivors that had been present before my regression.
I needed to know what had happened.
"Haah... I can finally breathe... Wait, Junon?"
Fortunately, someone who could shed light on the situation was catching her breath right in front of me.
"Henna. I'm going to ask you a few questions. Keep it brief—we're pressed for time."
"..."
"...What? Some of them deserted?"
"Yeah! While the rest of us were bleeding our guts out to hold the line, a bunch of them panicked and bolted to find their own way out!"
Listening to Henna's summary left me utterly speechless. It wasn't unheard of for deserters to appear when pushed to the brink of death, but the scale of it made no sense.
'I assumed that without me here, Aris would take command and everyone would fall in line without question.'
Still, what was done was done. Crying over spilled milk wouldn't change anything. But as I probed further into how the battle had played out, my confusion only deepened.
"What? A Kenique 6 Formation?"
"I think so. I don't know much about tactics, but... I remember them keeping that exact layout the entire time without changing it."
Why on earth would they do that?
Why deploy Kenique 6?
Aris had adopted that very same arrangement in the previous timeline as well. The Kenique 6 was a stable, orthodox formation favored by regular armies and long-range expeditions—a standard, textbook blueprint for confronting demonic beasts.
From the frontline back, it lined up the vanguard, support, buffers, midguard, and rearguard in a balanced sequence. It was exceptionally versatile against standard monster threats. And that was precisely why it was completely wrong for this battle.
Against a suffocating swarm that the frontline vanguards couldn't possibly contain, the Kenique 6 was an absolute death sentence.
I needed to understand why she had made such a catastrophic call, and more importantly, I desperately needed the combat strength of Aris and Erika right now.
"Henna, where are Aris and Erika?"
"Those two... well..."
What could have possibly happened to warrant that kind of hesitation? When I frowned in confusion, Henna swallowed hard and pointed silently toward the far corner of the corridor.
"...!"
Both of them were lying on the floor, drenched in crimson.
Aris and Erika.
Unquestioned pillars of Party Tembris, their abilities were on par with Goden and Michel. Aris was a phenomenal talent who could anchor the rearguard alone by blooming explosive lotus blossoms, or slot into the midguard to create openings for Michel's magic. The title 'Aris of the Lotus' hadn't been granted lightly.
Erika was no different. As a dedicated healer, she stood at the very pinnacle of the buffer class. Later on, once her Unique Magic fully blossomed, she would even compensate for her party's occasional lack of offensive punch. Both of them were seasoned combatants who had survived side by side with us all the way to the bitter end, when the Principality was driven to the brink of annihilation.
Yet here they were, collapsed and bleeding out. It was a deviation so severe that it shattered all my calculations.
"Look at the bleeding...!"
In the previous timeline, I recalled Erika suffering only minor lacerations from an Orthoptera's scythe. But this was something entirely different. Her abdomen had been completely pierced, and dark blood was welling up from her lips, staining her chin.
The crimson pool spreading beneath Aris was enough to soak her hair. These weren't superficial wounds—they were mortal injuries that could snuff out their lives at any second.
Gathering whatever clean cloth remained inside the hall, I immediately set to work applying emergency first aid.
"Tell me what happened," I demanded.
"Well, you see..."
Listening to the explanation from the student guarding Aris, a string of curses escaped my teeth before I could stop them.
"Those worthless cowards...!"
Aris had staged repeated fighting retreats to buy time, but a contingent of students had broken ranks and fled anyway. In a crisis where every single body was needed to hold until help arrived, they had chosen to desert the field. A throbbing headache pulsed behind my temples.
'And the tactical situation is even worse than before.'
The circumstances were vastly bleaker than in my first life. The students assigned to the rear and midguard had recklessly dumped their mana reserves right at the start of the engagement, completely exhausting the fire support. To make matters worse, many of them had forced themselves to cast advanced elemental spells ill-suited to their aptitudes, rendering their output pathetic compared to the mana spent.
Outside, a ravenous swarm was clawing at the doors; inside, our mana efficiency was in shambles. The loss of Aris—who possessed extensive experience working across various mercenary squads—was a devastating blow. I had assumed the students would at least respect her commands, but a sizable faction had proven entirely useless, breaking formation and dragging others with them in their panic.
And worst of all were the critical conditions of Aris and Erika, the two linchpins who should have anchored our defense. Our current combat readiness was a fraction of what it had been back then.
"Keep the reports coming! How many teams do we have left in the rotation?!"
"Only two teams remaining on standby! They're resting, but they haven't recovered enough mana yet!"
We were running out of time. We had managed to stall by rotating the survivors through the bottleneck, but the Orthoptera's starvation was only growing more ferocious. When predators were forced to salivate over prey dangled right before their eyes, their instincts turned violent. They were losing their minds, throwing themselves forward with rabid abandon.
SKREEE! SKREEEEEECH!
"I-It's getting way harder to push them back than earlier!"
"Support team! Bind this one's legs!"
"We can't! Our mana is almost dry...!"
"How much longer on your casting?!"
"I just fired my last spell! You have to wait!"
We had fallen back to Alkaid Hall to secure breathing room, but our safety margin had vanished. I had pushed my own body past its limits, stepping into the fray multiple times to plug emerging gaps, leaving my stamina and mana running dangerously low.
'Erika is...'
We had barely managed to staunch her bleeding. Though supportive regeneration and pain-numbing charms were being directed at her, she remained completely unconscious. Her pulse was faint, growing weaker by the minute, and a cold dread settled heavy in my chest.
Aris wasn't faring any better. Having pushed herself past the breaking point even before the deserters fled, she had succumbed to acute Mana Exhaustion. She hadn't stirred once since collapsing.
At the entrance, our line was on the verge of collapsing. The students were fighting desperately to keep the rampaging beasts at bay, but their dwindling numbers simply couldn't withstand the pressure.
I had desperately wanted to avoid using it, but there was no other choice.
"W-What is that...? The monsters..."
"They can't get through...?"
A massive, shimmering barrier snapped into existence across the entryway, sealing the breach and forcefully repelling the swarming beasts.
"Junon..."
Sylvia turned toward me, her eyes wide with worry. She knew immediately that I was the one anchoring the spell.
"Catch your breath while you can," I told her, my voice strained. "I don't know how long I can keep this up. Gather anyone who can still hold a weapon and assemble at least one more frontline squad."
If we wanted to walk out of here alive, leaning on the power of the Belshuar Ark was our only remaining hope.