Chapter 26
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 26
Chapter Title: The Second Dreihart Rebellion Suppression Battle (2)
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Sharen was waiting in the rear of the battlefield, where the fighting was in full swing.
According to tactical doctrines, a mage's role was to stay in the back and respond with their spells based on the flow of battle.
In that sense, placing Sharen in the rear was perfectly reasonable.
But that only applied to ordinary mages.
A mage of Sharen's caliber could act freely, unbound by such doctrines, without any issue.
Even launching a massive spell assault on the enemy before the melee began wasn't impossible, especially with a little support from the knights.
There were two reasons she hadn't done so.
The first was that Calix didn't want such a large-scale slaughter.
The second was their presence.
"How long do you plan on just watching?"
As Sharen spoke, they materialized from thin air amid swirling black smoke.
They were the Bloodkin assassins—the very reason Sharen had been ordered to hold position in the rear.
Five assassins wearing black masks—the ones who had reduced Jeras to rags—surrounded her. Their leader, Kyr, spoke up.
"Impressive. All alone... You don't seriously plan to take us on by yourself, do you?"
"It's not about taking you on. It's about killing you."
Sharen fixed them with cold eyes that neither Calix nor anyone else from the Cron Family had ever seen.
The moment she spotted them with her Sky Eye, she had known instinctively.
These were Bloodkin, just like the assassins who had targeted the lord.
Letting them roam free could endanger the lord and everyone else, so Sharen had made herself the bait to draw them out.
"You... You're the Bloodkin who tried to assassinate the lord, aren't you?"
Back at the Magic Tower, Sharen had learned a great deal about the Bloodkin.
But she harbored no particular hatred toward them.
What they had done was wrong, but they had never harmed her personally.
These ones were different, though.
They had attacked her lord.
"I have no special feelings toward Bloodkin in general, but you lot are the exception. You tried to destroy my dream."
Kyr sensed the killing intent in Sharen's words and knew she was no ordinary foe, but he wasn't afraid.
After all, they were assassins seasoned in hunting mages.
"A lone mage thinks she can handle us?"
Sharen knew exactly what he meant.
But there was something they didn't know.
For the past ten years, Sharen had wandered the Empire alone.
The number of ambushes she'd endured and assassins dispatched by lords she had faced—they probably wouldn't believe it even if they heard.
"I've roamed the Empire alone for the last ten years. How many ambushes do you think I've survived? How many assassins have I dealt with?"
Flames began to erupt from Sharen's staff.
Coiling around her like serpents or whips, the fire stretched and writhed as she declared,
"Let me show you the flames that have burned assassins like you before."
Assassins vs. Mage.
Darkness vs. Flames.
Another battle erupted in the rear of the warzone.
Zarha was flustered when his charge was blocked.
The knight's aura had clearly felt weaker than his own.
Yet the knight had not only stopped his charge but repelled it.
To figure out why, he charged again, and Rikain met him with his shield.
"Knights! Form up!!"
In response to Zarha's charge, the knight order united around Rikain.
They withstood the impact just as before and pushed him back.
That's when it clicked for Zarha.
"I see. So this is your ability."
Zarha's deduction was spot on.
Rikain's blessing was Guardian's Shield.
It was a defense-specialized power that strengthened shields around him.
Though not overwhelmingly strong in raw power, it made Rikain a tank rivaling SSR characters when it came to holding the line.
Still, Zarha was puzzled.
The more he charged, the more his strength seemed to drain.
What was this? Did that knight's blessing have some effect that stole his power?
As he pondered how to fight at range, problems arose among the other slave soldiers too.
"Z-Zarha... My... body..."
"Uron! What the hell?!"
Slave soldiers who had been fighting well began collapsing without even being hit by arrows.
As his comrades dropped one by one despite fighting hard, and as Zarha felt his own strength ebbing away, a terror he'd never known gripped him—the fear of defeat.
"You bastards!!! What sorcery is this?!?!"
Zarha knew the horrors of magic and poison in war and had been on guard against them.
Thanks to the black-masked ones, they hadn't been hit by mage attacks in prior fights, and all their food had been checked by herbalists and the masks' inspectors for poison.
Yet for everyone to suddenly collapse all at once? Zarha assumed they were under some magical assault.
But he was wrong.
The attack on Zarha and his men wasn't magic—it fell under alchemy by classification.
As a merchant, Noah had heard and experienced countless tales.
Among them were stories about food.
Barley from the south and wheat from the west were harmless if eaten separately.
But eat them together and engage in intense activity for a day or two, and it shocks the body into unconsciousness.
After the siege began, Noah had deliberately let them loot southern barley. Just before the second suppression battle, she'd supplied western wheat to induce this exact state.
Unaware of this, Zarha and the slaves felt like they were fighting demons.
Comrades felled by arrows.
Others who'd fought fiercely suddenly passing out.
And now, Zarha and most of the slave soldiers felt their limbs growing weak.
Sensing defeat, Zarha made one last desperate struggle.
"Using such filthy tricks! I was a fool to ever trust you lot even a little!!!"
Zarha loathed Calix for resorting to every dirty tactic to kill them.
At the very least, he wanted to take out that lord. He grabbed a nearby spear to hurl it.
But...
Pfht—!
"Guhk!"
An arrow struck Zarha's chest out of nowhere.
In his fading vision, he witnessed Lord Calix firing the shot.
Figures. I hate guys who kill with skill like that, Zarha thought as consciousness slipped away.
As the slave soldiers fainted and the battle drew to a close, the assassins' fight with the mage was also ending.
The five assassins attacked Sharen with flawless anti-mage tactics.
Their mistake? Sharen was beyond what such tactics could handle.
"Gaaahhh!!! Kyr!!!"
Whoosh—!!!
The fiery whips Sharen summoned writhed like living serpents around her, striking at them relentlessly.
Normally, wide-area spells like this left gaps in mana flow.
Exploiting those gaps was the assassins' signature move—but not against Sharen.
If anything, it was a trap.
Already, two of Valharim's assassins had tried to slip through those "gaps" only to be ensnared by the whips and burned alive.
Kyr recognized it: the pinnacle of anti-assassin mage combat arts, forged from countless experiences.
"Why aren't you moving? Not attacking anymore?"
"........."
Kyr had no choice but to admit it.
Sharen was a monster he couldn't handle right now.
He couldn't afford to take more losses and jeopardize their sacred mission.
"Today's humiliation... I won't forget it."
"Who sent you?"
At Kyr's signal, the assassins unleashed smoke bombs in unison.
Sharen swung her fiery whips, but true to form, the assassins evaded.
When the explosion's smoke cleared, they were gone.
No trace of mana lingered, as if they'd never been there. Sharen memorized the feel of Bloodkin assassin mana once more before departing.
The battle unfolded exactly as planned.
Noah's prepped trap and Rikain's cavalry-archer tactics synergized perfectly, leaving the slave soldiers to faint one-sidedly.
Still, they looked so much like corpses that misunderstandings were inevitable.
Nothing could be done about it.
Sharen had no mass faint spell, and since she'd insisted on handling the assassins alone, this was their only option.
Everything was going smoothly until Zarha suddenly lunged forward desperately.
I saw him grab a comrade's spear and prepare to throw it at me.
If I'd let that fly, I'd be skewered. In my past life, nothing had ever made me pull the bowstring so frantically or desperately.
Gods of heaven and earth!! Give me strength!!!
Did the gods hear my plea?
Thankfully, I drew the bow smoothly and nailed Zarha's chest with a tranquilizer arrow. He went down.
Phew... That shaved ten years off my life.
I really thought I was done for.
Seeing Zarha fall, our knights erupted in cheers.
"The lord felled the enemy leader!!"
"Follow the lord!!"
Wait, I just landed the finishing blow. Why the frenzy?
Whatever—high morale is good. Our knights surged forward to subdue the slave soldiers.
Truth be told, the battle was over the moment Zarha fainted.
The few slaves who hadn't eaten the wheat and barley—and thus hadn't fainted—saw him drop, tossed their weapons, and surrendered meekly to be bound.
And so, with just the Cron Knight Order, I successfully suppressed Dreihart's rebellion.
We quickly sorted the aftermath and summoned War Supervisor Rakyu.
"Incredible... You truly quelled the Dreihart rebellion single-handedly, my lord. Truly impressive, Lord Calix."
"It's thanks to the hard work of the Cron Knights and my retainers."
Rakyu marveled at the freed Dreihart and the bound slaves in the Colosseum.
The issue had resolved while he was mustering troops in the rear—a bit embarrassing for him, but not a bad outcome.
His mission was to oversee the suppression, and I'd fulfilled it faithfully.
His duty was done.
"Now that you've confirmed it, as Lord of Cron and Liberator of Dreihart, I demand just compensation from you, Rakyu."
"Of course, Lord Calix. I, Rakyu, War Supervisor of the Dreihart Suppression, guarantee it. The Dreihart rebellion was quelled by the Cron Family. Per the Platinum Council's decree, from this moment, governance of Dreihart belongs to the Cron Family."
Rakyu placed a hand over his heart and swore by the gods.
With that, all procedures were complete. I shook his hand.
"Congratulations, my lord. The Cron Family is now a great house no one in the Empire can ignore."
"Too early for celebrations. The most important task remains."
Yes, it wasn't over yet.
With all preparations in place, I entered the Colosseum for the final act.
The moment to end this horrific slave city's history had arrived.