Chapter 17
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Translator: MJK
Chapter: 017
Chapter Title: Unwelcome Guests
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Andy hurried back to the village with the firewood.
The village was in chaos.
"What the hell is going on?!"
"Routed soldiers."
"Routed soldiers...? So the rumors about the front lines being in dire straits are true."
A procession of routed soldiers was marching through the village toward the south.
Their appearance was pitiful.
Their faces were gaunt from exhaustion and hunger.
Their clothes were torn and filthy rags, and their steps held no strength whatsoever.
Finally, the military flags shredded into worthless scraps.
It was unmistakably the look of soldiers who had lost a battle and were fleeing.
Some of them even begged.
"Food... Do you have any spare food? We haven't eaten in three days..."
"Please...!"
The soldiers grabbed at villagers, pleading for food.
The villagers couldn't easily give them any.
It was winter now. Food was scarce.
The villagers barely had enough to survive the season themselves, so they had nothing to spare for routed soldiers.
But the soldiers were desperate. They had been enduring cold and hunger for days on the run.
And now, a perfectly intact village lay before them. The villagers must have some food.
The soldiers had no food, but they had spears and swords instead. Excellent tools for persuasion.
Shring!
The sound of a sword being drawn rang out.
"Hand over some food!"
"Kyaaack!"
One routed soldier threatened a villager with his sword. A scream of terror echoed through the small village.
The villagers hurriedly grabbed farming tools that could serve as weapons.
"What's going on?!"
"That damned routed soldier finally did it!"
"If you don't want to die, hand over the food!"
The villagers and the group of routed soldiers faced off. The soldiers' spears and swords pointed at the villagers, while the village men threatened them with sickles and pitchforks.
The routed soldiers before them were proper military men.
Regular army soldiers who had undergone formal training, armed with real weapons like spears and swords. They probably had plenty of frontline combat experience too.
However, after days of fleeing, they were utterly exhausted. Having marched through harsh cold and starvation, they couldn't exert proper fighting strength.
In contrast, the villagers were fresh and full of vigor.
The able-bodied men of a rural village like this weren't to be underestimated. They maintained their livelihoods through grueling physical labor, so they had a fair amount of muscle.
No matter how trained the soldiers were, in their fatigued and starved state, the villagers could handle them easily enough.
In the end, it was the routed soldiers who backed down.
"You can't even spare a bit of food for us who've suffered so much?!"
"We're barely scraping by ourselves—where do you get off begging?! Get lost, you worthless routed scum!"
"Damn it...!"
Outmatched in numbers and momentum, the routed soldiers slunk away. They headed south out of the village without securing any proper food.
Andy watched the commotion from a safe distance.
He dispersed the mana he had gathered in his hand.
'Good thing they backed off. No fight broke out.'
Crackle...
A small spark jumped from Andy's fingertip.
If a battle had erupted, Andy had been fully prepared to unleash his magic. If those soldiers had plundered the village and taken all the food, even he—who belonged to the village—would struggle to survive the winter.
Fortunately, the routed soldiers had retreated without a fuss. They'd realized the village men weren't pushovers and given up on looting.
Andy let out a sigh of relief.
'Lucky I didn't have to reveal I'm a mage.'
Andy had gained a bit of mana from consuming Yohan Grass and mastered Lightning Magic, giving him solid combat ability.
But he still wanted to keep his identity as a mage hidden.
The reason a boy enduring harsh orphan life hadn't revealed he was a mage was simple.
'If an orphan like me with no circles uses magic... They'll obviously suspect something's up.'
A mere orphan boy using magic without any proper education?
It was blatantly suspicious.
On top of that, Andy had no circles. Using magic without circles was normally impossible—an aberration against reason.
In the worst case, he could be branded a black mage and executed. They used all sorts of forbidden rituals, including human sacrifice, to cast magic without circles. There was a good chance he'd be suspected of ties to black magic.
They might even think a black mage had used sorcery to disguise himself as a boy.
That's why Andy planned to hide his mage status until he could at least form one circle. He'd finally discovered his talent—too wasteful to die senselessly as a suspected black mage.
Andy gazed north.
"Routed soldiers, huh..."
The war up north didn't seem to be going well.
The boy had a gut feeling. These unwelcome guests from the north were far from the last.
Unfortunately, his ominous premonition would prove spot on.
"Routed soldiers keep coming down from the north."
In the village chief's house, the able-bodied men had gathered.
Even though it was the largest house in the village, dozens of people crammed inside left no room to move.
On the third day since the routed soldiers' disturbance, Chief Patrick called a village meeting.
The chief addressed the gathered men.
"Yesterday, dozens passed through. Today, over a hundred. More and more routed soldiers are coming. And as time goes on, their numbers will only swell..."
Just as he said. The number of routed soldiers descending from the north kept growing.
The first day, only a few dozen. The second, twice that. Today, the third day, over a hundred had marched through the village.
And each time, they demanded food and created a menacing atmosphere.
"We've managed to protect what we have so far... but if they keep coming like this, eventually we won't be able to hold them off."
"..."
The villagers nodded in agreement.
Fortunately, the village hadn't been looted yet.
Whether dozens or over a hundred, the routed soldiers were exhausted and wounded. That's how the villagers had barely held onto their possessions.
But that was reaching its limit.
If even more routed soldiers swarmed—enough to overwhelm the villagers' numbers—they'd plunder without hesitation.
These were brutal men.
Men who had killed in war firsthand. No reason for them to hesitate over looting a village. Armies and mercenaries pillaging civilians happened often enough anyway.
"I gave a bit of food to some routed soldiers and asked about the war. The situation's worse than we thought. Three legions already shattered, knight orders and combat mage units routed."
"Even with knights and mages, they got pushed back?"
"Heard the Empire bastards deployed their own knights and mages. After breaching Lupoff Fortress, they're crushing every legion they meet and pushing south..."
"War in winter? Are the Empire bastards insane?"
Winter wars were grueling.
An army consumed massive food and supplies just by existing. In winter, those needs multiplied several times over.
Paths turned to mud, making wagons hard to move, and the cold sapped soldiers' stamina rapidly. Waging war in winter was folly on every level.
That's why the Federation and Empire usually halted hostilities in winter. They'd fight fiercely through autumn, then rest and observe through winter.
Yet this Empire army was pressing aggressively even in winter. No idea how they managed the supply demands... but their momentum was extraordinary.
They'd taken Lupoff Fortress, garrisoned by knight orders, and shattered three Federation legions.
In over a decade of war, the Empire army had never penetrated this threateningly before.
Soon, Empire troops might really reach here.
"So... we need to decide. Abandon the village and evacuate south, or stay put."
"..."
The chief's words made the villagers contemplate gravely.
The situation was anything but normal. Seeing hordes of routed soldiers pass daily made it obvious the war was going badly.
Empire troops might truly invade here.
If so, the villagers would be massacred. No reason for enemy civilians to be spared. At best, survivors would be sold into slavery.
For survival alone, packing up and fleeing south now made sense.
Yet even so, they couldn't decide on evacuation easily.
"Abandon this village?! No way! Do you know how hard it was to pioneer this godforsaken frontier?!"
"We've poured half our lives into this place. Can't just abandon it."
"How are we supposed to survive in a city with nothing?!"
The village was their livelihood, their home—everything. They couldn't abandon it lightly.
The world was too harsh to start from scratch without roots. Evacuating might save lives, but they'd end up beggars in the cities.
That's why, even amid the Empire's southward advance, they couldn't bring themselves to leave.
And they had their own reasons for confidence.
"There's a military city to the north! They'll definitely stop the Empire there!"
"Exactly. If the military city holds them back, the Empire will retreat, and no more routed soldiers will come."
A few days north lay a military city.
A rear supply base supporting the front lines, home to tens of thousands of soldiers and civilians.
Surely that could repel the Empire.
The villagers pinned their hopes on it. If the military city repelled the Empire, no need to evacuate.
Public opinion gradually solidified around staying and defending. The chief nodded, surveying them.
"Alright... For now, we'll stay. We'll reconsider evacuation if word comes that the military city's fallen."
The village meeting concluded: hold position for now. No need to flee while the military city stood.
But they didn't know.
The Empire's strength exceeded imagination.
News traveled slow—they didn't yet know the military city had already fallen.
The meeting ended.
Deep into the night.
Andy, fast asleep, furrowed his brow and opened his eyes.
Something kept disturbing his sleep in the dead of night.
-Boom... Rumble... Roooar...
A deep, resounding noise from far away stimulated Andy's ears.
It sounded like distant thunder or a collapsing mountain. But since it was a sound he'd never heard before, he couldn't identify it.
"...What is that noise?"
Bothered by the alien sound, Andy got up and stepped out of his room.
As he emerged from the cramped side room at the base of the stairs, Tom was there.
"Andy. You hear that too?"
"Yeah. What the heck is it? Gives me a bad feeling..."
"Same here. Was gonna go outside and check."
"Let's go."
Tom and Andy stepped out of the inn and looked toward the source of the noise.
It came from the north—the direction of the military city and the front lines.
Staring north, Andy and Tom could only gape in stunned silence.
"..."
"...My god."
The sight before them was so unreal they couldn't even cry out in shock.
Flash. Flash.
Relentless red lights flickered beyond the northern mountains. The night sky pulsed crimson.
Massive explosions erupted, their booms reaching even this far. Part of the mountain range crumbled visibly. The winter peaks burned.
The Empire's army.
And their vanguard combat mages.
Having captured the northern military city, they were pursuing the fleeing Federation forces right to this area.
Andy and Tom stared blankly at the northern mountains.