Chapter 155
Chapter 155
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Translator: Ryuma
Chapter: 155
Chapter Title: The Long-Awaited Descent (2)
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“Hmm.”
The atmosphere was unnervingly heavy.
Strangely, my mind wouldn’t settle.
Feeling stifled, I climbed the fortress walls.
“Bern? Lian?”
“Amelia.”
Her eyes widened.
“Are you two also…”
“It’s strange. Something feels off, but I don’t know why.”
“This is a first for me. It’s unsettling.”
It turned out they, too, had come up to the walls for some air, unable to calm their minds.
Amelia Justice joined them.
She had hoped that looking out over the open plains from the high fortress walls would ease her mind, but there was no sign of improvement.
If anything, the anxiety only grew as time passed.
“What is this fog…”
To make matters worse, a fog had enveloped the fortress.
The view of the open plains, which had offered some small comfort, vanished beyond the mist.
This defeated the whole purpose of climbing the walls.
There was no reason to stay here any longer.
“I’m heading down.”
“I was just about to go down myself.”
“We can go together, then.”
Seeing them follow so readily, it seemed they were all thinking the same thing.
Just as they were about to return to their quarters,
Ping, thud.
A small noise that inexplicably set her nerves on edge reached her ears.
“What was that…?”
Before she could find an answer, the sound came again.
Ping, thud.
It was from the top of the wall.
As if on cue, the cadets turned and ran up the stairs.
A metallic scent stung their nostrils.
The first to recognize it was Amelia Justice.
“The smell of blood…!”
No sooner had she spoken than Lian Kart shouted.
“The sentries have been taken down!”
The soldiers who, just moments ago, had been marveling at the fog filling the plains were now all lying face down on the ground.
Bern Vigete turned over one of the bodies.
He then removed the horn hanging around the corpse’s neck.
Bwooooo, bwooooo, bwoooooo.
The sound of the horn spread through the fog.
“Enemy attack!”
Lian Kart shouted with all his might, announcing the enemy’s assault.
Meanwhile, Amelia Justice headed back down the stairs.
Her priority was to inform the instructors of the situation.
But there was no need.
“Amelia! There you are!”
“More importantly, the instructors…”
“Hurry up. Everyone’s gathered except you, Bern, and Lian! We’re just waiting for you guys!”
An old knight had summoned the cadets a while ago, her peer urged.
She went back up the wall to relay the summons to Lian Kart and Bern Vigete.
Then, she descended the wall with them.
The inside of the fortress was already in chaos.
“Archers! To your positions!”
“Check the men’s gear and get them up on the walls as soon as they’re ready!”
“What’s the situation on the walls?”
“Well… I just got the word myself, so I don’t know the details!”
“Does the war end just because you don’t know? Get up there and find out!”
Commanders were shouting themselves hoarse.
“You lot up front, move it! You’re holding up the line!”
“We can’t even see a thing in this fog, so stop rushing us!”
Soldiers climbing the walls cursed incessantly.
It was pandemonium.
Amelia Justice unconsciously stopped and stared blankly at the scene.
But she quickly snapped out of it and started running again.
This was no time to be standing around.
She ran toward a fellow cadet waving in the distance.
An open space, some distance from the wall.
The entire group was gathered there.
Thud.
Amelia Justice found the members of Platoon 2 and stood before them.
Lian Kart and Bern Vigete also took their places with their respective platoons.
“I won’t waste words.”
The old knight, who had been watching them quietly, spoke.
“Brace yourselves.”
The old knight, fully armed as if he had anticipated this situation, looked more solemn than ever.
“From this moment on, this place will become a living hell.”
*Stay sharp.*
The moment he finished speaking, urgent screams echoed from the top of the wall.
“The west wall has been taken by the enemy!”
“Defend the gate!”
And so the war began, abruptly, cloaked in a thick fog.
* * *
Amelia Justice had once dared to dream.
To achieve a feat so great that everyone would look up to her in admiration.
Among the cadets of the Cradle, there wasn't a single one who hadn't entertained such a fantasy.
And among them, there were surely some who had thought this:
*I wish a real battle would happen, not just some trivial skirmish.*
It was a childish fantasy, a delusion too foolish to even speak aloud.
She didn't think it was wrong.
A hero who overcomes a desperate crisis.
Wasn't that a picture every Cradle cadet had dreamed of at least once?
What a naive thought it was.
In this moment, she was regretting it to her very core.
“Hah. Hah.”
Her hands trembled.
Her legs felt weak.
Every muscle in her body ached.
*What day is it?*
She sliced through the waist of an orc climbing the wall.
*Has it been a month?*
She kicked a goblin that had crept up on her in the stomach.
*Honestly, I don't know.*
She plunged her sword into the chest of the goblin that had fallen on its back.
“Ah?”
As she twisted her wrist to pull out the sword, she frowned.
Her calf burned as if seared by fire.
Looking down, she saw a long gash.
As she examined the wound, her eyes fell upon the goblin's corpse.
A hideous dwarf, dead with its tongue lolling out, and right next to it, a rusted dagger.
The short blade glistened with an ominous green light.
Before she could even make a judgment, her body moved on its own.
Stab.
She pierced her calf with the tip of her sword.
Then, she scooped out a piece of flesh.
Trickle.
Black blood flowed out.
She counted silently in her head.
One, two, three…
Seven, eight, nine.
“Ten.”
Fortunately, there were no signs of poison.
“Hoo.”
She stood still, catching her breath.
A hellscape was unfolding on the walls.
“Aaargh!”
A soldier whose collarbone was shattered by a rusty axe screamed.
“H-help me…”
A soldier clutching his stomach, from which blood was gushing, let out a sob.
“Die! Dieeee!”
“You bastardsaaaaaaah!”
Screams and shouts filled the air from every direction.
The battle she had imagined was nothing like this.
Nowhere on these walls was the honor she had so desperately craved.
To live or to die.
That was all there was.
She gritted her teeth.
Honestly, she had thought she would be different.
She had fought villains during the verification process and had bloodied her sword before.
It didn't take long to realize that was arrogance, a delusion.
Thinking back, it was true.
What she had experienced wasn't real combat.
It was merely a kind of dress rehearsal, conducted safely under the watchful eye of her master.
No, it was embarrassing to even call it a dress rehearsal.
It was a realization gained only when her life was on the line.
“Hoo.”
After taking a few steps back, she pressed herself against the wall again.
Swarm.
Below the wall, a black mass of various inhuman species swarmed.
Their numbers hadn't changed much from when they first besieged the fortress.
It was only natural.
When their numbers dwindled, they were replenished. Dwindled, then replenished again.
The enemy's forces were endless.
While theirs were shrinking by the day.
*Shake, shake.*
Amelia Justice shook her head, clearing her thoughts.
This was not the time to think, but to fight.
Just then, a dog's head peeked over the edge.
Stab.
Her hand moved before she could think.
“Yelp!”
The creature, with a sword in its head, tumbled back down the wall.
The empty spot was immediately filled by another.
She stabbed and slashed with her sword.
She kicked with her feet and pushed with her shield.
How long had she been fighting with all her might?
“The enemy is retreating!”
The battle, which seemed as if it would last forever, came to an end.
“Haaah.”
Instead of letting out a cry of victory, she leaned against the wall, gasping for breath.
When her breathing finally settled, she walked along the wall, checking on her platoon members.
“Everyone’s safe.”
Fortunately, there were no casualties.
After a brief moment of relief, she asked about the other platoons.
“Platoon 1 is also all safe. Though it looks like Bern and a few others got a bit banged up.”
“Bern did?”
“Looks like a large one happened to go their way. It’s a miracle no one died.”
It seemed the cadets of Platoon 1, led by Bern Vigete, were also safe.
“…What about Platoon 3?”
“See for yourself.”
At her platoon member’s reply, she looked toward the base of the wall further in.
A crumbled corner of the fortress wall.
There, the members of Platoon 3 were sprawled about haphazardly.
They looked completely devoid of the minimal dignity an Esquire should maintain, but she felt no desire to mock them.
Considering what they had accomplished, their current undignified state was no cause for criticism.
Not long after the fortress was besieged, elder-class inhumans had appeared.
Their indiscriminate slaughter of the soldiers was beyond monstrous.
But there were monsters on this side, too.
The old knight and the other Cradle instructors.
They proved their reputations were not just for show by repelling the elder-class inhumans one after another.
But in return, they all suffered critical injuries.
It was the result of facing powerful foes while their blessings, the source of a knight's power and their strongest weapon, were sealed.
But the real problem wasn't the instructors' injuries.
The aftermath of the transcendent battle had caused a corner of the fortress wall to collapse.
It created a gap large enough for seven or eight people to walk through side by side.
With even the trusted instructors unable to fight, it seemed only a matter of time before the enemy breached the fortress.
The ones who filled that massive hole were Platoon 3.
The cadets of Platoon 3, standing shoulder to shoulder with their shields, didn't let a single inhuman pass inside the walls until the battle ended that day.
And it was the same thereafter.
Whenever the makeshift barriers were destroyed, they would step forward to plug the hole.
Their performance in the shield wall formation was nothing short of dazzling.
Platoons 1 and 2 occasionally took their place, but even when they formed the same shield wall, the results were not the same.
Their level of proficiency was fundamentally different.
Long before the Cradle's training policies changed, when others had yet to overcome their aversion to large-scale battles, Platoon 3 had been consistently training for group combat.
Now, there was no one who could take their place.
“……!”
“……!”
Soldiers hoisted the cadets of Platoon 3 onto their shoulders and disappeared somewhere.
It seemed they had fallen asleep while resting on the ground.
It wasn't surprising.
It wasn't the first time, after all.
All sorts of obstacles were set up in the space Platoon 3 had vacated.
No one was ignorant of the fact that they would be smashed to pieces as soon as the fighting resumed.
Nevertheless, the soldiers continued to stuff all manner of things into the breach in the wall.
Perhaps they couldn't feel at ease unless the hole was filled, even if only like this.
After watching the soldiers from the wall for a moment, Amelia Justice headed straight for her quarters.
“Ugh.”
A damp, unpleasant air greeted her.
She immediately tossed firewood into the fireplace on one side of the wall and lit a fire.
The fortress was already poorly lit, and with rain pouring down daily, the entire place was filled with moisture.
Without this, she wouldn't be able to stay in her quarters for a moment.
*Scrape, scrape.*
Sitting in a chair in front of the fireplace, she wiped the blood and flesh from her sword and armor.
If she had her way, she would have gone straight to bed, but doing so would quickly ruin her precious equipment.
Enduring her exhaustion, she finished maintaining her gear and finally lay down on the bed.
She fell asleep as if knocked unconscious, and then woke up again.
She put on the armor she had taken off and grabbed her sword and shield.
Then, as she had every day, she headed to the room where the instructors were staying.
“Amelia.”
Hummel Hildegard, who was guarding the door, greeted her with a nod.
“…How are the instructors?”
“Still the same.”
It seemed that even the instructors, whose recovery abilities far surpassed those of ordinary humans, were helpless with their source of power sealed.
“How many days left?”
“About ten, but they said it could be longer.”
“Poison… I take it.”
“Yes. It’s poison.”
Amelia Justice sighed.
The inhumans did not want the instructors to return to battle and had cunningly sent assassins several times.
As a result, even Dieter Liesner, who had been less severely injured, had his return to the front lines delayed.
It wasn't for nothing that Hummel Hildegard was guarding the door.
If they left it to ordinary soldiers, it would surely be breached again.
“Well, take care.”
“You too.”
After exchanging farewells with Hummel Hildegard, she headed for the top of the wall.
Just as she heard a clamoring sound,
“They’re coming!”
The inhumans swarmed the walls like a black tide.
And so, another long day began.
* * *
“It’s different from what I read in the books.”
It was common knowledge that the defending side had an overwhelming advantage in a siege.
Indeed, the continent's military history was filled with cases where defenders held out against enemies outnumbering them by three, or even ten times.
But reality was different.
Less than a month had passed, yet Alias Fortress was already at its limit.
The continuous rain had long since neutralized the archers.
Now, they had run out of water to pour on the enemy, and even the firewood to boil it.
Since yesterday, they had been barely holding on by throwing the rubble from the collapsed wall.
The loss of troops was also becoming difficult to bear.
Everything was at its breaking point.
Honestly, she wasn't even sure if the fortress would hold until the instructors returned.
The situation was that dire.
“What are the centurions on the plains and the rear troops doing!”
The legion commander, who should have been devising countermeasures, was more focused on berating and punishing the soldiers than leading the battle.
Watching that pathetic display, the face of a certain someone suddenly came to Amelia Justice's mind.
The Mage Slayer.
For some reason, she felt that if he were here, things would have been different.
The man who, in a mock battle, had not only defended a castle with the defending forces but had gone on the offensive and completely annihilated ninety-nine centuriae—surely he would have found a way to turn the tide even in this situation.
It was a pointless what-if.
The Mage Slayer was not participating in this frontline practicum.
It was a futile fantasy, a delusion that would never come true.
She knew that.
Yet, knowing it, she couldn't shake the thought.
*If the Mage Slayer were here…*
“You never know.”
He would have shown some astonishing skill, as if it were nothing.
Just like that time when he toyed with ninety-nine centuriae using only the defending forces.
Something that could be called a miracle.
But the one who could perform such a miracle was far away in the Cradle, and her wish was nothing more than an empty delusion.
Or so she thought.
She was wrong.
Two days before the instructors were scheduled to return.
“What? A messenger has arrived?”
A messenger had apparently entered the fortress.
Amelia Justice couldn't understand it at all.
She had no idea what kind of skill a messenger possessed to break through that siege,
“Where are the instructors from the Cradle!”
And she had no idea why a messenger from the Imperial Army was looking for the Cradle's instructors instead of the legion commander.
But the real question lay elsewhere.
“I am Rocarno Matiasi! A knight of Zikambrī, formally granted the rank of Two Stars by the Empire! I could not turn a blind eye to the tearful plea of Centurion Yan, plenipotentiary of the 2nd Chiliarchy of the 13th Imperial Legion, and so, with a righteous heart, I have braved the danger to come to this fortress!”
Why did the name that flowed from his lips sound so familiar?
Was that Yan the same Yan she knew?
And if he was, what was this title, Centurion?
For Amelia Justice, it was all a series of unknowns.