Joining the Battle (3)
"Everyone's assembled."
Quite a crowd had gathered in Jett's office. Every platoon leader and adjutant of the Magic Unit stood present.
"You've all worked hard. As you heard from the messenger, we will be deploying shortly. Most of our unit will handle rear-line magical support. Only the 2nd Company will carry out soldier-support duties on the frontmost line."
Unlike the 1st Company, which was composed of full mages, the 2nd Company was made up of Magic Assistants. Their intent could not have been more blatant.
"The enemy prefers close combat over magic. Therefore we must inflict as much damage as possible before our forces clash with them."
They must have held the exact same meeting last time.
Listening to Jett and his adjutants lay out the plan, Ellen found himself dissatisfied with their strategy.
"The 1st and 2nd Platoons of the 1st Company will concentrate their firepower early and punch holes in the barrier. After that, the 3rd Platoon—specialized in wide-area magic—will deliver the lethal blow."
Jett was an outstanding commander who had survived countless battles. There was little to fault in his tactics.
The problem is he has zero experience with magical warfare. What were those higher-ups thinking, sticking a pure martial officer in command of a Magic Unit?
Nothing had changed from that first battle in his previous life. Ellen already knew exactly how this fight would unfold.
He remembered that terrible day.
Whoosh.
Crash.
Boom!
The wide-area barrier magic shattered, and a colossal fireball plummeted onto the soldiers' heads. Chaos erupted in an instant.
"Aaaagh!"
"Water! Give me water!"
Men whose bodies were ablaze ran screaming in every direction. Those thrashing in the sea of flames soon collapsed into blackened ash.
"Hiiik!"
Ellen had crouched there trembling, praying that none of the fireballs would land on him.
The moment the magical barrage ended, knights of the Gosen Empire charged in. The Prode Kingdom's formation was already broken; its soldiers could mount no real resistance.
Slash.
With a single flourish of a knight's blade, two Magic Assistants spat blood and toppled over.
"M-may your steadfast strength sh-shield me from… danger. Shield!"
Seized by terror, Ellen cast a Shield spell, desperately hoping the Gosen knights would not notice him.
Back then he had been nothing more than an inexperienced Magic Assistant. War, on his very first real deployment, had been pure horror.
That he survived that hell was nothing short of a miracle. The memory was burned deep into his mind.
They paid no attention at all to how the Gosen Empire deployed its mages. They never even imagined that extreme tactic.
Even if Ellen now warned them to watch the enemy's mage placement and strength, no one would listen.
He was only a newly minted junior mage.
This time it's not a scouting mission either, so I don't even have a decent pretext. The only option is to move myself once the fighting starts.
Ellen's thoughts cut off there—Jett's voice cut through.
"We have already claimed victory in several skirmishes. That success belongs largely to the members of this Magic Unit. Our overwhelming firepower will play a decisive role in the battles still to come."
The very reason they had been able to maintain parity with the Gosen Empire until now was the mages. At Jett's words, confidence soared through the ranks.
"Many of the troops will be unsettled by the coming deployment. Lead them well so that every man can display his full ability on the field. That concludes this meeting."
"Yes, sir!"
Every officer saluted Jett. He returned the salute, and the meeting ended.
"Hey—2nd Company, gather up."
The moment they stepped out of the conference room, Hector, commander of the 2nd Company, called Ellen and the other platoon leaders over.
"You all heard Viscount Jett. We're stuck on the front line as it is, so just do your jobs without making me look bad. Score some merit this time so we can get the hell out of here."
Without waiting for a reply he spun on his heel and strode off.
Still the same bastard.
Ellen had seen him even back when he himself was a Magic Assistant. Hector had not changed in the slightest.
"What do you make of it, Platoon Leader?"
On the way back to the tent, Daz asked quietly.
"Make of what?"
"When they drew up the plan, they didn't seem to factor the enemy mages' placement in at all. After being hit several times already, would they really deploy their mages the same way?"
Daz voiced the doubt that had nagged him throughout the meeting, certain Ellen must have felt the same unease.
Daz… I never noticed because he was in another platoon before, but the more I see of him the more impressive he is.
"Of course they won't. But who's going to listen to the likes of us? If we just fight the way we've trained, we'll survive."
"It's a pity, nothing more."
"Let's just focus on staying alive."
The Tramore Plains were both a breadbasket and a vast open plain.
They had originally belonged to the Gosen Empire, but the Prode Kingdom had seized them in a previous war.
For Gosen the loss had been a crippling blow to food supply.
Worse, the plains had become a symbol of a humiliating defeat.
Now a heavy tension hung over that same plain.
Two long battle lines faced each other across the grass.
"Hey! Keep your heads on straight. We take credit in this fight no matter what. We push hard from the opening. Remember every kill your men get."
Standing at the very front of the formation, Hector harangued his platoon leaders.
Did this idiot even listen during the meeting? How do people like him ever become mages?
Ellen let out a quiet sigh at the man who still had not grasped the actual plan.
Mages like him usually rose purely on raw talent.
No academy training, nothing but affinity talent, and he still made 4th Circle Master. He's never set foot in a real war, never even cleared a dungeon.
"Company Commander, we won't have much to do until the melee is over."
"Ah—r-right. Just do well, all of you. When the fighting starts I'll show you how it's done myself."
He looked extremely tense. Watching him only made Ellen more uneasy.
Whoosh.
At that moment the Prode Kingdom's lines prepared their opening strike. Mages in the rear began drawing out high-tier spells one after another.
Fire Spear, Cone of Ice, Earth Break—4th Circle high-level magics took shape across the field. Here and there even 5th Circle spells flared into being.
Those spells streaked toward every sector of the Gosen Empire's formation. Their firepower was enough to shatter any wide-area barrier in an instant.
KRA-KOOM!
Yet Gosen's response was nothing like what had been expected.
"Aaaagh!"
"Uwaaaah!"
Their barriers were not cast as one broad dome.
Instead they were layered and stacked at key points throughout the formation.
Soldiers standing outside those stacked zones took the magical assault head-on.
But wherever the barriers overlapped, the spells were turned aside with ease.
And beneath those barriers, Gosen's mages had already been chanting for some time.
"What the hell is this?"
Jett could scarcely believe his eyes. He had never imagined the enemy would deliberately sacrifice their own troops.
The price of that sacrifice, however, proved devastatingly effective.
Before Prode's mages could even finish their next incantations, Gosen's magic came screaming back.
"Protect us—Barrier!"
Prode's mages scrambled to raise barriers of their own.
Whoosh.
Crash.
The result was exactly as it lived in Ellen's memory.
The wide-area barrier magic shattered, and a colossal fireball fell onto the soldiers' heads.
But the space around Ellen was nothing like the past.
"Protect us, Barrier."
⟨ Barrier ⟩
The instant magic left the Gosen lines, Ellen had already thrown a Barrier around his men.
"That's the Platoon Leader's barrier?"
"He blocked 5th Circle magic with a chant that short?"
"Is that even possible? How does a 4th Circle protection spell stop 5th Circle attacks?"
The soldiers stared at Ellen in open admiration.
He had used the abbreviated chant to conceal his true ability. In truth he had layered two Barriers in a single heartbeat.
Ting.
Ellen immediately dropped the spell.
He had known this moment was coming and had raised the Barrier, yet he kept its coverage to the bare minimum to conserve mana.
Aside from his own platoon and a few members of the neighboring ones, the rest of the line still took heavy losses.
And from the Gosen side, knights and soldiers on warhorses were already thundering forward at full gallop.
"Everyone snap out of it and form the melee line!"
Ellen roared.
Only then did his men begin to move.
"Just like we trained. Block their advance first!"
Under Ellen's command the platoon began to chant.
"O mana, root of the earth—through me, take on strength."
⟨ Stone ⟩
Rumble.
Several Magic Assistants raised Stone walls to choke the enemy's path.
"Next attack team!"
"Become a fiercely blazing flame and burn everything to ash."
⟨ Fireball ⟩
KRA-BOOM.
Fireballs slammed down onto the enemy now bottlenecked by the stone barriers.
Forced into a sudden cluster, the Gosen troops suffered even greater casualties.
"Next team!"
When the following magic failed to appear at once, Ellen whipped his head around.
"Keep your heads clear!"
"Aaaagh!"
Enemy forces that had punched through the flank had momentarily shattered the line.
They had only trained for a month. Even an excellent tactic had not yet settled into their bodies.
"Damn it."
Ellen turned toward the collapsing flank and unleashed Earth Break.
"Uwaaagh!"
A single casting was already a formidable strike.
Stacked three times, it became nothing short of an earthquake.
"Regroup—now!"
In melee combat, holding formation even amid chaos was more important than anything else.
Ellen knew that from countless hard-won experiences.
"The Platoon Leader is incredible."
"Doesn't he look like he's been rolling around battlefields for decades?"
Even in the middle of the storm, the men watched Ellen directing the platoon and could only shake their heads in awe.
"His magic is insane too. The chants are so short you barely notice them."
"And the power is monstrous."
Their platoon leader had begun to look different. In their eyes Ellen now seemed like a god of the battlefield.
"Out of the way, all of you! I need to bag at least one more kill here!"
A voice like tearing cloth rang out from behind them.
"Oh, you've got to be kidding me."
Ellen swore under his breath before he could stop himself.
Charging forward while flinging magic straight through the formation his own men were still building—was Hector.