The Color of Panic
"...Well, now."
It was a massive explosion. A blast so terrifyingly dangerous and immense that it instantly shattered the mercenaries' momentum.
The earth shook, and corpses were flung high into the sky.
The incongruously brilliant colors of the explosion seemed almost to mock the deaths of those who had fought and died so bravely.
Pecigen was taken aback. However, he regained his composure in an instant.
Mages, by nature, made it their trade to casually perform deeds that ordinary men could scarcely comprehend.
The important thing was not to tremble in fear at the incomprehensible, but to analyze and grasp the practical significance of the act.
And so, Pecigen reached a conclusion.
"It seems a bit more dangerous than I anticipated... but that is all. Nothing more!"
Granted, the ripples created by that massive explosion were by no means minor.
The mercenaries charging at the vanguard had met a gruesome end, and the momentum had shifted to the enemy.
But that was all.
"Was it not obvious they would employ mages? Pay it no mind! Keep advancing!"
Mages were not gods. If possessing a powerful mage were enough to win a war, no lord would waste money raising armies and outfitting them with weapons in the first place.
Threatening as a mage's spells might be, they could not unleash such massive magic repeatedly.
"This is their final card! Our own mages are completely unharmed, while they have foolishly wasted their strength to kill a mere handful of mercenaries!"
The number of mercenaries who had just perished was not small. Yet, in the grand scheme of things, it was not a loss significant enough to sway the tide of battle.
From the very beginning, Grifort's forces had been vastly superior in number. That remained true even if one subtracted every single mercenary killed in the blast.
Grifort's magical forces were still fully intact, whereas Arcteria had exhausted theirs at the very start of the engagement.
...They grew impatient!
Pecigen smirked. The exhilarating rush of victory washed over him.
With a mage of that caliber, it is only natural they would fall into the arrogant belief that they could turn the tide.
Had an explosion of this scale been detonated at a more critical juncture—say, when the front lines clashed and the soldiers were packed tightly together—it might have inflicted far greater damage on Grifort's army.
Had it been unleashed mid-melee, when the chaos of battle blinded the soldiers to the overall situation, it might have shattered Grifort's morale.
But...
Though the vanguard had charged ahead, Grifort's main force and the rest of the mercenaries were not close enough to the blast to panic and scatter.
They could see what had happened. They had witnessed the massive explosion with their own eyes, but they would also surely realize it was not as devastating as it appeared.
Pecigen did not believe Edrin was foolish enough to overlook this. Therefore, he could only assume that Edrin had been forced to use the spell despite knowing its limitations.
"Advance! Do not let this opportunity slip away!"
He felt threatened by the mercenaries' charge. The morale of the soldiers beside him must have plummeted to a critical low.
A clash of front lines was indeed the ideal moment for explosive magic, but to execute that, one first needed a front line that would not break and run.
He judged that his men could not hold out against our superior numbers and fierce mercenaries.
He could not afford to wait for the perfect moment. It was a final, desperate struggle before an inevitable defeat.
Pecigen's reasoning was perfectly logical.
"Charge!"
Yet, no one answered his call.
"R-Run!"
"It's here! It's actually here! No! I have to survive!"
"W-We're on land, not the sea! We're standing on solid dirt! So why... why is..."
"We're s-sinking! Run!"
Pecigen stared at the mercenaries around him in utter disbelief.
"...What in the world is happening?"
The thought crossed his mind that they might have fallen under a mass charm or illusion spell, but that seemed unlikely.
The regular soldiers of Grifort standing alongside the mercenaries were completely unaffected. Furthermore, the theory that the enemy mages—who must have exhausted a massive amount of mana on the previous explosion—had cast a mass illusion spell made no sense.
"W-What do you think you are doing?! Even for mercenaries, fleeing in the face of the enemy is a crime punishable by summary execution!"
But Pecigen's threats fell on deaf ears.
Had it been a handful of deserters, he might have stopped them with arrows or spears. But against hundreds of mercenaries fleeing in a panicked stampede, he was utterly powerless.
"Damn it...!"
It was not that every single mercenary had fled. A few, who had been fortunate enough to have the explosion detonate behind them and thus missed the flash of light, still charged toward the enemy lines.
But they were few, and charging blindly at a well-disciplined enemy accomplished nothing.
The next volley of arrows from the Arcterian archers rained down upon them, and those who survived the barrage were ruthlessly cut down by spears.
"What are you doing?! Attack! I said attack! Did you not hear me?!"
All they had to do was press forward. The enemy had exhausted their magical strength; they only needed to overwhelm them with sheer numbers.
Yet, the mercenaries refused to obey.
As if they had witnessed something that should never be seen, as if their minds had been stolen by the horrific yet beautiful radiance of the blast, they fled without once looking back.
Something entirely beyond his comprehension was unfolding before his eyes.
"Ha."
Kelia let out a short sigh. Compared to the mercenaries around her, it was an extremely restrained reaction.
"B-Boss! We have to run!"
"We're all going to die! Every last one of us!"
"The evil spirit is here. It's come to kill us all..."
The mercenaries stationed in Grifort were practically half-sailors.
And mercenaries and sailors were notoriously superstitious—much like the members of Kelia's own band, who clung tightly to their jinxes.
Humans were creatures who could not endure without believing in something, and mercenaries were far too vulgar and brutal to seek solace in the priests of the holy order.
They spent their lives on perilous battlefields or on the sea, where the whims of the wind and waves could drag them to a watery grave at any moment.
For such men to maintain the conviction that they would survive, they had no choice but to rely on superstition.
And now, they were watching that very superstition manifest right before their eyes.
"A colored explosion, not magic... It's exactly what the old navigator told us! The ship sank, and e-everyone died..."
Kelia scanned her surroundings.
"Seriously, if he knew about this and did it on purpose, he's a real piece of work..."
"B-Boss! Aren't we running? Are you out of your mind?!"
Letting out a deep sigh, Kelia nodded slowly.
"Yeah. Let's beat it. This is a lost cause."
The other mercenaries had already scattered. Kelia and her crew were the last ones remaining.
"U-Understood! Thank goodness! Let's get out of here! Quick!"
"Good grief. All that bluster, and look at them now... We're retreating, but keep your formations! If you get separated out here, they won't even find your corpses!"
Kelia's mercenary band possessed remarkably strong cohesion.
While the other mercenaries threw away their weapons and fled in chaos, her crew retreated in a tight, disciplined group.
"This is over. We lost."
Kelia smacked her lips in disappointment.
Grifort's regular army alone might still match Arcteria's forces, but their morale is already in the gutter.
Battle was all about momentum. Allies who fled before the clash even began were worse than no allies at all.
Even among the regular soldiers of Grifort, some were beginning to follow the mercenaries' lead and desert.
Kelia turned her head slightly to look back at the battlefield behind her.
The army of Arcteria was closing in.
"I-It's true! Just as you said, my Lord, the enemy is retreating!"
"Do not lose this chance. Attack!"
I ordered the entire army to advance. The forces of Arcteria surged forward.
...It worked.
The explosion itself might not have been particularly devastating.
The bomb created through Roselyn's engineering was certainly powerful, but it was not enough to overcome such an overwhelming disparity in numbers on its own.
However, Roselyn was an inquiring mage. She was the type of mage who could casually pull off things others could never even fathom, deeds deemed utterly impossible.
When faced with something they did not understand, people naturally tried to rationalize it using their own common sense and experiences. They attempted to logically reconstruct and analyze the situation by piecing together the information they already possessed.
But such logic did not apply to Roselyn.
She was a true mage. Not just someone who cast spells, but one of those rare individuals who could perform acts that others could only perceive as miracles.
"Cut them all down!"
The mercenaries fled as if under a spell. The army of Arcteria pursued them closely.