The White Wind Howls (8)
The White Wind Howls (8)
#89
"Ziiiggguuuhhh!!!!!! Everyone, run!!!!!!!!"
The moment we kicked off the ground and sprinted forward, a shining spell from Estelle's fingertips began enveloping all four of us.
『—Sicut lumen solis in vespere suspensum—』
Like sunlight suspended in the evening glow—
『—Sine vestigio evanesce—』
Vanish without a trace—
A strange sensation seeped into my body, and I realized stealth magic had been cast over the entire expedition team. Even though we were charging straight at them as brazenly as madmen, the enemy couldn't detect us.
We ran!
No baggage weighing us down, we simply sprinted like lunatics!
At my side, Lily, Lucien, and Estelle had all cast aside any Count House successor's elegance and were running like wild dogs.
Whoosh—!!!
Just a few steps ahead, a hail of mana arrows rained down, battering the ground and flinging dirt and stones skyward. Small pebbles grazed my cheek, sharp stings flickering across my skin, but there was no time to check the wounds.
Because I knew stopping meant death.
At the same moment, a bizarre howl came from the left.
Awoooooo—————
It was a Beast.
The monsters unleashed by the Hunters—creatures with six legs, their backs plastered with human-faced leather and eyeballs—blocked our path ahead.
Whether they noticed our presence or not, there was no breaking through with those monsters blocking the way.
Then Lily's voice cut through clearly.
"Do-yun, dodge to the leeeeft!!!!!"
No time to hesitate. Right or wrong, I trusted Lily and rolled left.
BOOM!!!!!!!!
The next instant, a Beast that had been lying in ambush underground burst out and completely overturned the ground where I had been standing.
Shit. Nearly got screwed. No, lying in ambush is cheating, damn it. The whole land crawled with bastards like this. Honestly, the odds of getting clipped by some blind attack and dying felt about fifty percent.
"Hah... hah... Keep running!!!!"
Lily shouted at me without even catching her breath. Her right eye was covered with a bandage, but she seemed to be reading the surrounding spirits with just her remaining eye.
There was no choice but to trust Lily and push on. The problem, though, likely wasn't limited to just the ambushing Beasts.
"Lilyyyyy!!!!! Estellllle!!!!!!! What about the monsters ahead!!!!!!!!"
I poured as much voice as I could into the maddening barrage, shouting toward the two at the front. At that moment, as if answering my question, steel-armored soldiers began plummeting from the sky.
RATATATATAT—!!!!!
The ironclad soldiers rained down, and in moments, those who had risen to their feet charged at the Beasts, Golden Lion Imprints blazing.
Swwoooong—!!!!
CRUNCH—!!!!
Kuguguguguguguung—!!!!!
Ah, those were magical weapons of the Eurasia army. The ironclad soldiers clashed head-on with the Beasts, and the slaughter grew bloody. When a Beast bit off an ironclad's forearm, the ironclad, even with one whole arm gone, used its remaining hand to pry open the monster's jaw and tear it apart.
As a Hunter controlling a Beast screamed and tried to retreat, his tiny head was caught in the massive grip of an ironclad that hadn't missed its opening, and was crushed like a cherry tomato. Blood and brain matter streamed down the steel plating, but the merciless weapon never stopped its slaughter.
Leaving that hell behind, we pushed onward, farther—
We ran toward the thinnest gap in the encirclement.
Of course, the enemy was no pushover. From the start, the Eurasia army had been at an extreme disadvantage, relying solely on the former Countess and a handful of her successors.
"Deploy the defensive barrier!!! Deploy the defensive barrierrrrrr!!!!!!!!!"
A woman's voice—likely the enemy commander—rang out.
Judging that they couldn't simply keep taking Eurasia's siege magic head-on, she ordered a full-scale defensive Magic Circle raised from deep within the enemy lines.
Dozens of enemy mages lifted their hands toward the sky as one, and behind the faltering siege line, layers upon layers of mana walls began stacking up like massive ramparts, space itself folding and overlapping.
Shit. Once that was complete, not even the siege magic led by Cassian would break through. Even if the quality fell short of the Purple Girl defensive barrier I saw last time, the number of mages involved here was easily triple. Overwhelming mana filled the sky and began turning the Eurasia army's siege magic useless.
"Luciennnnn!!!!!"
Estelle's fierce cry pierced the battlefield. The stealth effect seemed to keep the enemy from hearing it, but it reached the three of us with striking clarity.
"Y-, yesss!!!!"
"Can I ask this of you?!!!!! In the worst case, seal yourself away with your Unique Magic!!!!!!"
"Hah... hah... Lady Lily, what does that mean?"
I asked Lily as we kept running.
"...It means sacrificing Lucien. Once that barrier is complete, we'll be isolated here regardless. Lucien will destroy the barrier before it can fully form, and meet her end."
"Hah... hah... What do you mean!!!"
"Do-yun, if you have time to talk, run faster!!! We expected this much!! If the siege magic fails, it's only a matter of time before we're detected anyway!!!!"
Shitshitshitshit.
Even if things started off badly with Lucien, this wasn't right. I never wished for her to die for me.
But cutting through my anguish, a black shadow tore through the sky toward the enemy.
"They're reinforcements from the Academy!"
Someone's cry cut across the battlefield.
I'd assumed only the Eurasia army was here, but now suddenly from the Academy?
The reinforcements who came from the Academy were a flying squadron of several dozen.
Young mages wielding swords—
Young mages who hadn't even fully completed their Imprints yet plummeted straight down upon the enemy mages constructing the defensive barrier.
Each time a blade flashed and danced, the necks and shoulders of the mages maintaining the barrier's axis were severed.
BOOM—!!!!!!!
At once, the enemy's defensive magic collapsed, and a golden pillar of fire blazed into that gap once more.
But the airborne assault didn't last long.
The reinforcements from the Academy were certainly brave.
In truth, they were more reckless than brave. Their movements carried urgency, not the seasoned experience of the Eurasia army, and above all, anyone could see that those young mages were not a unit dispatched by any official order.
For as they cut down the mages building the barrier with their swords, the seasoned Hunters had already turned their attention their way.
A Beast roared and lunged.
One girl wielding a sword was bitten in midair and plummeted to the black earth. She died scattering blood, everything below her waist torn clean away. Another tried to escape while clutching her comrade, only to be pierced through the womb where her Imprint lay by a penetrating spell that flew in from the side.
Were there even twenty of them? Looking closely now, they weren't Academy reinforcements. Not Academy mages, not even apprentice mages. Young mages too young to have ever attended the Academy—
They were a suicide squad who came prepared for death.
Ah—
Another one falls.
Below, Hunters drunk on blood were ripping the Imprint from a woman not yet dead. Overcome with agony, the woman couldn't even scream and lost the light in her eyes.
Was that kid even older than seventeen?
"Fuck... ."
A curse slipped out before I knew it. That young woman, weaker than me, was dying there on the battlefield. What in the world was I doing?
I'd kill them all.
『Unique Magic—Equivalent Exchange』
That was the moment.
"We have to gooooo!!!!!!!"
Lucien shouted in a voice choked with tears.
Her small hand gripped my sleeve tightly.
"Those kids... those kids all knew what they walked into...! They're buying us time...!!"
Lucien looked at me with eyes full of tears, trying to drag me forward however she could.
"If we don't go now, we all dieeeee!!!!"
"Fuuuuuck!!!!"
"Fuuuuuck!!!!"
I clenched my teeth and threw my body forward once more.
Lily and Estelle were already far ahead, running toward the edge of the encirclement. Close to the sniffling Lucien, I ran toward the end of this brutal battlefield.
And so we passed through the gap created by those nameless children.
From then on, my sense of time blurred.
I didn't know how long we had run.
I didn't know how many barrages we had crossed through.
But one thing was clear: at some point, the golden siege magic stopped falling.
I couldn't tell whether the siege Magic Circle hidden beneath the sun had exhausted its power, or whether the front lines had tangled so badly that further use would catch our own allies.
Either way, from that moment on, it was no longer judgment raining from the heavens, but a pure contest of strength on the ground.
Barrier clashed against barrier.
Sword clashed against Beast.
Ironclads fell, mages' bodies were torn apart—the earth was overturned.
And amidst it all, we kept running.
That was when it happened!
In the distant sky above, I saw a familiar golden light.
Cassian Eurasia.
Even though the entire battlefield had already turned into hell, the fight unfolding at that high altitude was a nightmare of a different kind. Cassian was single-handedly facing five Hunters who appeared to be the enemy leaders. Not just their number—the sheer strength of all five was clearly beyond normal.
Even judging by my pitiful standards, each of those five Hunters boasted mana on par with a Countess.
Cassian was holding out against those women.
A golden barrier burst and tore as it meshed with the enemies in the sky. Her body wavered violently several times up there—but each time, she straightened her stance and launched a counterattack.
One enemy fell, pierced by a golden arrow. But the other four bit into that opening without hesitation.
During that brief scene, we couldn't speak. We could do nothing but run with our heads lifted.
And then—
In an instant, a true instant, the balance collapsed.
A crimson spear flew toward Cassian's abdomen, pierced the golden barrier, and drove vertically through her lower belly.
"... !"
I heard the sound of Estelle's breath stopping.
Right after—
Golden light fell from the sky.
Cassian had plummeted.
And far away—straight into the heart of the enemy battlefield at that.
For a moment, I nearly stopped.
Lily too,
Lucien too,
and finally Estelle—
Not a single one of us could open our mouths.
That single moment of silence stretched on so long it was unbearably painful.
Even so, we couldn't stop.
Did I think that the moment we stopped, the meaning of having witnessed that fall would vanish?
Honestly, I didn't know anymore. My body just kept running.
***
***
The noise of the battlefield gradually grew distant.
The sun had already set, sinking beyond the horizon and shedding its brilliant light.
And finally—
We broke completely away from the battlefield and entered a dark forest.
The forest was silent.
The clamor from just moments ago had vanished, as if a lie, and only the distant rumble of war lingered faintly in the background like a haze.
"...This is far enough."
The first to regain her composure was probably Estelle.
Without even drawing a heavy breath, she simply brought us to a halt, keeping her voice as flat as possible. As if adjusting the stealth contract still lingering at her fingertips, a faint golden light flickered between her fingers.
"We'll rest a moment before going. I've lowered the stealth intensity to recover my mana, so please keep your voices as low as possible."
I let out a long breath.
My thighs felt like they were burning, and my chest still heaved as if about to explode. Cold sweat ran down my spine, and the vibrations of the battlefield still lingered at my fingertips.
Was Estelle alright?
I asked her.
"Are you okay?"
"I'm fine."
"What about Lady Cassian? She'll be alright, won't she?"
She fell silent for a moment.
"...She'll be fine."
Her voice was unwavering.
But I could immediately tell it was a lie.
Because Estelle was clearly crying, very quietly—
I had no idea what words could possibly comfort her.
Instead, another voice came from beside me.
"Lady Cassian isn't the type of person who would pass away like that."
Lucien spoke in a voice that didn't tremble at all.
Estelle's shoulders were trembling very slightly.
Lucien, her fists clenched tight, told Estelle—
"Absolutely, absolutely not."
At those words, Estelle finally bowed her head and began walking away in the opposite direction, where no one was. She must not have wanted to show herself collapsing right here.
"E-, Estelle—!! Where are you going!!"
Lucien immediately vanished after the blonde woman. The forest grew quiet again, and I just stood there blankly, unable to say a word.
Then, Lily let out a very long sigh.
"Hah..."
"Lady Lily?"
"This isn't the time. We're still surrounded. I sense three spirits ahead. Prepare for battle."
"What?"
"It's always been this way. Those two are always useless anyway—from here on, we go by ourselves."
"I'm not sure I fully understand what you mean—but are just the two of us really going?"
"Yes. Don't make me say it twice."
Shring——
Lily drew her sword and aimed it beyond the pitch-black darkness.
"Come at me all at once. I'll cut you all down—"