The Decisive Battle (1)
Ellie's plan was to set the forest ablaze — a fire attack, plain and simple.
"We will burn the forest and, with it, the trees that give them cover."
Ellie laid it out boldly: a plan that, if even one thing went wrong, could send the flames spreading back onto us and deal catastrophic damage.
At her proposal, Cloud sank into deep, troubled thought.
"My lady, you mean to set the forest on fire?!"
Unlike Cloud, Sir Haji only asked what she meant by that, and Crow, apparently of the same mind, made no move to stop her — he simply watched Ellie as she spoke.
"Elion Forest is no longer our territory. In practical terms, you could call the whole forest Asmodeus's domain now."
"And in that situation, there is no reason for us to take on greater risk just to keep the forest alive."
She was right. Elion Forest still lay within Cumul Territory's borders, yet it no longer belonged to us in any way that mattered. No lord in the world would claim as his own a land where a vile creature capable of slaughtering his people and his knights in a single stroke had made its lair.
Ellie went on.
"The target is the whole of Elion Forest. Can it be done?"
Her question was aimed not at me, nor at Yeon-i, nor at any of the vassals — but at Edgar.
Edgar gave it only a moment's thought before offering his answer.
"If we pool every mage and spirit user stationed with the Azure Scale Knights, burning the forest is within our power."
Hearing this, Ellie spoke again.
"Asmodeus will never sit quietly in the position written on that corpse."
...
"Do you not understand why I say this, Sir Haji?"
"I apologize, my lady. I only wonder why you would rule out the possibility that Asmodeus might move."
To his question, Ellie gave a simple answer.
"Because he is arrogant."
At that, Sir Haji could only blink, question marks practically floating over his head as he tried to grasp her meaning — so I explained it for him.
"Asmodeus is, at present, supremely arrogant. As he himself boasted, rising to the Tenth Rank of the hierarchy means he has entered the ranks of the tremendously powerful."
"On top of that, he annihilated five villages without us ever knowing. Under these conditions, his arrogance all but pierces the heavens."
"He knew perfectly well that I was stationed in this territory. Asmodeus spoke to me through Baram's body as though he had been waiting for nothing but my arrival."
"His plan is built on the assumption that we walk into it. So if we want to strike where he least expects it, we must choose a method we would never ordinarily use."
Only then did understanding seem to dawn. Sir Haji's brow creased slightly as he spoke.
"Then, that plan of yours..."
"Yes. It is arson, just as the Lady said. Every time we have faced demons, we have charged into enemy lines they prepared themselves, with nothing, and fought at a disadvantage."
"That is how, even back when Asmodeus was only ranked thirty-second, we were forced to fight from a losing position."
If Ellie had played the arson card back then with even a little more caution — if she had shattered their scheme the way she was doing now — the odds were high that they could have won even without me. But the Ellie of that time had been so alarmed by the citizens vanishing day after day that she had rushed to end it quickly, and walked straight into the trap. Now, having been burned by such a method once herself, she had not forgotten the mistake — and she had drawn an unconventional card of her own.
On paper the plan looked flawless, but every plan has its weaknesses.
Cloud, who had been listening quietly to Ellie's argument and my explanation, finally opened his mouth.
"There is a difficulty, however. As the fire grows, the wind may carry it so that it deals greater harm to our side than to the demons. It is a dangerous method."
He had a point, too.
Set alight in a single direction, a fire would advance without end, its fury mounting until nothing remained to burn. Fire attack had always been a favored tactic — superbly aggressive, and capable of toppling an enemy without close combat or gunpowder. Even on Earth there were famous examples: the Battle of Red Cliffs from the Three Kingdoms era, or the Battle of Baekgang, where the Japanese fleet was crushed by the Tang–Silla alliance without even room to breathe during the war that unified the Three Kingdoms of Korea. The difference from our situation, though, was that both of those battles had been fought on water. No one could say what a fire attack would do across open plains. This plan, then, was an assault that had to be carried out only after every conceivable risk had been stripped away — which naturally meant enormous preparation.
In answer to Cloud's warning, Ellie deliberated a moment before continuing.
"We will set a second fire on the opposite side of the burning zone."
Ellie's answer was a counter-fire.
It was a rather good method, honestly. Set flames before and behind the forest where Asmodeus dwelled, and two birds would fall with one stone — his line of retreat would vanish, and the fires would burn themselves out. But one slip, and the whole of Cumul Territory could become a sea of fire.
It was Cloud who pointed this out.
"But depending on which way the wind blows, every one of those fires could turn into a hellfire meant for us!"
To this, Ellie said:
"If we had no way to control the wind's direction, I would have scrapped this reckless plan on the spot."
...
Then she turned her gaze to me as she finished.
"But we happen to have someone on our side who doesn't merely read the wind — he commands it. Do we not?"
She wasn't... wrong.
If the fire was laid upon the domain of wind that blew inward toward me, it would flare up ever more fiercely — and once everything was consumed, it would all gutter out. And if the wind spirits tuned the wind's direction and strength on top of that, that place would become hell. What else would you call hell? Dying in the heart of a raging inferno is hell itself.
But there was one problem.
"Then what about the people who've already been taken?"
It burst out of Yeon-i.
To save the captives, someone would have to infiltrate the enemy camp — and if the fire was set with the demons as the only target, the captives' survival disregarded, they would be swallowed by the inferno along with everything else. Cornered into choosing, Ellie could not bring herself to speak.
So I did.
"In all likelihood, the people at Asmodeus's side are already in agony, or dead."
"Even at this very moment he is draining their vital energy, converting their life force into his own power."
"Setting the fire to rescue those already taken — yes, all of that is well and good."
"But if that rescue instead puts us in danger, or if that one reason alone drags the other citizens of this territory into the same plight as them—"
"—then hasn't the cure begun to cost more than the disease?"
Call me heartless if you like. It made no difference to me. Sending rescuers into that place would only expose them to greater danger. And besides, when it came to forces capable of facing Asmodeus, we were the end of the line. In the worst case, every last one of us except Sir Roji and Sir Leo would be committed to the battlefield — and if all of those people fell into crisis and were reduced to just more victims in that hell, then pressing the plan through unflinchingly was the right call.
Wasn't every one of them raising a sword against the demons to protect someone precious? You draw that sword before the precious person dies. What is the point of striking only after the culprit has savored his pleasure to the very last drop? The wounds already carved into the victims would remain forever. Better to draw first — and resist.
Yeon-i backed me up.
"I think we should do exactly as Hyun says. Now isn't the time to rework the plan. It's the time to drive it through without flinching."
The moment she did, a vassal — not one of the five, a man who hadn't even appeared in the game — raised his hand and spoke.
"So you would force sacrifice upon the people of this territory, here and now? There may be another way."
"Until today we have always put the victims' rescue first, and won by driving out the enemy afterward."
Then, picking up where the vassals before him had left off, he pressed on.
"To those people, we may be their one exit — their salvation. Betray that, and the Four Divine Beasts will not look kindly upon us!"
To them, Yeon-i answered with a cold, cutting voice.
"Right, the Divine Beasts won't like it? I don't believe in the Four Divine Beasts. But this much I do know."
"Do you really think they'd sit there pleased, watching the humans who follow them die off one by one?"
At her words, some of the vassals grew heated.
"Are you insulting the Four Divine Beasts?! Right now?!"
As the voices around the table rose, Yeon-i spoke quietly.
"Then listen well. Even at this very moment, the victims are only multiplying — and even if they weren't, the ones already taken are writhing in eternal torment as we speak."
"How do I know? Because I came out of a slave pit. Twenty-four hours a day, in darkness so thick I couldn't see a hand's breadth ahead, whipped by bastards who watched for any chance to get between my legs."
"And what do you think I thought about, back then? That if this was living, death would be the better choice. I had those thoughts and still couldn't fight back — so in the end they tried to force my legs apart anyway."
"You think the victims over there are thinking anything different? I'd say they're no different from the me of those days. If I hadn't had Hyun — the man sitting beside me right now —"
"—I'd have spent my life servicing some old pig's lust. So if you aren't confident you can bring them back as they truly were, don't even attempt it. Because that would be helping them."
Yeon-i's fiery temper silenced, in a single stroke, every piece of nonsense that had been hurled at her.
And what backed her up, astonishingly, was Cloud — the very man who had opposed the counter-fire not moments before.
"I see. Thinking on it... their situation now must already be hell. Their vitality siphoned away, humans dying at their side, atrocities beyond all telling."
"If you consider that every bit of it is happening to them... the suffering of the victims must be beyond anything words can hold."
With Cloud throwing his weight behind Yeon-i's argument, the dissenting vassals could no longer raise their voices.
"Then let us draft the detailed operation from this moment on."
Only after gathering, reconciling, and combing through ideas and opinions on the counter-fire operation late into the night was our final battle plan set. The operation would be executed in three days. One misstep, and red alert could fall across the whole of Cumul Territory. We would prepare, carefully, step by step.
The planning ran on and on; it was three in the morning when Ellie and I finally made it to the bedroom. The instant her lady-of-the-territory mode switched off, Ellie came burrowing straight into my arms.
"Hyunn..."
Judging by how her words had melted into mush, the day must have taken quite a toll on her.
"I know. Was today rough on you?"
She nodded, then went on.
"To be honest, I was wrestling with it too... whether an operation that sets the fire while writing off the victims is really the right thing."
Without a word, I stroked her hair and listened to her all the way to the end.
"But after hearing Yeon-i, my mind changed. For us to try to save the victims too — that would be recklessness."
Recklessness. A word for courage drawn out carelessly, without judgment. In other words — lunging to rescue victims without weighing anything, blind even to the danger to your own body, is recklessness. It may sound cruel, but what must be cut away must be cut away. In midwinter, a tree that refuses to shed its leaves dies in the end; so trees let go of the very leaves that are their symbol to keep their lives. We were no different. If we charged in blindly, as the vassals urged, what would remain to us would be a tree that never drops its leaves in winter — and just as that tree dies, what would greet us in the end was a despair without bottom.
Stroking Ellie's hair, I told her she had done well.
"You did well."
Just that — a single phrase of praise. For someone in Ellie's position, it was a rare thing indeed. Ellie had always been the type to say: if anyone can be saved, then save them all. A temperament like a storybook hero's. The flaw of people like that is that they charge in headlong even when they might be hurt — even when they might die. They are, quite literally, those who cannot tell water from fire. Anyone who keeps such a person close is usually driven past exasperation to the brink of giving up on them entirely.
Ellie, though, had been changing, little by little, ever since the affair in Haizi Territory. A firm resolve: even if the road she walked drifted far from righteousness, she would see it through for the sake of those precious to her. That was the realization that had granted Ellie her new power. My "you did well" was for the Ellie who had taken that first step and carried her will through.
"Thank you..."
Then, catching the meaning hidden beneath my words, Ellie smiled brightly, pressed a light kiss to my lips, and slipped into the bathroom to wash up.
Before long she was dead to the world — and seizing the opening, I decided to summon Jeongryeong into the bedroom. Their role in the counter-fire was the most important of all, and for that, they too needed to hear the plan. Since Jeongryeong's howls might wake Ellie, I raised a pale-green barrier around the room to keep every sound from escaping. A barrier woven from wind, no less — something I had only ever dreamed up in my imagination, and seeing it made real felt faintly surreal.
"Gather. Come to me, spirits."
Jeongryeong took shape out of the wind, molded into the form of a great wolf, then shifted into an emerald wolf and appeared before me.
"Jeongryeong. You're not hurt?"
Jeongryeong and the other wind wolves had thrown their own bodies between me and Bathin's final attack, ready to be unsummoned if that was the price. Jeongryeong had been among them, of course, and after reaching Cumul Territory half-destroyed, I hadn't been able to call him while his wounds healed.
—Awooo...!
Perhaps realizing Ellie was asleep, Jeongryeong began to speak in a hushed voice. I couldn't understand the words themselves, but his meaning came through clearly enough that I knew what he was trying to say.
"Yeah? That's a relief."
He was telling me he had hardly been hurt at all.
—Awooo... Awu! Awu!
But the other spirits, weighed down by the burden of the unsummoning, were still whimpering in pain, one by one.
"Hm... still whimpering, are they..."
If they had been in peak condition — or at their absolute worst — I would have planned my use of the wind Authority differently. This in-between state was a little awkward.
"Jeongryeong. The truth is..."
I told him the whole plan, and everything behind it. Jeongryeong lowered his head, whimpered — and began to cry.
—Awooo...! Awu!
Some of them could manage it, but some of them wouldn't be recovered in time — was that it?
"How many do you think can see it through?"
—Awu! Awooooo!!
Seven?
Seven, I could work with. Seven wolves and I would command the wind in unison, throttling the fire's fury up and down. At the same time, Ellie would lead the assault on the demons driven screaming from the forest by the overwhelming flames, with Yeon-i at her side lending support. After that, every remaining fighter and reinforcement would concentrate entirely on Asmodeus. It was the kind of battle where no one could be left out, and no one could afford to be half-hearted. The weight on my shoulders only grew — but the dice had already been thrown. All that remained was to watch whether the rolling die came up a one, or a six.
And two days later, the reinforcements from Plot Territory and the imperial army arrived. Khan was with the Plot forces, and Ellie and I welcomed him warmly. I didn't see his lover, Fairy, anywhere, so I asked where she was, and Khan said:
"She's in her Successor lessons. She did say she wanted to come. But she's the one who'll have to lead a great territory someday — where would she go? So I came alone."
I could already see it: her wailing and throwing a tantrum. Khan moved along, simply settled his things into the room we'd assigned him, and said:
"You're hardly about to go in without a plan, I take it... Let's hear it in the garden first."
Just as he proposed, the three of us gathered in the garden half an hour later. Khan looked over our operation and our order of battle, then asked:
"Who drew up this plan?"
Under that sharp gaze of his, I quite naturally lifted Ellie's arm for her.
"Ellie did."
Khan began looking back and forth between the two of us with eyes full of wonder.
"The Lady did? My lady, you never cared for plans like this, did you?"
Unexpectedly, this bastard knew Ellie far too well, and it left my feelings in a strangely delicate state.
To his question, Ellie nodded and answered.
"That's right. I don't. If I were still the me from before my realization, I'd have dismissed a plan like this out of hand."
Then she set down her half-finished teacup.
"But I'm different now. We are cornered. They chatter and laugh and deceive as though they've all but won already."
Picking up her fork, she split the shortcake on her plate clean in two, and went on.
"I understood that to punish them — for the victims who suffer, and for the way they scorn and mock us — sacrifice is not a cost but a necessity."
"And the plan I conceived is exactly that."
At that, someone's eyes went round, and he turned to me, asking over telepathy what on earth had happened to her.
To him, I sent:
—Don't worry. What, you think your Sword Master picked up some mistaken enlightenment or something?
—Huh? Sword...? What did you just say?
—Hey. Close your eyes a little. You're broadcasting that you're sending telepathy.
"Come on, there's been nothing but shocks today — of course I'm reacting..!"
—Telepathy? Behind my back? The both of you?
—?
—?
Wait. What? Ellie wasn't supposed to be able to use telepathy.
Seeing the two of us jolt out of our skins, she simply chuckled in amusement.
After the brief change of air, we combed through the rest of the plan in minute detail and wove Khan's movements into it.
"Will you be all right? You'll be guarding all of Cumul Territory alone."
And so Khan's role was decided: should an emergency arise, he would be the final bastion — the last support to arrive, standing in for the Azure Scale Knights and for me against any demons that came raiding.