Pressure, Compulsion, Gamble (2)
One hour after the operation began.
So far, things were still relaxed.
The horses’ stamina hadn’t bottomed out yet, nor had the knights’.
“Charge!”
“Waaaaaaaah!”
Thudududududu!Kwaaaaang—!
“Form ranks! Don’t scatter, form ranks—!”
“Fire Javelin!”
Shwoosh!Boom!
The knights were still displaying their full might, sweeping across the front lines. Whenever an enemy commander tried to rally their troops, I sniped them instantly to shut them down.
Just nine riders were turning the enemy’s rear into complete chaos.
‘But how long can this last?’
For now, I could chalk it up to the enemy’s command structure being thrown into disarray so that proper reports weren’t getting through. But how long could that kind of luck possibly hold?
Besides, while I had been able to pick off what looked like commanders one by one until now, I wasn’t sure how much longer my mana would last for that kind of precision work.
‘Damn it. I should’ve made dedicated equipment for Fire Javelin.’
The Altar Cannon had been designed purely for convenience and cost-efficiency. It was something even a mage with mediocre skills could use once they reached a certain level, and it was built to be ridiculously cheap to produce. The only spell it could fire was Fire Ball. It used cheap magic stones as batteries and could spam them endlessly. It was never meant to be a versatile magical support tool.
If I had made something like a normal mage’s staff, it would have been far more flexible in assisting with various spells.
…Of course, that was nothing more than a pipe dream. I simply didn’t have the money for it.
Even the budget the Third Prince had given me for the mage unit had its limits. It was far better to focus on strengthening and operating the unit itself rather than pouring everything into my personal power.
And since this was the best choice I could make right now, any further complaints would be nothing but a luxury.
“Fire Ball!”
“Fire Ball!”
Shwoooo—!Kugagagagaga—!
The one silver lining was that the enemy still hadn’t pinpointed the location of our mage unit.
If enemy infantry had managed to close in, operating the Altar Cannons with this much freedom would have been impossible.
And thank goodness Hans had reached the Third Circle. …Even if he could only barely manage to use Fire Ball, it was still something.
Originally, I would have had to either run a single battery or abandon command entirely to focus on operating the altar cannons myself.
“Change positions and keep up the barrage! This time focus on the enemy center. Stagger the timing so we can hit them with overlapping fire!”
The reason for the staggered timing was simple.
Even in the rear, there were bound to be noble command posts. And some of those nobles would have personal defensive artifacts. That’s why I ordered the shots to be timed apart.
‘If a defensive artifact activates against a Fire Ball, we can observe it and roughly locate the enemy commander’s position.’
After that, I could signal the knights to launch an assault. The enemy’s rear command structure would be paralyzed for a while.
How did I relay that information, you ask?
Simple. Because when you’re flying, you can see everything.
It wasn’t Fly. There was no need to actually fly around, and the mana cost was too high.
What I was using now was Float.
It wasn’t something I created myself. It was a spell from the book Inti had given me.
…Flight magic was so difficult to use that I had learned this one in a hurry on the way here.
The spell structure was similar to flight magic, but the difficulty was much lower, so it was a huge relief that it was easy to learn.
Float. A levitation spell. While movement wasn’t impossible, it was practically difficult. In exchange, it dramatically reduced both the hovering time and mana consumption in the air.
Even so, it was still a Fifth Circle spell and a sustained one at that, so the mana drain wasn’t something to ignore. Still, it was manageable.
Not only could I observe the entire battlefield from above as if looking down on it all and issue appropriate commands, but I could also instantly catch the most valuable information for artillery-style magic usage.
That was because I could observe the enemy’s positions in real time.
Communication was roughly handled with an artifact.
…The downside was that it only worked at short range. If it could handle long-distance communication as well, I would have let the knights hear it too.
It would have been nice if it had the performance of a walkie-talkie from my previous life, but the range was short and the sensitivity was low. If the environment was bad, it became difficult to communicate beyond a hundred meters. It was practically a piece of junk.
Still, it was at least capable of two-way voice transmission, so I was currently using it to communicate with the mage unit.
“Hans, is the remaining stock of magic stones still sufficient?”
> It still seems okay for now, but at this rate of consumption, it’ll probably run out in about an hour.
An hour. Ridiculously short.
“…Then we have no choice but to stop casting for a while. Reduce the number of batteries to one.”
I knew full well how many disadvantages there were to operating with only a single battery. Even if the number only increased from one to two, the tactical options between a single unit and multiple units were like night and day.
It meant giving up on extremely effective choices like simultaneous volley fire, concentrated firepower, and inducing fear through wide-area bombardment. But there was no other choice.
Just as you can’t fire a cannon without shells, the mage unit couldn’t operate the Altar Cannons without magic stones charged with mana.
Of course, unlike cannons from my previous life, it wasn’t impossible to fire Fire Balls without magic stones.
It was still possible to fire them using the caster’s own mana.
But if we could no longer spam them like this, it would be the same as losing all tactical value.
There was no option other than reducing firepower.
“Instead, Hans, you join the magic stone recharging effort as well. That should let us extend the firing time a bit more, right?”
> …Assuming we only operate one unit, I think we could stretch it to about an hour.
The other three mages who weren’t participating in Altar Cannon operation were pouring everything they had into recharging magic stones on site.
They squeezed out every last drop of their own mana into the charging artifacts to fill the stones, then used those charged stones in the Altar Cannons. Once their mana recovered, they charged the stones again. It was an endless cycle.
It was a clever little trick born from the physical and financial limits on how many magic stones we could bring on this operation.
Now that Hans was joining them, it would ease the pressure on magic stone supply a little. Even if it was only an extra hour of breathing room.
Three hours after the operation began.
“Damn it, Gert! Get a hold of yourself!”
“Cough! Y-you at least have to survive. Leave me and go, cough, cough!”
Damn it. Did I mess up by touching the enemy command post? …No, the result would probably have been the same even if I hadn’t.
It was more accurate to say that because I had identified the command post and destroyed it early, the catastrophe had been delayed.
Just now, another knight from Weistenfel had fallen. Now only seven knights remained.
Two of them were injured, and the rest looked so exhausted that it was hard to call their condition proper for combat.
This was the price of charging through the enemy lines for three straight hours.
‘It’s only an estimate, but in three hours we took out roughly five hundred enemies in the rear with just fourteen men. Considering the firepower gap between raiding knights, mages, and conscripted infantry, it’s practically a miracle…’
Maybe that was why. We had drawn far too much aggro.
Knights had begun coming out from the enemy formation to respond. At the same time, the enemy’s command structure started to regain order.
They had finally recognized the raid. After that, we couldn’t achieve the same results as the beginning, and a sluggish war of attrition continued.
The one fortunate thing was that we still had a one-sided long-range attack capability. Thanks to the mage unit’s hard work, the number of enemy infantry was steadily decreasing.
…But even so, there was no end in sight. In the first place, it was never a force that a single altar cannon could handle.
The front line had long since been pushed back from the enemy’s rear encampment to the forest where we had launched the surprise attack.
‘The knights are already exhausted, and the horses are either dead or collapsed from fatigue and can’t perform their roles. Is it even possible to send them back into the fray?’
…It was impossible. A weak voice whispered in my mind.
Haven’t you already achieved enough? Didn’t you inflict five hundred casualties with just fourteen men? The time to retreat has come. Such weak sounds echoed in my heart.
‘Bullshit. How the hell are we supposed to escape in the first place? Can two fully armored knights and two mages even ride a single horse? And even if we could escape by riding, what about the other two?’
And most importantly, enough results? Yes, fourteen men taking down five hundred. It was certainly an encouraging achievement.
So what about the remaining four thousand five hundred? What about the two thousand and five hundred who hadn’t even joined the fight yet?
‘There was never an option to retreat from the beginning. I put everyone on the gambling table. If my own life isn’t also on the line as a chip, then that’s just fraud.’
Well, even if it’s legal gambling, it’s not exactly wholesome. But if I’m going to do it anyway, shouldn’t it at least be fair?
Right after that, I canceled Float and descended to the ground.
There was no longer any reason or leisure to observe the enemy formation from above.
What remained was obvious. I had to join the fight myself.
“Hans, stop recharging and gear up. Hand the communication device over to Sir Levenstill. Everyone in the mage unit except him, switch to close-quarters combat readiness.”
I gathered all personnel except Sir Levenstill, who had to keep operating the Altar Cannon.
They were the last bastion, the final suppressor holding back the enemy soldiers’ approach with firepower projection.
If they fell, it was over. The entire assault team would be swept away by the wave of enemy troops and annihilated. The End.
“Fire Ball!”
“Gaaaah!”
Until Hans and the others arrived, I had to clean up this area first.
Alright then, you sons of bitches. Let’s go until one of us drops dead.