Empty Fort Strategy (6)
As soon as I reached the battlefield, I spotted Bruno a split second away from being decapitated. No time to scan the field, no time to think—I built the fastest spell I could manage and hurled it forward.
“Fire Javelin!”
Whoosh! Boom!
Too late?
The smoke cleared moments later, revealing Bruno still breathing and the enemy knight who had blocked my magic with his aura.
Whew. Looks like I made it just in time.
Only then did I regain some composure and actually look around.
Well… maybe “just in time” was a bit optimistic.
It couldn’t have been more than five minutes since the barrage of twelve hundred Fire Balls, yet our infantry formation had been utterly pulverized. Nearly half were already dead or had fled. The survivors looked to be about half the original number, and many of those were too badly wounded to keep fighting. So roughly two hundred left, give or take.
On the other hand, the enemy knights still had… twenty-six men. I suppose I should be proud of shaving off three or four. Tsk.
The situation was shit, but there was still work to do.
“Hyah!”
I kicked my horse’s flanks and charged. My target was the knight standing near Bruno.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
The distance closed in the blink of an eye. The moment I reached the knight—
Slash!
The man, still wrapped in green aura, swung at me.
Yeah, I saw that coming.
“Fire Ball!”
I hurled the spell I’d already cast in my left hand straight into his face. Combined with the horse’s momentum, it flew almost as fast as a Fire Javelin.
Caught off guard by the unexpected speed, the knight had no choice but to abandon his attack and focus entirely on defense.
Boom! Whoosh!
The Fire Ball exploded the instant it met his sword, spraying flames in every direction. It was the same impact-grenade variant I’d used during last night’s raid.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
I didn’t slow down at all. I triggered the spell I’d prepared in my right hand.
“Telekinesis!”
Vrrrr!
Bruno shot into the air, pulled directly into my path—and I let go of the reins, catching him with both arms.
Whoa, damn it. This guy is heavy as fuck.
And what kind of 2-circle spell burns mana like a 4-circle one? Probably because I’d cast it from a distance while accounting for the weight of an adult male and the full gallop of a horse.
Anyway, I’d successfully snatched Bruno. Without losing speed, I raced back toward our infantry line.
Clatter-clatter-clatter!
Hans and Sir Levensteel followed right behind me, quickly matching my pace. In under ten seconds the whole group had rejoined the infantry in one lightning-fast merge.
But there was no time to catch our breath—the enemy was already chasing us down.
I shouted at our infantry.
“All remaining infantry, grab your spears and rally on me! Forget the shields—just spears! Move your asses! If you don’t, you’re dead anyway!”
Rumble-rumble-rumble!
I don’t know if they were terrified of the enemy knights or if they’d found some desperate courage, but the important thing was that our conscript infantry rushed toward me at a speed I never would have believed possible.
“Form a circle twenty paces out from me! Face outward! Plant your spears! Two ranks deep, overlapping!”
Maybe it was because their lives were on the line. Or maybe the battlefield had already weeded out the weak and only the aces remained. Either way, the infantry moved with surprising sharpness, forming the formation exactly as ordered. I kept feeding them real-time corrections for anything that looked sloppy.
“Front rank, angle your spears thirty degrees and aim for the throat—keep them long! Jam the butt ends into the ground however you can! Rear rank, stay a little back and lower! Your spear tips should reach the enemy’s thighs at roughly the same distance as the front rank! Lock them with your knees and body weight!”
It took a desperate twenty-odd seconds of pure survival instinct for the formation to come together.
The instant the phalanx was complete—
Slash! Crunch! Shhhk! Crack! Snap! Clang!
Our soldiers and the enemy knights collided in a storm of noise.
But no matter how skilled the knights were, they couldn’t simply ignore a wall of spears. The density was so ridiculous that even if they trusted their armor, they’d get tangled in dozens of shafts before they could push through.
The one who tried to brute-force it anyway was—
“Die!”
Swish!
“U-uaaaagh!”
Stab!
“Guh!”
—and ended up with a spear through the throat.
No matter how strong their armor, no matter how inhuman their stamina or raw power, they were still human. Stab them and they bled. Hit a vital point and they died.
“Hup!”
Slash! Riiiip!
…Wait, was that a sound that definitely shouldn’t have been made?
I whipped my head toward the noise. There stood the same knight from earlier, still radiating green aura, shredding our soldiers’ spears like a woodchipper.
Green aura, chilling gaze, warped and dented plate armor. It was the same bastard who had tried to kill Bruno.
…Scratch the “still human” part.
Fuck this goddamn medieval fantasy world.
Does that even make sense?
The spear density made advancing difficult, so he’d simply decided to mulch the spears along with the men. And he was actually doing it, thanks to overwhelming physical ability.
He was probably a top-tier Sword Expert. If that lunatic kept this up, he’d punch a hole clean through our infantry line in no time.
“Float!”
Shrrrk!
I used the levitation spell to gain an angle clear of my own troops and tried to intercept him.
Ping! Slice!
Spurt!
Blood poured from my neck. The knight had thrown a dagger.
Lucky I caught the glint of light on the blade. Otherwise that would’ve taken my carotid.
He was butchering infantry in real time and still had the presence of mind to throw a dagger the moment I took to the air.
What kind of monster was this guy?
…No. Don’t panic. He can’t do anything but single-shot checks like that anyway.
I resumed levitating. One second. Two. Three. By the time I’d risen about thirty meters, one side of the infantry formation was already on the verge of collapse.
The surrounding soldiers tried to block him, but their spearheads were gone—only wooden shafts remained. They couldn’t stop an aura-wielding madman rampaging through them.
In the roughly fifteen seconds it had taken me to hear the sound and rise, four men had already died. A fifth was falling now. The hole was about to open completely.
“Fire Ball!”
First, I fired a spell to stop the knight’s blade before it could pierce another soldier.
“Fire Ball! Fire Ball! Fire Ball! Fire Ball!”
I spammed the spell like a madman. Fire Ball was the attack magic I was most comfortable with, but more importantly, I couldn’t give him a single opening to attack anyone else.
Boom! Clang! Kaboom!
The knight sliced them apart with his aura, deflected them, sometimes even took them on his armor and kept standing.
“Fire Ball!”
Shwooo—!
The moment I attacked again—
Dash! Slash!
“Glurk!”
He simply dodged and charged straight back at the infantry.
“What the—?”
He even flashed a mocking grin, as if daring me to stop him, and resumed targeting my soldiers.
Since you can’t catch me anyway, I’ll just massacre everyone else? So it’s a game of chicken?
He was betting on whether my troops would die first or whether he would fall first if he ate my attacks. There was no other reason he would openly ignore a 5-circle mage like this.
“You fucking bastard! Stop! Fire Javelin!”
Whoosh!
The spell accelerated as if being sucked toward the top of his head. But—
Flash! Slice!
The green aura around his blade suddenly flared brighter, then moved at a speed that surpassed my dynamic vision.
Clang! Bang!
The Fire Javelin was cut clean in two, passed by him, and vanished.
Damn it. He saw it coming a mile away.
“No matter how many insects swarm, they are nothing but prey to a spider.”
The knight suddenly stopped moving and spoke directly to me.
“Mage. Do you not remember seeing this aura before?”
“What the hell are you babbling about…?”
Wait. Green aura. And probably from the Eastern Knights?
“Don’t tell me… you’re—?”
“It seems you had forgotten until now.”
The knight looked at me and let out a ghastly laugh.
He pointed straight at me.
“I had my suspicions. After all, she was clearly stabbed to death. But after coming here today and witnessing your tactics, I became certain. The traces left at yesterday’s ambush site were identical to the tactics you’re using now.”
Fwoooosh!
He raised his sword again, explosive green aura surging around him.
Damn it. This is ridiculous. She was the one who came after me.
I didn’t go looking for her, so why is he throwing a tantrum?
Whether or not the guy was completely off his rocker, the clear and present danger was this knight—Marco. If the infantry line broke, Hans, Sir Levensteel, and the injured Bruno would all be massacred along with them.
“Who the hell was it that started a rebellion with neither justification nor duty? If the rotten heads at the top are corrupt, it’s only natural misfortune would fall on the loyal dogs below them! Stop spewing bullshit and come at me, you son of a bitch!”
“KAHAHA! Brave words! Just stay there and watch, you cowardly mage!”
He was so far gone that even provocation didn’t work.
Shit. If even psychological warfare fails, how the hell am I supposed to stop this bulldozer?