The Battle of Paniotipa (3)
We slipped through the darkness toward the granary district and soon came upon an outpost. Up on the watchtower, armed men gripped their weapons and stared toward the distant thunder of battle.
"Damn it! What the hell is going on out there?!"
"What do you mean, 'what's going on'! Someone's attacking this place!"
"Shit! Is it the Crocodile King? Or the Soil King?"
"Who cares who it is! Fuck, why did this have to happen on my watch?!"
Fear had settled deep into the faces of the Blood King's soldiers holding the outpost. They were ordinary people, not Masters.
The odds of a regular human surviving a war between superhumans were about the same as getting struck by lightning from a clear sky ten times in a row. In other words, they were not going to survive. A normal body could not withstand a superhuman's attack — it could not even withstand the killing intent.
"Quiet! From this moment on, if anyone so much as opens their mouth, I will cut their throat myself!"
The soldiers clamped their mouths shut. A man had stepped forward and barked the order — the captain of the outpost. He had no Fairy, but he was a 4-Star Master.
"The direction the enemy attacked from is far from us. And that position is being held by Lady Amanda, Lord Perry, and Lord Richard! As long as they are there, the enemy will never reach us!"
The soldiers' faces eased at his words. Whether a captain was present or not had a direct effect on morale, and in a moment like this, it worked in their favor.
"So we do what we have always done — we watch the ground we are supposed to watch! That place will be protected by the others— ghk?!"
"C-Captain?!"
The man never finished calming his troops. An arrow split the darkness, punched through the back of his skull, and burst out of his forehead.
Even a Master, whose body put any ordinary human to shame, could not survive having his brain turned to pulp.
"The captain's dead!"
"The enemy's here!"
"Run! If you want to live, run!"
The instant their captain — who had been shouting so bravely — dropped dead, the soldiers plunged into a panic and scattered in every direction. Before long, the only thing left at the outpost was a Master's corpse, still warm.
"Nice work, Oralisa."
"Heheh! Oralisa did good, right, Master?"
"Yeah. You did great. Quite the sharpshooter, aren't you?"
"Heheheh!"
I ruffled her hair as I praised her, and Oralisa — still clutching her bow — burst into a delighted little laugh. The single arrow that had killed the outpost captain had been hers.
We stepped into the now-empty outpost and looked around for anything useful. There was nothing.
Tch. I was hoping for a map...
A map marked with the positions of the outposts ringing the granary district would have made the job I'd been given a whole lot easier. A shame.
"Take these."
I pulled oil cans from my inventory and handed them out to the party. The best way to burn a granary district to the ground was to soak it in oil and set it alight.
I'm jealous of Avalon.
Throw wind into the mix and starting a fire became even easier. Avalon had a Fairy who could command the wind, and I envied him for it.
"Everyone keep moving as carefully as you have been."
"Yeah. Don't worry."
"Yes, Master."
"Let's go."
I gave the party one last warning and we moved out again. The wheat had grown so well that the stalks stood taller than I was.
"Spread the oil and get out of there immediately. Got it?"
"Yeah. See you in a bit."
The party split in two. Aquaril, Sonic, and I made one team; Kanisia, Abraham, and Oralisa made the other. We only needed to start the fire and run, so dividing up would cover more ground.
"Let's begin."
"Yes, Master."
"Yes."
Aquaril, Sonic, and I spread out into a line and started moving through the towering wheat, sloshing oil across the ground as we went.
We've got oil, so why hasn't anyone invented cars or trains?
However much this world was a fusion of reality and fantasy — the setting of Fairy Masters — it was still bizarre that they had oil and no automobiles, no trains, nothing. If cars existed, getting to another city would have been a hell of a lot more comfortable.
I was turning over that useless thought and pouring oil with a will when it happened.
"...Master, get down!"
Aquaril's shout came from beside me. She had dropped the honorifics, but that was not what mattered. How desperate did the situation have to be for Aquaril, of all people, to speak to me like that?
I hit the dirt the instant I heard her.
A sickening sound whispered through the air above my head. Severed wheat rained down over me. A blade of sword-aura had come from somewhere and carved through the exact space our necks had occupied.
If Aquaril had not shouted, my head would have come off — or I would have taken a wound just as bad.
"Aquaril. Where did that come from?"
"That direct—"
"You miserable bastards. You dare pull this shit here, of all places?"
A stranger's voice rolled out from the direction Aquaril had indicated. One small mercy: it was a man's voice, not a woman's. A woman would have meant one of the Blood King's Fairies.
Status window.
Still pressed to the ground, I read the man's window. Five-Star, level 93. His class was Dual Swordsman — Rare grade, an advanced evolution of Swordsman.
That level, huh...
Doable. His level was higher than mine, but thanks to the stat boost from Molt doping, my numbers were practically on par with an 8-Star. A gap that wide in raw stats was more than enough to close a difference in rank.
No Fairy with him?
Whether he had sent them elsewhere or not, the only enemy coming toward us was a single Master under the Blood King.
In that case...
I signaled Aquaril and Sonic. I would hold his attention from the front while the two of them burst in from either side and hit him. They both nodded, and I rose slowly to my feet and called out to the man approaching through the wheat.
"I surrender! I surrender! Please don't kill me!"
"...Surrender?"
I threw both arms in the air and shouted. The man cocked his head and scowled.
"I-I'm a civilian! Bad people forced me to do this! They said they'd kill my family if I refused — I didn't have a choice! Please, spare me!"
"Hrm..."
I ran my mouth as hard as I could, working his sympathy. It seemed to take. The man hesitated, a low sound catching in his throat.
Perfect.
While I held his eyes, Aquaril and Sonic slipped into position on either side of him, exactly as planned. The tall, dense wheat hid them completely.
"If you really are a civilian, show yourself."
"Y-yes! Coming out now! Don't attack!"
I did as he said, stepping forward with both arms still raised.
"I'll avenge you, so don't feel too wronged!"
"What? H-hey, you crazy bastard!"
The moment I came into the open, the man charged and swung. Civilian or not, he was going to kill me first and ask questions later. A nasty piece of work.
I yanked a sword from my inventory and caught his blade just in time. His mouth curled as if he had expected exactly that.
"Civilian, my ass. Who did you think you were fooling?"
"You should've just fallen for it. You would've lived."
The lie had been seen through, so there was no point keeping up the act. I swung at him.
I did not have a trait like Master of Swordsmanship (Normal) the way Aquaril and Sonic did, so I was no expert with a blade — but raw stats could cover the absence of a trait just fine.
Steel rang on steel, again and again. What I was doing could not be called swordsmanship. Blade-brawling was closer to the truth. He parried every cut I threw at him — but each time our swords met, his whole body shuddered. The gap in Strength was overwhelming.
"Y-you little shit—!"
Once he realized I had him on stats, he stopped trying to block and started slipping my swings, looking for a counter.
"Die!"
He cut at me.
A wet puncture. Then the sound of flesh being carved.
"Ah... aah?"
He stared down at himself with the look of a man who could not believe what he was seeing. His sword-arm had been severed at the shoulder. A blade was buried in his left side.
"Are you unharmed, Master?"
"Are you all right, Master?"
Aquaril, who had taken the arm, and Sonic, who had driven her sword into his ribs, asked at the same time. I smiled at my lovely Fairies — the ambush had gone off perfectly — and nodded. Then I looked at the man dying on his feet.
"I told you, didn't I? You would've lived if you'd bought it."
"D-damn it..."
I seized his head and wrenched it around. Something in his neck gave a sickening crack, and he died on the spot.
"Five-Stars are easy now."
We had the numbers, and Aquaril and Sonic had landed the ambush — but the truth was I could have killed him by myself.
A woman's scream tore through the night from far away. Then another, raw and breaking.
"Master! Maaaster!!!"
His Fairies. They had felt their Master die.
Tch. If I'd had more time, I would've made them mine. What a waste.
"Back to spreading oil."
"Yes, Master."
"Yes."
I swallowed the regret, clicked my tongue, and went back to soaking the wheat with Aquaril and Sonic. We emptied nine whole cans before we finally retraced our steps.
"Alan!"
"Master!"
When we returned to the empty outpost, Kanisia's team was already there. They had finished spreading their oil first.
"Oralisa."
"Mhm!"
She nodded at my call and loosed a flaming arrow into the oil-soaked fields.
The wheat went up in a roaring rush. In a matter of heartbeats the granary district was a sea of fire.
I looked out over the blazing golden earth and muttered, deadpan,
"They're going to wet the bed over this."