The Battle of Hisphil Castle (8)
What was happening right now?
The first to grasp that fact were the guards standing behind me and Reika.
"Th-this can't be...!"
And then—
As that guard's voice reached us, Reika and I slowly came back to our senses, as if released from Medusa's curse.
"This is..."
"S-Swen...?! Wh-what on earth is this...???"
The first thought that struck me as my mind snapped clear wasn't questions like why this had happened, or why the rapier had started glowing.
We needed to get out of here as soon as possible.
The single thought that seized control of my mind was that one sentence alone.
"Reika, we need to go back!"
"Y-yes...? Huh? B-but—"
"There's no time. Come on, hurry!"
Reika couldn't even manage a proper reply. Her pupils were trembling violently, her panic plain to see—but then she immediately took the hand I held out to her.
I almost wanted to thank her for not dragging her feet.
I shouted straight at the guards.
"Bring the carriage! Forget the mission—we need to get back to Valharat Castle right now!"
The stunned guards heard me and nodded.
"Y-yes, sir!"
The guards quickly calmed the startled, thrashing horses, then loaded Reika and me into the carriage. The guards who had originally been assigned the mission of infiltrating enemy territory also scrambled into the fleeing procession.
Dominated by the thought that we had to escape this place, I failed to notice—
That beyond the cleanly punched hole, a single person was standing.
"What the hell?!"
"What was that sound just now?!"
The wall near Hisphil Castle's eastern gate had been destroyed with a thunderous roar.
This news reached every key figure inside the castle at incredible speed. Well, it could hardly fail to. The collapsing wall had produced an enormous boom, and acrid smoke had poured into the castle interior.
And Serpina, who happened to be out here directing the operation, quickly received the report and arrived at the scene accompanied by Castle Lord Yuan and one of the generals stationed at the castle.
"Lady Serpina, this way...!!"
Following the soldier's guidance, they arrived at a place where—
This can't be...!
An unrealistically massive hole had been punched through. At this point, it was less a hole and more a passageway.
"What on earth happened here?"
"I-I don't know! There was a sudden loud boom, and then all at once the wall had collapsed...!"
To destroy a castle wall, you needed siege weapons at minimum. Of course, what kind of weapon could punch such a clean circular hole was anyone's guess—but that was secondary.
There had been nothing beyond the wall to begin with. If someone had brought siege weapons, they couldn't have gone unnoticed.
"You couldn't identify who did this? What were the soldiers in the watchtower doing?!"
At Yuan's scolding, the soldier couldn't even manage a proper reply, stammering.
"Th-that's... this area isn't currently within the line of sight of any manned watchtower... I-I'm sorry...!"
"And you call that an excuse—"
"Hold on."
Serpina raised a hand, cutting Yuan off. Yuan immediately closed his mouth without another word.
"..."
She turned her head, checking the watchtower's position. Certainly... it would be difficult to observe anything happening here from that location. Moreover, beyond this hole there was nothing but forest. No real need to keep watch.
She herself hadn't considered monitoring this area particularly important either—and blaming the rank and file after the fact wasn't her way.
"Enough. What's done is done. In any case, there were no traces of anyone nearby?"
"Yes, that's correct...! We searched the surroundings but found nothing. It's truly as if a ghost did it...!"
...
Something absurd had occurred. But once it had occurred, it was no longer absurd. There had to be a causal relationship.
An earthquake? No—that would have caused damage across a wider area.
Poor construction causing the wall to collapse? That wasn't a realistic guess either.
She pulled every possibility she could from her mind, but that was all she had. Neither in the history books nor in her own life had anything like this—"a sudden boom, and then a hole punched through the castle wall"—ever happened.
How was she supposed to make sense of that?
"...Yuan."
"Y-yes!"
"Withdraw the troops we've already deployed at once."
"Withdraw, my lady...?"
"Yes. The assault on the Asius Army will be postponed."
"U-understood!"
After Yuan withdrew, Serpina was left alone, calmly lost in thought.
Even in this situation, no sign of panic could be read on Serpina's face. She wasn't a perfect superhuman who could handle everything, but she knew what attitude a person in her position needed to maintain.
As a leader, showing signs of unease was forbidden. She was walking a tightrope of rules she herself had established, her footing precarious—but she kept walking it.
In any case, something like this having happened meant "someone" had done "something." And there was no guarantee this was the end.
This wasn't a supernatural phenomenon. Something had clearly been done to create the situation before her eyes. That meant she needed to prepare her soldiers.
Truly absurd. Almost as if... someone used magic...
Yes. If she had to explain this in the most realistic terms, magic was the only option.
And the moment the word "magic" came to mind—her thoughts naturally turned to that man.
"So... my guess is that man may truly be a mage."
"Your reasoning?"
"Well, it's a far more plausible theory than claiming that performing a ritual to the heavens suddenly causes natural disasters."
Magic...
Jena had said it, hadn't she. That a mage had likely appeared.
So had they truly used magic? It was hard to believe... but given the giant boulder falling from the sky and the sudden hole in the castle wall, that possibility was the highest.
And one more thing. Just now, Serpina had naturally ordered a retreat from an advantageous battle. Given what had happened, withdrawing to defend the castle was the rational move.
So who benefited most from that action?
The Asius Army.
And where did that white-haired man currently belong?
The moment that thought formed—
"M-my lord!"
A soldier came running urgently toward Serpina. Beside him stood a middle-aged man.
"What is it?"
"One of the territory's residents was near here when the hole was punched through, so we just brought him!"
"What?"
A witness, thank goodness?
The man, who introduced himself as an ordinary farmer, reported everything he had seen without omission.
"I couldn't see well because of the smoke... but I clearly saw a man in a hood and a woman fleeing!"
"Do you remember any detailed descriptions?"
"Th-that much... as I said, the smoke was so thick... I couldn't make them out. I'm sorry...!"
"...No. Then let me ask one more thing. About physical characteristics."
"Physical characteristics, my lady?"
"For instance, whether they had a distinctive hair color."
At Serpina's words, the man thought for a moment, then nodded as something came to him.
"Come to think of it..."
"...!"
If the man's hair was white here, she could be certain this was magic. She waited for his answer with that thought—
"The fleeing woman's hair was a color I've never seen around here. It was pink."
"...Is that so?"
"Yes. That's all I remember... I'm sorry."
A pink-haired woman? As rare a sight as a young white-haired man, so it wasn't useless information... but it still wasn't decisive evidence.
"...I understand. You have my gratitude for your cooperation."
After sending the man away, Serpina sank into thought once more.
If what that man said was true, the hooded man and woman presumed to have caused this chaos had fled... so why had they done this in the first place?
Having thought that far, Serpina roughly organized the pieces she had so far and let out a short sigh. Problems that wouldn't be solved by further thinking didn't matter.
Even if they had fled, as long as there was a possibility they might attempt something "magic"-like again, she needed to focus on the castle's defense for now.
"Hasla."
"Ah, y-yes!"
The male general who had been silently following the situation jumped at Serpina's words.
"Assemble a force to guard this place immediately. Treat it the same as guarding the castle gates."
"Ah... understood!"
"Good. I'm counting on you."
Having said that, Serpina quickly moved on.
The male officer who had been accompanying Yuan watched her retreating back and thought.
She... knew my name...!
Remembering a general's name after checking it once, no matter how insignificant that general might be—that was her nature. In that overwhelming leadership, another human being became a captive in that moment.
"..."
The interior of the carriage returning to Valharat Castle was utterly silent. Neither I nor Reika bothered to start a conversation. We didn't even have the mental capacity for it. I myself still couldn't grasp what had happened.
The rapier suddenly started glowing... and Reika's fireball was sucked into my rapier. As if it had become a magnet.
And then, at the tip of the rapier's blade, the fireball swelled to an absurd size—and the moment I swung the rapier a few times, it flew off in the direction the blade was pointing.
Looking at this situation objectively, the correct conclusion was that my rapier had amplified her magic. The problem was that I hadn't grasped that fact at all.
This ceremonial item had that kind of ability?
I've invested ten thousand hours in this game. Ten thousand hours! Easy to say, but converted to minutes, it was an absurd amount of time poured in.
That's why I was certain I knew everything about this game. The confidence that I could somehow navigate anything even if my Intelligence 100 brain only recited the results—didn't that come from knowing everything about this game?
But...
I had only just now discovered that this ceremonial item amplifies magical power.
Around the time I started thinking the situation might be more serious than expected—
Come to think of it...
I suddenly recalled when I'd obtained this item. Zinor's advice—"Search the area around here"—had come out as the optimal action. My prediction had been the same. The optimal action our army could take was reconnaissance.
It was just reconnaissance, when you think about it. And what we obtained was just a ceremonial weapon.
An Intelligence 100 brain declaring that acquiring a ceremonial weapon that merely looks nice is the optimal action?
At the time, I'd simply shrugged it off as "well, an item came out, so whatever"... but this place was a world based on a game, yet not the game itself—it was the real world.
Same as when I'd obtained gold back in Luna's army. Obtaining gold, using it for relief, making a name, absorbing two mercenary bands. It started with gold, but in the end it didn't simply end with acquiring gold.
Thinking of it that way, this item amplifying magical power—and it happening to be discovered while Zinor, who had Reika as his adopted daughter, was affiliated with that nation—wasn't so uncanny after all.
Just how many moves ahead do you want me to see?
Is that just how it works once you hit Intelligence 100—you should be able to see several moves ahead? It was truly ridiculous... but in any case, I had completed the mission itself.
Bluff or not, after something like that, any competent castle lord would pull their troops back. With that level of destructive power, they could lose the castle. It would take time to reach the conclusion of "magic," wasting mental energy on unnecessary deduction—but that wasn't a bad thing for us either.
Right. No matter what happens, I'll act as if I knew it all along.
Thinking that, my complicated mind felt clearer. With some composure restored, my eyes naturally fell on Reika, who was trembling.
"...Reika."
"Ah, yes...!"
"Don't worry too much. You did well."
"...Th-that..."
"The result was a bit different from what we expected, but we pulled it off thanks to you."
"..."
Reika gave no reply, but I didn't force any further comments on her. She must have all sorts of thoughts swirling around. She had just witnessed for the first time the destructive power her magic possessed—enough to become a lethal weapon. Times like these, a person needed time alone.
"Um... we've arrived."
The carriage stopped at just the right moment. I slowly helped Reika down from the carriage.
Suddenly, I recalled the time I'd gone to Lin Brans as an envoy of the Lunarien force. Right. Just like then—let's do it one more time.
As if everything were unfolding according to my will, I headed toward Valharat Castle's royal keep.
"Swen, you're back safe! How did it go?"
To Yuuri, who was welcoming me, I spoke with the calmest expression I could manage.
"...We made it in time."
"Really?"
"Yes."
I smiled. Act like someone who knows everything. With that resolve, I slowly parted my lips.
"Don't worry. Serpina's army will retreat."
"Really? The plan worked?"
"It did."
"Phew..."
Yuuri let out a sigh of relief.
"Actually, while you were gone... a messenger arrived. I heard Anima was in a difficult situation. Everything you said was right."
That part had proceeded according to my predictions after all. I'd prepared excuses in case a natural disaster struck, but that worry had been unfounded. Well. What were the odds of another meteor falling from the sky?
"They urgently requested reinforcements. Thanks to your advance warning, I'd already sent them, but I was so, so anxious..."
Having said that, she seemed to get a little choked up, and offered me her genuine thanks in a trembling voice.
"Thank you so much... Swen."
A narrow escape... I suppose?
I simply bowed my head and replied.
"If I was of service to my lord, that is enough."
Hoping that this would wrap up cleanly.