Chapter 95
Chapter 95
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Translator: penny
Chapter: 95
Chapter Title: Their Circumstances: Lia El Nermia's Circumstances
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# 95
10. I Came, I Saw, I Won (11)
#20 Their Circumstances: Lia El Nermia's Circumstances
The chaotic battlefield.
Trying to rally our allies there, who were gripped by shock and terror, was an incredibly difficult task.
“H-How is it even moving? It shouldn’t be able to move at all!”
I could see a woman screaming and stumbling backward.
Damn it. Sure enough, she was wearing a Marsis academy uniform.
“G-Get away…”
The moment I saw the face of the opponent in the Marsis uniform, I couldn’t stop my own expression from twisting further.
She was one of the more skilled female mages from the Magic Tower faction, but she had completely lost her will to fight.
“Krahaha! Is this it? This is what you thought could stop us?”
The girl in the Marsis uniform looked unscathed.
But the boy from Yuglasia approaching her was anything but.
It was such a gruesome sight that I wondered if this footage could even air at the Imperial Tournament, where kids watched too.
His uniform, which had excellent magic resistance, was torn in places, with his upper body practically stripped bare.
And blood was flowing from the gaps in that torn uniform.
Pouring out steadily!
“Is this what you call pain? You thought this level of attack could hold us back?”
“Eek!”
Especially the wound on his lower body seemed fatal; dragging one leg as he approached was honestly a bit frightening even to me.
“Senior, fall back! He’s injured in the leg anyway, so he can’t close in properly! If we pull back a bit and attack again, we can take him down!”
“N-No… He’s been like this since earlier. He won’t go down.”
I tried transmitting my words through magic from a short distance away, but the senior just shook her head, tears streaming down her face.
“Krahaha!”
“N-Nooo!”
In the end, the senior couldn’t even flee in fear and got taken out right there.
“Damn it…”
The problem was that scenes like this were happening all across the battlefield.
“Damn, we need to hold out at least until the final day, but it feels like our chances are slipping away even more.”
This match revolved around protecting one king at the base.
The final day’s match was the most similar to a siege war using a castle as the base, so I’d brought Marsis’s main force of 100 for practice, but this was the result.
-Owner’s back.
“You got beaten and came back, and you’re saying it so proudly?”
-Honestly, those guys are warriors. Even before becoming great demons, getting done in by them as a group leader isn’t shameful.
“Damn, that’s not encouraging me at all.”
A headache throbbed as I watched our forces dwindle.
Obviously, I was Marsis’s king.
As king, I’d rather give commands than fight directly, but not a single person was properly following orders.
“For the siege, I should hand that role to the president and take the front lines myself.”
-That would be best. None of your academy’s students seem capable of holding those guys back.
Surveying the battlefield from afar, I completely revised my assessment of Yuglasia.
Individually, each one looked like a berserker mage turned frenzied warrior.
But viewing them as a group in spatial units, they were less berserkers and more like undead.
The legendary evil beings from tales, where dark magic inhabits dead corpses and controls their flesh—the undead!
-That’s… right. Even injured, pressing toward the enemy like that is the undead itself!
Faced with monsters even a great demon acknowledged, I had no choice but to make a decision.
“We can’t win with Marsis’s current training. We need to go back to the old era’s magic.”
The current magic paradigm was combat-oriented, capable of handling close range to some extent.
Improving on old-era magic swordsmen or battle mages had created the new magic engineer system, older than the empire itself.
Even firepower-focused mages were trained to raise personal skill to handle close-in enemies—that was Marsis’s current method.
But most Marsis students had their spirits broken by Yuglasia’s.
No, they were becoming traumatic existences.
That’s why we had to revert to the old way: pure long-range firepower focus.
From distances where the enemy couldn’t be seen, squeezing out every drop of mana like human siege engines.
“But for that, we need a frontline.”
Even if the final day’s siege centered on actual defensive castle structures, we couldn’t perfectly block the enemy from approaching.
No, if our score was favorable, it might not be impossible, but right now, we were overwhelmingly behind.
That gap would widen even more today, and to have a shot at victory, we’d need to capture Yuglasia’s castle.
“Can we even win…”
But I couldn’t guarantee it.
The enemy were strong foes we couldn’t ignore one by one, while our allies were consumables useful only for long-range firepower support.
-Owner, do we really need to win this year? We can aim for next year.
“If not this year, it feels impossible.”
I came to one of the Empire’s Four Great Prestigious Academies to become the best, but my own spirit was already broken.
Yuglasia, once rated the weakest among them, had completely transformed in just one year.
If it was just the student council, a few students, or the seniors improving, I could aim for next year.
But every single one at Yuglasia had grown stronger.
Especially the first-years, with five Swordmasters and god-tier summoners.
I couldn’t even imagine how much stronger they’d be next year.
“Lady Nermia!”
“Hah, already…”
And there was the first-year’s strongest—no, Yuglasia’s strongest during this Imperial Tournament—Aris of the Retia family, pointing her spear at me.
“No one who can stop her…”
Swordmasters were my natural counters.
I’d barely won against one using Leviathan and Surtr’s suicide attack, but that was luck.
If we clashed in close range again, I’d probably lose.
“A Swordmaster using a spear, of all things…”
The most annoying part was her using a spear instead of a sword.
The spear’s range, over twice that of a sword, was even trickier for me, already weak in close combat.
Oh, and for reference, spear users aren’t called Spearmasters because those who use aura techniques called qi or aura are all called Swordmasters, except archers.
Others with different weapons protested the bias, but since most martial artists used swords, it didn’t stick.
-Over there, owner. Who are you talking to?
-Don’t know. The will of the world, I guess.
Surtr asked about my unconscious explanation, but even I didn’t know.
“And right now, the enemy ahead is more important.”
I chanted to summon Leviathan, preparing for close combat.
Then, a large-scale chant.
The key in warrior vs. mage fights was distance.
In pure 1v1, pulling away favored the mage.
Yes. In 1v1.
“Urk?”
I blocked a sudden fire arrow flying at my back with magic, but the abrupt ambush roiled my internal mana.
“You didn’t think I’d let you cast that easily, did you?”
“What, a warrior refusing 1v1? A Swordmaster?”
I spoke to Aris in a voice that scratched at her pride.
Warriors were beings made of pride.
If a mage they deemed weak requested 1v1, they never refused.
Especially if she’d beaten me once before—pride would make her send allies back for a duel.
I put on a perfect condescending look, ignoring her as taught by the instructor.
Perfect. No warrior could ignore this taunt.
“Huh? What are you talking about? This is the Imperial Tournament match, right? It’s a team battle?”
And the opponent wasn’t a warrior, apparently.
“What about your pride as a warrior?”
“Huh? I’m a frail summoner. Summoners are best in groups, right?”
Her shamelessness—spewing red qi from her spear while calling herself a summoner—left me speechless for a moment.
“A s-summoner?”
When her summons were just her weapon spear and occasional shields for defense!
I wanted to shout that, but Yuglasia students had already surrounded me, so I couldn’t.
Normally, they’d wait for talk out of courtesy, but Yuglasia kids charged at openings.
I needed to chant at least once more during the talking time.
“Blow, winds, shatter, storm, blaze, flames!”
Using short phrases, I completed the desired spells in my mind.
“Hup!”
I checked Aris with wind blades, blocked others’ approaches with storm and flame walls, then swung Leviathan at Aris.
“Reckless, trying close combat again?”
“No choice!”
In 1v1 maybe, but fighting long-range through enemies with multi-target attacks was suicide.
“As expected, our academy suits that style better than Marsis. Night self-study would’ve been easier then!”
“What are you talking about?!”
I glared at her laughing amusedly, dropping noble courtesy unlike before.
Night self-study? Spouting nonsense, she thrust her spear.
“Strike, lightning, shatter, thunder axe!”
I blocked her spear—qi coating shaft and tip—with Leviathan, used the rebound to retreat, gathered lightning at my fingertips, and thrust.
“Not bad!”
She shattered the torso-sized thunder axe with her spear, but I froze the ground in the gap.
“Ice Field.”
“Burn them all.”
“Insane?!”
But as expected, she didn’t let me repeat last time’s tactic.
She ordered flame attacks covering her whole group, including herself!
“Urgh? Surtr!”
Caught in the flaming rain, I blocked the first wave with mana, and barely held with resummoned Surtr.
“You use summons pretty freely.”
“Our contracts differ from yours.”
Only I, who contracted great demons via slave contracts, could use demons as shields like this!
“Oh? Ours are a bit different from normal too. I’m curious about your method.”
“Buying time, huh!”
“As expected, quick on the uptake.”
I’d learned from the instructor’s trials to sense mana flows in space.
I couldn’t miss the spirits around preparing another barrage.
I chanted quickly, swinging Leviathan.
Using Surtr like last time was impossible.
Even blocking others’ approaches strained Surtr.
‘Just give up?’
Victory was very hard in this situation.
I had hidden cards.
But they should be for the finals at earliest.
If Yuglasia took these 10 points, even winning finals wouldn’t guarantee overall victory.
Plus, going all-out to down her, only for this enemy not to be the match’s king, would expose my aces for nothing and end in defeat—the worst scenario.
“Worried I might not be the king?”
I subtly pulled the match’s king token from my chest pocket. Perfect taunt.
“Fine, let’s try it.”
Down the enemy ahead—presumably the king—and it’s a reversal.
Single-action chants to check and seek openings.
My ace was swordsmanship.
Before mage, I’d never slacked sword practice against No. 1 and No. 1000 in the organization.
“Retia Style.”
“Sky Slash!”
Sky Slash, 1호’s finisher, learned fighting his instructor’s disciple!
Sky Slash needed sword qi for full power.
I couldn’t use sword aura or qi, but my mana pool dwarfed 1호’s.
And my current sword wasn’t normal—it was the summoned magic sword Leviathan.
This flame-made magic sword could output power equal to infused mana, even without qi.
“Urgh!”
Blood flowed from my waist, a groan of pain escaping.
But unexpectedly, the groan came from me, not her.
“Dirty… ambush…”
“Told you, it’s a team battle.”
I bit my lip habitually after so long.
Tasting blood in my mouth, I refocused.
“Hello, Lady Nermia. I’m Syr Lil Reia, eldest daughter of the Reia family. Also a summoner of Hermes, messenger god.”
Hiding the dagger in my hand behind me, the girl smiled sweetly and greeted.
I bit my lip again from long habit.
“Damn…”
Another god-tier contractor had appeared as my enemy.