Pitched Battle (2)
Pitched Battle (2)
Bang, bang!
A scene I had only ever seen in movies in my past life was unfolding before my eyes.
Sparks from colliding mana flashed through the air.
Piercing through those sparks, fireballs and thunderbolts rained down on the heads of the charging knights and soldiers.
Rumble! Boom!
A translucent barrier spread over the soldiers' heads blocked the thunderbolts, while streams of water shot up from the ground to extinguish the fireballs.
"Is attacking out of the question?"
"We don't have enough nobles on our side! Just blocking them is overwhelming!"
Amid it all, I heard a knight ask a question and an exhausted noble answer.
Just as the noble had said, the fireballs and thunderbolts they couldn't block crashed to the ground, striking down the soldiers.
Seeing this, the veteran soldiers roared, urging the troops forward.
"Run faster! We have to close the distance before our defense is breached!"
The soldiers pressed forward through the downpour of abilities.
Meanwhile, the two orders of knights reached the front of the enemy forces.
Rumble.
As if they had been waiting for us, the ground in front of the knights shook violently.
The earthquake was so severe it was difficult even to stand.
"Break through!"
The knights charged straight through the shaking ground.
A few knights tumbled to the ground along with their horses, but most of them used their mana to force their way past the enemy's interference.
Then they collided with the enemy forces.
Boom!
The soldiers at the front were sent flying like toys.
A scene far more cartoonish than anything I'd seen in a medieval movie in my past life unfolded before me.
The breakthrough power of knights wielding mana was on a completely different level.
The soldiers at the front were literally shredded, and the knights became two awls, piercing deep into the enemy formation.
Shouts and screams filled the air, and through the chaos, I could hear the roars of the enemy decurions and centurions.
"Stop their advance!"
"Where are the knights?"
"They're heading for the officers! Block them!"
Just as the enemies said, we were galloping toward the enemy officers attacking our main camp.
Perhaps for their own protection, the enemy officers had gathered near the middle of each unit's formation.
We could reach them if we penetrated more than halfway through the enemy formation.
We continued pressing forward, cutting down the soldiers blocking our way.
Once we entered the enemy formation, Miguel galloped at the very front of the wedge-shaped order of knights.
As the strongest knight in the order and its senior knight, it was only natural for him to take the lead.
And he was certainly performing as befitted his position.
It was thanks to him that we had broken through the initial collision and breached the formation; it was thanks to him, too, that we had made it this far.
But he was slowly reaching his limit.
Covered in blood and swinging his sword, Miguel looked utterly exhausted.
The horse he rode was slowing down, too.
That was because we were advancing through the most heavily defended area.
To protect the nobles attacking our main camp, seasoned soldiers and knights were throwing themselves in our path to block our order.
Under normal circumstances, we would have had to change direction and exit the formation before our momentum was completely spent.
But we couldn't do that now.
We had to stop the nobles' attacks before the soldiers in our main camp suffered any more casualties.
And among the knights at the front, I was the only one who wasn't exhausted.
I pulled my helmet back down.
Slipping out of position, I galloped toward Miguel.
Soldiers clung to me, but I wasn't about to be stopped by swords that didn't even carry mana.
Blood sprayed, and I quickly reached Miguel's side.
"Who...! Ugh!"
I cut down the knight blocking Miguel and shouted at the top of my lungs.
"I will take the lead!"
Miguel was startled by my voice, but he soon agreed.
"That is... Understood!"
The enemy's defenses were thicker than I'd expected.
Although the Duke's son's safety was important, we couldn't let the operation fall apart because of it.
I thought I heard a groan from the empty air right behind me, but paid it no mind.
I nudged my horse into the space Miguel had cleared for me.
Taking my position, I looked to my left and right.
To my left stood Miguel, in his prime and in his thirties; on the other side was Hugo, an experienced man in his forties.
And I was at the forefront.
The order of knights lined up behind us.
Ahead of us stood the enemies blocking our way, their expressions triumphant.
Looking at them, I grinned broadly.
It was a brutal battlefield filled with madness, yet a laugh came naturally to me.
It wasn't because of the madness of the battlefield, nor was I mocking my opponents.
It was simply because something I'd dreamed of ever since I first began learning the sword from Miguel as a child had finally come true.
Nothing suited a boy's dream more than standing at the forefront of a charging order of knights.
Though I had lived a long life, it seemed I hadn't quite grown up yet.
"Knights, forward!"
Shouting at the top of my lungs, I charged forward once more.
Soldiers and knights blocked my path.
Their faces, flushed with malice, vanished from view the moment my sword swept past.
My vision cleared again.
I galloped forward, swinging my sword to strike down the enemies in my way.
Perhaps because of the chaos of battle, one knight managed to block my first strike.
But I didn't care.
I had at least broken his stance, so I could leave him to the knights following behind me.
"The duty of the one leading the knights is not to kill the enemy. It is to take one more step forward. Your comrades will take care of the enemies you miss."
It felt as though I could hear the story Miguel had told me when I was young all over again.
But Miguel was currently too busy striking down the knights I had bypassed.
Had I imagined hearing it?
I shook my head inwardly and kept pressing forward.
Trust your comrades and strike down the enemy.
Focusing on that as I advanced, I eventually spotted people in uniform among the soldiers.
They were the Noble Officers Corps.
"Block them!"
"You fucking idiots! What the hell were our knights doing while they made it all the way here?!"
Seeing us, the officers shrieked.
"Cease the attack! Fall back immediately!"
Even before the highest-ranking officer could shout, their attacks had already ground to a halt, and the shouts of our own soldiers were drawing closer and closer.
"But if we stop the attack, there's no way to halt their advance!"
"We've done enough! The rest is up to the soldiers and knights! Everyone, retreat!"
The officers, who had been gathered in one place, began to scatter and retreat.
Though their faces were full of discontent, the enemy soldiers and knights fought desperately to block us and save their officers.
The same was true in the distance, where the fortress knights had pushed in.
Over there, the officers were also beginning to scatter, and our soldiers could now charge forward without hindrance.
Boom. Boom.
Soon after, the sound of the two massive armies colliding rang out.
The collision of the two forces behind us urged us to press forward even faster.
"We have done our part! We must change direction!"
I nodded at Sir Miguel's shout.
We had crushed the enemy's formation and scattered the nobles who were pinning down our soldiers, so the knights' duty here was complete.
Now it was time to exit the enemy formation intact.
I asked Sir Miguel to take the lead again.
Judging by his voice, he seemed to have recovered his stamina, and breaking out of the formation would be easier than breaking in.
"Please take the lead again! I will fall back."
With those words, I moved back, and Sir Miguel took my place at the head of the knights.
"Change direction! Turn 90 degrees to the left and cut diagonally through the enemy formation!"
Since we couldn't simply turn back the way we had come, Sir Miguel's decision was the best option.
"Tung! Tung! Tung!"
The knights tapped their helmets to acknowledge Miguel's order.
"Turning left! Right side, accelerate! If you miss an enemy, just let them go! Those in the back, don't lose sight of the person in front of you!"
Miguel roared as he spurred his horse forward.
As they struck the weaker flank, the stalled knights began moving rapidly once more.
Carving through the enemy formation, the knights advanced swiftly, and before long, they broke out the other side.
But I was not among the knights who had escaped.
After yielding the lead to Miguel, I kept falling back before leaping off my horse.
I slapped the horse's rump to send it after the knights, while I walked back in the direction the order had been heading before they turned.
"It's an enemy knight! There's a dismounted knight!"
Seeing me alone, the soldiers shouted, but their cries were quickly cut short.
Slash!
Flicking the blood from my dripping sword, I pushed through the soldiers and kept moving forward.
The two armies colliding behind me were now tangled together in a chaotic melee.
Perhaps because the enemy's offensive here had stopped, attacks from our side were flying in this direction as well.
Fireballs rained down overhead, and blades of wind grazed past my side.
Unfortunately, because we had so few nobles on our side, it was impossible to deal the enemy a devastating blow.
Still, the considerable chaos we caused made it much easier for me to move around.
Cutting through the soldiers who blocked my way and shouted at me, I finally spotted a panting officer.
Even while fleeing, he had apparently brought along escort soldiers, who now blocked my path.
But they couldn't stop my sword, which even knights found difficult to parry.
The soldiers fell helplessly, and the young officer, his face pale with terror, reached out toward me.
Mana gathered, and a fireball appeared in front of me.
It was a massive fireball, as large as my upper body.
But it didn't feel very hot, so it was clearly just a flashy-looking fireball.
Had he run out of mana?
I sliced through the fireball with my mana-infused sword.
"How can a sword cut through an ability...?"
I had cut through the mana that served as the source of the fireball, not the fire itself, but I had no reason to explain that to my opponent.
Instead, I asked someone else.
Turning my head to look at the empty air, I asked,
"Which side was this officer on?"
I was asking which side the officer had taken.
Glan's voice drifted from the empty air. For some reason, he sounded exhausted and half-resigned.
"That officer... was on the side that wanted to run away."
I'd figured as much the moment I first saw him.
Leaving the terrified, frozen officer where he stood, I moved on once more.
I couldn't kill someone who wanted to run away.
Even without him, there were plenty of other officers to kill.
And the chaotic battle was intensifying, with its aftershocks slowly reaching where I stood.
The enemy formation had fallen into complete disarray, making it even easier for me to move.
I spread my senses in search of mana.
'Bingo!'
Not too far away, I sensed a concentration of mana.
I carved a path by killing the soldiers, and after a short while, I arrived at the location indicated by the mana.
This officer put up a proper defense.
He had his soldiers surround me and tried to split the ground open to drop me into it.
Unfortunately, the ones who fell into the ground were the surrounding soldiers.
Even after being stabbed and rolling on the ground, the officer didn't seem ready to give up. I ignored him and asked Glan, who was still concealing his presence, once more.
"Then what about this officer?"
"...He was on the side of fighting."
"Good."
Hearing Glan's answer, I swung my sword.
The officer's life was cut short, and I leaped forward to find another officer.