The Mage of the Ashes (5)
The colossal King Sandworm rammed the fortress wall like an enraged bull.
Before that overwhelming mass, the wall that had proudly stood thirty meters high crumpled and came down without a fight.
CRUUUUMBLE!
A rumble like a collapsing mountain, along with the shock of it, shook the entire battlefield to its bones. At the same time, the aides' frantic shouts reached Lloyd's ears.
"Damn it all! The orcs are changing course in unison! They're swarming toward the breached wall!"
"We've deployed a defensive barrier, but it won't hold for long!"
"And there's a significant number of soldiers buried under the rubble!"
Every report that poured in was nothing but bad news. Lloyd, hands clasped behind his back, surveyed his surroundings.
―――!!!
――――!!
From every corner of the battlefield came cries impossible to tell apart — battle roars or screams of terror. And it didn't end there. In the trembling pupils of the soldiers and the shoulders they hunched without realizing it, he could read it plainly: morale, drenched in confusion and fear, was scraping along the bottom.
"……"
Precisely in moments like these, a leader had to remain calm. He could not waver, not for an instant. Lloyd, without so much as a blink, held his expressionless mask. Accepting the wavering glances around him with perfect composure, he gave his orders in a voice startlingly steady.
"Seventh Mage Corps — raise a wall of fire before the breach. Delay the orcs' entry for as long as possible."
"Yes, sir!"
"Third Knight Corps — use that time to rescue the soldiers trapped under the rubble and move them to the rear as quickly as you can."
"Understood."
The orders, issued with swift judgment, were the best that could be made in that moment. Watching the soldiers fall back to the rear, Lloyd took stock of the battlefield's overall flow.
……Not good.
The orcs had seized the momentum. Their morale was piercing the heavens — the phrase fit all too well.
A hastily improvised wall of fire won't buy us much time.
Which meant he had to create a new variable — something to stretch that time further. After a moment's deliberation, Lloyd spoke.
"Second Knight Corps, Fourth Knight Corps — sortie through the west and east gates and strike the enemy's flanks. Don't commit deeply. All you need to do is keep the orcs from focusing their attention entirely on the front."
"Yes, sir."
"Understood."
But even this wasn't enough. What was missing, decisively, was a performance — something to haul allied morale back up in a single stroke.
Normally, the ideal picture would be taking down the King Sandworm itself……
But the beast, having played its part, had already withdrawn into the enemy ranks. No doubt the Great Warchief had ordered its return. The intent was so transparent that Lloyd could read it at a glance — the orc probably hadn't even bothered to hide it.
He means to deny me a stage to perform on altogether.
A faint sneer flickered across the corner of Lloyd's mouth. There was one thing his opponent had overlooked: Lloyd was no flower that simply ate whatever feed was tossed its way.
He was closer to a weed. The tenacious kind — the kind that put down roots and clung to life no matter how little sun it got, no matter how parched the soil.
If they won't give me a stage, then I'll simply build one myself.
Having settled the matter, Lloyd spoke.
"Once the wounded are seen to, dismiss the curtain of fire. I'm going outside."
Naturally, that bombshell of a statement made the aides leap out of their skins.
"What? That's insane!"
"Where in this world is there a commander who charges into the heart of the enemy army?"
It wasn't as though they had failed to grasp what Lloyd intended.
"Certainly, a performance like that would strike allied morale dead center. But there are drawbacks."
"If the commander takes the field personally, the chain of command will collapse."
"And should you happen to be wounded or fall, morale would sink far lower than it is now."
"Above all, no matter that you're a 7th-level mage, Commander, you cannot fight tens of thousands alone."
"Please, reconsider this one more time."
Their objections were eminently sound and logical. But Lloyd shook his head.
"If we don't crush the momentum of that enormous host, we will be the ones pushed back in the end."
Every order he'd given so far was, in the end, nothing but triage and reaction. It meant he was moving, from first step to last, across a board the enemy had already laid out.
"War is, in the end, one great current."
A game won by whoever seized that current and bent it to their will. And to do that, mere follow-up measures wouldn't do — they had to shake the board themselves.
Flanking strikes from the knights alone can never suppress the morale of a host that size.
Which was why he had to step forward. A high mage of the 7th level. Excluding the Great Warchief, there was no one who could stop him — so he himself had to take the lead in this war.
"……Hmm."
"Tch."
The aides traded glances. The operation was a double-edged sword — but precisely for that reason, it might reverse a battlefield that had tilted so suddenly.
Everyone believed they could hold them off despite such a disparity in numbers — and that belief rested entirely on the Citadel.
But the moment one wall came down, the scales tipped.
It feels a touch premature — but if we have to throw the dice anyway, sooner is better.
In the end, the aides raised the white flag.
"Understood."
"In return, every mage corps will support you from behind, Commander."
"Do as you please."
Lloyd was not a commander held in especially high regard. But there was no one who could criticize him for choosing to stand in the most dangerous spot on the battlefield, ahead of every man present. If anything, those most stung into action were the knights who had long looked upon him with displeasure.
"……"
It was true that they hadn't been able to look kindly on Lloyd, who had claimed the seat after the Lord's disappearance. But what the man was showing them now left nothing wanting in a commander of the Red Citadel.
The First Knight Corps. Its commander, Galahad — the right hand of Theodore Veil himself — spoke up.
"Even a high mage who walks onto a battlefield alone will be cut down by a blind blade. And if the enemy spreads their formation into a war of attrition, your stamina will drain away and you'll die a convenient death. Let our First Knight Corps take the escort."
At those words, the mages nearby — and the knights, and even Lloyd — wore faintly surprised expressions. But Lloyd answered in his usual impassioned deadpan.
"If you're not confident of keeping up with my pace, you'd be better off waiting here."
"Hah! You think our knights are slower than a bookish scholar like you, Professor?"
"……"
Lloyd studied him for a moment, then murmured, "The First Knight Corps will follow as escort."
"You won't regret it, sir."
Formation complete in an instant, they moved out toward the breached wall.
FWOOSH!
The barrier of flame standing in place of the thirty-meter wall roared as though it would incinerate everything it touched. Lloyd gazed up at it and gave the order.
"Dismiss it."
"Seventh Mage Corps — release the spell!"
PHUUUUUUM!
With the blare of a war horn, the blazing barrier scattered as though it had never been. In the same instant, the orcs — who had been waiting for exactly this moment — came pouring over the wall like a swarm of ants.
Lloyd stared at those brutish warriors of the desert and drew his mana up.
"Full Bloom."
Flowers unlike the fire lotuses of before blossomed across the field. Each of their petals was sharp as a blade.
"Kill the humans!"
"Bring down the fortress!"
"GRWAAAAGH!"
Watching the orcs charge, eyes blinded by slaughter, Lloyd snapped his fingers.
"Dance of the Dancer."
Thousands of flowers scattered their petals as they bloomed in lavish profusion. Where the petals touched, orc flesh split clean open — sliced apart, tumbling where they stood. As the lead orcs fell, those behind stumbled into chaos, triggering a chain of collisions.
Surveying the ridiculous spectacle, Lloyd parted his lips.
"Galahad. Cut us a path."
"Leave it to me, sir!"
SHING!
The knights drew their swords as one, scattered blade-aura over their steel, and surged forward. The orcs, their formation broken, could not hold back the knights boring into them like a single awl.
Lloyd walked leisurely through the path they carved open.
"Full Bloom."
Each time he raised a single flower, one orc lost its life.
Watching their commander stand face to face against an army of tens of thousands, the soldiers atop the Citadel walls shouted.
"Musketeers — load your rounds!"
"Priority fire support for the Commander and his escort knights!"
"Mages — prepare Fireballs! Target the enemy's rear and shatter their entire formation!"
The battlefield's momentum, once tilted, began righting itself at speed.
Of course, that was strictly from the human point of view.
"……Grrrh."
The one who could not possibly have been pleased by this turn of affairs — Great Warchief Ulgar — rose from his seat as well. If he sat idle and simply waited, the orcs' morale would surely be hammered down into the underworld.
Humans.
If only that man could be put down, this war itself would be as good as over.
Ulgar gave his orders to the orc generals directing the battlefield.
"Feign retreat and draw them in deeper. So deep that by the time they notice, there is no crawling back out."
"Great Warchief — do that, and our own warriors may die in droves."
"It doesn't matter."
He slung an axe nearly the size of a full-grown tree across his shoulder as he answered.
"Because I will face him myself."
RRRRUMBLE!
Periodic tremors shook the laboratory. Commander Theodore, who had felt them just as Oscar had, spoke up.
"……So the war has begun."
"You can tell that much from the tremors alone?"
"Of course. I may look like this now, but I held this Citadel for thirty years."
Bound fast by the Tamlra vines, he stood before Oscar, who held a small flask in his hand.
Put simply, Oscar had succeeded in developing a potion that converted demonic energy into mana. But the time he'd had to complete it had been painfully short.
"There are several things you should be warned about."
"Such as?"
"I cannot guarantee its safety. I haven't been able to run any live trials."
"Well, that works out nicely."
The Commander, looking even more gaunt than when they'd first met, gave a wry smile.
"Dangerous experiments like this were never meant to be run on humans to begin with. And I'm a demonkin now, aren't I?"
"……It will be extremely painful."
"You already told me that last time."
"Then I'll begin."
With that, Oscar severed every one of the Tamlra vines binding him.
Drinking this potion would transmute his demonic energy into mana. But for that, his body first had to be flooded with demonic energy all over again. Sure enough, the moment the vines were cut away, it began pouring back into him at a rapid pace.
"My first taste of freedom in who knows how long. And these muscles…… tch, they've wasted away quite a bit. Growing them back gets harder every year, you know."
The Commander cracked a joke, then looked Oscar in the eye.
"If I lose my mind and go berserk at any point…… you have my permission to kill me."
"I'll endure it just fine, so don't worry. The potion contains a weakening agent as well."
It was enough to drag a 7th-level knight down to the level of a 6th, temporarily.
……Though for a demonkin like him, there was no way to say with any certainty how it would take.
The Commander gave him a brief look of gratitude, then nodded as if steeling himself.
"No time for this. Best to finish quickly, while my mind is still my own."
"Yes, sir."
Oscar held out the flask, and Commander Theodore drained it in one gulp.
"KUH! You clearly didn't have time to do this properly."
His complexion darkened at once. Gritting his teeth, he braced a hand against the wall and muttered:
"You couldn't even be bothered with the taste, could…… KRAAAAAAGH!"
"You'll need to keep a firm grip on your mind."
Even as he said it, Oscar fixed every fiber of his attention on the man before him and drew his mana up. There was no telling when, at what instant, the other might lose himself and come tearing at him.
The demonic energy is starting to convert.
The trouble was that the speed was far slower than he'd anticipated. At this rate, the transformation would take roughly twenty-eight minutes to complete.
Let's hope nothing happens in the meantime……
The intensity of the agony was, if anything, even fiercer than he'd expected.
"KRAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
And barely three minutes had passed. Theodore Veil, dignity and decorum abandoned, writhed across the floor, twisting his joints this way and that. One could gauge the intensity of his suffering from those grotesque movements alone.
"Hah— hah. GGHK!"
With a scream like a dying man's last words, Theodore wrenched his head around and stared at Oscar. Then, with trembling eyes fixed on him, he spoke.
"Forgive me."
In the same breath, Oscar drew a blade of wind out of the empty air and swung it in a single arc.
CLANG!
Clasped in Theodore's hand — when had he even gotten up? — was a long stalk of Tamlra vine.
And here I thought I'd cleared the room of everything that could serve as a weapon……
Was even a flower's stem a weapon in the hands of a grandmaster of the blade? Oscar stared at Theodore Veil, consciousness gone, his body now flooded with demonic energy.
Time remaining……
Twenty-four minutes.
Letting out a faint sigh, Oscar's lips parted.
"Come at me, then."