Chapter 275
Chapter 275. Latent Heat (12)
Charging at the front, Alicia leveled her jet-black lance and called out gallantly.
"With the will of iron, forged in flame!"
And over the dark-crimson-uniformed Dragoons following behind her, her clear voice rang out.
"Follow me, Dragoons of Victoria! Fear nothing — drive back the long night and advance!"
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—!
The tip of her lance, accelerating once more before the enemy, wreathed itself in white wind.
Wrapped in surging gale, the massive lance hurtled forward like an artillery shell. Tremendous acceleration and power — a lethal range from which there was no escape.
Alicia's cavalry lance, driven home at full charge, skewered the enemy clean through.
— SCREEEEE—!
The enemy, spitted on the lance like meat on a skewer, writhed and clawed wildly at the metal shaft punched through its abdomen.
There, in the heart of the battlefield, Alicia hauled hard on her mechanical horse's reins, rearing it onto its two forelegs to brake — and thrust the lance high toward the sky.
The next moment, a powerful blast roared from the lance and a white shockwave swept in all directions.
The enemy's body, taking the full recoil of a point-blank bombardment, was quite literally torn apart, carapace and all, scattering off the lance.
Enoch's eyes instinctively tracked the brass cartridge casing spinning down toward the ground.
The casing struck the earth with a clear ring.
Taking that as their signal flare, the countless hooves of the mechanical horses following Alicia trampled wildly over the ground where the casing fell and began their advance against the enemy.
THUD-THUD-THUD-THUD—!
The hoofbeats that shook heaven and earth began streaming past Enoch and April like the wind itself.
Enoch slowly rose to his feet.
The hull of a mechanical horse passing within a paper's width brushed his coat, and the relentless gallop on every side blasted his cheeks with a maddening gale, whipping his hair.
Enoch had known the Dragoons rode mechanical horses — but seeing a lance charge executed by the modern Empire's Dragoons with his own eyes, the majesty of it nearly overwhelmed him.
Just then, from right in front of him, came April's small, disbelieving gasp.
"W-wow. The Dragoons. Of Victoria."
"April. Are you all right?"
"Y-yes! But Direct Lineage! This......! This is......!!"
Lips parted slightly, her expression saying she simply could not process what was happening as reality, April murmured.
"F-from what I heard, the Victoria Dragoons weren't supposed to join this operation at all......?"
"That's certainly how it was."
"Then how on earth are they here? There's no way those high-and-mighty nobles of the Victoria Domain would authorize deploying their elite army......!"
"I thought the same."
Enoch murmured quietly.
"......Alicia. So this is what you meant."
"Huh? Do you have some idea?"
Enoch nodded. Yes — there was exactly one. One single means by which Alicia could commit the Dragoons to this battlefield without Shepherd's authorization.
[Actually, I do hold the authority to mobilize a portion of the Dragoons in an emergency.]
[By Victoria military tradition, it's a ceremonial privilege granted to the honor guard color-bearer of the Dragoons — the one who stands at the battlefield's vanguard bearing no weapon.]
Aslin. The voice of the Dragoons' honor guard color-bearer from the past flickered through his mind.
Even if it had become a hollow formality in the modern era — with sufficient 'grounds,' there was no reason not to use it.
Watching that exhilarating charge punch through every enemy in its path was enough to make his chest feel blown wide open.
But it would not last forever.
Sure enough, the Dragoons' advance began to slow, little by little, as it collided head-on with the enemy's overwhelming numbers.
"Now!"
Alicia, gripping her mechanical horse's reins as she halted, glanced to her side and shouted.
"Aslin! Do it!"
"You don't need to tell me."
Aslin, galloping at her side, kicked off her mechanical horse's back and leapt down, landing with her banner-lance couched.
She closed her eyes, drew one small breath and released it — then spun a full turn, sweeping the banner-lance in a great arc around her body, tracing the long trajectory of the flag.
In time with her motion, the red banner of Victoria rippled hugely through the air, leaving its long wake.
Aslin took the flagstaff in both hands and raised it reverently upright before her eyes.
—A solemn, resonant hum rang out.
Every eye on the chaotic battlefield turned to her. Aslin closed her eyes and whispered.
"Color-bearer of the Victoria honor guard, Aslin. Before the advance of the Dragoons, I raise the banner of the charge and so declare."
VWOOOOOM—!
Her banner-lance and the entire flag flushed with brilliant yellow light, scattering crystals of radiance in every direction.
And the next moment, in the heart of the wasteland battlefield, a colossal banner of light unfurled.
"—Here, glory be, with the advance of Victoria!"
The flow of mana surged once — and staining the night's thin darkness, light flooded outward in an instant, filling everything.
Particles of mana-light blooming beautifully over the night earth whirled around her like a storm, and at last deployed a vast domain of light in every direction.
Sensing the danger on instinct, the enemies began charging at Aslin from all sides at once.
But immediately, the Dragoons who had entered that domain of light surged past her and counter-charged the oncoming enemies.
"As if we'd let you!"
"Advance!"
The countless Dragoon lances galloping across the wasteland skewered the enemy and drove on toward the front.
Even the larger specimens — two, three meters tall — blocking the way were punched through like paper, one after another, as the unstoppable advance pressed on.
Each time an amber wave swept over the ground, a tide of light washed across and stained everything in its path.
Even at this moment, the domain of light surged outward in every direction, expanding with the momentum to strip away every inch of ground the army of darkness had claimed.
[Unique Magic: Enhancement Bestowal]
A Unique Magic that 'amplifies' the physical capabilities, mana, and every other attribute of all allies within the domain she deploys.
The special enchanted cartridge rounds he had given Alicia during the Indiviltal elimination mission — those, too, had been an extension of this very magic.
"Ah......?"
Beside him, April stared down in astonishment at her own hands gripping her sniper rifle.
"M-my mana is amplifying?! And my body feels way lighter than before, too......"
"Yeah. It's a Self-Domain."
At Enoch's short reply, April's head snapped up in shock.
"A S-Self-Domain? You mean the real, actual 'Self-Domain'?"
"That's right. Overwriting the laws of reality with a magical world of one's own construction — building an independent world from one's own mental landscape. It's one variety of that."
Saying so, Enoch glanced to the side.
Aslin came into view, her long hair streaming in the fierce wind spun from mana.
Centered on her motionless figure, crystals of mana scattered like gemstones across a radius of dozens of meters, becoming a storm that swept over every ally in all directions.
His heart was pounding before he knew it.
That is Aslin's Self-Domain.
The memory of the original work flickered through his mind.
A Self-Domain: a technique for constructing a special space with one's own magic — unfurling a 'boundary field' that blankets an entire region.
It was no exaggeration to say it was used heavily by mages approaching 10th Rank in particular.
After all, in the original work, nearly everyone who wielded a Self-Domain was among the truly powerful.
Enoch lightly touched the chest of his shirt.
Persona, who now dwelled in his World of Impermanence — the mental world she had once deployed through her Unique Magic was also a kind of Self-Domain.
But April, even watching Aslin's Unique Magic unfold before her eyes, still wore a bewildered expression, as if she couldn't believe it was real.
"B-but even so, what is that Unique Magic? I heard Self-Domains are usually closed off — sealed away from outside space?"
"That's only one variety. Aslin's Self-Domain is the kind that draws no barrier between reality and the boundary field."
In other words: what people commonly called a wide-area Buffer.
A mage of the lineage that temporarily elevates the capabilities of allies — herself included — in team combat. That was Aslin's true face.
One look at the battlefield made it unmistakable.
Above the jet-black mechanical horses galloping at full speed, wreathed in yellow crystal light, the remains of enemies shattered wholesale on Dragoon lances scattered into the night sky.
Here and there, with each peal of cannon-fire, jet-black Bombardment Lances spat flame and burst enemies apart one after another.
The beasts that survived the barrage threw their bodies in the way to stem the advance, only to be punched through by charging lance-points and crumble into ash.
The Dragoons whose advance had slowed mere moments ago were nowhere to be seen.
The power of the magic deployed by Aslin — a top-tier mage in the original work — boasted formidable potency even now, five years before that time.
Enoch felt the crystals of light wrapped around his arms, clenching and unclenching his hand to check his condition.
His physical capabilities were unmistakably elevated.
If Aslin — currently 11th Rank — grew into the future as she was and reached 10th Rank, she would become a truly terrifying Buffer. He could practically feel that truth on his skin.
Enoch whispered calmly.
"Either way, this settles it. Get ready, April."
"Huh?"
Instead of explaining, Enoch couched his axe and strode forward, calmly surveying the battlefield.
He could tell, beyond any doubt. Because with this, it would open.
The path to the enemy commander — to Anarchilon.
Just then, a short cry came from behind, and April staggered.
Glancing back, he saw her slumped on the ground, legs given out, staring blankly down at her own ankle.
"Ngh, my leg......"
April's slender ankle was visibly, badly swollen.
"Are you injured?"
"I, I think so. My leg won't move."
Enoch narrowed his eyes. Considering she had taken a direct collision from a beast and been slammed into the ground earlier, it was probably fortunate it had ended at only this.
But like this, she couldn't take part in an operation that meant punching deeper through the enemy line.
"Aah. So this is how it goes."
April quietly bowed her head, resigned. The brim of her ball cap gently hid her expression.
"Ahaha. This is, like, legit awkward. Just like I told you before, Direct Lineage — guess I was never cut out to be a hero, huh?"
"April."
But she clenched the hand not holding her rifle, snapped her head up, and shouted, staring straight at him.
"Go, Direct Lineage. Make the operation succeed — you have to! I'll help however much I can from right here!"
"No. Even with the Dragoons here, everything around us is still an active battlefield. Don't push yourself any further."
"That's......"
April lifted her head slightly and gazed at Enoch. Then she shook her head once and shouted as if she had made up her mind.
"Tch. That's — that's my problem to handle! Just go!"
The way she had hesitated before answering — so unlike her usual self — struck him as odd, but there was no more time to lose.
The sound of hoofbeats was already drawing near.
Glancing to the side, Alicia, astride her horse, was leaning her body out sideways and stretching a hand toward him.
"Direct Lineage! Take my hand!"
Enoch caught the hand Alicia extended at full gallop, let his body swing up into the air with a half-turn of his hips, and mounted behind her on the running mechanical horse.
Mechanical it might be, but its movement was no different from a real horse's. The moment he was up, its peculiar surging gait nearly cost him his balance, and Enoch clamped his arms tight around Alicia's waist.
"Alicia, I'm sorry — Sirocco's gone ahead alone with the AP Bomb, straight for the enemy commander."
"Wh-what?! But there are far too many enemies......!"
"Exactly. Alone, Sirocco doesn't stand a chance. So we have to catch up to her before it's too late."
"U-understood!"
At those words, Alicia's expression turned graver still, and she dug her spurs into the mechanical horse's flanks.
"Then, Direct Lineage! Accelerating!"
The magic-stone alloy engine, glowing red with friction heat, pulsed like a heart within the openwork body of the mechanical horse.
The horse's mana circuits overclocked madly, driving up the RPM of the fuel powering its four legs, and beneath the cold metal body, the motor roared.
The next moment Alicia bent low, and her ash-brown hair whipped up and streamed behind her.
Enoch held her slim waist, leaned his upper body down, and edged his head out beside the galloping horse — and his vision, freed from her streaming hair, snapped wide open.
Witnessing Alicia's horsemanship firsthand like this, even Enoch found admiration rising unbidden.
In a single breath she tore across the wasteland along the path the forward Dragoons had carved — then seemed to leap — and suddenly the horse was bounding up the faces of a steep cliff.
Then the mechanical horse, leaping high once more, landed and bent its knees deeper than ever before — and kicked off the ground, springing into the sky.
They had already passed beyond the radiant Self-Domain Aslin had deployed; thin darkness spread before his eyes again.
A floating freedom close to true flight swept his whole body, and for a moment Enoch looked up at the sky.
High in the air, the wind whipped his clothes into a frenzy.
Between the Sky Lanterns glowing across the night sky and the cool wind, he could almost feel free. Then a green light faintly stained the air.
Enoch glanced down.
What lay there — at first, he was certain it was a gigantic green sun.
But it was not. Almond-shaped orbs radiating green light, arrayed in pairs upon pairs, burned in the darkness — staring precisely up at him.
They had reached it. At last.
He gripped the axe in his hand hard. The enemy he had so long sought was suddenly right before his eyes.
High in the air where the leaping mechanical horse had carried them—
The colossal body of the enemy commander, Anarchilon, lay directly below.
Just then, Alicia, riding ahead, seemed to spot something. She pointed downward with one hand and shouted.
"Direct Lineage! Down there!"
"......?"
Enoch looked down where she pointed — and only then realized what she had found.
On the ground spread dizzyingly far below, Sirocco was charging the enemy head-on, alone, kicking off the earth again and again.
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