Chapter 70: We are under attack!
They were not on the frontline, but the tense situation inside the fortress told Elidranthia it was only a matter of time. Soldiers sortied every day, supplies moved at a rapid pace, and wounded soldiers streamed in from the frontline.
This is war.
For Elidranthia, who had seen worse, this was infinitely better. She had seen wounded soldiers abandoned in the jungle to die during her childhood days as a child soldier. She had seen soldiers bombed to pieces. Since this was a fantasy world, the wounds varied from frostbite, sword lacerations, arrows, shrapnel, and burns. It was not just bullet wounds.
Alas, her fellow students, who had led peaceful lives in the capital, were not as resilient as she. Even though they had been stationed here for almost a week, most of them still had pale faces when a mangled body was carted into their station.
“Lady Elidranthia, I brought your lunch. It’s just a hamburger and fruit juice, though,” Alicia said to Eli, who had practically collapsed on a couch. The fortress had run them haggard, forcing every ounce of their mana to heal injured soldiers and Eli hadn’t figure out who her enemies were. They were so tired they stopped asking questions.
“You seem well, Alicia. I suppose not being on the frontline has spared you from this slavery?”
“Well, I still have to maintain the water purifier and enchantments, but yes. It’s not a big deal. The ones who work the hardest are the seniors who can enchant bombs,” Alicia nodded. Like the lazy maid she was, Alicia put a half-hearted effort into her job, thinking it was fine since this was not the frontline.
At first, she was doing it seriously, but after a few days of the fortress not seeing any action, she put in half the effort into maintaining the enchantments, thinking it wouldn’t see much use, anyway. Such was the behavior of the lazy, undisciplined maid she was.
She knew she was not the only one. Most of her seniors and even the commissioned mage officers put in the same amount of work. They were slacking on their jobs. She was just going with the flow. Such is the danger of herd behavior. If most of them were lazy, then the bright ones would become lazy along with them.
“Any idea how this war is going to end?” Eli asked Alicia. Again, Alicia replied with the same line. This war had never happened in the novel.
“Nope. Not at all. In the web novel, this scenario never happened. We never visited the western frontier. And throughout the novel, it has never mentioned any kind of invasion big enough to matter,” Alicia said with almost certainty.
“Please think harder. Are you sure there is nothing? Maybe some minor character talked about how we achieved a decisive victory in the western frontier?” Eli grasped. There is no way the author would ignore this kind of war happening in their novel.
“Nope. The only thing mentioned about the western frontier was how some supplies meant for Shadowstep were stolen and smuggled to the western frontier,” Alicia said. Elidranthia sat straight up from her couch.
“You should have said so! Does this mean my territory was about to be attacked soon?” Eli yelled.
“There is nowhere in that book mentioning the state of the war,” Alicia shrugged. Alas, this was already very different from the book, so Alicia knew something might happen soon. Alicia wondered whether those RGB musketeers might appear.
“Hah… Now I am very anxious,” Eli said. Then, a siren rang from the fortress. For the moment, Eli’s heart jumped. Had the war finally come to their doorstep? But the words from the soldiers calmed her down.
“Monster attack!” Soldiers sortied.
“Tch! That frightened me for a second. They’re just monsters,” her school seniors grumbled.
“I wonder…” Alicia muttered. Her head tilted, as if she was lost in thought.
“Say… Let’s go to the wall. We might see how this fortress operates,” Eli said. To her, monster attacks was not a big problem. Shadowstep handled them all the time, and they had a smaller fortress than this. Alicia stared for a second. Eli must not kill, but monsters were an exception. She could kill as many monsters as she wanted, so there was no reason to stop her.
“Are you sure?”
“Yes. Let’s go.”
The two girls quietly sneaked onto the wall. When they peeked their heads out from the wall, thousands of monsters filled their view—zombies, skeletons, ghouls, and hounds. Then, further back, liches also appeared.
“Oi! Where are you going, kid?” a soldier interrupted them.
“We are mages from the academy. She is a fire mage. Do you think she could possibly contribute?” Eli said. Judging from the insignia on his cape, this guy was not just a common knight, probably a lieutenant or a sergeant.
“Leave the fighting to us, real soldiers. You can just stay back at the barracks. We don’t need crying children on the battlefield.” He shooed them away.
“I am Alicia! The greatest mage from Shadowstep! I can help! We won’t cry—we are from Shadowstep! We deal with this kind of problem every day!” Alicia puffed her chest, bragging about her home.
“The mage tower is there. If you have mana to spare, you may go there,” he said. Then a loud boom rang out. “Or if you are a combat mage, you can stay here and cast your spells. If you are afraid, just flee to the barracks. We are not so pathetic that we would depend on kids to fight.”
“Rest assured! I, Alicia, the greatest mage of Shadowstep, will prove her worth!” Alicia said as she cast several fireballs and hurled them toward the fray.
The zombies weren’t just normal, slow-moving corpses. Like enraged beasts, they ran on their hands and feet like animals, their backs hunched, rotting flesh oozing out from their bodies. Once they were near, they leaped toward the wall, their claws slipping into the crevices, scaling the wall as if they were climbing ladders.
Alicia hurled fireballs while the soldier barked orders. She was expecting a rain of arrows just like in movies, but the battle had turned chaotic from the get-go. Some soldiers hurled grenades, some shot arrows, while others braced with their spears.
Then spells started flying at them. Most hit the wall, but no explosions came up. The wall glimmered on contact with spells. Eli wondered what kind of enchantments were on this wall? It held on even against firebombs without as much as a scratch. As she prepared her earthen lances, the captain, who recognized her, interrupted.
“Wait, you are the healing girl, right? Don’t cast any spells. We will need you to man the field hospital after this is over,” the soldier said, stopping Elidranthia, who had been preparing her earth attribute spells. Apparently, she had garnered some reputation. Eli had been healing people left and right in the barracks; after all, she was a rank-six mage.
Meanwhile, Alicia went in guns blazing. An explosion hurled a rabid zombie off the wall. But the monsters seemed endless. They had no qualms about putting their bodies on the line.
Another one climbed the wall. This time, they were lucky. It clawed a soldier, sending him flying off the wall. Alicia ran toward that monster. Instead of her usual fireball, she activated her water element, freezing the zombie into a solid block of ice. Then, another soldier smashed it to pieces with his spear.
The battle lasted the whole evening before the last of the monsters were slain. Eli wasn’t idle. She ran across the wall and even onto the field, giving first aid to soldiers who were unlucky enough to get mangled by the monsters.
“Thanks, kid. You are brave. I owe you one. You are Alicia, right? I will remember it. As for you, I knew your face, but I didn’t catch your name. May I know who you are? I am Lieutenant Danish, second son of Viscount Zehr, from the Bron dukedom.”
“I am Elidranthia, milord, the only daughter of Count Shadowstep.” Eli curtsied.
“Oh! I see. No wonder you guys were unfazed by monsters. You are from Shadowstep, huh? Come, let me treat you to a meal.”
Eli briefly glanced at the field hospital, but the soldier patted her shoulder. “No worries. Mages need food too, right? You can go to the field hospital later. Gotta save your energy. You have done enough with the first aid there. Thanks to you, none of my men are dead. You have done enough. I am sure they can spare an hour or two while you nourish yourself.”
“Thank you, Sir Danish.” Eli bowed.
“Say, are monster attacks common? I think it is bigger than even the one we faced in Shadowstep, right? They even had liches as mages in their ranks.”
“It is not unheard of, but this is the first time they have attacked so coordinately, en masse. Usually it was just a sporadic attack, no more than several dozen.” The lieutenant sighed.
“So, what happened with this one?” Eli said.
“Dunno. They just came outta nowhere. A whole battalion at that, complete with liches as mages too.”
“So it’s not the western army, but monsters…” Eli said as she sipped her fruit juice from a tankard.
“Yeah.”
“Are the western forces getting hit as well?” Alicia asked, trying to confirm her suspicion, but it turned out to be a baseless assumption.
“Of course. Some scouts say they have pulled back their ranks further in.”
“I see.” Alicia munched on her torpedo sandwich. She clearly didn’t care much about things around her. Eli then pondered.
“Are things going to be like this? Does this mean the fort beyond us has fallen?”
“... That’s what we would like to know as well. The fort shouldn’t fall. This zombie horde probably went past it. After all, monsters do not follow paths, and they do not bring carriages with them.”
“But such numbers should alert the fort, right? I wonder why they didn’t help us.” Eli frowned. They have phones here. Once word got out that the fortress was attacked, the fort beyond should have sent reinforcements, attempting to do a pincer attack. But for some reason, they didn’t do it. Either they didn’t care about some monsters attacking the fortress, or they couldn’t send help because they were also attacked.
“The higher command probably thought it would be better not to call for reinforcements. Walls are better at deflecting them compared to pincer attacks. We have grenades and fire oil here, after all,” the lieutenant said. “Monsters do not surrender; a pincer attack might cause heavier casualties.”
“I see.”
“Yo! There you are. I need you in the infirmary, girl! And you, the fire maid, come to the wall and charge up the enchantments. It has taken some bruising!”
A commanding officer called. The girls both sighed at the impending tasks after the war.