Chapter 73: Overtime again!
“Everything is charged! We are ready to launch anytime!” Alicia saluted. Her breathing was labored. She might have a cheat ability from the goddess, but that doesn’t mean she has unlimited mana. The ritual took so much mana that only she and the mage commander were still standing.
“... Alright. Stand by. I will activate the fire encirclement,” the mage said. She took a deep breath and, with a sharp exhale, unleashed the mana stored in hundreds of arcane stones on the floor.
The ground trembled. Alicia, ignoring the mage commander’s warning about standing by, peeked out from the tower. The outer wall of the fortress was ablaze. Fire engulfed the approaching skeletons that tried to climb the wall.
“How are we going to deal with the liches and the archers?” Alicia pondered as she saw the burning wall.
“Our soldiers will have to rely on their skills. We can kill them either using guns or bows. The fire might obstruct their vision, but the same could be applied to the skeletons.”
“Do we have guns here?” Alicia asked. She knew from the NovelPhoenix that Western front was supposed to havee priority over guns, but she stilla sked anyway.
“Yes. But arcane muskets are a bit infamous for being imprecise. I guess we have to contend with arrows,” she sighed. “Hah… this is going to cause casualties.”
On one hand, with the burning wall before them, the skeletons wouldn’t be able to invade the fortress. But the skeleton archers were a nuisance. Arrows were raining incessantly from them.
Alicia expected the liches to raise more undead, but they didn’t. The liches were acting more like normal mages, firing fireballs and elemental lances toward the wall.
“I expected the liches to assault us with more undead. Can’t they raise undead?” Alicia said.
“Hah? What are you talking about? Nothing can raise undead. Liches are just the mage version of the undead army,” the mage commander, who had introduced herself as Honey, said.
“Then, who made them?”
“The world and the mana abnormalities in it. Just like monsters, they sometimes spawned in uninhabited areas or when a dungeon break occurred,” the mage said.
“...” Alicia went silent. She never thought about how monsters appeared before, even though she had read the novels.
Yes, monsters can appear out of thin air in this world. It all depended on mana and arcane initiators. For someone like Elidranthia, who hadn’t read the novels, it was understandable that she didn’t know. But Alicia had read the novel; she had no excuse.
“Well. There are a lot of things to learn,” she said. “I assumed your class hadn’t learned about this, right? It’s understandable.”
Alicia was red to her cheeks. She had forgotten about the source of monsters: the spawner. A few hours later, when the sun was close to setting, the skeleton archers made a ridiculous move after they had exhausted their arrows.
“Look! The skeletons are running out of arrows,” Alicia said.
“The arrows that had been shot disappeared after some time due to mana dispersal, so after they had exhausted their arrows, the archers could only follow their comrades to their doom,” Honey said as she watched the skeletons burn in the fire encirclement.
“What about the liches?”
“The liches are smarter, so they might retreat. It would be troublesome if they came back in the next wave. We should get a message through to turn off the fire encirclement so they could chase them on horseback.”
However, even after the sun had completely set, there was no word to recall the flaming wall, and no cavalry were dispatched to go after the fleeing liches. Alicia, feeling smug after seeing her senior make a mistake, grinned.
“Hm? That was unexpected,” Honey muttered. She then turned to a guard and send him to the general, asking for directions. Unlike Alicia, she wasn’t too shy to admit she was wrong. Instead, she was worried. Worried that something might happen.
“Yes, ma’am!”
“Bill, I want you to find the general. Ask him about the battle plan. Why weren’t we told to turn off the fire encirclement, and why aren’t we chasing the fleeing liches?”
“Yes, ma’am.” The guard fled.
“Huam..” Alicia yawned. “Can I leave now? It’s getting late.”
“...” Honey was about to snap at Alicia’s insubordinate behavior before she remembered that she was merely a student. For all her bragging, she didn’t know if Alicia had been officially knighted yet. So she tolerated Alicia, who didn’t know that soldiers weren’t supposed to leave their posts until they were relieved of duty.
“I am sorry. I understand that you must be tired. You have expended a lot of mana. But we need you, at least until the general declares that we are safe,” Honey said. “If you are tired, you may sleep on the floor or the nearby couch.”
“Hm… But there aren’t any enemies here, right?” Alicia strolled to the window. Across the flaming wall, there were no more visible enemies. It was at this moment that Bill returned with grave news.
“The general said we are to hold position!”
“Ehh? Why? We are wasting mana here, right?” Alicia complained.
“It means there might be a second wave coming for us. We need to prepare for the next wave,” Honey said. “Is that right?”
“Yes. He said a second wave was coming from another fort. The fort’s scout said they are heading here after sensing a gap in our defense.” The soldier nodded.
“Ugh… there are many who are injured because of those arrows.” Alicia pouted. “I guess Elidranthia and I are going to have another overtime. It has been quite some time since we were this busy.”
“I will be sure to tell the general of your valuable contribution, Alicia.” Honey sighed, once again reminding herself that Alicia was just a student. A student shouldn’t be here in the first place. The empire was so desperate that they would employ students to act as mana batteries.
Honey could see that Alicia was not alone. Some mages from the academy were seen repairing the wall and improving the enchantments there.
“This is bad. Will we receive reinforcement from the kingdom?” Honey muttered.
“Should I go back and ask?” Bill offered to run down the steps back to the headquarters. But Honey shook her head.
“No. Your energy is better spent repelling the enemy. Arm yourself and shoot some monsters,” she answered.
It was at this moment that another alarm rang through the fortress.
The second wave came as reported. Ghouls and zombies were added to the mix, along with some mutated creature that the undead seemed to have spawned from hell itself. It had the skull of a rhino, the body of a naked werewolf with rotting flesh, and claws like scythes.
“What is that?”
“I have no idea,” Honey said. “But no matter what, we have the fire encirclement on. Alicia, I have to rely on you to keep the arcane stones topped up.”
“On it.” Alicia checked the stones. “Ugh… why did they attack this fortress? Can’t they attack another fort instead? We were promised that we would not be on the frontline.””
“My apologies. I too was promised not to be deployed on the frontline,” Honey said.
“Eh? Even though you are an official knight?” Alicia stared at the badge on Honey’s chest, signifying the rank of sergeant. A sergeant must have gone through military academy. So, she must have learned military education and was an official knight appointed by someone higher.
“I have family…” Honey turned away. Knights couldn’t refuse orders. But they knew better than to send mages as experienced as Honey to a deadly frontline. Even on the frontline, Honey had only witnessed small-time skirmishes inside the woods, away from her eyes.
“I see. Sorry.”
“No. It’s fine. Mages are rarely sent on missions. Even if they were sent to the frontline, they would usually survive. Even if the fort where they were assigned were to fall, they usually survived as prisoners of war,” Honey said. “This is a first. Monsters don’t take prisoners, do they?”
Her voice quaked as she revealed her true feelings. She knew Alicia was from Shadowstep. Shadowstep was known as the bastion against monsters. She couldn’t imagine this scene being a daily occurrence for her, where battles were fought with life on the line. Normal soldiers and mages alike fought with one goal in mind. Not to win, but to survive.
“Monsters do not take hostages. But they are stupid. If this were a normal army, we wouldn’t survive. They would simply siege and starve us out. But now, they waste their troops trying to climb a burning wall,” Alicia muttered as she watched the stupid skeletons march toward the burning wall.
“... They stopped.” Honey expected the war to settle on like this. But apparently, the monsters were not as stupid as Alicia described. She sighed, regretting the general’s decision not to chase those liches that fled. “We should have killed those liches. They are commanding the lower monsters.”
“Ma’am… You shouldn’t criticize the command….” The guard frowned.
“We are mages. We have some leeway,” Honey said. Even in the army, mages had preferential treatment. They were so important that even generals tried to be in their good graces.
“We should prepare. I think the general will ask us to use large spells again.” Alicia took a deep breath. Arrows and bullets worked, but they were far from effective compared to something like Meteor Shower. Since the general knew that Alicia was here, he was likely to wring out every bit of mana he could. Mana was precious, but not as much as soldiers’ lives.
Just as Alicia predicted, a soldier indeed came bearing the news, asking Honey to cast Meteor Shower again over the enemy’s core army.
“...” Honey glared at the soldier.
“The general believed that Alicia, being a level-seven mage, could provide enough mana for you to cast another Meteor Shower,” the soldier answered Honey without being prompted.
“Hah… ritual magic is not that simple. Tell him that two Meteor Showers are all I could manage for today, no matter how much mana he could provide me. Ritual magic drained me regardless of how much mana was inside the arcane stones,” Honey sighed. “And warn him that Alicia had limits too. She didn’t have unlimited mana despite how high her mana rank was.”
“Yes, ma’am. I shall notify the general immediately.”
“Alicia. If you would.”
“Alright. I have a debt to Duke Bron anyway. Make sure to notify him that Shadowstep has paid its debt.” Alicia sighed as she went toward the red arcane stone. Just like a typical modern person, she quickly lost interest. She now treated this as a chore, not a life-and-death battle.
Honey was appalled by her attitude, but in the army, she knew that attitude and respect meant nothing if you couldn’t win the war, and she knew Alicia was the key to winning this battle. So, she turned a blind eye and prepared her spell. She had something else more important than fixing Alicia’s etiquette.
They had a war to win.