Editing/Standardisation: Medicine Melancholy
Original Translation: Medicine Melancholy
Defense of Diamant Valley Part 2
Iris
In the end, the sorcerer reduced the enemy number by about 30%.
In modern warfare, it could have been a great result. But our opponents were undying corpses that had absolutely no regard for supplies or their own “lives”, so these numbers were, to put it bluntly, unsatisfactory as a result.
The trench-like pitfall we prepared beforehand, while able to deal some damage, ultimately got completely bypassed because the enemies used their own corpses as scaffolding to cross over it.
With the enemies advancing undisturbed and penetrating deep into our position, it was no longer possible to unleash large-scale magic without injuring our own people.
And when that happened, the battle devolved into a brutal melee between both sides.
“Ack?!”
One of the guards was struck by a huge claw and thrown into the air. His body was ripped open, spraying colossal amount of blood as it flew toward the gate where we were.
That would have been a near-instant fatal injury even in my old world, but with my enhanced reflexes and the enchanted armor keeping his body together, I could still save him in time…!
“Ares Heal!”
Regular Heal wouldn’t do against massive blood loss, so I immediately switched to a higher tier spell.
Dazzling light of my healing enveloped the soldier. His body landed on the ground and rolled several times before stopping. By that time his wound had already disappeared cleanly, and he stood up completely dumbfounded about what happened.
“Please step back! You’re in no condition to fight after that blood loss even if your wound’s healed!”
“Y-Yeah…”
Hearing my desperate plea, he unsteadily retreated back to the gate, and a knight quickly filled in his place.
Ashley-san was stationed in front of said gate as the supreme commander.
Every now and then, some enemies managed to break through our defense, but they were cut down on the spot by him, so fortunately the town was still unharmed.
Another unexpected blessing was that Ashley-san was also capable of using healing arts.
The soldiers, who had been seriously injured and had their wounds healed but still in a bad shape, were guarding the gate with Ashley-san, their bodies enveloped in a pale healing light.
According to Ashley-san himself, that technique was called Guardian Aura, which passively sped up the recovery of all surrounding allies.
Although it wasn’t as immediate as my magic, I was still very grateful for its existence.
But I feared that even with someone as powerful as Ashley-san on our side, we still couldn’t keep up with the enemies as more and more wounded soldiers had to be retreated from the frontline.
In front of my eyes, people were hanging on for dear life against the mutated and deformed monsters.
There was a goblin with gigantic, swollen arms and elongated claws that took several people just to hold it back.
There was a four-legged goblin moving at inhuman speed.
There was a multi-armed goblin holding a weapon in each of its hands.
All I could do was to concentrate on healing and pray that none of the soldiers was fatally injured.
The enemies weren’t as strong as the shadowy monster we once fought, but they were still too much for the rank and file soldier.
I heard a heavy thud nearby.
I glanced over and saw a hideously malformed goblin with what seemed to be bat wings staring at me.
Now they were starting to target me. I had a feeling that this was going to happen, but I guess I was not mistaken. They, too, must have found my healing arts too much of an eyesore.
But I paid it no mind and returned to my task, because…
“Oh no you don’t!”
Like a gale, Reiji-san cut between the winged goblin and me, then smashed a rusty flail he must have picked up from a fallen enemy on the goblin.
Here, on top of the walls, I knew that I could always trust Reiji-san to protect me.
However, this wasn’t the first time I’d been targeted by those winged goblins and wall jumping goblins. In fact, the enemies had been consistently sending them to my position. For that reason, Reiji-san couldn’t leave my side as my escort.
Nii-sama, too, couldn’t leave his position either, because he had to protect the rear guard and command the sorcerers.
…This battle’s tough.
Even after magical enhancement, it took three of the town’s guards to fight on par with even one enemy.
The knights, who were supposed to be the royal capital’s elites, were holding their own much better, each of them could take on an enemy solo. But still, the only people who could actually overpower the enemy by themselves alone were Walter-san, Zeltis-san, Philias-san and Ashley-san.
I turned my eyes toward the enemy’s backline.
A caster-type enemy with crystals growing on its head like horns was trying to activate its magic.
It’s the thing that had been a complete thorn on Nii-sama and my side.
At the current pace, Nii-sama’s Aegis would be up in time for the next wave of magical attack.
But while Nii-sama could chant faster than the enemy, he was losing in recast time.
The countless mental calculations inside my head told me that unless the other side conveniently ran out of magic here, he wouldn’t be able to deploy Aegis in time the next time.
I bit my nails in frustration.
And yet, the enemy’s magic still had that ominous glow. Its coming was inevitable.
“Nii-sama, five seconds left!”
“Don’t worry, I’ve got this!”
Once again, we unleashed the duplex barrier of Aegis and Sacred Field around everyone.
And once again, countless black fireballs rained upon our frontline… no, it was raining down on both sides indiscriminately.
The other side couldn’t care any less about hitting their own with their attacks. It’d always been the case with those monsters.
At my feet, my personal use magic circle flickered. So did Nii-sama’s. We were hitting the limits of our reserve magical power.
If it’s gone, the protecting capability of our barriers would be reduced in both range and power. There’s not much time left, we needed to take out all the enemy sorcerers as soon as possible…!
“Weiss-san, could you give it a shot?!”
“Huh? But the vision’s not good… Well, I’ll try my best.”
Gritting my teeth, I called out to Weiss-san while maintaining the barrier. At first, he hesitated because of enemy magic blocking the view, but he eventually took an arrow from his quiver and loaded it into his Dreadnought.
It was one of several special arrows he had prepared for this occasion, whose heads were larger than normal and made of the highly magic conductive mithril. Fortunately, this town had a big mining industry, and we gratefully “repurposed” the materials that the former mayor had hoarded.
“Lenny-san! Imbue his arrow with the ice attribute!”
“I’m on it!”
After receiving my instruction, Lenny-san started chanting magic.
“…I got a good look at the target! Ready whenever you are!”
The effect of the enemy’s magic cleared up just in time for Lenny-san’s chanting to finish.
“Freezing Edge!”
“Eat this! Guided Arrow!”
The arrow was imbued with the ice attribute and began to emit an intense cold air.
Weiss-san then released the bowstring, and the arrow was fired off with a thunderous roar.
“Bullseye!”
Weiss-san declared so even before the arrow had landed.
It’s like he said, the arrow covered in his wind magic and Lenny-san’s ice magic struck the enemy in the chest, freezing its body and blowing it away.
But it wasn’t dead yet. It raised its frozen, battered body and tried to catch up to the rest of the formation.
…Not that it would do anything, though.
The countless mental calculations in my head were displayed as countless illusory clocks. And one of them had ticked down to zero as planned.
A small shadow appeared from behind the monster, pierced its crystalized body in a flash and disappeared as if the shadow had never been there.
In other words, Hayato-kun, who was on a solo hit-and-run mission, smashed the monster’s frozen body with Assassinate and completely eradicated it.
Everything that had happened just now was timed perfectly.
The enemy, whose only thoughts remaining in their mutated forms were to advance, didn’t seem to notice that Hayato-kun had been sneaking around using “Cloak and Dagger” and picked them off one by one with “Assassinate”.
“Good, now there’re only three enemy sorcerers left…”
“Two left, nya!!”
Milly-san fired another gigantic laser from atop the walls… the unique spell of her Overlord class, Photon Blaster.
Another caster-type enemy along with everything beside it was swallowed whole into the blast, leaving nothing behind as they perished.
Since it was a beam of pure magical energy, Photon Blaster boasted extreme penetration and destructive power. However, its recast time was a whopping fifteen minutes to compensate.
My brain once again calculated the time until everyone in my vicinity could recast their necessary spells and techniques… but no matter what, the next wave of black fireballs would arrive before Nii-sama could deploy Aegis once more…
“I’m sorry, Nii-sama, but…”
“I know. All magic knights, ready your defensive spell.”
As Nii-sama gave a command to the knights behind him, I prepared another spell of my own.
One point in our defensive perimeter was getting overrun. A brutal melee was taking place and many people were heavily injured. Fortunately, no one had died, but their position was at risk of being attacked from the rear.
“O Damned Souls, Return To Thy Proper Places! Angel Halo!”
From the point where the magic was activated, a ring of shining bands of light exploded outward and forcibly repulsed only our enemies from the melee.
This is more of a warding magic, although it generates as much power as offensive magic due to the momentum it spreads around. It is a magic that repels undead and spiritual life forms while creating a field that increases healing power inside its radius.
While the enemies, locked out and unable to advance, were vainly striking the circle of light, another spell was unleashed.
“Area Heal!!”
My healing spell covered a corner of the area in a light green glow.
In the meantime, Captain Walter, who was brandishing the sinister-looking battle axe Ars Nova, swept through the enemies caught by Angel Halo and mowed them down in a storm of blood. Other mercenaries followed closely behind him to finish off any stragglers that survived.
The place was now safe for the time being. I ran my eyes to check where other injured people were, and cast Area Heal on anywhere that looked dangerous.
“*pant*…*pant*…”
As I was breathing raggedly, someone offered me a small potion.
“I really hope that you don’t overexert yourself like last time, Iris.”
“*gulp*… I can still keep going, don’t worry about me…”
I immediately gulped down its contents as if devouring the bottle, then took a breath and looked on.
At the moment, my thirst was actually more concerning than my magic power. The potion helped quenching some of that.
I really think I wasn’t overworking myself. I’d come back from that near-death experience as a stronger self, and my remaining magic power was still abundant.
In fact, I was doing better than expected. If anything, I am more worried about whether my stamina would last.
If there’s anything that could be considered strange, it’s the fact that my wings were getting hotter and hotter.
On the other side, the enemies’ actions remained monotonous, as in keeping advancing and attacking with brute force.
The troll we encountered earlier in the tunnel was also present, with his horrid crystal “armor” covering its torso. For some reason, he had yet to move from his starting position at the furthest back, like he was a king or something.
At first I suspected he had a plan, but this was different. If he was content with sitting on his back like a king, then we’d take advantage of the situation as much as possible.
Until Hayato-kun could use “Cloak and Dagger” again…
Until Weiss-san recovered from his fatigue and drew his Dreadnought again…
Until Lenny-san could cast Freezing Edge again…
Not just my allies, but also the time until the enemies could use their dangerous attacks again had also been taken into account.
Countless clocks were ticking in my mind.
Had there been more uncertainties at play, my calculations wouldn’t work nearly as well, but our current enemies were very easy to read because their action patterns were very simple.
I bit my nails in stress over the amount of things I had to think about, desperately trying to keep the battle under control.
This time, I won’t let anyone die in front of my eyes…!
Reiji
I slayed another enemy coming down from the sky to attack Iris.
The white sword in my hand, my new partner, was even sharper than I had expected. It was as if it was responding to my will to protect Iris.
However, when I looked at Iris…
Her ladylike feature was gone, replaced with a grim expression. She was chewing on her fingernails and staring straight ahead with unmoving eyes… Ah, her switch was completely flipped, wasn’t it?
“…Amazing.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’m saying that Iris-sama is amazing. She probably knows exactly how long it takes you to draw your bow, how long it takes me to chant my magic, and how long it takes that boy Hayato, who’s out there on his own, to re-use his techniques.”
“…She does all of that while still doing her job perfectly? She’s one hell of a kid, that’s for sure.”
Weiss, the guy who once got himself nearly killed, was talking with Iris’ maid… Lenny-san, was it?
I, too, had finished eliminating the enemy who had rushed up to the top of the wall and was now on the lookout for the surrounding area.
The truth is, I was itching to help on the front lines, but I knew how important it is to protect this position, and I had no intention of leaving Iris’ proximity. So I joined the conversation for a bit.
“You guys aren’t wrong. She has that uncanny ability to count tons of numbers in parallel with her head alone.”
“…Is that true, Reiji-sama?”
Lenny-san, who usually had a calm demeanor, nodded her head in astonishment and she asked me that question.
“Yeah. She’s vulnerable to being caught off guard in this state, but it doesn’t look like this is going to be the case.”
She’d had that ability of parallel thought (?) since our gaming days, and I found it really uncanny as her calculations were terribly accurate, and she read the enemies’ patterns with machine-like precision.
In an era where games often had patterned behaviors, I couldn’t have found someone more reliable than her to cover my back. It’s just that…
“…Well, she can be pretty overbearing when she’s like this, so be careful when she gives you orders. For all our sakes.”
After all, she was directing everyone to take the best course of action. In a way, it’s an expression of her trust in all of us, but that was a lot of work to handle.
Chuckling, I readjusted the white blade of my new partner. While I was talking, another flying enemy had landed on the walls.
She wanted every single one of us to survive, and she was doing everything she could to make sure that happens. Likewise, what I got to do was…
“Let’s go, partner.”
In my fast-flowing vision, I felt the pure white blade of the sword shining in response to my words.
(Author’s Note)
When two nations go to war in this world, they first start with firing powerful magic and weapons at each other, at which point both sides suffer heavy damage.
Since all nations had had a common major threats for a long time, not many major wars had broken out.
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