Chapter 275 - Chapter Fifteen: The Volunteer Army ②
When Servetus came within approximately three hours' distance of the target village on spider legs, he divided the unit into five groups of twenty, arranged vertically.
He placed two people who use [Subordination] and one mid-level magic user in each group. Furthermore, he placed a high-level magic user in the first group, made the main force he himself led the seventh group with two additional high-level magic users, and arranged three groups horizontally behind them.
They headed toward the village one group at a time with a distance between them.
If there were forces protecting the village, they would likely be arranged in a form spread horizontally to the east and south of the village. Against that, they would intermittently target a single point to create a rift in the enemy's arrangement. They would break through there and invade the village. If that happened, Henry and Eleanor would surely come to the village no matter where they were. There, Servetus, an ultra-high-level magic user, and three high-level magic users would continuously apply magic attacks and strike the two down.
That was the strategy Servetus had devised against the two former heroes who once toyed with the large Engrio army with their elusive battles.
On the way to the village, the spiders would sometimes try to stop.
The two [Subordination] users were desperately trying to manipulate them.
There was no particular reaction to magic detection.
"What is the matter?"
Servetus spoke to the person manipulating the spider in front of where he was straddling.
"I-I do not know. It seems they are bothered by something."
Being found fault with by Servetus, he was wiping cold sweat with his sleeve.
Thinking there might be a trap, Servetus looked around and saw lumps of dirty cloth nailed to trees here and there.
"Stop!"
He stopped the spider, and when he looked closely, cloth wrapping what looked like rotten meat was nailed to the tree trunks.
He had intended to investigate, but at that moment, the trap of silver nails that he himself had almost been caught in and destroyed by flashed through Servetus's mind. If he were to grab a silver nail with his hand, he might lose his hand from the wrist down.
"Leave it be. Such a trap, even if the spiders bite into it, there is no way they would swallow it. They would only injure the area around their mouths. It seems they do not know the predation of spiders."
Servetus said, and the Revenants distorted their mouths as if they were laughing.
Because they had raised spiders, they were familiar with the ecology of spiders.
Spiders do not bite off and swallow meat like other beasts. they dissolve and suck the inside of their prey. They would not put meat into their stomachs along with nails.
"Good. Advance."
With Servetus's signal, the swarm of spiders began to run again.
After passing through the area where the lumps of cloth were nailed to the trees for about half an hour, those going ahead were at a standstill.
"What happened?"
"I am terribly sorry. Ice walls are blocking the way in multiple layers."
There seemed to be a spot ahead where no trees grew, and there were ice walls there. Even for spiders, they could not climb ice walls. They seemed to be at a standstill, unable to jump from tree to tree.
"It's [Glacio], I see. Wait a moment."
The high-level magic user in the first group likely could not cancel it because he could not use [Glacio].
Out of necessity, Servetus stood at the head of the swarm.
When he climbed a tree and looked, walls that were not very high but long were built in three layers at intervals in the north-south direction. If it were one layer, they might be able to cross it by jumping from a tree branch, but it seemed they had made it three layers in anticipation of that.
Even though it was summer, they were ice walls made with [Glacio]. If set during the night, they would not melt until morning.
Only someone like Eleanor would do such a thing. Did she have scouts carry them using magic circles? If he canceled them, they might be noticed, but they would be found eventually.
Servetus canceled the [Glacio] that made the first ice wall, but the ice wall did not disappear.
"[Magic Reflection]!"
Curse you, Eleanor. Playing such clever tricks...
Servetus gnashed his teeth.
Revenants cannot break [Magic Reflection]. This is because they cannot use holy magic.
[Magic Break] is also ineffective if an ultra-high-level [Magic Reflection] has been cast beforehand.
"It cannot be helped. We shall go south and bypass it."
Even for Eleanor, the walls should run out after an hour of running.
He thought so, but they soon hit a wall.
When they hurriedly advanced east, there was an ice wall there as well.
Everyone was astonished.
Their retreat was cut off. They had completely fallen into a trap.
When were they noticed?
It must have been after they formed the column.
Could it be they were being tracked by scouts lurking in the forest...
Despite the spiders being there...
There, Servetus realized.
The spiders had been given instructions by the practitioners to advance as if forming a formation. In other words, actions other than advancing were a violation of instructions. The practitioners were excellent people whom Servetus himself had selected. Even if Regnentes scouts were lurking in the forest, they might feel concern, but they would not attack. In fact, even with the trap of the lumps of cloth, they did not suddenly bite into them.
It was careless...
Could that trap have been for the purpose of prioritizing the operation to move the spiders forward...
Next, they went north as well, but it was the same.
Surrounded on four sides by ice walls, they had come to a standstill.
Unfortunately, they could not use [Flight Magic]. He had thought that if he were to use one high-level magic user only for movement, he should just leave it to Seldic's aerial soldiers.
Servetus and the others were forced into a standstill in a narrow area in the forest.
"Your Eminence. What shall we do?"
His subordinates asked, but Servetus had no way to answer.
If Henry and Eleanor valued so-called chivalry and came out for a fair fight, fine.
If a group of scouts from above added attacks with [Flight Magic], they would just intercept them.
What was scary was Eleanor using [Magic Break] from the air. If that happened, everyone below Servetus would become unable to use magic. The spiders whose [Subordination] effect had worn off would surely attack. The enemy could produce a scene of infighting without any effort.
He had underestimated them.
Servetus felt like whipping himself.
To try to defeat Eleanor, the master of tactics, with tactics was the height of arrogance.
They were completely isolated in the midst of the enemy, but they could not request reinforcements.
He might be abandoned by Seldic.
Servetus, on the other hand, had also steeled himself.
"Do not worry. In short, we only need to strike down Henry and Eleanor. They are soft. They will surely set up a place for a meeting with me. That is the time. We only need to stay quiet until then. Do not be anxious even if we become prisoners."
Hiding all his anxiety, impatience, and anger within his chest, he calmed those around him with an expressionless face.
◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆◆
"They've stopped."
Beatrix spoke to Eleanor, who was next to her.
Her feet were submerged in water up to her knees.
From the medium-sized bowl floating in the sky, she could see Servetus and the others getting off the spiders and sitting in a circle. Likely to calm their nerves, they were passing around a leather bag containing wine or something.
"I'm surprised they didn't find out. We only froze it with [Freeze] scrolls."
"That's how it is. The opponent surely thought I had set it up. He likely didn't think I would use [Freeze] and [Illusion]."
The Regnentes scout unit had indeed been following Servetus's movements with the bowl, which had its presence hidden.
They had continued to send the exact location to Eleanor using the magic circle for sending letters.
Just before they approached the village, the volunteer army built the ice walls at Eleanor's instruction.
However, they had used neither [Glacio] nor [Magic Reflection].
They had merely wetted a single-layered earthwork with water and frozen the surface using a large number of [Freeze] scrolls that Beatrix had made. The ice walls in three directions, including the rear, were nothing more than illusions by [Illusion] scrolls made by the [Paratroop Jaegers]. It was just that Servetus and the others did not think so. Even if they tried to cancel [Glacio], they could not cancel [Freeze] or [Illusion]. Moreover, even if they used magic detection, the fact that they had made ice walls with magic remained unchanged, so they could not perform accurate detection. Furthermore, because they were convinced that [Magic Reflection] was being used, they had not even performed detection. Now they were in a form where they just arbitrarily thought they were pushed into a square area two hundred paces wide with a hundred spiders.
Everything was a delusion of Servetus, who was deceived by the name of the great magic user Eleanor.
If it were Eleanor, she could make ice walls with magic. If she made them, it would be [Glacio]. He thought so. If he had fired some magic, he would have known, but the only magic that could melt Eleanor's [Glacio] was [Prominence]. If [Magic Reflection] had been cast, it would be reflected at close range. Even Servetus could not avoid it. As a result of trying to cancel it out of necessity, he fell perfectly into Eleanor's psychological trap.
What he correctly guessed was that they were surrounded by enemy scouts. However, those surrounding them were the volunteer army, which had hidden their presence with [Camouflage] and [Magic Reflection]. They had followed Eleanor's instructions and made the ice walls with [Illusion]. And behind the fake ice walls, they held a large number of scrolls of [Heal], [Holy], [Purification], and [Magic Reflection] that Beatrix had made almost every day since coming to the village in May and that Harrison and the village priest had infused.
In that sense, it might have been lucky for Servetus that he could not see through Eleanor's trap. If the fact that they had made ice walls with [Freeze] and [Illusion] had been exposed, they would have received a concentrated attack of holy magic from enemies they could not detect at all.
"What are you going to do? Are you going to catch them?"
"I would like to do that, but since the opponent is who he is, shall we first exterminate the spiders?"
When Eleanor said that, the bowl moved to the sky above the western ice wall and moved away from Servetus and the others.
Judging the timing, Henry notched a fire arrow to his bow and shot it toward the sky with a whistle. With that as a signal, the soldiers riding in multiple bowls operated by the scout unit in the sky above the quadrilateral where Servetus and the others were trapped dropped triangular pyramid-shaped stones one after another.
The spiders reacted to the stones falling with a thud, but they were being manipulated to wait on the spot.
Once the spiders realized they were just stones, they lost interest.
The ones who panicked were the black-clad priests. After all, they fell making a flashy sound. Since they were at a distance, they could only hear the sound and did not know what was happening.
They were stirred up, wondering what was going on.
Servetus named two mid-level magic users and had them go on reconnaissance. The direction was west.
The two proceeded fearfully, walking through the forest.
Unfortunately, by the time they realized the true nature of the sound rolling at their feet, it was too late.
"Release!"
With the second fire arrow Henry fired as a signal, the volunteer army hidden behind the ice walls raised a loud voice.
At the same time, white light burst forth from the magic circles drawn on the surfaces of the triangular pyramids.
These were prepared by the Regnentes scout unit incorporating Beatrix's suggestion, and these were also things Beatrix had made and Harrison, the village priest, and the scout unit had made by infusing magic daily.
Multiple lights of [Holy Overflow] and mid-level [Holy] light burst forth into the forest from the magic circles.
If targeted from above, tree branches and thick leaves would block most of it, but if targeted from below, it was not so. As a result of being dropped in large quantities, a considerable amount of light overflowed into the forest.
The mid-level magic user Revenants easily became corpses that did not move. A considerable number of spiders were also reduced.
Despite it being clear, a localized rain began to fall. It was a rain of holy water.
It was holy water loaded in the medium-sized bowl. From the sky where magic detection could not reach, Eleanor had made it into several lumps with [Clump Water] and floated them in the air, and Beatrix had made them into even smaller lumps with wind magic.
It was more like lumps of water than rain. With a flashy thudding sound, they fell with enough force to snap thin branches. Not only the spiders that were directly hit, but also the spiders that were showered with spray had the surfaces of their bodies scorched.
Furthermore, the volunteer army that had advanced from the illusions of the ice walls on three sides fired silver arrows at the surviving spiders, striking them down one after another.
If the spiders had not been manipulated not to move, they might have easily avoided them, but the practitioners flustered at the succession of unexpected, sudden events and could not cancel the technique.
Servetus, who had many of his spiders struck down, was surrounded by five hundred people with scrolls and silver swords, and five hundred people with silver arrows notched to their bows.
"I am Hans, the front-line commander of the Regnentes volunteer army. Are you Servetus-dono?"
Servetus, who now had only a dozen spiders and his comrades left, was protecting himself with [Magic Reflection] and received a visit from the volunteer army led by Hans, who held silver swords. About ten of them held torches. Eleanor must be somewhere.
"First, I'll have everyone get off the spiders. If you resist, we will activate the [Holy] and [Purification] scrolls. I'll tell you now, even if you were King Seldic, I've been told to kill you immediately if you resist."
About twenty soldiers were pointing scrolls at them.
Taking in the opponent's seriousness, Servetus exchanged glances with those around him and got off the spider first himself. When Hans gave a signal, [Holy] was fired at the spiders, silver swords were thrust into them, and they were easily disposed of. The [Subordination] users raised screams.
"We are priests who came from the district called the Ruined Town, but what authority do you have to take such an attitude?"
One of Servetus's subordinates, a high-level magic user, asked Hans.
"I have no obligation to answer to scoundrels who gather monsters along the border of countries at war. In addition, I have no obligation to answer any questions from Revenants, who are outside the application of the laws of each country."
At these words, some Revenants flew into a rage.
"Insolent fellow! You..."
One tried to snap at him, but he was cut in half at the torso by a sudden strike from Hans, who held a silver sword, and his heart was gouged out, turning him into a lump of earth.
"Insolence is fine; I didn't know manners to begin with."
Before the Revenants, whose expressions had changed, he swung his sword once and sheathed it.
At Hans's merciless attitude, the other Revenants gasped.
What a fool, to be provoked by such cheap bait.
Servetus gnashed his teeth without changing his expression.
Thanks to that, most of them have lost their fighting spirit.
Until Henry and Eleanor came out, non-resistance was fine. A precious high-level magic user had been lost.
"Sorry, but I'll have you all restrained after putting on these rings. You will be treated as prisoners of war. If you don't resist, we won't destroy you."
What Hans held out was the [Magic-Sealing Ring].