45 - Chapter 41: Decisive Battle, Majin VS Witch
Serious-san "My spring has come!!"
"Reporting! Left wing collapsed! Monsters are multiplying! They have begun their advance toward the main camp!"
"What?"
Radglyph, stationed at the main camp, frowned upon hearing the report.
The Second Knights had been entrusted with the left wing. Compared to the elite First Knights, the Third Knights who focused on magic units, and the Fourth Knights who gathered special forces skilled in sabotage and assault, the Second Knights possessed no outstanding combat power.
However, they were the most numerous and had higher versatility than any other knight order, making them the true mainstay. For the enemy to break through them and advance meant one thing.
"The retreating soldiers say that the Forbidden Witch has appeared."
It meant a special force capable of overturning the power of numbers had emerged.
"Karina Rembrandt, as mentioned in Jake's report. ...How troublesome."
Hearing that name, Radglyph clicked his tongue inwardly.
(Most likely... this uncharacteristic war is because she... no, because the Delgamiride Cult is involved.)
This woman, known as the witch who touched every taboo and regarded as the chief mage of the Delgamiride Cult, had numerous legends surrounding her.
The most famous occurred seventy years ago in the western part of the continent, during the civil war of the Kingdom of Oldelind, where she joined the rebels and led them to victory.
It was said she was a master of chantless casting, and overwhelmed an entire army with rapid-fire spells alone.
It was said she commanded monsters to massacre people, regardless of whether they were soldiers or civilians.
It was said she used necromancy, which was taboo like chantless casting, to use the souls of the humans she massacred as sacrifices for her magic.
Furthermore, the newly formed Republic of Oldelind later declined after being pursued by other nations for those actions, and civil war broke out due to economic instability. It lost its power until it was a shadow of its former self, and ten years later, it was annexed by surrounding countries. Even then, it was said the shadow of the Forbidden Witch was seen here and there.
Setting aside the morality of her abilities, she was an extremely infamous mage... the Forbidden Witch, Karina Rembrandt. And she was involved in this war. No, looking at the state of the monster army, there was even a possibility she was leading it.
"Father, I will...-"
"No, I shall go."
Interrupting Midglyph's words, Radglyph declared. At this unbelievable decision, the generals were thrown into an uproar.
"But Father, you are the Commander-in-Chief!?"
"If the rumors are true, throwing half-hearted forces against that witch will only expand the casualties. I declare it here. From now on, follow Mid's command, not mine. Mid is now the General Commander."
Patting the shoulder of his eldest son, who had spoken up as if representing the opinions of the generals, Radglyph declared to everyone.
"I had intended to retire in a few years anyway. This just moves it up slightly. Now, do not worry. I shall return shortly."
●
"What? The Forbidden Witch? She has appeared already?"
"Yes. It seems His Excellency has headed there personally..."
Some time after Radglyph's departure, Ludglyph, who was standing on the front line as the vanguard of the Fourth Knights on the right wing, heard the report.
(I have a bad feeling... But I cannot leave my post here...)
The right wing's front line was very dominant for the Triad army, thanks to the deployment of the special force known as the Lotus Gang. Of course, it goes without saying that they themselves were excellent. However, one must not forget that they also relied on Ludglyph's enhancement auxiliary magic and an extraordinary toughness provided by self-recovery.
If Ludglyph left now, they would no longer be able to force their way through with enhancements and self-recovery. Of course, from the perspective of other armies, the Lotus Gang, who had trained to a near-insane degree, would not fall so easily. However, it was not hard to imagine that the Gang, numbering only about two thousand, would gradually be pushed back.
What should I do, Ludglyph wondered, wiping blood from his face.
"Commander, leave this to us."
"Leidrich..."
The one who spoke, sensing his hesitation, was the vice-commander, Leidrich.
"I do not think His Excellency would be defeated, but 'perhaps' is something that always follows one on the battlefield. If His Excellency simply loses here, morale will not drop, but if he were to die, the entire army would be crushed, if only temporarily. In that case, the Commander, who specializes in auxiliary magic, must join the fray to ensure at least a retreat to the main camp is possible."
Leidrich spoke while remaining vigilant of the surroundings.
The current morale of the Triad would not drop just because the General Commander lost. As part of the military reforms from ten years ago, everyone down to the common soldier had been made conscious of the fact that they should not be bound to local battles and should sometimes be prepared to be discarded.
However, if Radglyph were to die, morale would likely drop for the time it takes to recover... the brief time until they could seek revenge. On a fluid battlefield, that slight opening could be fatal.
As insurance, he thought that sending Ludglyph would avoid the worst-case scenario. While he could not use recovery magic like priests or priest-warriors, he could still perform some first aid, and if Ludglyph, who specialized in auxiliary magic, provided rescue, they should be able to gain the upper hand.
"But if I leave here, the auxiliary magic..."
"Besides... we are the <
Leidrich continued to the still-hesitating Ludglyph.
"The Commander is gone? There is no auxiliary magic? So what? In the beginning, we had not a single one of those convenient things."
It was not just Leidrich.
Every member belonging to the Lotus Gang... even Ludglyph himself had been that way. Now they had acquired various things. But they started with nothing. No status, no honor, no money, and no power. All they had was envy, jealousy, and hatred toward the god who had cast them into such a world and environment.
Like pebbles by the roadside. No one looked at them, no one picked them up, and if anyone interacted with them, it was only to kick them away.
But beyond where they were kicked, they met their savior.
"Before we were reborn, when we were born, when we ate mud, were covered in mud, and were one with the mud... we are simply returning to the time when we had nothing. However, this time, we do so while keeping the spirits that were foolishly but straightforwardly rebuilt."
He would not say it was not painful. He would not say it was not agonizing. But even so, if they could save the family of their savior now, they did not mind returning to the time when they had nothing.
Therefore, Leidrich looked straight at Ludglyph.
Telling him it was okay now. To believe in them. That the current them could pull it off.
"...Sorry. I am borrowing five hundred members of the Gang."
After a short while, Ludglyph made his decision, turned his back, and began to retreat.
"I will also attach those with mobility and suppression power! The Alvaresta Horse Archers are right here, so please make them your escort!"
"My thanks!"
Wishing him good luck in his heart, Leidrich raised his great spear and shouted at the top of his lungs.
"Listen up, you bastards!! Throw away the lukewarm idea that you just need to maintain the line! So that you can hold your heads high when the Commander returns... we're going to slaughter them all!!"
"YEAH!!"
As Ludglyph moved away, the auxiliary magic began to wear off.
Their bodies became sluggish, the strength dwelling in their hands weakened, and their feet became slow.
From here on, even a tiny scratch could be fatal.
The personnel were reduced as a quarter of the Gang left, and the Alvaresta Horse Archers, who had been providing support, left in a large group.
Hardships were approaching.
However, the morale of the Lotus Gang was finally reaching its peak.
●
The encounter was one that hardly suited a battlefield.
"Oh?"
"Hmph. The Forbidden Witch, is it? I wondered what kind of woman you were, but you are quite young. Is it hereditary?"
With a casualness as if a person out for a stroll had met a neighborhood acquaintance... Radglyph Triad and Karina Rembrandt faced each other.
Karina did not use the monsters as simple meat shields, but stood at the front, consuming them as if they were external supply devices while scattering chantless magic as she advanced.
Radglyph had brought his escort part of the way, but after ordering a crane-wing formation, he positioned himself in the center.
Thus, the two met as if a protrusion and a hollow had fit together.
"I have aged quite a bit, you know? It is just that my apparent age stopped due to a small accident."
"I see. So you are an old woman on the inside."
"My. Talking about a woman's age is forbidden, is it not?"
"Sorry, but I have no interest in women other than my wife. Therefore, I will not offer flattery nor consideration."
Karina exuded a mysterious allure, but Radglyph laughed through his nose.
"Besides, this is not a party venue. Is there any need to be considerate of an enemy on the battlefield? Much less, would a person in a responsible position be trying to curry favor? I do not engage in useless acts like discrimination. Nor distinction. Whether man or woman, child or old woman... if they are the enemy, I simply slaughter them all equally."
"My my, the Lord of Triad is heartless. Or is this the conduct brought about by blue blood (T/N: nobility)?"
"I would rather be called a monster for being cold to others than let the citizens I must protect die due to unnecessary mercy. If someone who cannot hold such a resolve becomes a ruler and gains power, corruption begins, followed by the decline of the nation, and finally, destruction... Flame."
As Radglyph concluded his words with a single-word chant, fire raced across the grassland.
It was not directed at Karina or the monster army. It ran across the earth in a semicircle, dividing the Triad army and the monster army. Eventually, the wall of blazing fire became a complete circle, resembling a specially constructed ring. The fact that only Radglyph and Karina remained inside made it even more reminiscent of that.
No, it actually was. This man was inviting her. To a one-on-one dance of death.
"Fufu, the Flame Majin is still in fine form."
"Enough with the chatter, Forbidden Witch. You have no intention of surrendering, do you? Then you must know that talking is a waste of time. Come here quickly and die."
To Karina's flattery, Radglyph spoke with a cold severity unbefitting a Flame Majin... and then, the highest combat powers of the Triad army and the Kessel army finally collided.
●
If asked what is prioritized when those who handle magic... that is, mages, clash, the answer is time.
In this world, the exercise of magic requires a chant. The technique of chantless casting used by Karina was treated as taboo because of the difficulties in operation rather than acquisition, or more accurately, it comes with the caveat that it is for handling magic correctly according to the user's will.
For example, imagine a kitchen knife.
The original purpose of a kitchen knife is to cut ingredients in the kitchen, but what would happen if you held one while sleeping? If you just cut your bedding while tossing and turning, it is a funny story, but you might accidentally cut yourself, or if you were sleeping with a wife or husband, you might kill them.
A chant is a kind of safety to avoid such accidents.
It is often said that magic is a world of imagery, but the chanting of a spell is an act that reinforces that imagery, a trigger. In the sense of modern Earth, it is like the routine a professional athlete performs, a ritual to correctly trace the actions they have practiced regardless of the environment or situation.
However, the answer to the first question becomes a disadvantage here.
Because chanting requires the necessity of speaking fixed words and concentrating one's consciousness, the activation of magic inevitably takes time. This tendency becomes more pronounced for magic with simply high output or magic with complex functions added.
The quickest way to earn that time is to keep distance, which is ultimately the reason why mages have a strong image as back-line roles.
The Triad family has long been a house of martial arts, but Radglyph, who also had talent as a mage, struggled with his combat pattern in his youth. Since he was the eldest son, should he walk the path of the warrior as befitting a martial house? Or should he master magic by utilizing his talent?
As a result of his long hesitation, he became a mediocre magic swordsman.
Yes, a <
Despite being from a martial house, thanks to the ancestral inherited tradition magic, he could exercise the Second Magic Formula, which is classified as Great Magic, for his maximum firepower. However, other than that, if viewed as a mere mage, Radglyph was at the level of a court mage even when viewed favorably. Among them, he was only about the level of a second-string professional, where it would be faster to count from the bottom.
He himself was aware of this.
The tide changed after the third son, Geoglyph, was born. Radglyph naturally drilled martial arts into his youngest son, who had displayed his talent since early childhood. The boy hated it, but Radglyph made him give up and hold a sword, thinking of it as a kind of destiny.
And then, look at that, a warrior with the combat pattern Radglyph had idealized was created.
Long-range attacks via magic, physical enhancement via mana, and martial techniques. Greatly overturning the notion of the magic swordsman who is mocked as a jack-of-all-trades, he reached a completion that could be called omnipotent. Even the only flaw, chanting, was handled by a mysterious word called Decode, finishing everything in a single word rather than a phrase, deploying a barrage, enhancing the body with mana, closing in on the enemy at maximum speed, and cutting them down with trained martial techniques.
Radglyph, who was realistic enough to know he could not become like that mass of genius, could not help but ask. Could he do something similar?
'Father is good at fire, so why not prepare the fire in advance?'
At first, he did not understand what was being said. However, when he unraveled the general theory of strategy and tactics that did not exist in this world, which Geoglyph had brought, those words became a breakthrough in magic theory.
Explaining what magic is in the first place would take too long, so I will omit it, but to put it simply, it belongs to the act of creation, making 1 from 0. Creating something from nothing. It is like growing the timber from a seed when building a house. That simply takes effort.
Then, if timber is sourced from elsewhere, or if it is somewhat assembled like a pre-cut method, could one go from 0.5 or 0.7 to 1 instead of 0... that was Geoglyph's way of thinking. Of course, in this world, there are techniques like chant shortening or abandonment, but those are shortcut methods that do not break the overall process, and while they are usable, they have various disadvantages such as falling below the intended power or being difficult to control. To put it simply, they are defective houses.
As a side note, the superior version and a kind of ultimate form is the Stock chantless casting he excels at. In this case, compared to the house example, it is like a ready-built house.
Looking back to the present. An arena made of walls of fire has been created around Radglyph and Karina. Yes, the fire magic that Radglyph excels at most. The <
The fifteenth of the Thirty-Six Stratagems... Luring the Tiger from the Mountain.
Luring the opponent away from their base and fighting in a terrain advantageous to oneself. By preparing the stage, he uses the environment to shorten all chants simultaneously.
As a result, though only for this moment, the magic swordsman he once idealized was created.
"Fire Arrow."
With a single shortened chant, arrows formed of fire were launched from the walls of fire in all directions toward Karina. She created a wall of water to offset them, but Radglyph did not slacken his attack.
"Lance."
Calling fire from the walls of fire, forming it into a great spear, and launching it forward. Hiding in its shadow, Radglyph drew the sword from his waist and approached Karina. The fire spear was offset by an identical fire spear launched by Karina, but by the time the vision cleared, he had closed in to a distance of five paces with large strides.
Still not enough. At least two more paces.
"Blade!"
Fire shaped like a crescent moon flew from behind Radglyph, and was again intercepted by Karina's Black Calamity Wind. However, he closed three paces. The distance of a sword. Radglyph raised his longsword. An overhead strike so high it would be unthinkable for a martial house. A posture full of openings, like an amateur swinging with brute force.
However, Karina was not specialized in martial arts enough to immediately counter after questioning that. If she were specialized, she could have dodged it just by twisting her body slightly, but as a mage, she had two choices: jump backward or block it with the shakujo in her hand.
After a hesitation of a fraction of a second, Karina chose to block.
No, in reality, there was only one choice. Taking distance against a mage is a foolish move. Since Radglyph is a swordsman and also a mage. Therefore, she thought it necessary to take the hit, focus on a counter to switch offense and defense, and then create distance to make it her turn.
If she had miscalculations, there were three.
That Radglyph himself recognized Karina as a far superior opponent who could not be defeated by orthodox methods, that he was well-versed in the options a mage would take from the perspective of a fellow mage... and that Radglyph's state as a magic swordsman had been transformed beyond what the common sense of this world could estimate.
(He probably wouldn't imagine using such magic within sword range...!)
He changed the raised sword to a reverse grip. The point he thrust toward was not Karina. It was her feet. And the command he murmured was only one.
"Volcano...!"
Immediately after, the walls of fire surrounding them were sucked into the ground in an instant, and then, with the force of an eruption, a blast of explosive flame soared into the sky from the tip of the thrust sword.
●
It was unexpected. Even Karina could not have predicted that he would use an attack equivalent to self-destruction.
(My my, how extraordinary, Flame Majin.)
While being thrown into the air by the impact of the blast, she laughed as if impressed.
She suffered some minor burns, but thanks to forming a membrane of water immediately after, there was no hindrance to her actions.
What Karina admired was the opponent. She was surprised he used such a trick, but despite it being almost a self-destructive move, Radglyph hid himself with his cloak to defend against the heatwave and avoided the aftereffects of the explosive flame with precise control. Of course, that cloak was made of Earth Dragon skin, and without its performance, even he would not have used such a move.
(Hm, it is about time.)
Thanks to being unexpectedly thrown into the sky, Karina, who could overlook the battlefield and the flow of souls from a height, grasped the situation. Originally, her role was to run through the battlefield and kill as many people as possible, regardless of friend or foe, to send souls to the altar in the deep underground. Not only her, but the believers of the Delgamiride Cult involved in this matter also included their own souls in the count.
(Then, I no longer need to worry about what is behind me. Let us involve the surroundings as well.)
Summon an evil god and destroy this world.
Living now for that purpose alone... a nuisance of a suicide seeker. If one were to look at the public evaluation objectively, that is surely how it would be. But she had no interest in public evaluation. She simply hated this world. Though she had long since forgotten the reason.
"Drive the stake of despair into the rusted god."
At this point, for the first time, Karina uttered a passage like a prayer. A master of chantless casting, the Forbidden Witch, chanted.
"Stain the world with wailing, and grant the grace of oblivion to those who live."
The price was mana. And lifespan.
"The messenger of darkness shall die with me."
A giant, distorted gate formed of human bones appeared behind her.
"Eschatology."
And from that distorted gate... a great army of demons crawled out.
Next time, tomorrow. I suppose I will catch up then.