Chapter 75

Bel, a mage with raven-black hair and a wine-colored robe, lightly tapped the map affixed to the wall with his palm, drawing the gazes that were focused on me back to the front.

“Vin is excluded. While his current abilities aren’t vastly different from ours… his growth potential far surpasses it. If he were injured fighting the Overlord, the entire continent would suffer a great loss.”

“The war situation is unfavorable, is it not? Shouldn’t we be using even the weakest hand available?”

Grisha regarded Bel with a look that suggested her explanation fell short. She seemed, at heart, to anticipate great feats from me as a general.

Given the far-from-favorable war situation, it was an understandable wish.

And an equally understandable wish, yet I silently prayed that the Saintess would keep her lips sealed.

…How am I supposed to fight the Archduke as an equal? I’d be killed for sure.

“I will explain that part, so please listen with a bit of patience. There is a way to obliterate all four Archdukes without resorting to the Bin.”

“…Obliterate? You’re not just saying we should end with protecting Valerand, are you?”

Alter posed the question to Bel, sounding genuinely surprised.

“In this situation, it’s only natural that the annihilation of the four Archdukes sounds like too much of a dream. I thought we were going to discuss retreat methods today.”

“It seems that with the passage of time, you’ve forgotten how to dream.”

Bel retorted to Alter’s question with a light provocation.

Alter, upon hearing the provocation, merely shrugged as if unmoved, but Lir, seated beside him, glared at Bel with obvious displeasure.

“What’s the matter?”

Bel gazed down at Lir with her characteristically frigid and cool eyes.

Unsurprisingly, the moment their eyes met, Lir lowered her gaze without a single sound.

…Well, the mere attempt is praiseworthy. Considering her personality, it deserves to be commended a hundred times over.

I patted Lir’s back and refocused on Bel’s words.

“Then, I shall continue the explanation.”

Bel cleared her throat and quickly withdrew the chilling look she had directed at Lir.

Lir, the moment Bel began to look elsewhere, only peeked at him timidly, glancing back and forth.

“From today onward, the Archdukes will actively launch offenses. It’s the complete opposite tactic from those guys, who like to slowly, methodically, and without variables, suffocate their opponents once they have the upper hand.”

From behind me, a thick hand rose to my back. Rex seemed to have a question.

“So, what’s on your mind?”

“How do you know the enemy will launch an offensive?”

“Because I saw Vihn.”

Bell pointed at me with the tip of his quill.

“They’ve seen what Vihn does on the battlefield. Riding a spirit, tearing through the sky, causing utter chaos. According to officer reports, seven high-ranking demons are dead, and six of the Overlord’s personally created mutant squads wiped out.”

Strictly speaking, it was Dajeen who handled most of it… but I didn’t feel the need to correct him.

“…Yes, I saw it firsthand.”

“That kid was in our barracks reading ‘Understanding Intermediate Magic.’ A book I was reading when I was nine.”

“Sir?”

“He’s been learning magic for less than three months. And suddenly, he’s riding a spirit and turning the battlefield into a wasteland. What do you think the Overlords will think?”

“…You mean they’ll try to kill General Vihn, even if it ruins the war for them?”

“They’ll launch an offensive starting today. The Overlords themselves will actively appear on the battlefield.”

Bell lifted his quill again, this time to mark the map with dots. Soon, nine dots were spaced evenly across the demon formations.

“The locations marked on this map are where I’ve planted parchment through a certain operation.

And those parchments are inscribed with a type of barrier magic. When they think they’ve pushed far enough into our lines, I’ll activate the magic contained in these parchments, preventing four Overlords from leaving this land of Valorand.”

Bell then placed nine identical dots on our formation. Connecting the dots, a massive shape encompassing both the enemy and our lines was completed.

“…You’re saying you’ll confine that whole area?”

Alter asked Bell, his eyes full of doubt.

Even for Lier and I, who aren’t well-versed in magic, it sounded absurd.

The shape marked on the map, its size… easily exceeding thirty square kilometers. A barrier encompassing such a wide area…

“I understand using parchment to drastically expand the barrier’s range. But its strength… I’m a little concerned. The wider a barrier becomes, the weaker it tends to be.”

“A keen observation, but you needn’t worry. We’ve prepared a special measure.”

Bell spoke with such confidence.

Alter pressed him for the details of this ‘special measure,’ and Lier, if she’d been bold enough, looked ready to second Alter’s question.

“I suppose we’ll trust you.”

As the atmosphere thickened, threatening to erupt into a cacophony of arguments, I felt compelled to speak.

“…Mr. Bean?”

Alter stared at me, incredulity etched on his face.

“His refusing to explain the method… it likely means we’re better off not knowing. Alter, just this once, let’s be deceived. He isn’t a fool, surely he’s prepared a decent plan.”

“…”

Alter shot Bell one last, uneasy glance. But a glance was all he gave, refraining from further inquiry.

“Alright, say we’ve trapped all four Archdukes inside this ‘unbreakable barrier.’ What’s the next step?”

What then?

The question that had plagued me since I first arrived on this battlefield, since first hearing of this operation.

Even if we lured and contained the four Archdukes, if we lacked a safe method to deal with them, wouldn’t it all be for naught?

Unless we brought in a Sword Saint, fighting four Archdukes would be a harrowing ordeal…

“In two weeks, a Sword Saint will arrive.”

“…”

The murmuring, fraught with worry and anxiety, abruptly ceased with those words.

“Th-that… is the Northern Front holding? If the Sword Saint vacates his post, surely the Demon King will move…”

Rex, the only one among us capable of grasping the larger strategic picture, spoke cautiously, raising his hand.

Currently, the Sword Saint was locked in a stalemate with the Demon King on the Northern Front, while the four Grand Dukes ran rampant across Valoran.

If word reached them that he had arrived in Valoran, every soldier holding the Northern Front would be slaughtered by the Demon King in an instant.

“The plan has been meticulously laid out, to allow him to slip away from the Northern Front. The areas surrounding the garrisoned fortress have been thoroughly purged, and apparently, capturing just one or two more high-ranking demons will ensure the enemy doesn’t suspect he’s coming here as reinforcement.”

Bell paused, his eyes gleaming with fierce intensity.

“He’ll likely have fifteen minutes to fight.”

Fifteen minutes.

A sufficient amount of time for the Sword Saint, that man, to turn the tide of the war and claim the enemy commander’s head, four times over.

Hope, expectation for the future, and a burning desire for victory rippled through the cabin.

“Any questions?”

“……”

Those who had heard the plan voiced no further doubts.

The Sword Saint was that kind of being.

Even an operation that seemed like a suicidal mission would be transformed into a guaranteed victory.

The true hope of the continent.

“I’ll say it again. Today’s discussion must never leave this cabin. The moment this information reaches their ears, they’ll invest even more high-ranking reconnaissance lords in the Northern Front. And the Grand Dukes on this soil will flee.”

Bell pulled a pipe from within his robes, placing it between his teeth.

“Don’t smile. Remain constantly discouraged. Never raise your heads. The more we appear to be in despair, the more confidently they’ll attack.”

Soon, a flame flared in Bell’s pipe.

The familiar stench of burnt tobacco began to creep in, snaking around the space.

“Dismissed.”

Bell, the words barely out of her mouth, was first out of the hut with Grisha. Her face was a canvas of conflicting emotions: ‘Finally, this war ends,’ battling with, ‘Two more weeks of this nonsense.’

Rex, with a quiet, deep breath, rose from his seat, followed by Alter.

Lierre and I exchanged a glance before finally standing, the last to move.

The stories I had just heard felt unreal.

If the Sword Saint could only contain the four Archdukes within a single ‘zone,’ he could surely eliminate them all within fifteen minutes.

If the plan unfolded as envisioned, the current nine Archdukes would dwindle to five, their numbers halved.

Archdukes halved meant the demonic horde itself would be halved.

This operation wouldn’t just impact the immediate battle in Valerand; it would be a pivotal turning point in the impending war between the demon armies and the allied forces.

…Perhaps we were standing at the very heart of history.

The thought sent a shiver tracing patterns across my skin.

* * *

As Bell predicted, the day after I rode Da’jin into the fray and tore through their ranks, the demon army began aggressively pushing the front lines.

“Eyes forward! Shields up, tight!”

“Fire! Unleash everything you’ve got!”

With no cover, no shields, the enemy charged across the no-man’s-land. Mages and archers alike poured everything they had into stopping them.

But the mages’ mana dwindled, and the archers’ quivers emptied. The only thing limitless on this battlefield was the demonic presence and the monstrous abominations born from their hands.

“Retreat! Fall back!”

The front lines retreated further each day. The Continental Army minimized casualties by falling back, leaping over the rear trenches, impeding the demons’ advance. The demons, in their relentless push, lost three high-ranking lords and even a powerful dragon-spawned abomination.

“……a futile endeavor.”

Then, from the fourth day onward, the Archdemons began to reveal themselves upon the battlefield in earnest. With a mere flick of their wrists, they warped the terrain of the desolate zones, gathering the battlefield’s corpses into grotesque chimeras.

Each time an Archdemon appeared on the field, Vel too would emerge at the front lines. With a face as cold as any machine, he incinerated the bodies of soldiers twisted into monstrous forms. The ground beneath his touch, once a mire of thick mud, hardened into a surface akin to glazed porcelain.

The battles between Vel and the Archdemons never seemed to reach a true resolution. In a straight one-on-one, Vel held a slight advantage, but knowing that other Archdemons lurked somewhere on the battlefield, biding their time, he couldn’t afford to launch a full-fledged offensive.

The Archdemons, seemingly aware of this restraint, relentlessly drove the fight into a war of attrition. They were waiting for Vel’s mana to run dry.

For even Vel Artois, continuously engaged in a war of attrition against an Archdemon each day, would eventually find his mana depleted.

Waiting for a mage’s mana to exhaust through attrition, then hunting them, was the most classic and reliable strategy for a demon facing a mage.

Even while aggressively attacking, they never lost sight of controlling ‘Vel,’ one of the most dangerous powers on the battlefield.

A subtle yet suffocating pressure persisted, and it would only take ten days for Vel’s mana to hit rock bottom.

By the thirteenth night, Vel was complaining of dizziness and hyperventilation. Seeing that mechanical man crumble in such a way stirred a disquiet within me.

And so came the fourteenth day. The morning marked exactly two weeks since I had first ridden Dajin’s back across this war-torn land.

The light, oblivious, pierced the clouds and illuminated the battlefield.

“……Hah, damn it.”

I sighed quietly, watching the sun break through the dark clouds, and then walked out of the barracks early in the morning.

“We are ready.”

An orc, an elf, and an old man, all long prepared, greeted me.

I swallowed silently and slowly followed the officer’s lead toward the front lines.

It was time to retrieve the trap I had left in the water for two weeks.