Chapter 4: Surrounded on All Sides

In a room somewhere in the Kingdom of Craist, which bordered both Ferrius and Liberitoa, the entire Reharzen Knight Order had been mobilized for security. One of the invited dignitaries, Hugo Evans, foreign minister of the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa, took a seat at the round table. He conjured a small flame with fire magic, lit a cigar with one end cut off, and let the purple smoke curl upward.

At the sight of the fire magic, one of the Craist guards narrowed his eyes at Hugo. Hugo had been foreign minister for ten years, but he hadn’t gotten there by walking the smooth road of a civil servant. He had run around battlefields as an infantryman and lived through more bloodbaths than he could count. Even the bare patch on his head came from having his scalp burned away along with his helmet.

Even now, in his old age, he was confident he could take on a handful of infantrymen. He knew perfectly well that confidence meant nothing against the bodyguards of national representatives and high officials.

“You’re very dedicated to your duty.”

Hugo grinned, one cheek twisted by old burns, and praised the Craist knight. The reply was curt.

“…Thank you.”

With the Kingdom of Ferrius and the Myard Principality joining the war against the Highserk Empire, Hugo and the rest of the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa’s parliament had been in high spirits. Lately, though, the situation had stopped looking promising. The two countries that had been so eager had, embarrassingly, seen Myard fall and Ferrius left stretched thin just defending its homeland. That was enough to disappoint Hugo, who had hoped to saddle Highserk with multiple fronts.

Hugo let his gaze travel around the table. In the center sat the host, King Chester Craist of the Kingdom of Craist. At his right was King Barriston Ferrius, whose country had been invaded by Highserk.

When Hugo had come for negotiations before, Barriston had already been leaner than his warlike brother Winston. Now he was thinner still. His complexion was poor, yet his eyes burned brighter than when they had last met. Eyes that were cornered, pressed, with no room left to spare. Hugo liked that sort of man.

“Well, well. Ferrius is in quite a state, isn’t it? Who would have thought Myard would fall and you’d lose over half your field army… Truly pitiable. I can’t even find the words.”

Hugo was the first to speak.

“…Ha. Such generous words. To think we’d end up repeating Liberitoa’s mistakes.”

Barriston shot a sharp look back at Hugo’s sarcasm.

“Repeating? Hm. I don’t recall Liberitoa losing a third of its territory the way Ferrius has.”

“That’s enough, both of you. We didn’t gather here to enjoy polite conversation.”

Chester, the host, cut in. Hugo had no real intention of picking a fight. He had simply loosened his tongue a little before getting to the main business.

“Quite right. Let’s leave the pleasantries there. Now then-”

He paused, and turned his eyes to one particular seat at the table.

“And where might this lovely young lady be from?”

A single girl sat there. Her bearing and manners left no doubt that she had blue blood, but Hugo had no information on her.

This was supposed to be a multilateral meeting between Liberitoa, Ferrius, and Craist. The limited retinues stood behind the principals at the round table. Only those with the influence to sway a nation’s fate could sit here. As far as Hugo was concerned, she was plainly out of place.

“Myard,” Barriston answered. The girl continued.

“I am Rita Myard. I have been permitted to attend as Myard’s representative.”

Hugo’s mind turned over in an instant. He had never met the girl, but he knew of her.

“Ah, so you’re Lord Youth’s only daughter. I’m surprised you got out of the ducal capital… Still, a representative of a fallen Myard is rather strange.”

Rita didn’t let his tone rattle her.

“I had a reliable knight with me… It’s true that Myard has lost over half its territory, but Celta remains.”

Hugo thought it over for a moment, then clapped his hands.

“Celta… Ah, yes. The fisheries and waterways there were economically important once, but these days it only functions as a base against the lake dragon. A navy still intact, some soldiers who fled there, and the lake dragon to boot? There’s little profit in it. Highserk won’t bother reaching for it.”

Hugo knew as well as anyone that, in terms of resources and economy, vast Lake Celta and its rivers were territory that ought to be held. But the master squatting there did far more harm than good. And Myard, weak on land, had held the lake for years, which gave its navy outstanding training. Regrettable as it was, Hugo understood that Highserk wasn’t foolish enough to casually stick its hand in and take losses.

“Yes, until recently it was just as you say, Lord Hugo. But the lake dragon has now been slain.”

For the first time since the meeting began, Hugo’s face twisted.

“Slain? Just now?”

“Yes… It has been slain.”

Lesser dragon or not, it was among the most powerful monsters there were. Its enormous jaws could crush ogres and trolls in a single bite. When the previous lake dragon, before the succession, had attacked Liberitoa’s water city, it had taken the sacrifice of two and a half companies of defenders to bring it down. A loss that large should have reached Hugo’s ears through merchants or spies.

“That’s… wonderful news. The brave soldiers must have suffered terribly.”

“Fortunately, we didn’t lose a single man.”

It was Chester who spoke, the one who held the far shore of the lake.

“Against the lake dragon?”

Hugo twisted his lips in disbelief.

“Thanks to Myard’s navy, Craist’s knights, and our visitors from another world. I wouldn’t call them one-man armies, but each of them fought as well as a hundred or two hundred soldiers, if not better.”

Chester clapped his hands, and one of the young men waiting along the wall stepped forward.

“One of our visitors from another world.”

“Nice to meet you… I’m Yuuto Asama.”

The one who gave his name was a black-haired, black-eyed youth. There was still a boyishness about him, and he seemed unused to occasions like this, his movements stiff. Without the information that he was an otherworlder, Hugo would never have guessed this was the man who had killed a lake dragon.

“Well now. Slaying a lake dragon at your age is truly admirable. Your otherworldly name sounds quite exotic, too. If this weren’t the occasion, I’d love to hear how you brought the beast down.”

What Hugo really wanted was to find out what magic and Skills the boy had and how he fought. But he understood that the people around this table weren’t foolish enough to expose themselves that far.

“Oh, it was nothing. I just followed the orders of the Craist knights.”

Hugo had read Chester’s intent clearly: the cards Rita and Barriston had put on the table, and now the otherworlder brought out to complete the show.

“So young, and yet Lady Rita and Master Yuuto are both remarkably capable.”

Hugo meant it half as flattery, half in earnest. Craist sat on land that connected easily to other worlds, and with the help of its visitors it had grown in both culture and military strength. Manpower falling from the sky - he wished that were only a fairy tale.

“Let’s return to the main topic.”

Chester said it with satisfaction. The three-nation talks were already settled. Hugo was certain of it. Suzerain and former vassal, lake rights, the military balance - he began weighing the material likely to be used in the bargaining.

“I’ll be blunt. Ferrius wants a firm alliance. A four-nation alliance with Lake Celta as its economic sphere, one that values both military and economic ties.”

Barriston struck at Hugo without warning. To Hugo, diplomacy was no different from war. If anything, he firmly believed war was a branch of diplomacy. He found it infuriating that his footing had already been staked out before the war of words even began, but at the same time, the proposal was attractive.

“You’ve gone all out, I see.”

Forming an alliance would make full-scale war with the Highserk Empire unavoidable. Even so, for the future of the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa, this offer couldn’t be ignored. Sitting back and watching was no longer an option. The ever-swelling Highserk Empire would have to be settled with sooner or later. Better to grab as many rights as possible beforehand - Hugo’s mind raced. He hadn’t noticed it himself, but he was enjoying this far more than he had the idle chatter earlier.

“Please, go on. This concerns the glory and decline of every nation here.”

His burned, ravaged skin twitched as he smiled, but Hugo no longer felt even the pain.

---

After the fall of the tiger’s mouth, Walm stayed away from the front until his shoulder healed, spending three weeks at a church that had been requisitioned at the foot of the mountain. Even the Highserk Empire’s troops, as rough as the age allowed, hadn’t laid a hand on the church’s people. The wound had gone deep, all the way to the bone, and his collarbone was broken. Healing magic had closed the surface and joined the bone, but he still had to rest for a while, so Walm lived a life far removed from war.

The Ferrius troops holed up in the mine had been carved away from the outside and were slowly collapsing from within. Going by supplies and numbers alone, they could have held out, but the endless fighting and constant pressure wore them down, and in the end they surrendered to Highserk. The envoy sent in had declared that if they didn’t yield at once, everyone, soldier and civilian alike, would be put to the sword. Bowing to that ultimatum, the Ferrius soldiers came down from the mine one after another.

They weren’t all emaciated, but every one of them had dark circles under his eyes and a bad color. Some shook all over; others muttered to themselves without end. There was no town worth the name to offer any entertainment, so Walm had spent his recovery watching prisoners, soldiers, and anyone else who passed by. That ended today.

“You look good.”

The one who greeted Walm on his return to his old unit was Jose.

“Healing magic is amazing. A wound that should’ve taken months closed up in a week.”

Walm rolled his shoulder, showing off the mended collarbone.

“Oh, welcome back. You’re here.”

That was Noor. Her armor had picked up more scratches, and she wore a more confident look than before.

“It’s been rough since you left. We even got sent in with the squad to take down some of the baileys, and then Barito…”

Noor broke off and glanced toward a patch of shade. Walm followed the look and found Barito sitting there, but the height of his magnificent cockscomb had been cut in half.

“Ha! What happened to the cockscomb? Did you change your hairstyle!?”

Barito protested.

“I did not! An enemy magic user got me!”

“They went for him while he was charging up the slope, but the swaying cockscomb threw off the 《Fire Lance》’s aim. The rest of him was fine. The hair’s all frizzed, though.”

Jose, remembering the sight, burst out laughing.

“Well, so the cockscomb wasn’t useless after all. Everyone looks okay, but where’s Squad Leader Duwei?”

Willart was sitting a little ways off, but Walm couldn’t see the squad’s leader anywhere.

“Platoon Leader Kozul called him in urgently.”

“We’ve cleared this place too, so I guess we finally push inland.”

At first the Highserk army had focused on sapping Ferrius’s strength, but maybe the enemy was wearing down faster than expected. Maybe the war would end early. Walm couldn’t help hoping. The mood in the Liguria Battalion, which had taken the mine, was optimistic.

---

“These guys put up no fight at all.”

A soldier of the Highserk Empire’s Sarria Battalion muttered, bored. Piled at the edge of the village were Ferrius soldiers and the villagers who had resisted when the place was taken. The Highserk dead, by contrast, were extremely few. The Ferrius prisoners, their faces beaten past recognition, got jabbed in the ribs with spear butts now and then and were forced to keep working without rest.

“Anyone decent died back in Myard. What’s left is sitting in the big cities or on the other borders.”

Since crossing into Ferrius, the Sarria Battalion had fought five battles, large and small, and won every one. Total battalion dead was said to be under a hundred. The battalion had now split into company-sized units and was looting the surrounding villages in an organized way, bleeding Ferrius dry. Naturally, the spoils landed in the Sarria troops’ pockets.

“Suits me. Plenty to pick through. In Myard we couldn’t get decent goods or women. In Ferrius, nobody punishes you for looting or raping.”

The man ran his thumb over the surface of a looted ring as he talked. Ever since the Sarria soldiers had come pouring into Ferrius, their meals had gotten rich, and quite a few were wearing finery far above their station.

“Speaking of Myard, the ones who couldn’t hold back got flogged. Idiots.”

The soldier grinned lewdly.

“Well, these ones eat well, so the women are nice to hold.”

In Myard and in Highserk, thin women were common, and their skin and hair tended to be rough. Next to them, the women the soldiers had taken in Ferrius were first-rate.

“Right? I keep getting carried away. Went so hard I’m sore.”

The soldier rubbed his crotch as he announced it, and his comrades piled on with insults at once.

“Yours is just too soft. Take a look at mine.”

“Hah! Where’s yours attached? Too small to see.”

“Hurry up and put that filthy little bean away.”

One soldier, sitting a bit apart from the circle, spoke up.

“Time to move on to the next village soon. We’ve taken everything worth taking.”

“When Kanoa fell, I wondered what was going to happen to us. But winning is the best. Glad I joined Highserk.”

The man had been taken prisoner by Highserk in the old Kanoa campaign. He hadn’t been killed; after four months of manual labor he was released and enlisted in the Highserk army. The soldiers around him had similar stories.

Men who had known nothing but defeat were drunk on their first taste of victory. They kept up the chatter until they were silenced by force. A dazzling flash swept over them, and a huge explosion tore through one corner of the village. When the dust cleared, the watchtower had collapsed, and so had the shed where the soldiers had been quartered.

“What the hell? That light!?”

“The whole tower went up with Tarsus’s squad in it!”

Lax as they had been, frontline soldiers reacted fast. They pulled on the armor that mattered most and set out to find the source of the blast.

“It’s an ambush!! They’ve got magic users with large-scale magic!!”

A voice from the corner of the village called out the situation.

“Damn it, they’re already inside the village-”

The soldiers who had been joking around spotted the enemy too.

“So there are decent soldiers left after all.”

From the hazy silhouettes, they could tell the enemy’s equipment was top quality. Armor from head to toe. These weren’t the hastily assembled militia they had been cutting down lately but well-drilled regulars.

“Watch out for friendly fire!”

“What the hell, these guys aren’t like the soldiers we’ve fought so far!”

The men who had engaged first were already sinking into the ground. They had been hit first, but for Highserk soldiers, most of them veterans, this was not normal.

“Damn it, Tarquin’s squad got eaten!”

“These guys… they’re not Ferrius. They’re Craist!”

“What’s going on? Even for Craist, this is one-sided!”

Craist was a mid-sized nation on the northern shore of Lake Celta. It had never shared a border with Highserk before, so it was an unknown quantity, but as their comrades fell one after another, the soldiers spat curses.

“You’re kidding me. That’s the Craist Reharzen Knight Order. They’ve teamed up with the others!”

Craist had two military organizations: an army of part-time farmer-soldiers, equal to Highserk’s in numbers, and the knights who had handled military affairs for generations. Knights still existed around Highserk even now, but Craist’s order stood out, feared by its neighbors as exceptionally strong.

“It takes more than ten of us to bring down a single knight!”

One soldier who lunged in was cut open, shield and upper body together, and another was gouged through the torso by a war hammer.

“Their strength and their magic are on a different level. And there are Skill users all over the place!”

Against the Knight Order, even Highserk’s elite would be at a disadvantage in a head-on fight at equal numbers. Worse, with the ambush and the nonstop large-scale magic, their formations and chain of command had been torn to pieces.

“Abandon the village! Drop everything you can’t carry!”

A veteran platoon leader from the Kanoa days gave the order to fall back on his own authority. There were no instructions from the company commander; he had judged from the first strike that the commander was already dead.

“Damn it, and we worked so hard to collect all this.”

“Better than dying. Leave that kind of enemy to the Jeff Cavalry Battalion or the Liguria Battalion.”

Both units ranked among Highserk’s best. In the Myard campaign, those two had killed Winston Ferrius and sealed the victory. With their direction settled, the platoon charged a corner of the encirclement to break through. The knights were few. Take them out of the picture, and the Craist regulars weren’t much different from Ferrius’s standing troops.

A Highserk soldier speared two Craist infantrymen and became convinced he could break through, until a lone man stepped into his path as if to block him.

“Resistance is futile. Surrender.”

“Get out of the way, brat!”

His opponent was a black-haired, black-eyed soldier who still looked like a kid. He seemed not to have seen a real fight yet, and his flashy, ornate armor looked ridiculously mismatched. Trying to scare him off with a shout, the soldier thrust his spear tip at the boy’s throat.

“Wait, that one’s-”

A comrade who saw the magic power building, so strong it was visible to the naked eye, called out to stop him. The sword came down, and light poured out of it.

“What? Light-!!”

The soldier’s vision filled with light, and he was swallowed by the explosion. His consciousness was cut off in an instant and never returned. The Sarria Battalion lost the three companies it had detached to secure provisions, seven hundred men who never came back. It was a devastating blow.

---

Yuuto Asama looked down at the scar he had carved into the earth. It wasn’t his first battle, but every time he killed someone, he couldn’t help feeling heavy inside. Yuuto had come to this world half a year ago. He had been walking home from school with his childhood friends, Ayane Sugimoto and Makoto Izaki, when a black cat led them to a run-down shrine. There was no one there, and the cat had vanished. They had just turned to head home when they were suddenly pulled into a black vortex.

When Yuuto and his friends opened their eyes, the shrine was gone, and they stood before an ancient stone ruin. Stepping outside, they found themselves surrounded by people who looked like they had stepped out of another age. Yuuto and his friends were thrown into total confusion, but a female knight named Johanna, of the Reharzen Knight Order, patiently explained their situation.

After a long conversation and demonstrations of magic and Skills, they had all the proof they needed to believe this was another world. Johanna became their guardian, and under her guidance they trained daily in knowledge and Skills. Before long, Yuuto and his two friends were being called the Three Heroes of the Otherworld, and each of them began to make a name at home and abroad.

Of the three, Yuuto’s magic and Skills had turned out to be geared for combat. He had always been athletic enough to be picked for school representative teams, and he threw himself into fighting, almost as if to forget the world he had left behind. Craist, ringed by powerful demon territories, treated monsters as both a hated enemy and a resource.

The monsters Yuuto killed were processed into daily goods and equipment. He still remembered vividly the day he had nervously taken his first bite of cooked orc. Even so, Yuuto couldn’t get used to killing people. The first time he had pointed a sword at a human being was in the villages along the demon territory, where soldiers of the former Kanoa Kingdom had turned bandit and were running wild.

Yuuto wasn’t overflowing with a sense of justice, but he had the morals and conscience of a modern person. To be honest, he hated the idea of humans killing each other. The subjugation force had chased the bandits back to their hideout, but storming it would cost many lives. His hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists to hide it and stepped forward.

The result was horrific. Yuuto unleashed his Skill, 《Holy Strike》. The hideout’s barrier blew apart in a single blow, killing a dozen or so bandits instantly. The Knight Order dealt with the rest. Yuuto himself crossed blades with a bandit who had been hiding and drove his sword into the man’s chest.

The feel of bones breaking and flesh tearing stayed in his hand for months, and for several days he could barely swallow food. For an ordinary high school student, it was an enormous psychological burden, almost too much to bear. He had gotten through it largely thanks to the members of the Knight Order and his two childhood friends, who had been transported with him. Letting out a deep breath, Yuuto finally came back from the sea of his thoughts to reality.

“…How many died?”

His 《Holy Strike》 had blown apart the building where the enemy company commander had holed up. Counting the Highserk soldiers who had been trying to flee, he had probably killed forty or fifty.

The liberated villagers and his comrades had thanked him, but Yuuto’s heart stayed clouded.

“Yuuto, what are you brooding about?”

The one who called out to him was his fellow transferee, Makoto Izaki.

“Makoto…”

“Sorry, you got me instead of Ayane. She’s busy treating the wounded.”

Makoto laughed it off and slapped him on the hip. She had fought too, cutting down enemy soldiers with area magic.

“You’ve brooded enough already. Sure, switching gears is hard, but this is the only place we’ve got to live.”

“Yeah. We can’t go back, can we.”

There were two senses in which Yuuto couldn’t turn back. One was the world he came from. The other was a life without killing.

Yuuto had been blessed with a good environment and good guardians. They had looked after him until he adjusted, and in this world he lived what you could call an upper-class life. He had seen over and over how brutally the powerless were trampled here. Johanna had told him that if the invading Highserk Empire were left unchecked, Craist might end up like Myard or Kanoa, made a vassal or destroyed outright, and Yuuto had made up his own mind.

He would protect the country that had taken care of him, the place he lived, and his comrades. There was no way left to run from the fight.

“It’ll be fine. Johanna’s here, and I am too. Let’s do our best.”

“Yeah. I’m going to survive in this world, no matter what.”

“That’s the spirit. …Oh, right. You haven’t eaten yet, have you? Let’s eat. We’ve got dried orc meat and bean soup, and fighting-sword fish preserved in oil.”

“Orc again. It looks weird, but the taste grows on you.”

“Right? Let’s get Ayane and eat together, the three of us.”

Makoto led him toward the tent. Coming to this world had cost him more than he could measure, but he had gained things too. Somehow, Yuuto managed to shift his focus and put his mind on the meal.

---

“Covering a retreat!? What kind of joke is that?”

Jose couldn’t hide his shock at the words that had just come out of Squad Leader Duwei.

“I couldn’t believe my own ears either. I made the platoon leader say it again. Then he said something even worse. The remnants of the Kingdom of Ferrius, the Kingdom of Craist, the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa, and the Myard Principality have joined hands.”

“Wait, so that’s an alliance of four nations?”

Noor’s face went blank, and she stared, speechless. The four neighbors had never been on good terms, only a loose, wary standoff. And suddenly they had turned into a tight little group of four. Even for Walm, staying calm wasn’t easy.

“That’s the situation. The Sarria Battalion got smashed in the attack, and the other battalions are falling back while they fight.”

“How many troops are we talking about?”

“I’d like to tell a grunt not to worry about it, but the whole force is said to top sixty thousand.”

“S-sixty thousand?”

Barito’s mouth hung open and wouldn’t close. Highserk’s Ferrius front army totaled sixteen thousand. Even adding the Myard front army and reinforcements from the homeland, scraping together twenty-three or twenty-four thousand would be doing well.

“We’ll go defensive and pull back in stages. The decisive battlefield will probably be the Sarajevo Fortress complex on the Ferrius border. Ferrius never had the soldiers to make those forts work, but with the supplies we’ve looted and the manpower we’ve got, we might not win, but we won’t lose either.”

“We’re giving up the mine, after all the work it took to capture it?”

Noor said it as if it were a waste. Walm agreed. Paying in blood and flesh for a mine, only to hand it over to the enemy, was no joke.

“Can’t be helped. Who can face sixty thousand in an open field? Then again, we’re not planning to hand it back for free.”

As if on cue, a rumble rolled out of the mine, the ground shaking, and dust rose into the air.

“Ah, so you’re bringing it down.”

Jose clapped his hands as if to say he got it.

“Exactly. The supplies and ore from here will be hauled out by prisoners. There was talk of killing the lot of them, but instead they’ll be locked up in one of Myard’s old castles and used as serfs.”

Walm hadn’t wanted to massacre helpless prisoners. Being sent to the rear with the supplies, he felt a quiet relief.

“So that’s the deal. The Liguria Battalion will cover the friendly forces retreating from the mine. It’s a defensive fight, so it’s better than usual, but if we dawdle, the others will leave us behind. Don’t let your guard down.”

Four days after the war council, the army of the four-nation alliance finally came pressing toward the mine Walm was defending. The enemy’s main force was the familiar Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa.

“Jose, don’t let them get the ladders up!!”

Jose, at Walm’s right, grabbed the tip of a ladder and yanked it over. The Liberitoa soldier halfway up flailed his limbs in the air and crashed to the ground. Walm wasn’t about to be left out. He dropped a rock the size of a human torso onto the soldiers directly below. It smashed part of the ladder as it fell and put several soldiers out of the fight.

“Keep throwing! We’ve got plenty of stones!”

The rocks hauled out along with the ore had become excellent throwing weapons. The ornate armor of a Liberitoa commander made a fine target.

He kept his head covered with a shield, but the endless barrage left the surface pitted and his movements sluggish. Then Squad Leader Duwei’s fastball connected with a solid crack, and the Liberitoa commander went down.

The enemy wasn’t silent either. Arrows kept coming in volleys, and soldiers were getting hit.

“《Fireball》!!”

Right after someone shouted, flame danced across the wall walk, and a soldier collapsed without a scream. The men on either side rushed to pull him up, but his face was gone.

“It’s no use. His face is gone.”

The soldiers gave up on what used to be their comrade and went back to shooting arrows at the enemy below.

“Walm! The enemy’s gaining momentum on the left wing. Go greet them.”

The order came not from the squad leader but from the slightly plump Platoon Leader Kozul. Walm ran along the wall walk his squad was responsible for and reached the position two squads over. Sure enough, the enemy’s throwing was fierce, and countless soldiers were crowded right beneath the wall.

“Using it now.”

At Walm’s warning, the soldiers around him rolled away to put distance between them.

“Get back, you’ll get caught in it!!”

Being treated like some uncontrollable weapon was awfully insulting, but Walm ignored it and activated 《Ignis Fatuus》.

His cheeks twitched, almost as if in delight. Meanwhile, a Liberitoa soldier who noticed Walm leaning out screamed.

“It’s an 《Ignis Fatuus》 user!!!”

“Don’t let him use it! Kill him!!”

There were soldiers nocking arrows, but they were a step too late. Hot wind swept the area, and Walm scattered raging flame across everything in front of him.

“Gyaaa, aaah, aaaaah!”

“Hot-damn it-it won’t go out!!”

“Fall back, fall back, fall back!!”

Watching more than thirty men get swallowed by flame, the Liberitoa troops scrambled back. Those who had been far enough away, or who had enough resistance, managed to put the fire out as they ran. In the end, 《Ignis Fatuus》 claimed about twenty lives.

Together with the corpses that hadn’t moved from the start, blue fire lit the battlefield. The stench of burning flesh stabbed at the nose, a smell Walm had become completely used to. Those with injured airways or burned skin probably numbered about twice that. At full power the damage would have doubled, but Platoon Leader Kozul had told him to conserve his magic and to increase enemy wounded rather than dead.

“Man, that’s horrible no matter how many times I see it.”

“Thank God it’s on our side. You saved us.”

The friendly soldiers who had pulled back kept slapping Walm on the shoulder.

“Restock the stones and treat the wounded first. The enemy fears the Beckoning Fire of the Underworld. Their commander got burned, after all.”

Walm headed back to the stretch his squad held. With the devastation on the left wing added to everything else, the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa, battered hard, seemed ready to pull back and regroup.

---

Despite their overwhelming numbers, the four-nation alliance’s advance had begun to show cracks.

The Highserk Empire’s Jeff Cavalry Battalion had been fighting a mobile war against Craist’s main force, striking again and again at its flanks, its rear, and any units that stuck out too far. Craist outnumbered them, but the fast, highly mobile cavalry pulled out so quickly that they were hard to catch.

The Reharzen Knights’ mounted pursuit produced some results, but there were times when the knights were lured into an ambush and took painful losses. Craist also had to advance together with the Ferrius and Myard troops who knew the local terrain, so the blitz speed of the early days could no longer be maintained.

On top of that, Highserk carried out delaying tactics: roads and bridges were thoroughly destroyed, and earth-attribute magic was used to bring down cliffs and mountainsides on passes and mountain roads.

The Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa’s advance had also ground to a complete halt at the Refun Mine. Having tried to overpower a single enemy battalion with seven thousand soldiers, the Federation had suffered losses far beyond expectations.

Twelve hundred dead, two thousand wounded, and the enemy still held the mine area. Night arson by small groups was a serious problem too, and more and more Liberitoa soldiers were developing a fear of fire.

Emrid, an infantry officer in the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa, had a dry mouth and a parched throat from tension. As a company commander entrusted with two hundred fifty soldiers by his homeland, he received far richer information than an ordinary grunt, for better or worse.

To keep morale from dropping, he wasn’t sharing the exact numbers, but one entire company had already been sacrificed at the defensive works with the wall and side towers that his company was about to try to take. The previous company commander had been badly wounded and carried to the rear.

The Highserk garrison was one problem, and the mountainous terrain was certainly a tough obstacle, but what really troubled Emrid was a soldier with the nickname the Beckoning Fire of the Underworld, the user of 《Ignis Fatuus》.

His real name was unknown, but even among Skills said to rewrite the laws of the world, 《Ignis Fatuus》 was a vicious one, with terrifying power and a wide area of devastation. The user wielded clinging blue flame and strong winds to inflict lethal damage on tightly packed formations.

In fact, one platoon that had gone on the offensive had lost twenty-one dead and fourteen wounded, lightly or badly, in a single engagement, and had to be reorganized. The platoon leader was among the dead. A platoon leader should have been skilled at handling magic and able to endure some heat, yet he had ended up a dying beacon, lighting the ground as he fell.

Since then, headquarters had given up on brute force and changed its approach to slow strangulation. With Emrid in the lead, they had dug trenches toward the wall, winding them back and forth.

Piling up earthen mounds, they edged steadily closer to the wall, and at last Emrid’s company came within range for a simultaneous assault.

Before the all-out attack, the troops splashed themselves with water, a token precaution against 《Ignis Fatuus》. Some even smeared mud all over their bodies.

Comrades had burned to death, but no one laughed at the soldiers who had gotten away with light wounds thanks to the mud. If anything, more and more men started coating themselves. To be honest, Emrid would have liked to do the same, but as a commander, appearances mattered.

“Begin the attack.”

The short order spread instantly, and the whole company surged toward the wall. As the soldiers poured out of the trench, the throwing began. A moment later, 《Ice Lance》s and clods of earth formed by magic knocked soldiers down, but the number who fell was small. The troops had already reached the foot of the wall and were setting up ladders. It was as if the fierce resistance of the past days had been a lie.

Emrid thought they might take the wall today, but a prickling on his skin made him snap his head toward a corner of the wall walk. Right where soldiers were about to climb in, hot wind blew and blue flame burst out.

“Retreat-!!”

The men on the ladders scrambled down and ducked behind cover.

“Halt the attack! Fall back to the trench!!”

Even those who had started climbing chose to tumble down rather than die instantly, and still four or five soldiers became fuel for the flames.

“Don’t move! Quick, cover yourselves with dirt!!”

“That 《Ignis Fatuus》 bastard!!”

The crude curses of the soldiers whose backsides were literally on fire didn’t stop, but their response was faster than before, and damage was kept to a minimum. Emrid grabbed the armor rim of a soldier whose legs had both broken when he fell from the ladder, put his whole strength into hauling him, and dragged him into the trench.

“He’s hitting everything, no matter where!!”

Until now, 《Ignis Fatuus》 had been aimed at the soldiers beneath the wall. This time, it was setting the wall walk itself ablaze, the very ground the defenders needed. With flames rising one after another along the walkway, the all-out assault came to a temporary halt. And there, Emrid felt something was off. This was too reckless - he hesitated, and then he realized what was bothering him.

“…Damn it, back to the wall! Follow me!!”

After dousing his head with water, Emrid grabbed a ladder that hadn’t burned and charged at the wall alone.

“Company Commander Emrid!?”

A subordinate called out, questioning his intent, but he followed his superior almost at once. Emrid steeled himself and scrambled up the ladder. The wall walk still held a choking heat, but there wasn’t a single human shadow on it.

“They’ve been pulling their troops back bit by bit. To get the rearguard out, they deliberately set fire to everything.”

Emrid kicked an abandoned helmet lying on the ground. Even so, as a young man commanding a company, he started issuing orders one after another.

“First platoon, fire suppression. Second and third platoons, stay alert. Don’t bring the wounded up to the walkway yet. There’s a risk of a counterattack. Send scouts from the fourth platoon to see what’s ahead.”

The orders were passed down the chain, and every soldier focused on his assigned task. A key point had fallen, even if after a considerable delay. Still, Emrid’s mind wasn’t at ease. About half a koku later, the scouts returned, and when he heard their report, Emrid’s face darkened as if he had bitten into something bitter.

“The enemy has built a position just ahead. It’s a complex fortification combining earthen mounds and a dry moat, and it has depth.”

It was exactly what he had feared. Emrid looked up at the sky. The enemy had used the wall for all it was worth, then abandoned it without a fuss and built a position farther back, drawing attention with 《Ignis Fatuus》 and other magic while withdrawing troops step by step.

Tricked by the deception, Emrid cursed his own carelessness and was sick at the Highserk army’s efficiency. He couldn’t say it aloud or let it show on his face. This was why fighting the Highserk Empire never felt worth the cost.

Unlike the regions held by Craist and Ferrius, this area had no way around. They had to cross the mine. Thinking of the losses and effort still to come, Emrid even felt dizzy. He spoke the words as much to himself as to his subordinates.

“Don’t panic. It’s only a temporary fortification. Construction time was limited. It can’t have the height or the strength of a real wall.”

Looking on the bright side, 《Ignis Fatuus》 had been used across a wide stretch of the wall. Considering the magic that took, even if it could be used today, it would only be for a very limited time. If anything, now was the time to attack.

In this offensive, another company was waiting in the rear because of how the units were deployed. It would take over from Emrid’s company, which had struggled to take the wall walk, and attack the makeshift fortification. The quality of the finishing might vary, but there would likely be several such positions. Emrid felt for the company that would be handling the assault. For a while, some of them wouldn’t be able to stomach grilled meat.

---

“Smash it!! Pile it up! We can’t carry it anyway.”

Walm flung the soil bags he had been carrying onto the ground.

The squad leader was taking apart the cart used to haul ore. Beyond that, the shoring materials for the mine and the miners’ buildings were torn down and stacked in the road.

Other squad members dug up the ground with picks and let water flow in from the drainage channel that had been dug for ore processing, turning the holes into sludge. After repeated battles and demolition work, excrement, sweat, and dust had all mixed together, and Walm and the other soldiers were filthy.

“Don’t lay the beams flat. Bury them halfway and stand them up. That alone makes an obstacle.”

Until two days ago, Walm’s squad had held a makeshift defensive position built from scrap and supplies, but against a force several times larger, the relentless assault had finally pushed them past their limit. They had fallen back in a rush, sabotaging the mountain road as they went, to buy the battalion what time they could.

Even so, the Commercial Trade Federation of Liberitoa surely had an engineer corps with earth-attribute magic. They would repair the supply routes in no time and try to advance again.

The wounded and supplies were being gathered first at the rear assembly point. The stretch of the old Myard border, covered on one side by the Great Demon Territory, worked as a bottleneck and made good defensive ground.

They swore, but their hands never stopped. They knew that each pile of obstacles, each lump of earth, could slow thousands of enemy feet and save their own lives.

“Stop work! Stop work! Liberitoa troops are coming!! We’re pulling out too!”

Platoon Leader Kozul announced the retreat to those around him, together with a few of his men. As if they had been waiting for it, the soldiers dropped their work, shouldered their gear, and withdrew squad by squad. Walm spotted men from other platoons among those pulling back, the ones who had been serving as rearguard.

“Hey, what about the rest of your people?”

When Walm called out to one of them, the man shouted back.

“Blown away! They threw a whole mass of magic users at us. The road isn’t fixed yet, but they’ll come pouring in here within half a koku. Get out fast!”

His piece said, the soldier jogged off down the mine.

“Come on, hurry up. If we dawdle, we’ll get stabbed in the ass.”

Jose called out as he strapped on his armor. For earthwork, armor and weapons only restricted movement and wasted stamina, so Walm’s current outfit was hardly different from his farming days.

He fastened the shin guards he had left lying on the ground and put on his gear from the waist up. He pulled on his sallet, shouldered his pack, and, apart from the two newcomers, was ready. Ten seconds later, Noor and Barito showed up, and Squad Leader Duwei swept his eyes over the squad and spoke.

“No lost idiots, huh? Then farewell to this wretched mine. Move out.”

Nobody objected. At the squad leader’s call, the whole unit left the mine together.

---

As the spearhead of the Highserk Empire, the Jeff Cavalry Battalion kept making full use of its mobility and shock power. It struck at enemy salients and hammered the flanks, buying precious time, though the losses could not be ignored.

Jeff, who commanded the cavalry, had split his horsemen into platoon-sized units for delaying and harassing attacks. He would then gather the enemy forces that had been lured out into company-sized groups, and in that way overturned his numerical disadvantage.

Today, however, it looked like that would fail. In pure numbers, the losses suffered by Craist and Ferrius were greater than his. The problem was that the cavalry Jeff commanded were elite even among Highserk’s troops, irreplaceable, and two of those precious platoons, worth their weight in mithril, were being lost.

“…So those are this age’s visitors from another world.”

Craist was known for its many otherworldly visitors and drifted objects. Jeff had heard rumors about them, but this was more than rumor.

Several hundred meters away, a dazzling torrent of light erupted, blowing men and horses off the ground along with the earth beneath them. From far off the sight might have looked beautiful. Up close, it was hell taking shape.

Before the dust and blood spray could settle, fire, ice, wind, earth, magic of every kind slammed into the withdrawing cavalry. Even riders gifted in one or two attributes couldn’t withstand all four.

“Long-range bluffing is enough. Magic users and archers, cover the withdrawing cavalry. Don’t get any closer than necessary.”

On Jeff’s order, the troops opened fire at once. The magic and arrows landed at a distance, but they created enough space to prevent pursuit.

When the pursuit stalled for a moment, earth walls rose and incoming attacks were met with light-attribute magic. The time they gained was only about ten seconds, but it was enough for the cavalry to get away. Stubborn Ferrius soldiers kept shooting arrows, but not one rider fell.

“The remaining platoons have already pulled back to the assembly point. There’s no need for the battalion commander to take risks…”

A staff officer riding alongside Jeff voiced his concern. Jeff ranked among the top three frontline commanders in the Highserk Empire, but every staff officer knew his habit of exposing himself too far forward.

“Don’t worry. I have no intention of striking at them. It would be a pointless waste of men.”

Jeff had barely caught a glimpse of the boy unleashing powerful light-attribute magic and the girl throwing out every kind of magic. They looked about the age of a young Highserk recruit.

“Unless I see a threat like that up close, I can’t command properly.”

Jeff began to assess the enemy’s strength. In terms of firepower, each of them did the work of two magic platoons. With magic power that strong, their physical strength and magic membranes had to be formidable too.

“I doubt their close combat is first-rate, but we should plan for the worst.”

By Jeff’s reckoning, killing them would mean sending in two or three cavalry platoons as suicide waves. The problem was their entourage.

“The Reharzen Knights are babysitting them, I take it.”

Breaking through the Reharzen Knights while enduring those scorching flames was no easy feat. Since Jeff had spread his forces out, his available strength was down below company level. It was a shame to pass up such a tempting target, but the targets themselves might be the bait. Having lured out enemies countless times, Jeff did not want to be the one lured.

“The decisive battlefield isn’t here yet. Commander Berger is preparing a fitting stage in Myard’s land. It would be unforgivable to miss it.”

It wasn’t only the Jeff Cavalry Battalion that would join the festivities. The Liguria Infantry Battalion, elite of the light infantry, would take part too.

There was no need for Jeff alone to rush ahead and dance.

“We’ll have them come all the way from afar. And we’d best let them know they needn’t worry about the trip home either.”

The staff officer, who had been run ragged, felt relieved at Jeff’s words and tossed off a light remark.

“Ha, now that’s a line… Well then, I suppose it’s about time we wrapped up and pulled back.”

After confirming that all his cavalry had withdrawn safely, Jeff turned on his heel. Long-range magic began landing near him, but none of it struck anything of value.

---

“Hang in there, just a little more. Don’t sleep. You’ll die. Keep your eyes open.”

On a makeshift stretcher lay a soldier whose arm was nearly severed, groaning faintly. A fellow Ferrius soldier was giving emergency aid, wrapping the wound with a tourniquet, then slipping his other hand under the stretcher-bound man’s armpit and pressing to slow the bleeding.

The upper arm was gone in a perfect circle, a wound from an 《Ice Lance》, a water-attribute spell. They had been fighting the Jeff Cavalry Battalion fiercely only minutes ago and had barely won. The problem was the price.

Many had been lost, and as many or more had been wounded. The Ferrius comrade was among the wounded, but unlike a friend hit in a vital spot like the guts, he still had a chance.

“Is there a healing mage here!? The bleeding’s heavy. Cauterizing with fire magic will kill him!!”

The Ferrius soldier screamed until his throat nearly tore, but the answers were cold.

“Out of magic. The healing mage can’t hold out any longer.”

“Sorry, it’s impossible.”

The soldier who ran into the position searched for a healing mage, but all he found were people who had already burned through their magic treating the seriously wounded.

“Isn’t there a healing mage anywhere!?”

To stop the bleeding by cauterizing with fire magic, the man would need strength and blood he didn’t have, and the risk of death from shock was high. But there was no other way. Blood kept welling out of the wound under his hand.

“Damn it, there’s no time.”

Just as he was about to go looking for some other fire magic user, as a last resort, a knight of neighboring Craist called out to him.

“You can get treatment. Come with me.”

“Is… is that true?”

He hurried after the knight and found a space with a wagon at its center and a canopy spread over it. The guard was extraordinary: twelve fully armed knights keeping watch on the surroundings.

The Craist knight looked him over from head to toe and spoke.

“Leave your sword here and go in.”

He handed his sword to the knight’s outstretched hand and timidly stepped under the canopy. Inside, the air was stale and greasy, like any field hospital, with huge patches of bloodstains. The Ferrius soldier caught his breath, but something felt off.

“Lay him down there.”

Still unable to put his finger on what was wrong, the Ferrius soldier did as instructed. A figure appeared before him, a person with rare black eyes and black hair. The soft, round eyes were narrowed in sternness. Long hair was tied back so it wouldn’t get in the way of treatment. She looked out of place on a battlefield, and the Ferrius soldier took her for an assistant or an apprentice and called out to the knight.

“Um, sir knight, where’s the healing mage?”

“Right there. Can’t you see her?”

Before the knight had even finished speaking, warm light filled the canopy. The Ferrius soldier lost his words. But when he saw his comrade’s wound close and even the missing part regrow, his voice came back.

“Impossible. Healing a missing limb!?”

“You were lucky to get hurt here. Of all the soldiers brought in, nobody has died yet.”

The knight told him proudly. When the soldier looked around, in spite of all the bloodstains, every patient lay breathing peacefully.

“Thank you. Thank you!! She’s practically a saint.”

The girl healer gave the Ferrius soldier a brief smile, then went back to her work. On that day, soldiers who should have died were saved not once or twice, and it was inevitable that rumors would spread that the Kingdom of Craist had a healer on the battlefield.

---

Ayane Sugimoto had been going to high school until only six months ago, an ordinary student enjoying her youth. She had never seen blood outside of exercise or the occasional unlucky fall, and she had never witnessed the moment someone died. Many of her relatives were doctors or nurses, and Ayane herself had been studying hard, aiming to become a nurse one day.

What changed her fate for good was being flung into another world with her childhood friends. To say she had been bewildered by the different culture, customs, and environment was an understatement. After a hard struggle, Ayane had adapted to the world and found her role.

Unlike her childhood friends Yuuto and Makoto, Ayane’s talents had never bloomed into offensive abilities. All she could do was watch from a distance as the two protected people from monsters and got hurt. She had come close to sinking into helplessness and frustration, but in the end it was the two of them who saved her.

The blossoming of her healing magic had been an accident. When she pressed down hard on Yuuto’s shoulder, wounded in a bandit subjugation, healing magic had activated without a chant. At the thought that she could save her comrades and people in pain, Ayane had nearly burst into tears, which was not like her at all. Her childhood friends were overjoyed, of course, and so were the Reharzen Knights she shared meals with. Even during the clearing of the demon territory and the lake dragon hunt, she devoted herself to supporting with healing magic, and she had found joy in her role.

The situation changed when the neighboring countries opened hostilities all at once in the war between the Kingdom of Ferrius and the Highserk Empire.

According to what the knights told Ayane, the Highserk Empire was a hegemonic state that poured its national strength into military affairs, repeatedly waging wars of invasion under the name of defensive war. If left alone, the surrounding countries would be swallowed one after another. The four-nation alliance centered on the great lake would bring the Highserk Empire down. That was what the knight had told her.

To be honest, she hated war. She hated seeing people hurt, and she hated hurting them. Above all, she didn’t want her two childhood friends and the knights to be put in danger and worn down in mind and body.

Still, she understood that they had to fight. Ayane also understood that this world was terribly immature and violent.

Day after day, Ayane kept up her treatments in the tent. Seeing lives she couldn’t save, injuries that made her want to look away, there were times she felt her mind might break. But the peaceful faces of her patients, the soldiers’ words of thanks, and the support of her comrades let her keep treating on the battlefield.

“Well, that’s the treatments done for now.”

The one who called out to Ayane was Maia, the healing mage who had been helping with the treatments.

“You were a big help today, too. I only have strong magic and not enough experience, so it’s thanks to you, Maia, that I can treat anyone at all.”

She might have a little medical knowledge, but she was barely more than a novice. As for properly treating the wounded and preparing for it, Ayane was only following Maia’s lead.

“Lady Ayane, you really think too little of yourself. Please have some confidence.”

Maia said it with a troubled look.

“Oh, that’s right. Yuuto and Makoto were nearby earlier.”

“I hope neither of them is hurt.”

“They weren’t. They’d dealt the Jeff Cavalry, who’ve been such a pain since we joined the war, heavy losses, and the soldiers and knights at camp were mobbing them.”

Ayane laughed along with Maia’s smile.

“Maybe I’ll go see them once I’m done cleaning up.”

“Good idea. I’ll come with you.”

Magic might bend the laws of the world, but it wasn’t all-powerful. There were instruments for tending wounds, buckets for washing, cloth, and all sorts of other things. Ayane also needed to learn the equipment and check its condition, so she couldn’t leave the cleanup entirely to Maia, who was only assisting.

Maia began washing the instruments with water-attribute magic, and Ayane wiped the dirt off them and put them away in her magic bag. After half a koku of absorbed work, Ayane stepped outside and found her two childhood friends waiting there.

“You two came! I was just about to go see you myself.”

“The war council’s over. Johanna and the others are still talking about future operations and strategy. They told us to go rest first.”

“Today was brutal. The Jeff Cavalry guys are way too strong, every single one of them. I wouldn’t say knight level, but it felt close.”

Makoto said it, looking worn out.

“Yeah. Several of them cut right through my magic and Makoto’s and got in close. Johanna and the others drove them back, but just between us… I broke into a cold sweat.”

“That was… something else.”

Yuuto spoke modestly, but in truth he had been terrified as the cavalry charged at him, scattering their entrails behind them. Without training and the Knight Order beside him, Yuuto would have panicked far worse. Unlike fighting monsters, this wore down his mind and body, and he could feel it keenly.

As the conversation started to drift toward combat, Maia, who had been waiting behind Ayane, spoke up.

“Have you two eaten yet?”

“No, not yet.”

“Nope, haven’t eaten.”

“The Ferrius army sent over a generous amount of food. It seems that among the people the three of you saved, there was someone of noble blood, and this is their thanks. Soft white bread instead of hardtack, cheese, and sausages have arrived.”

“““What!?”””

At Maia’s words, the three of them leaned in eagerly. Since coming to this other world, and especially to the battlefield, their diet had gone steadily downhill. They were growing kids who burned calories on magic, and the three could pack away amounts of food that would amaze even hardy warriors.

They were probably lucky to be eating at all. But food with more calories, and tastier on top of that, had captured the three of them and wasn’t letting go.

“I want it! I want it!!”

“M-meat and white bread. It’s been nothing but beans and potatoes lately.”

“I want some too… please.”

Even the three heroes whose names rang through the neighboring countries reacted just like kids their age. Maia smiled, charmed, and at the same time worried that they were so easy to win over that someone might bait them with food and carry them off.