A Regressor's Bucket List

Chapter 236 : The North (15)

When I pushed aside the flap of Commander-in-Chief ‘Kanna Cartier’s’ barracks and stepped out, the camp was already in an uproar.

- …What in the world is that.

- It looks ominous, no matter how you look at it.

- Is it some kind of net? Or maybe a curtain or something…….

Perhaps because they could tell at a glance that it was not a good omen, soldiers who knew nothing of magic pointed at the coarse curtain unfurled across the sky.

They exchanged words amongst themselves, guessing what it could be.

That much was still manageable.

Although a hint of anxiety tinged their voices, it wasn't as if full-blown terror had spread.

The atmosphere within the barracks began to take a more serious turn after that.

- …Priest! The healing magic isn't working.

- What? What kind of bullshit is that all of a sudden. Let me see…….

- Kuaaaack!

Screams, which hadn't been heard before, erupted from within the medical barracks lined up on one side of the camp.

It was because the barrier magic, which had been working fine until now, had lost its effect.

The flustered voices of priests could be heard, perhaps because healing magic wasn't working either, and in an instant, the surroundings plunged into chaos.

A black curtain.

The failure of holy magic.

At first glance, they were two completely unrelated elements, but Leonardo Louis Button, looking up at the black curtain, defined the two phenomena occurring now in a low voice.

“…The Black Sea has closed.”

* * *

The Black Sea has closed.

There weren't many who could understand what those words meant.

Leonardo Louis Button.

Ludwig Allegro.

Kanna Cartier.

And perhaps U-jin.

“…We're fucked. Fucking hell.”

After Leonardo Louis Button's murmur that the Black Sea had closed, Ludwig Allegro's vulgar curse burst out.

Normally, Louis Button would have given him a sharp retort, but this time, perhaps because he was thinking the same thing, he didn't say a word.

Flap-

Instead of adding anything to that, Kanna Cartier pushed aside the barracks curtain again, turned, and called for the nearby officers.

-Assemble.

-Assemble!

At Kanna Cartier's low voice, her adjutant standing beside the barracks repeated the order and waved a flag, and the officers in charge of each unit hurried into her barracks.

The reason why the three veteran High Priests, who had weathered all sorts of storms within the Order, reacted so sensitively was simple.

It was because Louis Button's words, ‘The Black Sea has closed,’ were not merely a metaphorical expression.

“…Why did it have to be this time, of all times.”

The curtain of the Black Sea.

It was something not many people knew, but the Black Sea would raise an intangible curtain above its waters on a cycle of about 100 years.

From the perspective of someone who didn't know, one might ask what was so special about that single line drawn across the sky, but for the Church Allied Subjugation Forces, the ‘curtain of the Black Sea’ was no different from poison.

The curtain of the Black Sea didn't just end at manifesting a form; it practically influenced the battlefield.

And it was a phenomenon that had an ‘immense’ influence.

Would it be easier to understand if I called it an upgraded version of the ‘mana turbulence phenomenon’ that occurs all over the Black Sea?

As the series of phenomena just witnessed explained, the curtain of the Black Sea interfered with the Order's magic.

No, to be precise, it was more accurate to say it ‘blocked’ it.

In the case of the mana turbulence phenomenon, the difficulty would just skyrocket, but it wasn't as if casting the Order's magic was entirely impossible.

But this curtain of the Black Sea, regardless of one's skill level, completely blocked the very function of magic at its source.

It was a rare phenomenon seen only once every 100 years, and since it occurred on such a massive scale, its exact mechanism had not yet been fully uncovered.

However, the principle of the Black Sea curtain phenomenon that the Order had grasped so far was linked to that of the mana turbulence phenomenon.

The unique, chaotic mana emanating from the Black Sea would accumulate, creating a mana storm, which would then get caught in the upper atmosphere, forming a sort of magic field.

That magic field wasn't on the scale of the area around a Hero, but one that swallowed the entire upper atmosphere of the Black Sea through an immense amount of mana.

This caused a very strong mana flow phenomenon and mana twisting phenomenon.

As a result, this affected all space beyond the Black Sea, interfering with the very formation of magic circles.

It would have been a relief if it just prevented activation.

Because if the Black Sea curtain spread further and completely obscured one's vision, it would go beyond simply preventing magic from forming; the magic circles themselves would run rampant, causing bizarre magical phenomena unintended by the caster.

‘…….’

The most important thing was that it fundamentally blocked the central hub that allowed the use of the Order's holy magic: the Order's Satellite Magic.

The blessing of the Cross Starlight, which had been applied across the entire battlefield and taken for granted, could no longer be enjoyed, and the system the Order prided itself on also lost its effectiveness.

In other words, all the advantages the Guardian Cross Order had been able to boast against the Demon King's Army were now blocked.

…That was why.

Why Kanna Cartier, Louis, and Ludwig had reacted so sensitively to the curtain of the Black Sea.

Moreover, the influence of the Black Sea curtain didn't end there.

The real problem was that this was happening in the middle of a ‘subjugation war’.

As with any war, one of the most crucial elements was ‘supplies’.

A war, whether long or short, inevitably consumes resources, and while this subjugation war couldn't yet be called a long-term one, the process of conquering the Orc Mountains lying ahead would not be easy, just as the Order had been deliberately putting it off.

The longer a war dragged on, the more important supplies became.

However, the only supply route the Guardian Cross Order's Allied Subjugation Forces currently had was the sea route through the beautiful reefs of the Black Sea.

Therein lay the problem.

The reason the Guardian Cross Order had tried to establish a supply route through the beautiful reefs on the Black Sea was that the other areas were not suitable for ships to navigate.

The mana turbulence phenomenon and the whirlpools are located throughout the Black Sea.

To avoid them, the Order's compass magic was essential, and as long as the curtain of the Black Sea was unfurled, using that compass magic on the sea was impossible.

In other words, they could no longer receive supplies through their established supply route.

No matter how many ships they loaded with supplies and sent out, as long as the curtain of the Black Sea was present, those ships would never be able to cross the Black Sea safely and arrive.

To make matters worse, the Allied Subjugation Forces had already consumed most of the supplies they had brought through several battles.

For the curtain of the Black Sea to appear right when they needed resupply was a terrible situation, nothing short of a ‘disaster’.

“…According to the records, it should last for at least two weeks.”

Louis muttered quietly.

In a battlefield, a severed supply line usually meant that the enemy had captured and cut it off from the rear. Normally, they would assess the scale and level of the enemy blocking the route and attempt to retake it or try something else.

But this was not a supply line seizure by the Demon King's Army; it was a blockade of the supply line caused by a natural phenomenon.

The Church Allied Forces had only two options here.

Either they somehow conquered the Orc Mountains before their supplies ran out, or they created a new supply route.

Or they could avoid battle here and wait until the curtain of the Black Sea lifted.

Of course, neither option had a high probability of success.

In the first place, since the battle for the Orc Mountains was the most crucial one in the Northern Subjugation War, there was no way the enemy would crumble no matter how hard they fought, given their poor supply situation and with holy magic unable to exert its full power.

And there was no way the Demon King's Army's strategist, Isaac Einstein, would give them time to wait for the Black Sea to clear before they returned.

Swish-

“…You don’t seem very surprised.”

“…I was thinking the same thing.”

The two men's eyes narrowed as they looked at U-jin.

“…What is that? I can tell it’s serious, but I need to know what it is to be surprised or not.”

“You didn’t know? That’s strange in its own way.”

“…Indeed.”

“……”

…What the hell do they want from me?

“If I know, it’s a problem, and if I don’t know, it’s a problem. What am I supposed to do?”

U-jin shrugged his shoulders and shook his head as if to say he didn't know.

…Of course, it went without saying.

‘…As if I wouldn’t know.’

It was an act that U-jin was putting his all into.

It was impossible not to know, even if he tried.

Because this ‘curtain of the Black Sea’ that had just appeared was the second trap Isaac Einstein had planted in the Northern Subjugation War.

This curtain of the Black Sea, retrospectively called the ‘Shutdown,’ had driven the Church Allied Forces—already half-destroyed by Isaac Einstein's Black Blood Disease in the first timeline—to a state of virtual annihilation.

Of course, it didn't mean that all the soldiers had actually died; it was an expression of how fatal the ‘blockade of holy magic’ and the ‘severing of the supply route’ were to the Northern Subjugation Allied Forces.

It wasn't an entirely inaccurate expression, considering the drastic decline in the capabilities of the Order's high-ranking troops due to the supply cutoff and the increased damage to the already hard-hit Hero-class forces.

But that didn't mean the Church Allied Forces in the first timeline had ended there.

If that had been the case, the Northern Subjugation War of the first timeline would have failed without them ever discovering Isaac Einstein's third trap.

‘…It should be about time for them to arrive.’

It was clear that the Northern Subjugation Army's failure was a foregone conclusion with just the second trap.

In the first timeline, the Northern Subjugation Army had managed to finish the battle for the Orc Mountains due to a certain incident and confirm Isaac Einstein's third trap.

Well, it was a pyrrhic victory, seeing as they failed in the end anyway.

But from the perspective of U-jin, who had regressed, it was quite encouraging.

If the Northern Subjugation War had failed without even attempting to take on the Orc Mountains, he would have been arrogant at this moment, thinking there were only two traps, without ever having confirmed Isaac Einstein's final one.

And the reason the Northern Subjugation Army, which had been on the verge of annihilation, didn't give up and decided to advance to the Orc Mountains was not, in fact, due to their own abilities.

A fateful encounter they had here.

It was thanks to the intervention of a certain third party that they were revived from the brink of death and could make such a decision.

Of course, having broken through both traps head-on, the current situation was incomparably better than the first timeline, so they could have decided to continue the subjugation war even without outside intervention.

But this alone was not enough.

Clank-

“…They should be coming.”