novelraw Chapter 171 : Chapter 171
Chapter 171 : Chapter 171
171
"Th-th-this is all a trick! It makes no sense! Building a collapsed wall overnight! Are you telling me they have a 6th-circle mage over there?!"
One of the nobles shouted, cold sweat running down his face.
That was the correct answer.
"Exactly! Right! Ha! A wall like that is nothing but an illusion! Look at it! Glass and sand are all mixed together! It is going to crumble in no time!"
Another noble shouted.
That was the incorrect answer.
"It must be illusion magic! Yes! Just assume we got tricked, assume we went mad, and treat that wall as real! But even so, can it stop us? They say siege defense multiplies by three! Their numbers cannot even make a hundred! We are thirty-four thousand! Unless they can match one against a hundred — no, one against five hundred — they cannot defeat us!"
One against five hundred was nothing. One against a thousand was entirely possible.
Among them, several could easily clean up these soldiers single-handedly.
That was the strategic value of a Sword Master.
So this noble's statement was also the incorrect answer.
"The other side must know that. And yet they are being so brazen — does that not mean they have another trick hidden up their sleeve?"
An answer that was ambiguous to classify as correct or incorrect.
"Sir Perso warned us not to attack. That thing — what was it — 'ori'? 'ona'?"
"Aura."
"Right, Aura! I hear they have learned that new sword art trending among blade-wielders in the Empire these days."
"Ha! What is the big deal about learning some third-rate technique like that! On our side, we have as many as ten knights who have mastered the time-honored Advanced Swordsmanship — ten! Surely every lord here has that many, do they not?!"
"Ahem, well, on our side, about fifteen have learned it."
"I misspoke! We have seventeen knights who have mastered it!"
"Eighteen."
This was no longer a matter of correct or incorrect answers.
They were simply half-wits.
Or perhaps a farce.
Perso did his utmost to rein in his inner thoughts.
If he did not, his contempt — that these men were utterly pathetic — would have shown plainly on his face.
"Is it really that dire?"
The lord contracted with Perso kept glancing at him as though he still could not believe it.
His liege had guarded the border with the Kingdom of Namress alongside him, but he was not the sort of man who paid attention to the actual work.
He had merely heard rumors about Aura and the like, which made him marginally more cautious than the rest.
"Judging by the look of things, these men have been producing incorrect answers one after another. Do not join in with their opinions. Withdraw passively."
"But then when it comes time to discuss merits, we will be pushed to the back and gain nothing......"
Perso had to exert a little more effort to hide his inner thoughts.
His lord was no different from the others.
Combat achievements? Merits?
These men were carrying on as though they had already won.
"Do you have any idea how much money we have invested rushing all the way here? It was a blessing that Goldline lent us funds at the standard interest rate, but to recoup it we need to at least walk away with one of the royal court's heirlooms."
"If you charge in like this, you will not walk away with any royal heirlooms. You will be recorded in history only as a single line of royal combat merits."
Was he going to throw his life away over sunk costs?
This was no different from the logic of compulsive gamblers.
"......Understood."
Perso gave up on trying to persuade his liege.
"Pack your things."
Instead, he made plans for his own survival.
He quietly relayed his strategy to his attendants and a few soldiers.
When the battle began, he would, through a retainer's "mistake," be slightly delayed in setting out.
He would get swept up among the other units, unable to keep himself together, and fall behind.
That brief hesitation would save his life.
"Is that really all right?"
"Mine was a wandering life to begin with. There is no need to risk my life for a foolish lord."
"But if it comes to that, ugly rumors will spread."
Knights valued honor above skill.
Rebellion was the gravest sin.
"It is fine. This is not rebellion — it is, in fact, loyalty."
On the opposing side, there was royalty.
"I serve not nobles, but the nation."
"You might as well become a soldier."
"Would you enlist together with me?"
"If we enlist as a pair, does that make us classmates?"
"I would be a commissioned officer. You would be a common soldier."
The retainer who had been at his side for ten years laughed.
And soon after, the grand army of the Capital Reclamation Force began to advance forward, thoroughly gripped by fear.
Only the nobles still burned with courage and fighting spirit.
Only a few sharp-eyed knights quietly slipped backward against the flow of the battlefield and disappeared.
"I will go."
Sihan had passed out cold right after raising the wall.
It was more accurate to say he had collapsed from total exhaustion.
The Academy students could not be relied upon either.
They were spent, having practiced with the cannons all through the night.
"We can go!"
Rozalin and the mercenary guild members volunteered, but Cassian waved them off.
They would certainly produce good results too.
But in the meantime, countless people would die.
What was needed now was not a physical sword, but a sword at the abstract level.
Cassian headed toward the outside of the castle gates, his footsteps echoing.
The citizens of the capital climbed the wall in droves to watch Cassian's retreating back.
Thud. Thud. Thud!
On the opposite side, the soldiers were advancing with hesitant steps.
The sound of over thirty thousand soldiers' footsteps was like thunder rolling across the earth.
Moreover, those footsteps fell without any discipline, creating a noise that felt like an endless downpour of rain approaching from far away.
And yet — for some reason.
The sound of a single man's footsteps erased that pouring rain and rang out clearly in the ears of everyone in the capital.
"Hoo."
Cassian steadied his breathing and slowly drew his sword.
At that very moment.
"Wh-what?!"
Every gaze converged on him.
How could it not?
From the sword he had drawn, a white holy radiance rose and pulsed with brilliance.
Anyone could tell.
That sword was no ordinary blade.
"No way, the Holy Sword?! What?! Why?!"
Rozalin stared at her teacher with eyes wide as saucers.
When in the world had he gotten a sword like that, and how?
No, getting it was one thing.
But if he had taken the Holy Sword out of the Holy Kingdom, how was Teacher still alive?
He was not supposed to be — no, even if he was not supposed to die, it still made no sense?
It felt like her brain was tying itself in knots.
"F-fake! There is no way that man could have the Holy Sword!"
Among the nobles, some had recognized the Holy Sword.
The reactions coming from them could not have occurred otherwise.
At first, the soldiers and some knights had regarded Cassian's blade as nothing more than a fine sword.
But now they were hearing that it was, of all things, the Holy Sword.
"The H-Holy Sword? Is that not the treasure of the Holy Kingdom?"
"Did the royal court arrange something with the Holy Kingdom?"
"There is no way! I said it is all fake!"
"But if that really is the Holy Sword, is this not an outrageous act of sacrilege?!"
"W-we could be branded as heretics and killed!"
At that moment, a piercing screech rang from above, accompanied by a Griffon's cry.
The Griffon Cassian had released beforehand was reacting to the Holy Sword's aura.
"A black Griffon! It is an Inquisitor!"
That was the spark.
The more guileless the people, the more they believed in myth and the more fanatically they embraced religion.
The soldiers dragged here were mostly men who had hunted monsters in quiet countryside villages.
Faced with the sudden appearance of a sacred being, they scattered in total disarray and halted their advance.
No — they fled.
"H-halt! Halt! Any man who retreats now will be executed on the spot!"
"If you do not want to die, turn and fight! It is just one man!"
Yet the very nobles shouting those commands were already backing away.
To Cassian, that entire scene looked pitiful and fleeting.
'So let me cut them down.'
He raised his sword to a high guard and swept it straight down.
At the same time, the world split in two.
Or it seemed that way.
"Ah."
Nothing visible had been cut, yet everything felt as though it had been severed.
No one was wounded, yet no one could fight.
It was a peculiar sword stroke.
"Ahh......"
It was a sword that those who knew blades could not help but be enchanted by.
The most beautiful sword in the world traced an arc even more beautiful than itself.
People scattered like dust carried on the wind.
There were no casualties, yet no one remained who could fight.
***
"......You are not actually a monster, are you? No, you are not a demon, are you?"
Charlotte stared at me with a look of utter disbelief.
Ever since that day, that had been her expression every time we met.
"I am a human being."
"No, does it make any sense for a human to drive people off like that? I was expecting you to shout 'Come at me one at a time! I will take you on!' and then cut down maybe a hundred enemy knights in single combat."
"That is not impossible, actually."
"But driving off thirty thousand in a single stroke, wow......"
"I got lucky."
"Lucky? Can that be done with luck?"
"My skill was good too, then."
"Unbelievable. You are so brazen, and yet you are genuinely that skilled, so I cannot even say anything."
I had said that to the princess, but honestly, I had gotten lucky.
The more I wielded the abstract sword, the more I understood.
This sword was not invincible.
'If the enemy had anyone who could handle sword aura a little more freely, it would have been blocked.'
The abstract sword was ultimately no different from an ordinary sword.
Just as a sword could be blocked with a sword, an abstract sword could be blocked with an abstract sword.
Right now it only worked because I was the only one capable of wielding a sword at the abstract level......
If the opponent could wield something on a similar level, this kind of trick would not work.
"There are people who can do that?"
The Wolf King could likely wield something on a comparable level.
His movements were superior to mine, and his martial skill was on an entirely higher plane.
If the Spear God continued training, within a month — at most within half a year — he would reach this level as well.
6th-circle mages maintained similar forms of mental barriers, so it would be possible for them too.
As I counted off, one by one, the people who could defend against me, Charlotte furrowed her brow.
"So you are saying it takes that level of master to block it."
"Well, they would be blocking it at least."
"Let me just drop it. Ah. Hand me those documents."
I held out the stack of documents I had organized to Princess Charlotte.
No — she was no longer a princess.
Charlotte Belmein.
The twelfth monarch of the Belmein royal house, and the first Queen in its history.
The moment she arrived at the Academy City, she had rushed through her coronation ceremony at lightning speed.
'I am probably the only damn monarch in the world whose coronation was an enrollment ceremony for graduate school.'
And then she had blitzed through the handover of everything related to the Academy City's operations.
'Even the teaching assistant work got dumped on me — this really is the sorrow of a lowly graduate student, is it not?'
And Charlotte made full use of the power that had come to her.
'I am the queen, right?'
'Yes, that is correct.'
'And all of you are my subjects residing in my territory, correct?'
'?'
'Then let us work on this together. No — do it.'
'?!'
Which was why I was now doing administrative work at Queen Charlotte's side.
An instructor being harassed by a graduate student.
The order of the education world was crumbling.
"Why are you making that face again?"
Charlotte shot me a sharp look, as though she had read my thoughts.
The moment I pretended not to notice and tried to return to work —
A chill.
A peculiar aura ran down the back of my neck, sending my whole body on edge.
In my memory, only one person gave off fighting spirit at this level.
"It has been a while."
The Wolf King, and no one else.
I turned my head in the direction of the voice.
The window of the Royal Castle.
There, the Wolf King was perched on the sill as though he had come by for a casual visit.