I Became a Witch and Started an Industrial Revolution

Chapter 20: No Matter How Noble, Can He Have More Lives?

“They’re coming for us!”

The words from among the soldiers were like a huge rock thrown into a lake, stirring up violent ripples.

Panic instantly spread throughout the army.

Seeing the meteor shower in the sky drawing closer and closer, they already understood—this was magic! Someone had cast magic on them!

Magic...

Meteor Shower! Ninth tier!

The strongest combination attack magic just beneath forbidden spells—in terms of destructive range, it could barely reach the level of a forbidden spell.

Hovering mid-air, Mitia looked at the seemingly slow yet in truth extremely fast meteorites in the sky.

Calming her mind, she shouted loudly:

“All personnel, immediately gather at the field hospital under the sergeants’ lead! Hurry!!!”

With that, she flickered back into the house, scooped up the dazed Anna in her arms, and flew toward the temporary field hospital.

Landing on the rooftop of the hospital, she threw out a heap of high-grade rare magic crystals as if they cost nothing: “Anna, help me check if they’ve arrived!”

Anna also saw the meteorites plunging rapidly from the sky.

She quickly ran to the edge of the building to look.

At this time, the first batch of soldiers from the Astal Territory had just entered the hospital under their officers’ guidance.

But not many had managed to get inside; most were still standing outside.

Anna’s mind raced, quickly calculating the numbers: “One group has arrived! Roughly two thousand people!”

“There’s another group still on the way! Their numbers more or less match the rest of those left in the city.

There’s still time! But...”

Anna hesitated, finally swallowing back her words.

Suddenly, the large meteorites in the sky burst apart, turning into countless glowing fragments that accelerated downwards.

By now, Mitia was already standing at the center of the crystal pile.

She spread her arms, closed her eyes, and the mound of crystals beneath her feet lit up with dazzling brilliance.

Her long silver-white hair lifted without wind.

Her feet slowly rose off the ground, floating in midair.

Wisps of icy elemental threads spread outward from beneath her with incredible speed.

As the flowing threads spread to a certain range, they began to link together, ultimately forming a vast pale blue magic array around the hospital, enveloping everyone within.

“Crack, crack, crack...”

A violent radiance burst forth.

Anna turned back to see crystalline shattering beneath Mitia’s feet.

A trickle of crimson spilled from the corner of her lips.

“Rise!”

A wave of invisible magic power exploded out from her.

With the replenished magic, the enormous pale blue array instantly turned icy blue.

At its edges, ice walls shot upward, rapidly folding inward toward the center.

And within less than ten seconds of the ice walls sealing into a hemispherical barrier, a deafening bombardment like torrential rain came crashing down.

The ice wall’s surface trembled violently, and in that moment, time itself seemed to slow.

No one knew how long had passed before the outside noise finally ceased.

The semicircular ice barrier slowly receded and melted away.

Soldiers who had survived by a hair collapsed weakly onto the ground.

Inside Har Town, devastation was everywhere.

Craters of all sizes marred the land.

Nearly every wooden structure stood precariously, on the verge of collapse.

“Milady! Are you alright? Are you hurt?!”

Seeing Mitia descend, the anxious Anna immediately embraced her and checked her over.

Mitia raised a hand to stop her and, clutching her stomach with a frown, replied:

“I’m fine, just... ate too much all at once...”

This spell was one she could cast on her own, but not with such speed and on such a massive scale.

So, she had taken a different path—absorbing enormous quantities of magic crystal energy and then releasing it all at once to feed the magic array.

Using herself as a magic battery in this way—even for a witch, a natural darling of magic—was unbearable.

It would leave her suffering for days.

“What’s the situation?”

“No one is hurt, except for you...”

Mitia shook her head: “I’m alright. This time it was my carelessness. I didn’t expect them to be so willing to spend.”

To release such a large ninth-tier combination spell and only let her detect the elemental fluctuations after it was fully unleashed—apart from a magic scroll, there was no other possibility.

Only a scroll could behave this way: once enough mana was fed into it, tearing it open would instantly release the magic.

Thankfully, she was ninth tier as well.

Otherwise, she could only have grabbed Anna and fled.

But outside the town...

Mitia looked toward the outskirts.

From the trajectory of the spell, the strike within the town was merely collateral—the real target was the defensive positions outside Har Town.

The good news was that, after all, Meteor Shower was still only ninth tier.

Its expanded area of effect inevitably weakened its single-point destructive power.

Thus, though the meteorites fell thick and fast, they were quite small.

Wooden houses and human flesh could not withstand them, but the cement fortifications outside town could.

The premise, however, was that the soldiers had enough time to reach cover...

Below, unnoticed by Mitia, soldiers who had survived, covered in soot and dust, stared blankly at the devastated streets and houses.

In their hands, they gripped tightly the rifles that had once changed their fate, yet the sense of helplessness in their hearts grew heavier and heavier.

In their ears seemed to echo the taunts they had heard countless times before:

“Do you know what this is? This is magic!”

“Lowborns are still lowborns—worthless without mana.”

“It is only us of noble blood who can wield such power. You wretches exist only to serve as our beasts of burden.”

After a pause, Mitia descended with Anna from the rooftop.

At last, she sensed the wrongness in the atmosphere around them.

Raising a brow, she asked: “What’s wrong with you all?”

The surrounding soldiers, seeing Mitia, instinctively saluted.

“Commander!”

“Commander, sir!”

Mitia waved her hand: “Just ‘Commander’ is enough. No need for ‘sir.’ Hasn’t the Soldiers’ Committee told you? Officers and soldiers are equals. Now speak—what’s the matter? Frick, you tell me!”

Hearing Mitia call his name, Frick straightened instinctively, then lowered his head again and spoke in a low voice: “If not for Commander just now, all of us without magic would have died.”

She said nothing, but turned to ask the others around her: “And you? Do you all think the same?”

“...Yes, I think so too. If not for Commander, we’d all be dead by now.”

“Only magic can fight magic. And we... will never in this lifetime be able to use magic.”

“......”

Mitia listened quietly to their grievances.

“You’re right. But have you ever thought of looking at it another way? For example, what kind of mage would also die under this very spell?”

“He would be at least a viscount, with a noble title, holding dominion over this town beneath our feet, and wielding the power of life and death over tens of thousands like you.”

“But under such devastating magic, he would die just the same! Just like you—his noble bloodline won’t grant him an extra life.”

“So, how have we endured this war until now? Because of my magic?”

“You know full well—that’s not it! It’s because of the weapons in your hands! It’s because of the cannons on the walls! Because comrades like you made them.”

“Even without magic, we can still wield power like magic.”

The more Mitia spoke, the brighter the eyes of those around her became: “The explosive might of our heavy cannons can already kill these so-called noble mages at will. In the future, our rifles will too.”

“So why should you despair? Raise your heads and look at me. Now tell me again—without magic, do you fear them?”

“No!!!”

“Then grip the weapons in your hands, and answer their magic with our own!”