NOVEL NEXT Ch. 55
Chapter 55. Indika (2)
Magic is truly a strange thing.
As I learned magic through unorthodox means, I don't know the theory in detail, but I do know that it operates completely differently from existing laws of physics.
For example, let's say there's a bunker sturdy enough to block even a cannonball.
It should normally be able to easily block weaker bullets or arrows.
But in the world of magic, such logic doesn't apply.
This is because magic follows not only mathematical laws like action-reaction or conservation of energy, but also a logical structure similar to the grammar of a language.
Of course, this is just superficial knowledge I've picked up from reading game lore and copying spells, so it might not be accurate.
The enemies, who had been slowly advancing, stopped.
Within the range of the mortars.
Boom—
With a deafening roar, white smoke billowed from the enemy lines.
The characteristic sound of the wind grew closer.
The cannonball that had shot up was now arcing down to land.
In front of it.
“Hold the line.”
[Deploying [Lord's Unyielding Mind].]
I raise my staff.
Woooooooo—
The staff cried out.
It was resonating with the amulet in my pocket, producing a strange ringing.
It sounded like the wail of the dead.
From the amulet, which had greedily sucked up the necromantic mana, a purplish mana spread out like a wave.
That wave instantly enveloped me and the entire mercenary band.
Under the blazing sun, the faint purplish veil had a texture like a thin, half-melted sugar shell.
The sound of the wind was close.
The cannonball fell.
Right above my head and the heads of the 1st Company.
The cannonball struck the veil.
Boom!
A powerful impact.
However—
Thwump—!
The cannonball bounced off with an incomprehensible trajectory.
“Uh……!”
Someone cried out in amazement.
The round cannonball bounced weakly like a bunted baseball and embedded itself in the ground.
The infantrymen cautiously lowered their shields and watched the scene.
In the meantime, another cannonball fell overhead.
As if to deny the phenomenon that had just occurred before their eyes.
The result was the same.
Thump—!
The cannonball bounced off.
The round metal sphere rolled away powerlessly.
Watching it, I thought.
Gunpowder technology is older than one might think.
Its origins lie with the dwarves.
Gunpowder technology, which had been used for things like mining for centuries, was weaponized about 150 years ago and then slowly spread in all directions.
For reference, one of the dwarves' main enemies is the vampire.
150 years ago, the vampire Count Kashutal lost 80 percent of his undead in a battle against the dwarves.
Shocked by the formidable destructive power unleashed by a weapon with not a single speck of mana, he locked himself in his room and began searching for a solution.
The result was ‘Kashutal's Amulet’.
An item that would give Tribus an overwhelming advantage against the Empire and the dwarves in the late game.
And the item I had snuck out of Gunterburk, deceiving the eyes of the church.
Well, to be precise, I should say I received it in exchange for saving Gunterburk.
A fair trade.
Kwa-kwa-kwa-kwang!
The enemy artillery fired in unison.
I could guess what they were thinking.
Since firing one at a time seemed to make it bounce off, they probably intended to crush it with sheer firepower.
Anyway, as far as I knew, Kashutal's Amulet was created solely to block dwarven artillery.
However, even a high-ranking vampire had to add several restrictions to an artifact to imbue it with an effect powerful enough to repel cannonballs.
[Cannot block arrows or bullets.]
[Cannot block magic.]
[Cannot block melee attacks.]
[Cannot move while the item is active.]
[Cannot cast spells while the item is active.]
[Cannot be used by non-necromancers.]
[Activation Condition Level 1: Level 3 Necromancer or higher.]
[Activation Condition Level 2: Level 5 Necromancer or higher.]
A vast number of penalties that took up more than half of the item description.
However, the effect that followed made those numerous restrictions seem trivial.
[Deploys a defensive barrier upon activation by level.]
[Level 1 Effect: Blocks non-magical artillery.]
[Level 2 Effect: Reflects non-magical artillery.]
I drew out more mana.
As I poured in enough mana to cast the 5th-tier spell, Spirit Shield, the amulet in my pocket began to react differently.
Woah-wooooah—
A sound like a chorus of low screams.
A defensive barrier that visibly thickened even to the naked eye.
Dozens of cannonballs, arcing through the air, fell upon it.
There was no powerful impact sound like before.
The cannonballs disappeared into the barrier, creating ripples as if stones were dropped into a pond.
And the next moment, they shot back up along the exact same trajectory, as if time was reversing.
Tracing the same parabola they had just drawn.
Towards the artillery of the Indika army from where they had originated.
Kugugung! Kugugugugu……!!
The enemy's rear.
The pillars of fire that shot up were clearly visible despite being several kilometers away.
I looked back at the mercenary band, which was submerged in silence.
Everyone was staring blankly at the enemy lines with their mouths agape.
I smiled lightly and dismissed the barrier.
“What are you doing.”
The mercenaries, jolted back to their senses, lowered their gazes.
An incomprehensible sight had unfolded before their eyes, but people of this era were surprisingly resistant to such things.
I lowered my staff and drew my sword.
“Advance.”
* * *
‘God gives three chances. Man ignores three chances.’
Arup Roshan, the commander of the Indika forces.
In his homeland, there was such a proverb.
In truth, Arup was not one to pay attention to proverbs or sayings.
Like most young commanders of Indika, he was obsessed with embracing new culture and foreign ideologies.
Old proverbs were just the domain of old men who would soon be buried in the desert.
At least, that was what he thought until an hour ago.
“Kuaaargh!”
“D-die! Dieee!”
“Mother, mo….”
Screams.
Shouts.
The noise of clashing weapons and the sound of bullets and arrows cutting through the air overhead.
“Roshan Sahib! Retreat, you must retreat!”
His adjutant urged him to retreat.
Instead of following his words, Arup thought.
How did things get to this point?
Looking back, there had been many chances.
The result of eavesdropping on the communication sphere had clearly shown that the pro-imperial special forces that had infiltrated the rear was just a single mercenary band.
He had also received confirmation from his superiors that it was a newly formed mercenary band.
They had no real achievements, and the captain had only shown great prominence in a couple of battles.
If it was a new mercenary band, their numbers wouldn't be large.
He had expected them to be at most two or three hundred, as their financial situation would be poor.
‘Roshan Sahib! The number of enemy troops is greater than expected. They seem to be just over a thousand.’
So, when he found out their size was three to four times larger than expected.
‘Are those… a mercenary band? No matter how I look at them, their armament is identical to the Imperial army's.’
Or when he saw that the enemies, unlike typical mercenaries, had unified armament and organization, and that it was a direct copy of the Imperial army's.
‘A-all hits… Hiaaargh!’
Even when the mortar barrage drew an unbelievable trajectory and returned to annihilate the entire artillery unit.
He surely could have turned back.
But Arup Roshan did not.
There were several reasons.
They still had a two-to-one numerical advantage.
The enemy advanced openly, as if ignoring the difference in numbers.
And they had the powerful decisive weapon, the war elephant.
It was a miscalculation.
Arup Roshan had kicked away the last chance God had given him.
Swiiish—!
An arrow cut through the air.
“Arup Roshan Sahib! Rosha—uk!”
The arrowhead pierced through the neck of the adjutant who was shaking his shoulder.
It was a sniper shot.
One that had already taken down over ten commanders.
The sniper, not with a rifle but with a bow, had been picking off key figures one by one with ghostly skill since the beginning of the battle.
The cavalry commander had been hit by an arrow and fell, and the mage had also fallen.
Arup Roshan instinctively followed the direction the arrow came from with his eyes.
An archer with flowing brown hair was aiming a bow this way.
The arrowhead, which had been aimed precisely at Arup Roshan's head, soon shifted its angle slightly and pierced the eyeball of his own archery commander.
Arup felt a chill.
They're not killing me?
Are they planning to take me prisoner?
However, there was no time to continue his thoughts.
The last remaining war elephant fell.
Pwoooooooo—!
The elephant collapsed, letting out a long cry.
The Indika archers on its back fell off in a heap.
His trump card was gone.
It was because of the enemy mages.
The earth school mages had raised barriers to trap them, and the riflemen and crossbowmen had fired in unison.
The war elephants, sensing the crisis, struggled, but the ground held the feet of these giant beasts like a swamp.
‘What kind of mercenary band has so many mages…!’
Arup bit his lip.
Whatever the case, he had to escape.
He rolled his eyes, searching for an escape route.
A frontal breakthrough was impossible.
Infantrymen in the Imperial army formation with spears, swords, and shields were blocking the way.
One flank was being slaughtered by soldiers with halberds and greatswords.
The other flank was impossible to break through due to the carcasses of the war elephants and the churned-up earth.
All that was left was the rear.
Turning his back to the enemy was humiliating, but he had to live.
Just as Arup thought this and turned with a small number of his personal guards, a horn sounded.
Dudududududu…!
The sound of horse hooves shook the ground.
A cavalry force of over one hundred strong struck the rear of the Indika army.
Although most of them were light cavalry, their impact was beyond imagination.
This was because the one leading the charge was a knight.
“Aura…!”
A white-haired knight swinging a sword imbued with blue aura.
The aura on his sword seemed to not just cover the blade but to have doubled its length.
With every swing of his sword, five or six soldiers fell.
Shields and weapons were shattered.
The few heavy infantrymen were cut down, armor and all.
The front line, which had been fighting desperately despite being surrounded on three sides, crumbled under this impact.
The cavalry had reached them.
Seeing his personal guards being struck by the horses and sent flying, Arup Roshan closed his eyes.
However, the imminent death did not befall him.
Instead, a young voice was heard.
“Arup Roshan Sahib.”
Clack.
The sound of someone dismounting.
Arup opened his eyes.
It was a mage in his youth.
Ashen hair half-hidden by a helmet.
Gray eyes that looked as if the color had faded from black dye.
He approached, armed with the strange combination of a staff in his left hand and a sword in his right.
The terrifying knight who had just been slaughtering the infantrymen was sitting on his horse, glaring this way with glinting eyes.
“Arup Roshan Sahib.”
The young man called him again.
Seeing him being addressed with the unique Indika honorific, Arup knew.
This man is the mercenary captain.
The one who had distinguished himself in two battles.
Having learned some of the Imperial language, Arup asked back in the same language.
“Do you know me?”
“I heard your soldiers calling you that.”
“In this chaos? You have good ears.”
“Why did you massacre the village?”
Arup Roshan did not answer.
He just smiled and drew his sword.
The knight with the aura-wreathed sword tried to step forward, but the young man stopped him with a raised hand.
He asked again.
“Who ordered it?”
Arup took a deep breath.
The surroundings were filled with noise.
The sound of steel. The squelch of blood and guts. The sound of crashing and breaking.
Noises he was familiar with.
In truth, Arup's command ability was not very good.
He had risen to this position thanks to his swordsmanship.
He was born in the fighting pits of Indika.
He had killed hundreds and survived in the hellscape called the fighting pit, catching the eye of a royal.
Surviving in such a hellscape gives you a unique sense for people.
A kind of insight to see how strong an opponent is.
Therefore, Arup could tell.
The young man before him, even in a hell worse than the fighting pit.
Even in a real hell where thousands were being tortured alive, would not waver an inch.
That meant the one who had planned all these strategies and systems was the mercenary captain before him.
And if he killed him, the probability of his own survival would also increase a little.
Fortunately, after being chosen by the royal, he had met a good master and learned the first half of the secret techniques that only the king's personal guard could learn.
He had not yet mastered it all, but it should be enough to take care of one mage who had come within range.
With that thought, Arup lunged forward in an instant.
He saw the enemy knight flinch, but it was useless.
He was faster.
Even in its immature stage, it was a secret art that was faster than any other swordsmanship in terms of speed alon—
“—Ughuh?”
Something flashed, and his vision spun once.
In the view that flipped from sky to ground, Arup could see his own torso, with everything above the chest gone.
Did I lose?
To a mage?
Was it a spell?
Perhaps because he was on the threshold of death, every scene and thought flowed slowly.
In that slowness, Arup could see the ashen-haired mercenary captain.
The mercenary captain, who had somehow lunged forward and was now standing back-to-back with his torso-only self, had his sword arm extended.
Arup knew that stance.
It was the final stance of the secret art he had learned.
So perfect that it was as if he was seeing an overlay of what his master had shown him.
“There was no need to rush in like that, was there?”
How did he learn the secret art of the royal guard?
“Thanks, anyway. This is hard to come by.”
And what did he mean by that, as if he had just found a silver coin on the street?
Suddenly, curiosity filled his mind, but no sound came from his throat, from which the lungs had been severed.
Arup Roshan's vision soon went dark.
* * *
[Deploying [Warrior's Binding].]
[Bound the defeated enemies.]
[Indika Mortar (1), Indika Elephant Unit (1), Indika Heavy Infantry (5), Indika Rifleman (3), Indika Archer (6), Indika Slave Soldier (19)]
[Deploying [Warrior's Insight].]
[Skills acquired.]
[Devouring Purgatory (Level 5)]
[Tuivat High Priest's Swift Sword (Level 4)]
[Achievement Unlocked! You have countered an unexpected surprise attack with the same technique.]
[Acquiring a random trait.]
[Selective Loss of Taste]
[If it tastes terribly bad, how about giving up your sense of taste? You can selectively not feel taste and nausea. You gain immunity to digestive disorders, including food poisoning and parasites, excluding extreme poisons.]