Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 6

Chapter 6:

Preparations for War

THE NEXT DAY, I went out on a date with Zanoba. Our destination was an open plain just to the north of Fort Karon, which also happened to be the most likely site for the coming battle.

Zanoba had delivered his invitation by barging into my room first thing in the morning and announcing, “There’s somewhere I’d like to take you.” Since he evidently wanted the details of his plans to be a surprise, I tagged along without asking any questions—only to end up here.

To be fair, my heart was racing at the moment, just not in a pleasant way. This area was contested territory. There was no telling when we might encounter some enemy detachment.

“Hey, are you sure it’s a good idea for us to be out here?”

“Hm? Why so jumpy, Master Rudeus?”

“We might run into the enemy at any moment, right? Aren’t they sitting right on our doorstep?”

“Strange words, coming from a fearless warrior who challenged the Dragon God himself! We can simply annihilate any force we happen to encounter.”

I’m sorry, did you just call me a fearless warrior? I think that’s literally the last thing I would call myself. Perhaps you have me confused with my lovely wife, Eris? Though…I do have the Magic Armor Version Two on underneath this robe. I guess getting ambushed by some random grunts wouldn’t be too much of a problem…

“In any case,” Zanoba continued, “I highly doubt we’ll stumble on their scouts here, close enough to be visible from Fort Karon.”

“Uh, don’t you have that backwards? I feel like they’d have to get in close enough to see the fort, if they want to bring back any useful information.”

“A reasonable argument, but according to Garrick, the enemy already knows our exact numbers. One or two men may be monitoring our movements from the shadows, but surely not an entire scouting party.”

Hmm. Well, all right then. If you say so. Can’t say I’m too happy that they know how small the garrison is, though…

“Good to hear, Zanoba. I guess. But would you mind telling me what we’re doing out here in the first place? You gonna get down on one knee and confess your love for me?”

“Haha! I’m terribly fond of you, Master Rudeus, but I can’t say I have any romantic interest in men. Ah, but I understand such tastes are quite common among the nobles of Asura, aren’t they?”

“Uh, maybe…but my family seems to turn out nothing but womanizers.”

The Notos clan had a history of producing sons who loved extremely busty women in particular. Although I suppose that wasn’t the rarest of fetishes in general. Now, don’t get me wrong—I was an exception to this rule! I enjoyed breasts in all their shapes and sizes…just like half the other men in this world.

“That aside, allow me to explain. We believe this area is where the enemy’s forces will array themselves when they launch their attack in earnest.”

“Oh, yeah?”

I surveyed our surroundings again. It didn’t take long, because there wasn’t much to see.

A rolling field spread before us, dotted with patches of tall wild grass and sizable boulders. There were dips and hills in the terrain, but overall, it sloped downward as you moved away from Fort Karon. From our current position, we had to look up at the fort from below. Plus, the nearby river flowed from south to north, so you’d have to fight the current to make any progress on the water. They really had placed that fort in the perfect spot.

“How do we know they’re going to position themselves right here?”

“Because this area is just close enough for the archers’ volleys to reach us.”

“Hmm…”

The fort looked pretty far away from here, but I had to take Zanoba’s word for it. It sounded like those archers had impressive range. Of course, our guys would be shooting down at them from the ramparts of the fort, so we’d still have the advantage there no matter what.

“Accordingly, I would like to alter the terrain here to make it impossible for them to properly array their troops.”

“Ah, okay. Now I get it.”

If I made the terrain out here difficult to traverse, the enemy would be forced to deploy their forces a little further from the fort. That would leave them in an awkward spot where our archers could still hit them, but their archers couldn’t fire back. And if I could make it difficult for them to move forward through this area, it would be much easier to pick them off from above as they advanced. 

All in all, it was a smart preemptive move.

“Well then, Master Rudeus—have at it, if you please.”

“Sure thing. What kind of terrain can I get you today?”

“A mountain would be lovely. Or perhaps a valley.”

“Okay, one valley coming up…”

In the end, I spent most of the day out in that field, thoroughly reshaping its terrain. I started by opening a number of yawning trenches in the ground—each about ten meters deep, five meters long, and twenty meters wide. Then I covered some of them with a thin ‘lid’ of soil, turning them into simple pitfall traps. The trenches were too huge to be easily filled, and I’d placed them fairly close together. If the enemy was planning on hitting us with catapults or something, they’d have a hell of a time rolling them into range. Oh, and the walls were far too steep to climb, naturally. They had little hope of clambering inside them to use as defensive positions or anything.

While I was at it, I whipped up a stone wall, enclosing the natural rivers that already surrounded Fort Karon, and created an extra moat on the outside for more layered protection. This would make it tough for the enemy to see what we were up to from a distance. Even if they managed to push past my pitfalls, they’d have a slightly harder time getting at the fort itself.

“Phew. Okay, I think that’s an improvement.”

“My thanks, Master Rudeus. Your work is as superb as ever.”

It took a solid day of work to get everything completed, but I had been very thorough. It sure as hell wasn’t going to be easy for anyone to march an army through this field.

“Maybe we can relax a little now, huh?”

“Oh, I wouldn’t say that,” said Zanoba calmly. “I’d imagine you could destroy our fort from the far side of these traps, couldn’t you?”

“True enough.” I could see the fort from here. That meant it was well inside my effective range.

“Then,” he said, “it seems prudent to assume that other mages could attack us from that range as well.”

True, I didn’t actually know what kind of range your average magician had on their spells, but any higher-ranked mage could manage it for sure. And it was possible the Man-God had arranged to send some King- or Saint-tier mage our way.

“Alternatively, our opponent might put their mages to work filling in your traps,” Zanoba suggested.

Most of my work today had consisted of constructing those pitfall trenches. For a bunch of holes in the ground, they were effective obstacles. But they were also…nothing but a bunch of holes in the ground. They might be dealt with almost instantly if the other army happened to have an earth mage in their ranks.

“In either scenario,” Zanoba continued, “I believe the first phase of the battle will require you and Miss Roxy to counter or disrupt the enemy’s spells.” 

“Oh. Yeah, that makes sense.”

We did have two excellent mages on our own side, didn’t we? If the enemy tried to mess with my landscaping efforts, the two of us could just counter their spells from a distance. 

“I hope to elaborate further at a later date,” said Zanoba, “but essentially, the traps you laid today form one part of our larger plan.” 

When the enemy saw my traps, they would array their forces on the other side and try to find some way to advance. Basically, they could either use mages to alter the terrain or try to push through with a massive human wave. In the former case, I’d counter their spells; in the latter, our archers would pick them off from the fort.

It seemed like a solid strategy. I couldn’t imagine the enemy would overwhelm us easily, at least.

I was starting to feel almost confident about our chances here.

The next three days or so passed uneventfully.

The Magic Armor Version One had been delivered to the fort, and I took the time to piece it together. It was fundamentally designed for close-range combat, though, so I probably wouldn’t equip it unless the enemy made it to the fort’s walls. I didn’t want to burn through all my mana stomping around in it, given that I might have to fight one of the Seven Great Powers right after this.

After all that, I spent most of my time reinforcing the fort under Zanoba’s direction. Mostly, this just involved sealing holes and strengthening the walls. None of these were jobs that required a lot of mana, so I was happy to help out.

While I was patching things up, Roxy gave magic lessons to the troops—not only the combat mages, but the ordinary foot soldiers as well. Even if they just managed to learn a basic spell or two, it might save their life in a pinch.

Perhaps because of her reputation as a former court magician, Roxy seemed to be pretty popular with the garrison in general. The troops treated her with obvious respect. On the other hand, I felt like people were starting to avoid me. Not like they were hostile or anything; they were more intimidated. I guess they’d been a bit spooked by the way I’d totally transformed the terrain in a single day. Every time I strolled around the fort, soldiers would jump out of my way like startled rabbits. When I asked someone a question, they’d answer politely; but it was really rare for anyone to speak to me first.

It was kind of depressing, honestly. Especially since Zanoba and Roxy already seemed to have earned their trust. Maybe they just had better social skills than me? There was always the aggressively talkative approach, but I wasn’t sure if it would help this time…

Well, I hadn’t come here to make friends or anything, so it wasn’t the end of the world. Just kind of a downer.

It wasn’t all bad here, anyway. The people weren’t too friendly, but the food was delicious. That was actually a side effect of Pax’s close ties with the King Dragon Realm. Although they hadn’t sent him an army of reinforcements, they provided material support for Shirone’s war effort. For the most part, it came in the form of food supplies. Sanakia rice was the staple of the King Dragon Realm diet. You could find it in Shirone as well, but in this fort it was the main component of our meals. Its flavor was a bit different from the “Aisha rice” we were developing back in Sharia. To put it bluntly, it wasn’t quite as good. Aisha had been experimenting to improve our home-grown variety according to my tastes, after all. 

Still, rice was rice, and I got to eat it every single day. I was half-tempted to enlist as a soldier of Shirone, if this was how they fed them. 

Too bad that would mean having Pax for a boss.

Anyway…on the fourth day, we got word from our forward scouts that the enemy army had deployed from their own fort.

The enemy would be coming for us soon. Their fort was about a five-day march from ours. I wasn’t sure how quickly our scouts could make that journey, but I had to guess they also hadn’t made it back here in a single day.

We had three days at most, then. Maybe two.

The fort launched into a frenzy of activity. Zanoba and Garrick hurriedly reorganized the troops, while Roxy began inscribing a magic circle on the ramparts of the fort. The soldiers were sharpening their weapons, tending to their armor, and double-checking their exact number of arrows. Some were even writing last-minute wills.

Awkwardly enough, I found myself with nothing much to do. It sure felt like I should be doing something, but I’d already finished my assignments in the previous days. For lack of any better ideas, I ended up helping out Roxy with her work.

She explained that we were making the magic circle for the Saint-level spell Flashover. Roxy had never officially mastered this spell herself. She wasn’t good with fire magic, and couldn’t have controlled it effectively. She had, however, memorized the design for its magic circle. Instead of using this thing herself, she planned to have a group of the garrison’s combat mages do so by pumping all their mana into it. Roxy would stick to her specialty: Saint-level water spells.

Generally speaking, fire magic didn’t get much use when you were fighting monsters. The spells were powerful, but in a labyrinth you ran the risk of suffocating yourself, and spewing flames everywhere was dangerous for the people around you. Most adventurers stuck to other elements.

When you were fighting other people, however, it was extremely effective. Normal human beings tended not to survive a ball of fire to the face.

During the battle, I would be right next to Roxy on the ramparts, blasting spells down at the enemy. We had a detailed plan for the engagement, and my job was pretty simple for the most part.

There was one thing that concerned me, though.

Was I actually capable of doing this?

Killing people was never something that came easily to me. Throughout my new life in this world, it was something I always hesitated to do. Not like I had some principled moral stance against violence. I had plenty of blood on my hands by now. And if I felt a twinge of guilt when I told my children killing is wrong, well, I could live with that. The only thing that nagged at my conscience sometimes was the fact I’d told Ruijerd not to kill anyone, many years ago.

Up till now, though, High Minister Darius of Asura was the only person I’d deliberately murdered in cold blood. And, well…I guess you could add Auber to that list too. I wasn’t the one who finished him off, but I played a major part in his death. 

That experience left me nauseated, but I knew that both of them had to die. This time around, however, I would be killing people who’d basically done nothing wrong. There was no clear reason that I needed to murder any of them. I was doing this for Zanoba’s sake, sure. But that was a choice that I was making, not something I’d been forced into. It was my choice to rain down spells from a distance on a crowd of soldiers who were just following orders. This wasn’t going to be like how it was with Auber. I wouldn’t even see their faces.

Could I do it? Yes, I could. 

Was I going to do it? Yes, I was.

But once it was all over, I wasn’t sure how I might react. I doubted I could keep myself from puking on the spot. Would I be in any shape to fight the Death God, if he came for us then?

“What’s the matter, Rudy?”

Roxy was looking at me curiously. There was a little blotch of ink on her cheek.

She seemed weirdly nonchalant about this whole business compared to me. She’d spent most of her life as an adventurer, so this was probably her first experience with war too. And now that I thought about it, I wasn’t sure she’d even killed someone before. I couldn’t remember ever discussing it with her.

“Well, Roxy…uhm…I was wondering…”

This wasn’t an easy thing to ask. How were you even supposed to phrase this? Hey, you ever killed someone? Sounded like the kind of question that would get you reported to the cops back in Japan.

“Ohhh…I see. Goodness, what am I going to do with you? Well, there’s a room in the fort that seems to be unoccupied, so let’s head there.”

“Huh?”

“Men tend to vent their passions rather vigorously on the eve of battle, from what I understand. I’d like to be capable of standing up tomorrow, but I’d prefer that you turn to me instead of—”

“Uh, wait, no. Sorry, that’s not what I was going to ask.”

“Oh. Really?”

Come on, sex isn’t literally the only thing I think about. Hmm. Though…is it just me, or does Roxy look a little disappointed? I mean, if she’s up for it, I’d be happy to oblige…

No, no. Priorities, please! Ask the damn question already!

“Roxy, have you…ever killed someone before?”

“Yes, I have.”

Her response came instantly. It startled me, to put it plainly. Roxy had killed someone? My Roxy? The woman who’d already made friends with half the fort?

“There’s nothing unusual about that, really,” she continued. “I was an adventurer for many years, remember?”

“Uhm…how did it happen?”

“Let’s see… I think the first time was in my early years as an adventurer on the Demon Continent. Someone thought I was a child and tried to take advantage of me. We got into a fight, and it turned violent quickly…”

Ah. Maybe she’d hit them with a stronger spell than she intended?

“Were there any others?”

“A few, yes, while I was traveling on my own… I had to fight off kidnappers quite a few times back in those days, actually. Given my size, I suppose they took me for an easy target. I soon disabused them of that notion.”

Yeah. None of this was really that surprising. We lived in a violent world. Some people didn’t have the option of keeping their hands nice and clean.

“You seem really calm about this situation…but you’ve never been in a war before, right?”

“That’s right. However, I’ve come very close to death on multiple occasions,” said Roxy crisply. “We should be at a safe distance from the enemy this time, and we have the option of fleeing if the battle turns against us. I’m not overly concerned.”

“Wait, you want to run away if we start losing?”

“If things seem hopeless, certainly. I’ll carry you away from here if I have to. The whole reason I came along was to protect you, remember?”

With her brush still in her hand, Roxy flexed for me like a bodybuilder. Her forearm looked more squishy than stout, but the gesture was oddly reassuring.

“Rudy, are you afraid of killing people?”

“Yeah. It scares me.”

“Why is that?”

“I honestly don’t know.”

Roxy nodded thoughtfully and wiped the sweat off her brow with her sleeve. Ink smudged on her forehead. Maybe she’d dripped some on her robe when she did that silly pose.

“Well, you’ve always been a bit timid, I suppose. I still remember how terrified you were to get on a horse for the first time…”

Yeah. Fifteen years ago, I was too scared to even leave my house, wasn’t I? Man, that really takes me back…

“What is it about your fear that you don’t understand? Try to describe it for me in detail, please.”

Sounds like I’m dealing with Instructor Roxy now. Haven’t seen her in a while. 

“When I try to kill someone, I sort of…stop myself at the last moment.”

“I see. And why do you think that might be?”

I mean, if I knew the reason why, we wouldn’t be having this conversation… But I guess I shouldn’t give up just because nothing comes to mind immediately. Think, Rudeus. When did you start having trouble killing people, and why?

“When I traveled across the Demon Continent as a child, I started consciously modifying my magic to make it less lethal,” I said slowly. “I was trying really hard not to kill anyone by accident.”

It was starting to come back to me now. I originally reduced the power of my Stone Cannon to help Eris gain more combat experience against the monsters we encountered. But I later took up tinkering with my spells even further, trying to make them non-lethal against humans. Dead End, our party with Ruijerd, had a strict policy when it came to murder.

“My party back then had this…rule about not killing people. And I was the leader, so I felt like I had to set a good example. I kept that up for so long that I guess it just…became second nature to me.” 

Basically, I’d given myself a fear of killing. When you’re strictly forbidden from doing something as a child, the very thought of it can become terrifying. Often, you’ll carry that trauma with you into your adult years. The details were a little different in my case, but the principle was the same.

“I see,” said Roxy, brushing her bangs out of her eyes in a gesture that left a smudge of ink on her nose. “And how do you feel about that habit now, Rudy? Do you want to lose this tendency to hold back?”

“…No. That idea scares me even more.”

In this world I was a person with incredible power. Enough power to kill most people with just a flick of my fingers. I was capable of killing everyone who annoyed or inconvenienced me, and then killing anyone who tried to punish me for doing so. Without this reflex, I could easily turn into that callous, vicious murderer who’d visited me from the future.

That wasn’t the kind of person I wanted to be. It just…wasn’t.

“Then I don’t think you have a problem,” said Roxy with a smile.

I don’t? Really? I feel like this is gonna keep causing me some major headaches, though…

“Now, I could argue that you’re not responsible for the deaths you cause in this battle, since you’re only acting on Prince Zanoba’s orders. But I get the sense that would only upset you.”

In the context of a war, soldiers were sanctioned to commit murder by their country. All responsibility lay with their army, and the nation that controlled it. In that sense, the killing I committed on this battlefield wouldn’t really count as murder. Pax was the one responsible for my actions.

But of course, that was little but a convenient excuse. 

“If you can’t bring yourself to cast any spells when the enemy arrives, I’ll fight in your place. You can stand by and carry me to safety if I run out of mana.”

“…Sounds like a better plan than you carrying me, at least.”

“Exactly!” With a big smile, Roxy reached out for a new pot of ink…and grimaced as she spotted a patch of wet black liquid on her sleeve. “Uhm, Rudy? Is there ink on my face?”

“Oh, yeah. I think your forehead might start casting spells at any moment.”

Roxy pulled a handkerchief out of her robe and rubbed it vigorously over her face. Fortunately, it didn’t spit out any fireballs, although her skin had turned rather red.

“Ugh. Where is it?”

“Your cheek, your forehead, and the tip of your nose.”

“…Wipe it off for me. If I’m seen like this, my marriage prospects will be ruined.” 

“You know, I could have sworn you were already married…”

I took Roxy’s handkerchief from her and dampened it with water magic. She closed her eyes and leaned in close. I wiped off her forehead, and then wiped off her nose, and then kissed her on the cheek.

Roxy held her breath. She had opened her eyes at some point and was staring into mine. Her face was still a vivid shade of red.

“I-I’ll be done with this magic circle soon, all right?” she stammered. “We can, uhm…continue this later.”

“Sounds good to me.”

Well, now I have something to look forward to.

After that, I sat around waiting for Roxy to finish her work like a dog impatient for his walk. Then we headed to a private room to vent off some passion.

I still wasn’t sure if I’d be of any use in this war. But I had Roxy with me, so I knew I’d be all right either way.

***

The next day, we received word that the enemy army was approaching.

The soldiers rushed to their positions, their faces tight with tension, and I hurried to my own place on the ramparts.

Roxy and I had a simple job: to fling spells at the enemy from above, under the command of the combat mage squad captain. Until the army came into range, we’d basically be twiddling our thumbs.

I had the Magic Armor Version Two under my robes. The Version One was leaning against a wall in the rear of the fort, just in case I needed it. I could reach it quickly enough by hopping down from above.

Up till this point, it seemed like the Man-God hadn’t made a single move against us. Would his first strike come immediately after this battle? Maybe during it, right as things got chaotic? There could well be a disciple in that army, or even lurking somewhere in this fort. And Pax or Randolph might hit us from behind at any moment.

As I struggled to control a growing sense of anxiety, I noticed something moving out of the corner of my eye.

“Hm?”

It was a group of armored soldiers. They were crossing the river to the back of Fort Karon, in the opposite direction from the enemy, and heading for the woods.

There looked to be maybe a hundred of them. Surely they weren’t deserting…?

“Uh, Captain? Do you know what’s going on there?”

“Yes, sir!” replied the mage squad captain, a man named Billy. He followed my gaze and nodded at the sight of the soldiers. “That’s the unit Prince Zanoba put together the other day. They will defeat any units that try slipping through the forest, and look for an opportunity to launch a surprise attack on the main enemy force. The prince hopes to sever their chain of command at the head.” 

“What?!” I’m sorry, what?! “I didn’t hear a word about any of this!”

“Uh, yes, sir… The Prince expressed some concern that the fort would be left too lightly defended if you accompanied him.”

“Okay, but he could have told me about this plan!” I insisted.

“It was his belief that you would insist on coming with him, prompting Miss Roxy to insist on coming with you,” he said, by way of explanation.

Look, I got that Zanoba was trying to be thoughtful, in his way. And it was hard to argue with his logic. If he’d told me about this crazy plan to head out with a tiny force, I probably would have decided it had to be the Man-God’s trap. And if I’d insisted on coming, Roxy probably would have too. You could use magic effectively from anywhere on a battlefield, but it would be hard for us to cast the right spells at the right time if we were trudging through a forest.

I understood his reasoning, okay? I really did.

But what was the point of any of this if that moron got himself killed out there? Did he even remember what I was doing here? I’d come all the way out here to fight in someone else’s war because I wanted to protect Zanoba. He could at least have said something to me beforehand, right?

God, what if we hit him with some spell accidentally? What if the enemy found out our commander was wandering around in the woods with only a hundred soldiers?

Maybe there was still time for me to jump down there and—

“There!”

But no. Before I could take action one way or another, a sudden murmur ran across the ramparts, and the fort’s alarm bell began clanging a warning. Everyone had their eyes fixed on the same spot: a cloud of dust to the north, obscuring the horizon.

The enemy had arrived.