Mushoku Tensei (LN) - Volume 19 - Chapter 7

Chapter 7:

The Battle

OKAY, SO… Zanoba had wandered off to god-knows-where. He wanted to find and kill the enemy’s commander. Which didn’t make any sense to me. Not one damn bit of sense. But I couldn’t leave my post at this point. I didn’t like the idea of throwing spells onto a battlefield where Zanoba could be hiding anywhere…but from the sound of things, he’d at least worked out his plan with the commander and the captains. I had to trust he wasn’t careless enough to blunder right into our line of fire.

He’d thought this through, right? Right?

I mean, he’d brought a hundred troops with him. They must have planned out this operation as a part of the overall battle strategy. The best thing I could do for him right now was to play my own part well.

“…Hooo.”

Calm down, Rudeus. Zanoba’s not an idiot. He’s doing this for a reason. You just focus on doing your job, and everything will work out fine.

“Hooo…haaa…”

All right. First of all, let’s get a look at the enemy.

In the time it had taken for me to clear my head, the opposing army had marched into view and arrayed themselves in formation beyond my field of traps. They were barely far enough away that our archers couldn’t reach them yet. Naturally, they couldn’t hit us with theirs, either. The battle wouldn’t begin in earnest until the majority of them had pushed their way into the zone I’d filled with pitfalls.

“Yep, sure are a lot of ’em…”

“Hmm. Only looks like three thousand or so to me.”

“There’s a whole bunch more waiting in line behind.”

The soldiers on the ramparts were busy guessing at the exact size of the force in front of us. Hmm, weren’t you supposed to count the number of enemy flags or something?

“Rudy, we need a counterspell!”

“Huh?”

Startled by the urgency in Roxy’s voice, I looked out across the battlefield. Something like a tornado was taking shape near the middle of the enemy’s formation.

“They’re going to fill in all the traps at once with earth magic!”

Ah, right. That’s the Saint-level spell Sandstorm, isn’t it?

They sure hadn’t wasted any time coming for my traps. They’d probably learned about them in advance from scouts or spies, and worked out a plan to neutralize them with a single massive spell.

Needless to say, we’d been anticipating this possibility ourselves.

“All right. I’m going to counter that with Violent Storm.”

With those words, I held out both hands toward the steadily growing funnel of dust and earth.

I’d chosen to respond with a Saint-level wind spell. Despite its rank, its effects weren’t particularly fancy. But they were very powerful. A number of Saint-level spells, such as Cumulonimbus and Sandstorm, were combined magic that used wind plus some other element. Violent Storm, on the other hand, was a pure burst of wind. While it cost the same amount of mana as something like Sandstorm, all of that power was devoted to a single purpose.

In practice, that meant it was capable of totally erasing the more complex phenomena created by water or earth spells. It was also devastatingly effective against flying monsters of all kinds, for the record. But other spells were better choices if your enemies were on the ground; the wind would lose some of its force at longer range as it pushed past trees and other obstacles. 

There was a theory that pure wind magic had been developed as a way to counter other elemental spells, just like how this one would work on the battlefield. That was only a theory, though, and I wasn’t sure I believed it. 

While Violent Storm might lose some power as it traveled, it was strong enough to rip out massive trees by the roots if you used sufficient mana. And again—that fall-off in power only happened when it moved across the ground. In the air, it wasn’t an issue at all. This spell could easily have been designed to bring down flying dragons.

Hmm. I had a feeling dragons used a bit of wind magic themselves, though. I mean, how else would they keep those massive bodies airborne, right?

On another note, some claimed that the overuse of spells like this could make you bald. The theory was that all those sharp gusts of wind would eventually start to rip out hairs by the roots. Sounded plausible to me, given that the toupee-toting principal of our university was a King-tier wind mage.

Okay, okay. I’m nice and calm now. Niiice and calm!

By the time I finished running through all that trivia in my mind, my heart rate had returned to normal and my spell had blown apart the enemy’s dust tornado. The soldiers around us broke out in a spontaneous cheer. 

I hadn’t dealt any meaningful damage to the army itself, though. They were still pretty far from us, but you’d expect a blast strong enough to break up a Saint-tier spell to have a major effect on the ground, too. Was it because I’d aimed it so directly at the tornado? Or maybe the mana from our spells had interacted somehow?

Well, it didn’t matter that much either way. Now we could focus on—

“Rudy, they’re trying it again!”

“Huh? Really?”

That seemed kind of pointless. I could just counter their spell again, right?

Oh, wait…they don’t know about my mana capacity. 

Most mages would run dry in no time if they kept casting Saint-level magic. And since the enemy outnumbered us ten to one, they probably had ten times as many mages, too. They probably thought they could sit there firing off the exact same spell from a magic circle until we ran out of juice.

Huh. Wouldn’t that mean there’s no disciple of the Man-God over there?

Anyone working for the Man-God would know about me. Surely they wouldn’t let the mages waste their time and mana like this, right?

…No, I couldn’t jump to conclusions. The Man-God might be giving them advice, but that didn’t mean their commander would always listen.

“For now, I’m gonna keep countering their spells until they give up. Does that sound like a plan?”

“Uh, yes, of course. Are you…all right on mana?”

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.”

The captain seemed a bit awestruck at this point. Or maybe terrified. 

Well, my mana capacity was probably the single most reliable thing about me. If these people wanted to make me fire off ten Saint-tier spells, I could handle it, no problem.

In the end, the enemy mages cast their Sandstorm spell another five times, but I countered every single one of them in the exact same way. It was a shame I couldn’t use Disturb Magic to save myself some mana. That wasn’t an option at such long range.

After their sixth failed attempt, the enemy forces seemed to put a pause to their attacks. They might have run out of mages capable of using Saint-tier spells. It was also possible that their magic circle had faded away, or they’d realized they were getting nowhere with this strategy.

“Do you think they’ll try a charge?” I asked, looking over at the mage squad captain.

“Hard to say,” he replied, frowning at the distant enemy lines.

I didn’t think I’d risk sending all those troops charging onto a field full of pitfalls, if I were their commander. The best option would be to withdraw, right? If you realize early on that you’ve misjudged your enemy, why not retreat to gather more information? Seemed like it would be the smart move to me.

“Ah…looks like they’re going for it.”

There was movement in the enemy lines once again. They were rippling slowly forward—almost like they were dragging something heavy along behind them. 

Well, I guess that figures.

The commanders of that army had probably hashed out all sorts of tactical options and contingency plans before they showed up on our doorstep. They’d expended valuable food and resources to come this far—and they had their troops’ morale to consider, too. They probably couldn’t back off after one failed exchange of spells.

I mean…for all they knew, at this point our mages could be running on empty too. Maybe they were hoping that would allow them to cross the pitfall zone without taking too many casualties.

“Archers, ready!”

At a bellowed command from their captain, our line of archers stepped forward. They nocked their arrows and pulled back their bows, aiming at the lines of soldiers picking their way through the pitfall zone.

“Fire!”

The first volley of arrows zipped into the air.

It was a modest barrage; we only had fifty or so archers up here, and there were at least a few thousand enemy soldiers moving toward us. Any effect would obviously be minimal.

The enemy commander seemed to have reached the same conclusion. A few moments later, we heard the sound of trumpets from below, and the enemy’s advance immediately grew more rapid. I saw soldiers tumbling into my traps here and there. Others, however, were laying crude bridges across the trenches, and yet more made their way safely around them. They were making steady progress forward.

From the looks of things, they’d interpreted our volley of arrows as a sign that we didn’t have any mages still capable of casting offensive spells. Which was a miscalculation, of course.

“Combat mages, ready!”

The soldier-mages readied their staves in response to their captain’s command.

The squad numbered twenty. Eight of them stepped forward to the edge of the rampart. Another eight stood by behind them. The last four positioned themselves in front of Roxy’s magic circle.

“Don’t get jumpy! Hold until we’ve drawn them further in!”

The mages tightened their grips on their staves. Roxy followed suit, closing her eyes to concentrate. Not wanting to be left out, I balled my hands into fists and stared intently down at the enemy.

The majority of their troops were now inside the pitfall zone.

“Incantations! Now!”

At the captain’s order, the eight mages in the front line began the chant for a fire spell in perfect unison. As their incantation reached its halfway point, the eight behind them began to chant as well.

“—Fireball!”

Eight balls of flame flew from the staves of the mages out in front. Arcing down onto the battlefield, they hit the enemy line right at its center, leaving a handful of charred bodies behind. 

The front line immediately stepped back and began to chant all over again.

“—Fireball!”

A few moments later, the second line of mages had fired off their own volley. By staggering their incantations, they effectively cut the time between their attacks in half.

The Fireballs kept flying steadily. But as the second volley began, they were answered by a huge flurry of Waterballs from the enemy. While they couldn’t reach us at the top of the fort, they were smacking into the Fireballs and reducing them to steam.

It was a counterspell, in other words. Apparently, they hadn’t wasted all of their mages’ mana on our earlier exchanges.

Well, yeah. Obviously they wouldn’t.

“There, Miss Roxy. Do you see that scorpion flag on the right wing?”

“Yes. I see it.” 

With a nod to the mage squad captain, Roxy turned to look my way.

That scorpion flag was right around where the barrage of Waterballs was coming from. The enemy mages were concentrated in that area. In other words, if we blew everything in that area to smithereens, we wouldn’t have any more counterspells to worry about.

“Let’s get started, Rudy… Uhm, or would you rather observe?”

“No. I’m with you.”

“All right then.”

With a small smile, Roxy turned away and began her incantation. I took one deep breath, then began to channel mana into my hands.

A moment later, I killed a lot of people.

***

After that, the battle devolved into one-sided slaughter.

Wiping out the vast majority of their mages rendered them defenseless against our spells. Most of those who died were burnt to ashes by the Saint-level fire spell unleashed by our combat mages. But then, as their charge gave way to a rout, the survivors found it all but impossible to retreat across the field of traps behind them. Some units seemed to have lost their commanders; their movements grew panicked and disorganized. And then Roxy and I hit them with more Saint-level magic.

It felt like we’d stepped on an anthill. Soldiers ran in all directions, terrified and disoriented. Gusts of wind blew them into pitfalls, and bolts of lightning fried them where they stood. They died by the dozens.

I could finally understand that famous line from Castle in the Sky. From this distance, people looked exactly like so many scraps of stray garbage.

Still, not all of them panicked in the face of death. Some made it past the pitfall zone, escaping our spells’ area of effect. A few of these were mages who managed to get close enough to launch spells at us. We countered almost all of their attacks, but a few still landed, and we suffered casualties.

Some of the encroaching enemies were archers, who dropped their bows and drew their swords as they approached. The rest were foot soldiers. Together, they pushed their way to the fort’s walls, where a force of three hundred well-rested defenders waited for them. Meanwhile, we rained magic upon them like a hail of stones.

In the end, only a bare handful survived. Some had lost their will to fight; others struggled fiercely. Some were taken as captives, and others killed, but I couldn’t tell you why.

In comparison, I could count our losses on my fingers. We beat back the enemy so soundly that the words historic victory came to mind.

When it was all over, Commander Babriti let out a roar that seemed to shake the fort to its foundations. The mages and archers on the ramparts answered him in kind, their eyes shining with elation. 

I shouted right along with them, although I wasn’t sure if I felt the same kind of joy they did. It didn’t feel real that I’d killed so many people, or that we’d won the battle. Still, the people around me more than made up for my lack of excitement. Soldiers who’d treated me with wariness and stiff formality ran over to thump me on the back. Some threw their arms around my shoulders, and others hugged me. One of those was a young female archer. She looked up at me and said something like “We did it! You saved us! Thank you so much!” with tears in her eyes. At that point, a surge of pride and happiness washed over me at last.

Finally, Roxy threw herself into my arms and kissed me on the lips. That wasn’t the sort of thing Roxy ever did in public, so she must have been as fired up as the others. We received a mixture of cheers and good-natured whistling from the soldiers as we embraced.

I was happy in that moment. Truly happy.

To be clear, it wasn’t solely because a charming woman had thrown herself at me. There was some group psychology at work too. The sheer delirium around me had overwhelmed my brain completely. Not a bad feeling, you know? Kept me from thinking about all the people I’d just murdered with a snap of my fingers. At the end of the day, we’d won the battle with virtually no casualties. That was something worth celebrating. No reason to think too hard about the ugly details, right? When I looked back on this day, all I had to think was: Hey, that wasn’t too bad for my first time. Guess it wasn’t such a big deal after all.

Maybe that was how you had to live in a world like this. I didn’t have to keep judging everything that happened here by the moral standards I’d picked up in my first life. I didn’t have to drag some old arbitrary rule around forever like a ball and chain. I could kill when I needed to, and hold back when I didn’t. One battle wasn’t going to turn me into a bloodthirsty maniac. I had more self-control than that.

“Prince Zanoba has returned!”

The cry of a messenger from below startled me out of my thoughts. Once the battle had begun in earnest, I’d completely forgotten about Zanoba and his unit.

I rushed down into the fort, taking the stairs as quickly as I could. But I froze in astonishment when I reached the bottom. 

A crowd of soldiers had formed around a group of roughly ten people who seemed to have dropped in from another planet. Their bodies were covered in twigs and leaves, their faces were smeared with dirt and soot, and their hair was slick with blood and sweat. One of them, an imposing man clad in a bulky suit of armor, called out cheerfully at the sight of me: “Greetings, Master Rudeus!”

Wait, who are you supposed to be?

No, seriously. I honestly didn’t recognize him at first.

His hair was crusty with dried blood, his armor was covered with gashes that weren’t there that morning, and his glasses were smudged where he’d wiped…some sort of red liquid off them.

“Zanoba?”

Yeah, that’s definitely Zanoba. He looks like someone else entirely, but it has to be him. Oh. I guess I should, uh…chew him out for disappearing on us without a word of warning.

“What the—”

As I approached Zanoba, the crowd of soldiers parted in front of me, and I lost my train of thought in mid-sentence.

Someone lay on his knees at Zanoba’s feet. He was covered in mud himself, but he was also wrapped inside a net. I recognized that net. It was the magic item I’d given Zanoba right before we left.

“Thanks to your splendid efforts, our surprise attack went off perfectly. Behold—we have captured the enemy’s commander!”

“Uhm… Wow…”

I glanced around and realized that the soldiers around us were cheering the filthy band of ten. They no longer looked at Zanoba with wariness or uncertainty; their eyes shone with admiration.

Wait. Ten? Why are there so few of them? I was fairly positive I’d seen about a hundred leaving the fort earlier. “Uh, where are the others?”

“Lying on the battlefield,” replied Zanoba. “They died bravely, every one of them.”

Oh. Right. I guess that’s what happens when you attack an army that big with only a hundred soldiers. 

Though… I’m not sure I understand. We didn’t need this sneak attack to win that battle, right? We were winning anyway. I can’t be the only one who’s picking up on that. Am I missing something here?

“S-so, uh…this guy’s…worth the loss of ninety soldiers, right?”

“Unquestionably. He is a member of the Bista royal family. With him as our hostage, it should be simple to negotiate a conclusion to this war.”

Ohhh. Okay… Yeah, I get it now. If he’s that valuable, I guess Zanoba made the right call.

Beating back one enemy advance didn’t mean you’d won the war. But Zanoba’s raid turned our tactical victory into a huge strategic one. From that angle, maybe the lives of ninety soldiers were a small price to pay.

Wait, no. Why was I falling for this line of thought? We’d knocked the hell out of that army. They must have lost a thousand troops, maybe even two or three. If they’d had someone with a functional brain in charge, they would have quit trying to invade.

Or maybe I was overestimating our victory a little. Maybe all the troops we saw only amounted to a few thousand. And the majority of the enemy force had retreated. If they really did have more soldiers waiting in the rear, maybe we’d only taken out something like five hundred?

“Ah, what a joy to have succeeded,” said Zanoba, beaming at me cheerfully. “I could hardly have asked you and Miss Roxy to sit around this fort indefinitely, after all!”

Okay, yeah. I think I get it now.

The enemy might not have given up after a single disastrous battle. Who knew how rational their commander was, anyway? We might have given them a bloody nose today, but they still had the numerical advantage. If their next attack came when Roxy and I weren’t around, Fort Karon might well fall. And the two of us didn’t have the option of staying in Shirone for years. By capturing an enemy prince and negotiating some sort of a truce, we could end the war in one decisive stroke, before any of that became a problem. 

Still, couldn’t we have found some other way? Maybe I could have blasted one of their forts to pieces, or something? 

…Nah. It would be stupid to entrust a job like that to a guy who spent the last few days whimpering about killing people…

“I must say, everything went off according to plan. You and Miss Roxy offered us a superb diversion with your magic! And this enchanted throw net? What a splendid tool! I’d been hoping it might enable me to capture an enemy commander from the start, but it worked even better than I’d imagined.”

Zanoba had cut into the ranks of the enemy as the wind and rain raged, taking advantage of the general confusion to capture their leader. The risks had been horrific. He had gambled with his life. But he came away a winner. He turned the chaos Roxy and I created into an opportunity, pushed himself to the very limit, and made our victory count.

“You know, Master Rudeus—I’ve seen Saint-tier spells at a distance before, but they’re something else entirely when you charge right into one!”

“Oh…yeah, I’d imagine so…”

A nasty shiver ran down my spine. Cumulonimbus had a wide area of effect. It was a spell designed to wipe out large numbers of enemies indiscriminately. Which might mean…

“Uh, hey, Zanoba…you guys didn’t get hit by lightning out there or anything, right?”

“Hrm…”

Zanoba put a hand to his chin and seemed to consider his reply carefully. After a moment, he delivered it with a serious expression on his face.

“No war is won without sacrifice, Master Rudeus.”

We’d hit them. 

Bolts of lightning from our Cumulonimbus spells had struck our own allies. Maybe we’d knocked others into those pitfalls with gusts of wind. I might have killed someone who ate dinner next to me yesterday. Roxy might have killed someone she’d taught a little magic to.

Odds were I’d never even spoken to most of them. But at the very least, I knew some people whose faces had grown familiar to me were gone forever now.

“And of course,” Zanoba continued, “I bear the full responsibility for every soldier who we lost this day, as the man who commanded them in battle. You have nothing to feel guilty about in the slightest.”

In theory, that made sense. But theory wasn’t doing much for me right now.

“You must be weary after all your labors, I’m sure. Promise me you’ll take the remainder of this day to rest.” Zanoba patted me gently on the shoulder, then dragged his captive further inside the fort, issuing rapid commands to the surrounding soldiers as he went.

I stood in a daze and watched him go. At some point, I’d completely run out of words.

Oh, right. I’ve got to get ready for that attack from the Death God… No time to stand around like an idiot. No time to rest. Not yet. I should just…stand near the Version One. I’ll be ready for him, if he shows…

That evening, a raid was launched on the fort.

It wasn’t the Death God, though. And I wasn’t the target. It was the enemy, and they came in an attempt to free our royal hostage.

I didn’t kill any of them. They weren’t dangerous enough for that. Instead, I knocked them all unconscious and handed them over to the fort’s garrison. 

What happened to them after that? No idea. But at least I exercised restraint instead of casually murdering them. That was a good sign, right? It felt that way. Despite my emotions being all over the place, I could control myself. I still had that reflex against killing.

I was going to be just fine. Or so I kept telling myself, over the course of that entire night.

The Death God never came.

There was no sneak attack.

***

The next day, I questioned the hostage after getting approval from Zanoba. He was, in fact, a royal from Shirone’s rival to the north.

I asked him if he recognized the name Man-God. His answer was no.

I asked him if anyone in his kingdom had been going around making suspiciously accurate predictions or prophecies. His answer was no.

I asked him how they’d gathered an army of five thousand on Shirone’s border so quickly after the coup d’état. He said it hadn’t happened quickly. They’d been looking for a chance to invade for several years.

All that pointed to one conclusion: the kingdom to the north was clean. There was no ally of the Man-God running things up there. I mean, the Man-God might have manipulated events to get them to invade…but I felt confident this guy wasn’t a disciple, at least. He was your typical puffed up, clueless commanding officer, and nothing more.

The Death God hadn’t come for me, and the invaders were simple invaders. Nothing was turning out the way that I’d anticipated. For the first time in a while, I felt like I’d been jumping at a lot of shadows. I was starting to think I had misunderstood this whole situation on a very fundamental level. Maybe there was no trap. Hell, maybe the Man-God wasn’t involved in any of this.

I refused to let down my guard, even so. Half-convinced that it was pointless, I forced myself to stay alert and ready for anything.

And then, ten days later…the ground shifted underneath us.