Volume 8 Chapter 11 (1/2)

Chapter 11: The Dabicon Is Burning

Dawn broke.

The morning sun shone brilliantly on the surface of the Dabicon River.

The combined forces of Elfrieden and Lastania began moving on their operation to exterminate the lizardmen.

Quickly, quietly they got into position. Each of them in their respective places, each performing their duties, eagerly antic.i.p.ating the beginning of the final battle.

For my part, I was on Naden’s back, over the Dabicon river north of the fortress.

“Grr...” Swimming through the sky, Naden let out a (telepathic) groan of dissatisfaction.

If she had been in human form, she’d have puffed her cheeks up, I was sure. I knew why too.

“I’m really sorry about this, Naden.”

“You’d better be. Why do I have to carry her?”

“Hehe, that’s because I’m the cornerstone of this operation,” Excel giggled.

That was the reason Naden was upset. Excel was riding on her back with me.

“There’s a custom that says a dragon should never let anyone but her partner ride on her back!” Naden complained.

“Oh, but that’s why I’m not riding on your back, you know?” Excel teased.

Excel was sitting on my lap while I straddled Naden’s back. In addition, to keep from falling, she had her slender arms wrapped around my neck.

We were posed like a knight letting a princess ride with him on his white horse, you could say.

This was because I needed Naden to carry Excel, but she would only let her partner ride on her back, and though she was the grandmother of one of my partners, the logic of “the partner of my partner is kind of like my partner” didn’t work for Naden like it did for Aisha and the others.

“She could have just used a gondola, you know!” Naden said with a growl, but Excel was unperturbed.

“I wouldn’t like that. It’s boring. I came all this way from the kingdom, so you can allow me this much, at least. Right, sire?”

“Souma, say something!” Naden snarled.

...What did she want me to do? Naden was my important fiancée, and Excel was a key person in the coming operation, so I couldn’t turn her down. That was why I kept my warning her at a minimum.

“Excel, don’t tease Naden too much. She’ll throw you off for real, you know?”

“Hehe, I’m sorry. Her reactions are just too cute. I couldn’t help myself,” Excel said and stroked Naden’s back. “Besides, I feel a strange kins.h.i.+p with Naden. I mean, look, we’re so similar. We have antlers on our heads, and though the colors are different, we have similarly shaped tails too, don’t we?”

“Well, yeah, I guess we do...” Naden admitted.

“The sea serpent race is said to have been descended from sea serpents that are also called kouryuu or jiaolong, so maybe they were ryuus just like you.”

Yeah, that thought had occurred to me too.

The idea that Juna’s family, the House of Doma, were descended from something vaguely similar to humans like loreleis was one thing, but it had never sat right with me that the descendants of ma.s.sive sea serpents were shaped like humans. Maybe those kouryuu sea serpents had been ryuus like Naden, and that was why they had human forms.

Excel chuckled and smiled. “Maybe members of the sea serpent race aren’t half-dragons like the dragonewts, but half-ryuus instead.”

“But I’m not meaty and voluptuous like you,” Naden muttered.

“Chalk that up to individual variance.”

“It’s not fair!”

And the two of them started arguing.

One was talking in my head, and the other was sitting on my lap, so it was pretty noisy.

Hal had Ruby in her dragon form come up next to us. “Sorry to interrupt your fun, but it’s almost time for the operation to start.”

“Gotcha,” I said. “Let’s get started then.”

Looking around the area, there were several hundred wyvern cavalry hovering in the air and waiting for my command.

The time was ripe.

I gave the order to the woman sitting on my lap. “Okay, Excel, make it flashy.”

“Understood, sire.”

Erasing the smile from her face and putting on the look of a serious retainer, Excel removed her arms from around my neck, crossed them in front of her, and lowered her head. The speed with which she could change modes was like flipping a switch. It was little wonder she was renowned for how capable she was.

“Now, let we show you my full power, the reason why I was once the talk of Elfrieden, and the reason why I am called the mage who is invincible anywhere there’s lots of fresh water.”

Excel clasped her hands in front of her and focused. As she did, her body tilted, so I hurriedly put my hand around her waist to support her.

As I held her surprisingly delicate hips, Excel giggled. “Thank you, sire. Hold me just like that, if you would.”

“Murgh...” Naden telepathically voiced her displeasure, but this was part of the operation, so she was going to have to deal with it.

Excel closed her eyes, holding her hands tight as if focusing. Then...

Splooooooooooos.h.!.+

Suddenly there was a swelling in the surface of the Dabicon directly below us, and five ma.s.sive pillars that could have been mistaken for high-rise buildings rose up. They were so ma.s.sive, the sight of them was overwhelming.

The droplets that splashed off the forcibly raised water hung in the air like smoke, and in an instant, we were in the middle of a light shower.

The scene in front of me shocked me silly.

This is Excel...when she gets serious...

It seemed what Excel had said about being invincible anywhere there was a lot of fresh water was no exaggeration. I was guessing the only reason she was limiting it to fresh water was that, at sea, all magic was difficult to use.

Fighting her in a desert would be one thing, but if I had to take on Excel over a river where there was abundant fresh water, I’d have to be prepared to commit all the wyvern cavalry here.

“Souma!” Naden shouted. “Look straight down!”

“Whoa...” Doing as Naden said, I looked down and let out a gasp of admiration.

No river had a fixed width, and a river’s depth varied from place to place. That meant a place where any given river was thin and shallow made for an ideal crossing point.

Basically, that was the area right below us.

That said, the Dabicon was known for being a ma.s.sive river, so even at a crossing point, the river was about 200 meters across, and the water was up to shoulder-level, even on a large man. It was just barely crossable on horseback.

However, Excel was pulling the water up now. That lowered the water level, making it so we could even see the rocks at the bottom. Excel released her clenched hand, then lifted it up.

“Water G.o.d Calling,” she whispered.

With those words, the five ma.s.sive towers of water took on a shape like snakes with their heads raised. Then, when she brought her hand down, there was a loud hiss, and the five ma.s.sive snakes of water dove into the surface of the river downstream.

The water from upstream was pulled up, and then flowed to the opposite side of the shallows downstream. This produced five great arches of water.

That caused a great drop in the water level beneath the arch, and the narrow area where it was shallow expanded greatly.

This was the plan Hakuya had come up with.

If the shallows we were going to cross were narrow, and it was difficult to bring a large army to the opposite sh.o.r.e, we could expand the shallows, and have the lizardmen on the opposite side come to us.

Hakuya had concluded that based on the information I’d given him and sent me the number one water mage in the country, Excel Walter, along with many other water mages.

Incidentally, the other water mages were in little boats floating on the river’s surface, slowing the current of the water that would flow from upstream to downstream, and adjusting the current of the water Excel sent downstream so it didn’t flow backward.

Thus, a shallow path across the Dabicon with five great arches of water over it was formed.

I felt like I was watching that one miracle from the story of Moses.

“Hakuya sure came up with an amazing plan...” I sighed in admiration.

“Sire, this magic is extremely taxing, so I would appreciate it if you moved on with the operation,” Excel told me with a pained look on her face.

Whoops. It was such an incredible sight, I had stopped thinking.

I quickly gave the order to an equally astonished Hal. “Hal! Like we planned, have the lizardmen cross at once!”

“Huh?! R-Right! Let’s go, people!” Hal, who had come to his senses, ordered.

“““Yeahhhhhh!””” the wyvern riders around him roared.

Then, with Hal and Ruby the red dragon leading the charge, half of the wyvern cavalry flew to the opposite sh.o.r.e where the lizardmen were.

Halbert and Ruby were at the front of the wyvern cavalry as they reached the opposite bank where tens of thousands of lizardmen were camped.

They were flying high enough that no lizardmen attacks came at them, but the countless flying chimertype monsters attacked Halbert and his team.

Halbert pierced the monsters with his two spears, and Ruby cooked them with her fire.

Hal told the wyvern cavalry, “Listen! Our job here is to act as herders! Now let’s drive those scaly, long-tailed lambs to the opposite bank, like shadow hounds chasing cotton sheep!”

“““Yes, sir!””” the wyvern riders replied quickly and spread out.

Taking out any monsters that crossed their path as they went, the wyverns reached the edge of the lizardman pack and breathed fire toward the ground.

Bompf! Bompf! The flames. .h.i.t the ground one after another.

“Gugyagyagya!”

The lizardmen pushed and shoved one another to get out of the way of the flames, and the pack was gradually driven toward the Dabicon.

Halbert had Ruby blow flames that were incomparably greater than anything the wyverns could produce and drove the lizardmen into the shallows.

“Haha! My fiancée is vicious! Go on! Run! Run!” Halbert yelled, getting excited.

“Murrgh, that’s not a nice way of saying it,” Ruby grumbled. “You can expect Kaede and me to give you an earful later!”

Roarrrrrrrrrrrr!

Ruby’s roar echoed, and the frightened lizardmen fled blindly across the shallows.

Once a pack began moving in one direction, it wouldn’t change course easily.

Having deemed further pursuit unnecessary, Halbert told the a.s.sembled wyvern cavalry, “That should get the pack to go to the other side. We’ll leave enemies on the ground to Ludwin’s main force, while we return to Souma... His Majesty... and exterminate the flying monsters! We’ll support the main force from up in the air!”

“““Yes, sir!”””

Then Halbert and Ruby turned south, along with the wyvern cavalry.

The lizardmen on the far sh.o.r.e had started to move.

Looks like Hal and the others pulled it off, I noted.

The lizardmen were crossing the path through the shallows beneath the water arches.

Watching the lizardmen splas.h.i.+ng through the shallow water, it reminded me of a nature program I had seen long ago introducing gnus crossing a river.

If this were a nature doc.u.mentary, this’d be where the crocodiles attack...

Although it was the guys crossing the river in a pack that looked like the crocodiles, in this case.

“Is there any need to let them reach the opposite sh.o.r.e?” Naden, who was watching the same scene, asked. “Around half of the pack is in the river, so wouldn’t it be easy to have d.u.c.h.ess Walter cancel her magic and wash them away?”

“Well, if they were armored soldiers, that’d be the right answer, but they’re buck naked. Was.h.i.+ng them away might not kill them, right? If we wash them downstream, it’ll make killing them a pain, so we’ve got to let them cross and then encircle and wipe them out.”

“For my part...I’d like them to hurry up and finish crossing, though,” Excel said with effort, sweat beading on her forehead.

I guess if it came to controlling this much water, even the usually aloof Excel couldn’t keep a cool face. Her teeth were gritted, and her hands were shaking.

“Sorry,” I said. “I need you to hang in there just a little longer.”

“I know.” Excel wore a forced smile as she diligently continued wielding her magic.

Eventually Hal and his group, who had finished their job of driving the lizardmen here, rejoined us, and the entire lizardman pack finished crossing the Dabicon.

“Augh, that was exhausting!” Excel raised both her hands up into the air as if stretching.

Spla.s.sssss.h.!.+

In the next instant, the water arched over the shallows collapsed, and fell as a solid ma.s.s of water.

The great amount of water that fell to earth created a huge splash, and when that splash came down, it rained for a short time over the river.

The riverbed, which we had been able to see for that short time, vanished, waves formed, and the boats of the other water mages that were supporting Excel swayed.

We watched it all while getting soaked by the rain.

“...Should’ve brought a rain gear, I guess,” I said.

“My clothing is my scales, so my clothes are waterproof,” Naden said.

Whatever the case, with the shallows returned to their prior state, the lizardmen’s retreat was cut off.

While I was feeling relieved it all went well, Excel slumped to one side.

“Excel?!” I cried.

When I put my arms around her waist and held her, Excel laughed weakly.

“Ha...ha... I’m fine. I just used too much power.”

She was too exhausted to even form a proper smile, and her shoulders were heaving with every breath. The rain had made it so her clothing clung to her body, which was making her look awfully sensual.

“You did well,” I said. “Leave the rest to us.”

“I’ll do that. Heheh, it’s certainly a perk, having His Majesty hold me like this. Juna would have a fit if she could see us now.”

“That’s a real nice personality you’ve got there.” My shoulders slumped at how much fun Excel seemed to be having.

“Murgh... Maybe I oughta zap her in Juna’s place,” Naden said, sounding peeved.

If she fired off any electric shocks now, while we were both wet, she’d get me too, so I was hoping she wouldn’t.

Well, our role in this was over. The ground unit would handle it from here.

Or so I thought, until...

“Huh?” Suddenly, Naden’s whiskers twitched like a pair of whips.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Mmm... Yeah. There’s something to the west... Hm?”

Naden must not have known what it was herself, because her words were vague.

However, Naden’s sharp senses were apparently picking up something, and I was worried that something outside my predictions was about to happen.

When the tens of thousands of lizardmen finished crossing the shallows that Excel had expanded with her magic, they came across the forces of the Kingdom of Friedonia in formation.

Hungry from being unable to feed themselves on the other side of the river, all they saw was a herd of food.

There didn’t seem to be any of those ones that flew in the sky and breathed fire, either.

So, in order to sate their appet.i.tes, the lizardmen raced toward the camps of the Kingdom of Friedonia.

Ludwin, the commander-in-chief of the kingdom’s forces, and Julius were watching them as they did.

On top of the small hill where the main camp of the allied forces was, they sat side by side, on top of their horses.

“There must be 50,000, just counting lizardmen,” Julius said. “More if we include the surrounding monsters. What a nuisance.”

Ludwin nodded at this a.n.a.lysis. “I agree. If this were the military of a foreign country, we might struggle, but we won’t come up short against a pack of beasts with no concept of tactics or strategy.”

“Yeah. Let me handle the right wing.”

“You intend to fight after all?” Ludwin asked, concerned. “The people of Lastania have fought enough. It’s all right to let us handle the rest, you know.”

Julius shook his head. “For the people of Lastania, this is a fight to defend their country. If we leave it to the kingdom at the very end, the people of this country won’t be able to consider it their own victory. In order to speed along reconstruction after the war, we must let the people of this country grasp victory with their own hands.”

“Reconstruction after the war...is it?”

Realizing that Julius was setting his eyes on what would come after the fighting, Ludwin was impressed. What he showed was not the perspective of a general who only paid attention to commanding the armies and attaining victory, but a king who thought about the whole country.

Julius. .h.i.t the hilt of his saber. “I’ve left the conscripts in the fortress, but I’ll have the regular forces and the refugee soldiers fight until the end.”

“I understand,” said Ludwin. “Were my position different, I would want to stand on the front lines too.”

“Wouldn’t that fox-eared second-in-command of yours get angry if you did?”

“Yeah, and that’s why I’ll be staying put in the main camp: to keep young Miss Kaede from getting upset with me,” Ludwin replied jokingly.

That drew a laugh from Julius. “Well then...I suppose we’ll have to settle this before our commander-in-chief gets too impatient.”

“I wouldn’t mind if you left me a piece of the action, you know.”

“Not a chance. I won’t be borrowing your help, I’ll put an end to the lizardman menace personally. Until we meet again.”

Watching Julius depart on horseback, Ludwin let out a sigh.

“Honestly... Fate can be a funny thing,” he said to himself, and then raised his hand up high. “Send the signal to the front line! Intercept the incoming lizardmen!”

Having given the order, the horns sounded.

Hearing the signal from the horns, Kaede stood on top of the watchtower they had built and raised her staff high. She was commanding from near the defensive fence that had been erected in the battlefield camp.

“That’s the signal,” she called. “Everyone, the lizardmen are coming! First, stop the enemy! Everyone, form a wall!”

There were earth mages gathered around Kaede.

When she gave the signal, the earth mages used their magic in unison, the ground swelled up before the front-line unit, and in less than a minute a long earthen wall was built.

For the lizardmen, who had been about to fall on the camp like an avalanche, they found themselves impeded by a dirt wall that suddenly appeared out of nowhere.

“Gueh! Guh...”

Because it was made of dirt, even if they hit it or clawed at it, they could leave a mark, but they couldn’t break through it. They looked around restlessly, but there were no gaps to be found in this wall.

Even so, in order to secure the “food” on the other side of the wall, they began scaling it. They had incredible tenacity, but they were lacking the momentum they’d had before.

“Archers, loose your arrows!” Kaede ordered.

The archers all began firing their arrows over the earthen wall in unison.

The arrows were fired upward in an arc with no particular target, but the high number of arrows and closely cl.u.s.tered state of the lizardmen worked together to cause hit after hit. Some of those arrows were imbued with magic, exploding or cutting up the area around them to create even more dead lizardmen.

Watching that scene from up in the tower, Kaede let out a sigh.

This is completely one-sided. It’s only because the lizardmen don’t have the sense to do anything but charge in on their own that we’re getting off so lightly. I was concerned what might happen if there were a demon here and it took command, but it seems my worries were in vain.

Under Kaede’s command, the front-line unit was able to stop the lizardmen’s advance. However, given the sheer number of lizardmen, they were not able to shoot all of them. Some managed to make it through the hail of arrows to climb the earthen wall. The earth mages were focused on keeping the current wall from breaking, so they didn’t have the leeway to create another wall.

A good number of lizardmen were crossing the wall. It could be antic.i.p.ated that they would attack the now vulnerable mages and archers.

However, on the other side of the fortification, the lizardmen encountered Aisha, whose power in combat was so overwhelming as to seem unfair.

One silent swing of Aisha’s greatsword was enough to slash several lizardmen who had scaled the wall and were about to land on the other side.

“Gugih?!” The lizardmen let out a death cry as they were cleft in twain.

Having been impeded by an earthen wall, and subjected to the ranged attacks of archers, the lizardmen could only cross the wall in small numbers. To ensure the few who did met with guaranteed death, and to ensure the safety of the long-range attack unit, Kaede had an elite unit on the other side of the wall. The country’s strongest fighter, Aisha, was included in this, of course, but...

“Muh!”

As the top and bottom halves of bisected lizardmen fell to the ground, Aisha effortlessly swung her greatsword to clean the blood from it. Despite having won handily, there seemed to be a dissatisfaction and frustration in her expression.

The cause of that was Jirukoma and Lauren, who were in the same squad as her.

Aisha could see the two of them helping each other as they fought the lizardmen coming over the wall.

“Sir Jirukoma!” shouted Lauren.

Lauren stood in the way of two lizardmen that had tried to attack Jirukoma from behind as he fought, knocking one away with her s.h.i.+eld and impaling the other with her sword. When Jirukoma realized he’d been saved, he cut down the lizardman in front of him using his kukri, then stood back-to-back with Lauren.

“Sorry, you saved me there, Madam Lauren.”