LEGEND

Chapter 280

At the headquarters of the Mireana Kingdom’s vanguard army. There, the two leaders in charge of the Neutrals and Nobles factions quickly finished issuing their instructions before once again turning back to Rei.

In the midst of all this, Rei looked around the headquarters before letting out a sigh of disappointment when he couldn’t see Elena.

Hearing that sigh and seeing Rei look towards the Nobles faction, Philma immediately know what……no, who he was looking for. Philma spoke up as if not talking to anyone in particular.

「The General Princess boosts our morale just by being there, not to mention her own strength. She’s a flower that only blooms when she’s on the front lines.」

The nobles who were nearby all looked at Philma in confusion. They wondered why he had said that in this hectic moment.

In fact, as the vanguard resumed their advance, the headquarters would naturally have to advance as well. As a result, the surroundings were now moving things in a hurry in preparation for that. That said, this headquarters was only set up to discuss the sudden appearance of the fire whirl, so if all the nobles present needed to move out, they would be able to do so immediately.

「Put away these chairs and prepare a carriage. Food and drink as well! I’m going to be sick if I’m exposed to the wind on the battlefield!」

However, there were also some nobles who started shouting like that.

A middle-aged man, oblivious to the stares of the nobles around him, climbed into a carriage that he had prepared. The carriage was shiny to the point that it felt out of place on the battlefield. The carriage was more of a luxury item that was made to show off his money.

「……Anyway, I just wanted to say that Elena-sama is on the front line, so you don’t have to worry about her.」

Philma looked at the noble who was making such a fuss without reading the atmosphere for a moment before turning to Rei again.

That was enough for Rei to understand what Philma meant. That Philma was aware that Rei cared about Elena.

Daska, who was Rei’s direct employer, had also seen through Rei’s feelings as well.

「Well, Rei. After causing so much chaos among the enemy, how is your magic power holding up?」

Rei nodded at that question with what could be called a fearless smile.

「There’s no problem. I can continue to fight for a while.」

To be exact, the amount of magic power Rei used to create the fire whirl wasn’t that great. That said, that was only when considering Rei’s magic power. If an ordinary mage wanted to use a wide range annihilation magic on the same scale, they would need the magic power of more than 10 mages.

「I see, in that case, I’m sorry, but could you head for the front lines again? I can’t let someone with your strength remain in a place like this……」

Just as Daska said that, a lone horseman hurried up to them from behind.

「Is that……?」

At Rei’s words, some of them started to notice the person on horseback approaching them. At the same time, many of them started to frown as they understood what a messenger coming from behind them meant.

However, the person coming towards them didn’t care for any of that. As soon as he got close, he got off his horse and knelt before Daska and Philma.

「Orders from Arius-sama. We don’t know why, but the enemy is currently in confusion. We will not miss this opportunity to launch our attack. He has said not to worry about our forces as the main army will begin to move shortly.」

「……Heh~.」

「I see.」

Daska and Philma looked at each other with wry smiles as they nodded.

It wasn’t surprising that the Royalists didn’t know about the fire whirl, as neither of them had told the Royalists about their plan. They didn’t need to worry about their strength as the main army would be moving soon. They didn’t need to think to understand what those words meant.

(It’s fine that they pushed us to take the lead, but it seems that they think it will be hard to exhaust the Neutrals and Nobles strength due to the confusion caused by Rei’s fire whirl. Because of that, they’ve chosen to take action themselves rather than to let us take the credit. Well, at least they’re quick to see the opportunity……)

While muttering to himself, Daska turned to look at Philma. At the same time, Philma also turned to look back at him.

『……』

They looked eye to eye at each other for a few seconds, communicating with their eyes before coming to an agreement in silence.

「I understand. Please tell Arius-dono that we will be moving immediately. If you can, tell him that it would be great help if he didn’t directly join the fight but keep his eyes on the enemy’s main camp to stop them from making any moves.」

「Yes, I understand. I’ll will definitely tell Arius-sama.」

The kneeling messenger listened in before giving a small nod, standing back up and jumping onto his horse and riding away.

「He’s pretty quick on the uptake for a Royalist soldier.」

Murmurs could be heard from the surrounding nobles of the Nobles faction.

「Even if they are Royalists, not all of them are involved in power struggles. Most of the soldiers are surprisingly serious about their work. We should also get moving.」

Philma spoke some words regarding the messenger that had come over before Rei interrupted him there.

「Please wait. When you attack, stay away from my fire whirl. When you approach it, there is a possibility of taking serious damage due to the high heat, wind blades from the tornado and the large number of metal fragments that I threw into it.」

At Rei’s words, the nobles who were listening in had shocked expressions.

They could only see the fire whirl from this distance, so only now did they understand how powerful the fire whirl was from Rei’s explanation.

If they got too close, there was no hope of saving their own lives. The fire whirl was something more atrocious than they had imagined.

The first to respond, was of course, Philma, the Knight Commander. Because he had survived so many battles up until now, he had a certain level of resistance to things that existed outside of common sense. Or maybe it was because he had the experience of fighting Rei previously in the city of Gilm.

Thinking for a few seconds, he called out to a nearby messenger.

「Did you hear that? Try to stay away from the fire whirl when you attack. Turn and attack the enemy from the flanks.」

「Let’s see. How about the Neutrals attack the enemy’s left wing and the Nobles attack the right wing?」

「That seems fine. There shouldn’t be any problems. ……Pass the order on. Go! Every minute and second counts now.」

「Yes!」

Philma nodded in response to Daska’s orders to the messenger. Giving a brief acknowledgement, the messenger quickly left.

Thanks to this messenger catching up with the messenger that had been sent out earlier, Elk and the others were able to avoid unnecessary losses.

「……Well then, Daska-dono.」

「Ah, I know.」

At Philma’s words, Daska nodded immediately as he turned to Rei.

As if following Daska’s gaze, Philma also turned to look at Rei alongside the most of the people present.

At first glance, Rei looked like a kid, but he was a person who had created a terrifying amount of destruction.

「As I said earlier, I can’t leave a force as strong as you behind in this current situation. It seems the Royalists have gotten greedy after seeing the current situation. ……Head straight to the front lines.」

「Yes, no problem. I’ll head over right away.」

At Daska’s words, Rei nodded with a light smile as if it was nothing serious.

The nobles in the surroundings were taken aback for a moment, but by the time they had recollected themselves, Rei had turned his back to nobles in the headquarters.

Normally, it would be almost unavoidable for someone to accuse him of being rude, but no one said a thing. That was because they had seen Rei’s skills for themselves.

Among them, only Daska, Rei’s direct employer, or Philma, who had past experience in dealing with Rei, could have said anything. But they knew that Rei knew what he had to do, so they just silently watched him leave.

And, about 30 seconds after Rei left, Daska spoke up when he heard the flapping of Set’s wings.

「Hey, don’t just leave it to the vanguard. We’ll start marching as well. If we’re not careful, there’s a chance the Royalists will make a move and throw the battlefield into chaos. To avoid that, let’s quickly decide the battle before that happens.」

The Neutrals, who returned to reality at Daska’s voice, scattered as they went to take command of their own advance…

「The same goes for us. As the Nobles faction, we have to make sure the Royalists don’t take our credit.」

Similarly, the Nobles were also brought back at Philma’s words as the followed the actions of the Neutrals.

Seeing them leave, Philma turned to Daska.

「He’s better than we ever imagined.」

「I agree. I didn’t expect him to use such a vicious magic. Maybe the magicians of old used magic like that.」

Daska said that as he thought about what had happened. However, he would have never guessed that Rei was actually the successor to the magician Zepairu, who had created the Magic Beast Art.

「Fire!」

At the orders of the commander, arrows and magic were released at the same time.

The Bestir Empire’s army knew that the Mireana Kingdom’s army was splitting in two as they approached them, but they still weren’t fully prepared to intercept them. After all, there was still a fire whirl in the middle of their army. Even if they tried to fall back, the volunteer soldiers were in too much confusion and in the end the two armies clashed before the Bestir Empire’s army could set up their formations to intercept the Mireana Kingdom’s army.

The countless arrows and magic was released preemptively as a means to protect the vanguard as they closed with the Bestir Empire’s army, who showed nearly no reaction due to the chaos they were in.

There were some people who put up shields, but they weren’t able to do much more than that as they were defencelessly attacked. Furthermore, the rain of arrows continued with no end, giving them no time to rest. It was fortunate for them that the big magic attacks were only released before the armies made contact as smaller scale magic was used after to avoid hurting their own side. Gradually, the strength of the Bestir Empire’s army was worn down.

On the front lines, all that could be seen was a one sided demolition.

「UOOOOOOOH-!」

Elk’s Axe of the Thunder God severed arms, heads and bodies as he scattered the blood, flesh, bone and guts of the soldiers of the Bestir Empire as if they were straw men.

Each soldier had been given their own set of armour, but it was useless as they lost their lives.

No, not just them. Even knights who were wearing plate armour were slashed, crushed, destroyed and burned by lightning as their armour was smashed by Elk’s great strength and the vicious power of his magic item, the Axe of the Thunder God.

「Ha, I never thought I’d have to deal with Scorching Wind. As for that stupid tornado, it’s just more bad luck today-!」

At those words, Milein evaded the sword strike towards he lower body as she shot out a counter.

「I’m not going to let you do that!」

With a strange voice, a woman over 2m in height picked the man up as she parried Milein’s attack with a huge shield that seemed to be made of a unique monster’s skin and bones.

「Woah, what’s with that outfit. Are you a pervert or something? Ecryll!」

Milein gave an unintentional shout as looked at the woman who only wore clothes that covered her chest and the lower half of her body and no armour.

However, she couldn’t help be be surprised at the hardness of the skin and bone shield that had blocked her sword. Milein called out to her party member as she leapt back.

The man had started to chase after Milein but was forced to stop by Ecryll, who released several arrows in quick succession from behind Milein.

「Damn it! Today is a terrible day!」

The man gave up the chase while shouting, quickly swinging his sword and cutting down the arrow that had been shot towards his female partner. Right after, he leapt backwards, the same as Milein had done a few seconds ago, in order to evade several wind blades that slammed into the ground where he had been standing.

The three members of Scorching Wind faced off against the man and woman duo. They weren’t evenly matched, but they still managed to hold their ground. This was because of the difference in their abilities compared to the soldiers who were panicking left and right.

At the same time, the fact that the two of them could hold back Scorching Wind, a well known talented party, showed how strong they were.

But even so……that was it. They were only able to hold down Scorching Wind and weren’t able to even touch Elk, the strongest force in this area, who was running rampant wherever he wanted.

And then……even more despair for the Bestir Empire’s army fell from the sky.

「Get out of the way! Move it!」

The man that fell alongside a Griffon swung his huge scythe, slicing cleaning through the shield that Milein could barely scratch before cutting through the woman’s right wrist that was holding onto it.

「Gyaaah!」

「Tch, what!? Retre……aaat-!」

Seeing the huge shield destroyed in a single strike, the man tried to block a strike from the Griffon’s forefoot with both his swords, but was blown away in return.

The two of them took down their opponents as if they were twisting the hand of a kid.

The three members of Scorching Wind knew who had arrived.

「Rei!」

Milein shouted his name at the unexpected reinforcements. Milein’s voice echoed out strangely, even amidst the noise and clamour of the battlefield, raising the morale of the adventurers from Gilm who were fighting on the front lines alongside the other Neutrals faction soldiers.

The war, which had already taken an unexpected turn for the Bestir Empire, had just taken another turn.