LEGEND

Chapter 283

「Haaaahh-, don’t, don’t underestimate me!」

Slash-!

A sword as tall as his body. Wielding such a huge sword, which would be better called a great sword than a longsword, the old man gave a shout as he split the face of the boar-headed enemy in front of him.

At first glance, he looked like an Orc, but the only thing that resembled an Orc was his face. Something like a beetle’s shell covered his arm like armour and two tentacles grew from either side of his body. Looking at him, he wasn’t really something you could call an Orc.

In addition, there were all kinds of strange beings around him, people that could only be called the children of monsters. The old man adjusted his breath as he looked at the dead person he had just split in half.

「Hmm……I didn’t expect them to ambush us from behind the main army. What method did they use to get behind us? I’m sure we scouted out the area properly.」

Leaning on his great sword, the old man……Count Arius, commander of the Mireana Kingdom’s Royalist army, muttered to himself as he adjusted his breath.

「At this rate, they will take all the credit. I had decided to move to the battlefield since we couldn’t allow that, but……I didn’t expect this to happen.」

He looked around and saw the people he had brought fighting against the deformed enemies.

The deformed soldiers had high individual strength, but were mostly poor in coordinating with each other, probably due to their different forms. It was Count Arius’ thoughts that if those monsters didn’t have such a weakness, he and his soldiers would all be dead already.

(……I didn’t expect them to abandon me that easily. It seems I’m not very liked among the nobility. No, it’s not unreasonable considering what I’ve done up until now.)

Count Arius thought to himself. As soon as enemy had taken him by surprise from the rear, he had shut out all thoughts of the Royalist nobles who had scattered around him. Count Arius thought that if he could hold out a while longer, the troops he had sent to the front line would return and he would be able to handle the situation, but he quickly shook his head.

It was not time to think about such an uncertain future, but to think about how to overcome the predicament of the present.

At that moment……

「Oh, Count Arius. You seem to be alive and well.」

It must have been a fierce battle. His blade was dyed with blood and the armour he wore was coated in a large amount of blood as he approached Arius with a bitter smile.

「Siminar? It looks like you’re also safe.」

With a stern expression on his face, Arius turned to look at the person, who was also from the Royalist faction.

In terms of age, he was less than half his own age, but Arius acknowledged his ability. That was why he had allowed Siminar to participate in this war. However, Siminar’s ability was only at the level where he could achieve some merits. He had never expected this situation to happen.

「Yes. But these guys……what do you think? As for me, I think they are the Demon Soldiers from the rumours I heard in the Royal Capital.」

「……I suppose so. I’ve only heard rumours, but they are just as strange as what was described in them.」

Of course, the Royalists had a hold of the information that came from Gilm. However, because he had never actually seen a Demon Soldier, he didn’t think too deeply about the story and judged that Margrave Rowlocks had just made it up to hide his blunders.

Originally, Cordo, the crab like Demon Soldier, and Minas, the one with many tentacles growing from his body, had been caught by Rei in Gilm. However, because a higher importance had been placed on Postguerra in terms of security, the two Demon Soldiers had been killed during a lapse in vigilance. Then, when they died, they melted away like ice in the sunlight, burying their existence in the darkness. If there had been any bodies left, the Royalists might have taken the Demon Soldiers more seriously.

「Even we didn’t believe all the information from Margrave Rowlocks, we should probably have placed more importance on it.」

At those words spoken with a sigh, Arius picked up his great sword that he had stuck into the ground and readied himself.

That was because he had seen several Demon Soldiers heading for him.

「Even if you say that now, there is no use. Any how, now is the time to survive here. If we do that, the fools who didn’t provide me the important information and those who followed me just to collect a share of the credit will get what they deserve.」

「……In this war, only Count Arius would have been able to gather so many people.」

Siminar also held his longsword as he waited for the Demon Soldiers approaching them.

As far as the surroundings were concerned, there was no doubt they were being pushed back in strength. But next to him was the Chief Commander of the Mireana Kingdom’s army. If this ambitious, but war savvy, person was defeated, the soldiers, nobles and knights would flee as if they were chased by an avalanche. If that happened, the defeat of the Mireana Kingdom’s army in this war would be decided and the Bestir Empire’s army would reach into the heart of the Mireana Kingdom.

「Seriously, I can only say that this is an unexpected development!」

Siminar swung his sword towards a female Demon Soldier that had poisonous flowers growing from her head.

However, the plant-like Demon Soldier avoided the attack by shifting the roots growing from her lower body without actually moving her main body. At the same time, she swung an ivy vine with many thorns with her right hand. He arm, which was more appropriate to call a whip at this point, swung forward and wrapped around Siminar’s sword blade, stopping it from moving.

Siminar, who had been holding his sword with both hands, had now lost his means of attack as his opponent grew a second thorny whip from her left hand.

「Ara~, you’re a nice guy.」

「I would like to thank you for the compliment, but not in a place like this.」

「Really? It’s because this is a battlefield that we can show each other our true faces that we normally wouldn’t show, right? Now then, receive my embrace. I’ll show you a taste of heavenly comfort.」

「I’m sorry, but you’re not my type. I’ll have to decline.」

「Ara~ ara~, you shouldn’t embarrass a woman like tha……t~!」

Along with that shout, a thorny whip grew out from her left hand and stretched forward…… Siminar let go his hand from his sword and leapt back in a hurry.

「Ufufu~, you’re quite impatient. Watch, the next one is coming, so avoid this properly, okay?」

「Ku-!」

Siminar pulled out a dagger from his waist and managed to deflect the whip that was swung at him. However, he wasn’t unharmed as the clothes on his lower body not covered by armour was torn and he was scratched by the thorns.

Still, he had blocked the thorny whip and it was far from a fatal injury. He looked towards Arius, where he saw the great sword bury itself into the head of a ant-faced Demon Soldier.

(He’s strong)

That was the impression he left on Siminar’s mind.

「Ara~ ara~, don’t look at other people instead of me. Don’t be embarrassed because of a woman……you see, it’s almost time for you to stop moving because of my charm, you know?」

「……What?」

Siminar finally realised his current situation at the words of the female Demon Soldier. His arms, legs and body……all his movements felt sluggish.

「This……what the hell did you do……?」

Even his mouth felt sluggish and he wasn’t able to speak normally.

While grinning at Siminar, the female Demon Soldier approached as she moved the tree-like roots that grew from her lower body. Of course, those seemingly impatient movements didn’t actually mean the woman was in a hurry. It was just an act to toy around with Siminar.

「I carved my charm onto your body.」

「-!?」

In response to the woman’s words, he quickly moved his head, which he could still manage to move, and looked at his own body. The clothes on his lower body, which hadn’t been covered by a suit of armour, had been torn by the thorny whip and some blood was bleeding out.

「Impossible……?」

「Ara~, so you understand? That’s right. My whip has the ability to inject my charm.」

「Poison.」

「Ara~ ara~, you’re a bad boy. I’m telling you, it’s my charm. I’m going to have to punish you for being such a bad boy……right?」

With a cruel smile, she raised arm and flung out her whip again.

「Make some nice cries……okay?」

With those words, the whip was swung down at Siminar.

Slash-!

「……Eh?」

A stunned voice was heard. It wasn’t from Siminar, who had almost been struck by both whips extending from the woman’s arms, but the owner of the whips.

「When I heard that there had been an ambush, I didn’t expect to find you in this situation.」

Saying that, she withdrew he magic power from the weapon she swung out as it turned back into a longsword.

A sharp beauty that gave out an aura of her strong will as he blonde hair shone under the sunlight. Of course, Siminar, who had fallen to the ground unable to move, knew who the person was.

「G-General Princess.」

「Siminar-dono, it looks like it was quite the close call……though I can’t really say that.」

Elena looked at him for a moment before saying that.

Elena immediately turned to look at the female Demon Soldier, but her dignified beauty had already been strongly engraved in Siminar’s mind.

Of course, he knew that Elena was beautiful. At the same time, she was a symbol of the Nobles faction, known for her beauty, fame and achievements in war. However, this was the first time he had actually seen Elena as the General Princess on the battlefield.

(This……this certainly explains why the soldiers have so much faith in her.)

Even though his own life had just gone through a crisis, he was still distracted by the overwhelming charisma and beauty of the person standing in front of him.

(No, or maybe it’s because their lives are in danger that they are attracted to someone they can entrust their life to?)

While Siminar was thinking that to himself, the battle between the female Demon Soldier and Elena was about to begin.

「I was the first to see him. And now you’re going to snatch him way. What kind of homewrecker are you?」

「I don’t know whether I’m a homewrecker or not, but I’m not about to let you kill him. ……If you leave quietly, how about I let you go?」

Elena said that while wielding her sword whip. However, the female Demon Soldier just snickered at her as she struck the ground with both her whips.

「Ha, if you can joke like that, then that’s good enough for me. Looking at you, you’re the one they call the General Princess, right? I can only say I’m lucky for such an important person to come here alone.」

「Certainly, I’m the only one here facing you right now. But……I don’t remember saying that I was the only one on this battlefield.」

「……What do you mean?」

The woman looked around in a hurry at the words of the person before her. As she did that, the first thing she saw was a Demon Soldier with a turtle shell have his shell smashed in by a large battle axe.

「Impossible!? His offensive power aside, he should have great defensive power. Even so, he was killed in a single attack!?」

「Now that we have the Power Axe, Ara is probably one of the highest ranking in the Mireana Kingdom when it raw attack strength. And, of course, each of my subordinates are extremely capably, you know?」

As Elena had said, her guards were scattered across the battlefield, rushing to rescue the Royalist soldiers, including Arius’ men.

Since they had been entrusted with the responsibility of guarding Elena, they had no problems in ability to fight solo or in groups. They were able to fight a large number of Demon Soldiers and somehow evenly match them.

Fortunately at this time, the Demon Soldiers were scattered all over the place. In the beginning, the number of Demon Soldiers that had been transferred over for the ambush was only 500. And, those 500 had scattered around to try to find Arius, the Chief Commander of the Mireana Kingdom’s army. It so happened the that nobles who saw the strength of the Demon Soldiers during the ambush and scattered ended up serving as decoys as most of the Demon Soldiers chased after them. And since most of the Demon Soldiers had chased after the fleeing nobles, the actual number of Demon Soldiers who were fighting Arius only numbererd around 50.

There were only very few Royalist nobles left, including Siminar and his subordinates. That said, with Elena’s own strength and her knight guard that were able to rush over, taking limiting the scope of fighting to this battlefield, they were able to match evenly in terms of power.

「I guess it’s true that they are competent. But I wonder what will happen when their leader, the General Princess, is gone!」

The woman screamed as she swung both whips on her arms.

The tips easily exceeded the speed of sound and was accompanied by a shock wave as she attacked Elena. But……

「Naive-!」

A flash of the magic empowered sword whip, which was swung with that shout, easily cut off the tips of the whips. Both at the same time.

「Eh?」

That event must have been unexpected. Elena gave a sharp shout as she looked at the stunned woman.

「Get out of my range!」

At those words alone, they must have understood what Elena wanted to do. Her knight guards forcibly pulled the nearby Royalist soldiers back to take some distance from Elena.

At the moment the Demon Soldiers were taken aback by their actions……

『Manifest, power of the Ancient Dragons!』

With that short incantation, explosive magic power poured out from Elena’s body, forming an illusory Dragon’s head, 5m tall, behind her.

「Hii-!」

Even though it was an illusion, the power that could be felt from it was overwhelming and legs of all the Demon Soldiers gave out immediately. The female Demon Soldier who had been fighting Elena until just before had the same reaction and was unable to move.

『Laser Breath!』

And, as those words were released from Elena’s mouth, a breath of light was spat out from the illusory Dragon…… The next moment, more than 20 Demon Soldiers in path of the beam disappeared instantly.

「Haah, huh, huh……it’s really hard to use.」

Dragon language magic was only supposed to be usable by Dragons. A part of its strength had been shown here.

The soldiers of the Mireana Kingdom that saw that turned to look at Elena with a mix of awe and admiration, as if she were a goddess from myth.

About 10m away from where that had all happened, Arius, who was breathing heavily after just cutting apart a Demon Soldier with the face of a tiger and the tail of a monkey, looked at Elena with a slight frown.